End of year chuckles

I haven’t been so hot at the blogging thing lately. Between being back at work full time, moving into our new house, and the hubs traveling so much – it seems like there hasn’t been a moment to take a breath, let alone sit down and write a blog post.

However, the last week was pretty magical and restored a lot of the good humor that seemed to get sapped from me during our move and in general, the entire month of November. Both the hubs and I were not only in the same city last week, but both off from work. So not only did we get a good amount of some much-needed family time, we also managed to get a box or two unpacked. Pretty necessary considering we’re closing out month #2 in the house and it pretty much looks like it did the first weekend we moved in.

Then, it was the first year that T really “got” Christmas. I heart Santa and the wonderful ways he watches EVERYTHING that kids do. We had a really well behaved December purely because of Santa and the elf. (And yes, much to my own dismay, we have an Elf – and I love his powers of persuasion!).

T didn’t sleep the entire month of December in the new house. It was worse than I’ve ever experienced with a newborn baby – let alone an almost 3 year old.  December 1^st (and Santa) arrived (and the cats, ironically, who were staying with Mema and Papa during the move transition) – and Poof! T began sleeping again.

All this to be said, that I am taking a much-needed moment to share my most recent parenting convos.*

Not mine, per se, my hubby’s.

Scene: Our house. Mommy is back at work, daycare is closed until the 2^nd. Daddy’s work is closed until the 2^nd, so it’s daddy single-parenting time.

Convo Recap 1: Approximately 1:30pm

Me: How’s it going?

Hubs: No one will nap….T threw a fit because he wants to ride his bike outside and I can’t take him outside…

Me: Can you take him outside in a bit?

Hubs: I’m not dressed yet. I haven’t had time to shower. OR get dressed.

Me: Giggle giggle giggle.

Convo Recap 2: Approximately 4:30pm

Me: How’s it going?
Hubs: (disgruntled) I am dealing with POOP here!

Me: Ok…..everything ok?

Hubs: P POOPED!

Me: Yes, she does that….So do you want me to order any food and pick something up on the way home for dinner?

Hubs: I haven’t had any time to think about dinner yet. But will you pick up some tonic on the way home?

Me: Giggle giggle giggle.

Scene: Our house. Daddy single-parenting day #2

Grandma to the rescue!!

*And one day, in the future, I will get to writing about (a) our move and (b) my little guy turning THREE . Hopefully before he turns four.

61 Days and counting!

For some reason, I’m abnormally excited about Christmas this year.

Maybe it’s because we will actually have a fire place to hang stockings from this year once we move into our new house next week (ack!). Maybe it’s because I’ve actually had four stockings embroidered with our names – so I’m ahead of the game. Maybe it’s because Tyler has taken a huge liking to new DVDs, and I found this DVD of all the childhood Christmas classics that got me all sorts of nostalgic and I must buy it for him.

Regardless, I can’t wait.

 

That is all.

*I just hope I can fit into some cuter holiday outfits by then, or else I might turn all bah-humbug and scrooge like. These weight-loss plateaus are going to be the death of my cheerful moods.

Sleep and that pesky developmental stage

I think I've jinxed myself. We've been pretty lucky with both kiddos being good sleepers so far. Some of it might be genetic (after all, I really love my sleep) and some of it may have something to do with us being fairly tough in the sleep training department - who knows. But T has consistently slept through the night since he was itty bitty -- and P started around 4 weeks old. Most recently, we've been putting her to bed around 8 and waking her up around 7 in the morning. I totally recognize this is pretty awesome for a 13 week old.

Until this week.

According to the stuff I've been reading online, I've self-diagnosed her to have the 4-month regression a month early. All of the sudden this week, she's been waking up at 4am every single night -- grunting, yelling and finally crying until I go up there and feed her. Granted it's only once a night but it's still a been a killer. First I thought it was a growth spurt because she goes right back to sleep after I feed her -- but as soon as I walk into her room, she gets all smiley and excited to see me -- even though she's just been crying - and to me that's not fussy growth spurt behavior. Last night I decided I was going to let her cry it out....until 5:20am rolled around, it had been going on an hour and a half of her being wide awake, and my alarm for work (did I mention maternity leave is over already? Seriously.) was looming. Fed her and got back into bed for 20 minutes of "sleep" before my alarm went off.

So, several days of this has me feeling like a walking zombie. To the point where a perfect storm of P stretching and her diaper being too loose this AM while feeding her before work led to her somehow peeing out the top of her diaper, staying dry herself but covering my work pants in pee -- and I actually contemplated NOT changing before walking out the door because it would take too much energy.

You'll be relieved to know that I did change out of baby pee-soaked pants before leaving for work. But all I can say is this phase better end soon - or else I can't promise not to get mighty funky looking showing up at the office...

School Pictures

This year’s school pictures came back last night with this gem right on top of the package.

Definitely an outtake

There are so many things wrong with this picture I can’t even begin to list. First, the expression. Part fear, part embarrassment, part Macaulay Culkin of the Home Alone days all show on his face. Then, the shorts are hiked up a few inches too high showing off those pasty white thighs. I’m not sure his sneakers are on the right feet. They usually aren’t. And that tricycle? It’s like out of the 1800s. It looks kind of like a contraption you’d see in a spooky horror movie that a ghost is peddling up and down a driveway. The fake leaves thrown casually in front of the tricycle add to the whole scene.

However, I cannot look at this picture without cracking up. I’ve had some great belly laughs in the past 24 hours, just from looking at it. I find it downright hilarious.

So for that reason, it just might be worth the money to purchase it for the baby book*. So when he’s 15 and feeling way cooler than me, I can whip it out and show it to him. And get another good laugh.

*Luckily one of the other shots is actually picture frame suitable. 

Lost in Translation

I had a pretty funny conversation with T this week that reminded me how literal toddlers are.

We were talking about baby P and how she's a part of our family. He apparently understands that he's the big brother, that P is the little sister, and that she's here to stay. Even daddy is understood to be P's daddy. However, when mommy comes into the equation, he looks at me like I've told some sort of funny joke when I mention I'm P's mommy too. "Oh noooo!" is how T responds, all giggly.

So I ask what I am -- and he says "You are helping. P's mommy is in the hospital."

And that's where all the pre-baby books and conversations failed us. They all may have mentioned that the new baby arrives at the hospital -- and mommy and daddy go to the hospital when it's time for the new baby to arrive --  but they don't mention that a mommy can have more than one kiddo. So my kiddo is squarely under the impression that we're just helping P's mommy out while she's stuck at the hospital, forever.

Teaching remembrance

It's hard to believe that 9-11 happened twelve years ago already. I think once we reached the "decade" mark, in a way it has started to feel like a distant memory -- while in other ways, it still feels like just yesterday. And now that I live here in Texas, it feels a little more distant still. I know if I were still in New York City that life would be going on as usual - but there would be more in-your-face reminders to take pause at -- from all the flowers piled up at the fire stations and extra police in the subways to the new Freedom Tower where the WTC once stood.  And to be sure, I'm definitely not advocating not moving on, but I think it's important to take some time out to respect and reflect on this day no matter where you live, and to teach the importance of remembering this day to our kids, even though they weren't even in existence in the remote recesses of our brains at that point in time.

Up until this point, T has been too young to do anything. He still might be in theory, but this year, I took him along on my own personal act of remembrance. Every year, I take flowers to the closest fire station. It's just a little thing that I like to do. I started doing this in 2001 like many other New Yorkers when I felt so helpless and had the need to do something - anything - to show I cared. In the years I lived in the city, the sidewalks in front of the fire stations were always piled high with flowers on this day - as I am sure they still are. It's a little different here in Austin. Here, half the time I end up  dropping them off and driving off as fast as humanly possible because oddly enough, I find it a little embarrassing to do. It might have something to do with the fact that one year, the fireman that was there when I dropped off the flowers seemed to have no clue why he was receiving them.  This year though, since T is obsessed with fire trucks and firemen (in fact, we just booked his birthday party for this year at a fire station*) I thought it could be a learning experience for him to come with me and say "thank you." So I talked about it with him before hand, and he was pretty happy to be getting to go on a post-school trip to the fire station to say thank you to the firemen. Unfortunately, of all days, today the garage doors were shut and there were no firemen to be found. So we left the flowers at the door and said "thank you firemen" to nobody -- but it felt pretty good to pass along a little do-good moment to my crazy toddler.

*Yes, his birthday is in December and I booked the space yesterday. We know I'm a tad anal.

Potty Training Time Part II

...Later that same day...

You may recall a mere few hours ago, I wrote about how potty training was off to a great start. Then, I heard at school that T actually told them he had to go #2 -- and went -- on the potty! I was feeling pretty good about it. My kid must really LOVE pottying. We obviously rock.

Then we got home.

And he was so immersed in Cars that he tried to ignore the potty timer (aka the microwave timer) when it went off. And since mommy and daddy weren't going to let that happen, the situation dissolved into a lovely tantrum about how he didn't want to go potty. Which led to him missing potty timer #2 and having an accident. Which led to an escalation to what we refer to as an epic tantrum in this house -- and a second massive pee accident while having said tantrum. All this OF COURSE woke the baby -- who finally was dozing off on a nap for the first time all afternoon.

It may not be rational to be completely pissed off at a 2.5 year old, but after sitting on a pee covered bathroom floor trying to get him to "go tee tee on the potty"- man, I was ticked*. On the bright side, I've discovered the perk of using the tiniest room in the house for this training -- the pee at least is confined to a smaller area on the floor.

*Not to mention that I actually cooked dinner tonight! (Yes, really!) Which sat there, cold, while my kid freaked out for 45 minutes.