Sally Says

How David Plays

 

Step One: Get them all wound up with a bit of chair spinning and some loud music

 

Step Two:  The climb on Daddy portion of the evening

   

Step Three:  Carrying them around is always nice, but eventually it will lead to running up and down the hall.

 

Step Four: "I know kung fu."

  

Step Five:  Dancing.  There's always some dancing.

  

Step Six:  Regular dancing eventually leads to the Gorilla Dance.  I don't know why, but it always happens.

  

Step Seven:  Fall to the floor in exhaustion.  Roll around a bit, watching out for the flailing fists of Darth Kidious.  (Tommy wasn't actually punching him, although it looks like it in this picture.) 

FIVE

Today is Tommy's 5th birthday.  We had grandiose plans that were derailed when I convinced him that he wanted donuts for his birthday breakfast.  Fifteen minutes after eating them he was throwing up.  Poor little guy.  I don't think it was a virus.  I think he was just up too early, too excited about his birthday, and jumped around too much with chocolate donuts and strawberries in an otherwise empty stomach. 

We had to cancel his outing to Explora with his friends, and he spent most of the day lounging on the couch feeling poorly.  Luckily, he was gifted with permission to watch The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi now that he's five.  He also got some excellent books, including the latest Dinosaur Cove chapter book from Grammy Nancy and Grandpa Wayne.  We watched both movies and read most of the books while he was recouperating.  He spent the entire morning wearing his Darth Vadar costume from Uncle Ben & Aunt Erin and the matching Darth Vadar gauntlets from Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Mel.

 

His big present from us was a bike with training wheels.  It's his first bike and as soon as his stomach settled down he was outside riding.  It would have been a picture perfect, Norman Rockwell scene of a 5 year old riding his bike with Daddy if it weren't for the faint scent of chocolate donut vomit.

  

By dinner he was feeling fine.  We had his favorite at-home meal -- burritoes.  After dinner he and David and Charlie burned off all their wiggles with some crazy running and dancing.  Finally we had cake and ice cream.  It wasn't too bad of a day considering.  I'm actually glad he got sick today instead of Saturday, the day of his big birthday party.  Happy birthday Tommy!  We love you!

 

  

 

I Think I'll Keep Him

Life Gets in the Way

You know the thing about blogging?  Sometimes life gets in the way.

We're gearing up for Tommy's birthday on Thursday and his birthday party at the Little Gym on Saturday.  It's going to be a Lego party, so he and David and I have been busy putting together some of his favorite sets for a display table at his party.  I fully expect to be madly assembling Legos with him every day between now and Saturday.  Prepare to be amazed oh ye parents of the EIGHTEEN kids we've invited.  (I kid you not.  Tommy has lots of friends.)

 

He was very happy to finally finish putting together the awesome T-Rex Lego set that Uncle Terry and Aunt Amy bought him for Christmas.  It's one of those great sets that has three different instruction booklest, so you use the same Legos to build three different dinosaurs.  It's going to be hard to get him to NOT TOUCH the T-Rex until after his party.  He can build the stegosaurus and the pteranadon later.

I'll save more Tommy Tidbits for his big 5 year old birthday post.  For now, I'll just close with this classic Charlie facial expression.  I've always maintained that easy babies are intense toddlers while intense babies mellow into easy toddlers.  It's so true.  Tommy was a super-duper intense baby, but all the drama was over and done with by the time he was 21 months old.  Charlie was super easy before his first birthday and I think we're just gearing up for the hard parts.  Just look at that face.  We're in for it. 

Sometimes you just have to give up and go for a drive

 

Boy in a Box

Charlie is 23 months old today.  It's hard to believe he's going to be two years old in only one month.  Although when I think about it, he certainly acts two.  We've had to explain all about the terrible twos to Tommy, who was concerned that there was something wrong with his baby brother.  "Why is Charlie so upset?" 

I've also accidentally taught Tommy to say that Charlie is "full of vinegar" when he's feeling particularly rebellious and mischeivous and trying to get me wound up.  Charlie likes nothing better than to see me get frustrated with him.  He thinks it's hilarious.

Luckily, he's pretty cute, especially when he drags his green blanket around everywhere and snuggles with it in the toy box.

   

More Bullets! Because it's that sort of week!

Things that make this a better sort of a day...

• Tommy and Charlie and I spent 90 minutes playing outside this afternoon. It was the sort of day that makes living in Albuquerque 100% worth it - 65 degrees and sunny with no wind.  You can't beat that for February.
• Charlie took a 3.5 hour nap, which is a huge improvement over the 30 minutes he napped yesterday.
• He also went back to sleep for an hour when he woke up coughing at 3:30 am.  I still had to get up before 5, but that's better than yesterday when the 3:30 coughing led to much crying and snot-gag-vomiting and giving up on sleep to watch The Wiggles in my lap at 4:30 am.
• It was a school day, so I didn't have to feel guilty about ignoring Tommy when Charlie was feeling clingy.
• I actually got to eat some of the emergency brownies I baked yesterday.  Lack of sleep and headache (yep, still clustering over here) and too much tea on an empty stomach made them unappetizing yesterday.
• Charlie and Tommy were happy to play together without asking for the TV for more than two hours after Charlie's nap.
• Birthday presents for me and Tommy and Charlie arrived in the mail today.  We're not opening them until our birthdays, but it's always nice to look at a pile of presents.

Questionable Coping Strategies

You can tell it's been a particularly hard day because all of the following have happened...

1.  The boys had from-scratch pancakes for breakfast.

2.  I cut my bangs myself this morning instead of waiting for a haircut appointment.

3.  The emergency box of brownie mix has been baked.

4.  We're out of bribery fruit snacks.

5.  Tommy keeps telling me, "You're a good Mommy and I love you so much."

Now, these aren't things that create bad days.  They're just our strange versions of coping strategies.  Wouldn't it be nice if "Everyone take a nap RIGHT NOW" was one of our coping strategies?  It would certainly be less fattening...and less cosmetically visible...and less likely to lead to therapy in 20 years. 

Ug

Charlie and I have colds.  We're not too sick, but sick enough to be useless and grumpy.

How about a picture in lieu of real content?

 

Tommy has some new dinosaur chopsticks that he uses in honor of Uncle Ben and Aunt Erin. 

Toddler Gym Finale

Whew, it's been a busy week.  We've had lots of play dates and Charlie's decided that sleeping at night is GREAT.  He started sleeping from 8 pm until 7 am last Sunday night and did that almost all week.  It was rather random.  It's strange how they always seem to be able to intuit when you're at the end of your rope and start sleeping better just as you're about to Do Something About It.  The flip side to him sleeping an extra THREE hours at night is that he didn't take a nap all week.  That seriously cuts into my blogging time.  I'm not complaining though.  I'll take decent morning wake up times over naps any day.

Today was the last day of the semester for Charlie's toddler gym class.  He really learned a lot in the 20 weeks.  He can do the whole warm up routine without me, and listens to instructions.  He always says his name and does a forward roll on his own during the indtroductions part of class.  He doesn't really like the balance beam, but loves climbing around on most of the other equipment.  He knows the words to the good bye song and sings it frequently.  His favorite part of class is still the bubbles at the end.

  He loves the climbing wall, but will grudgingly let other kids have a turn.

He's the king of forward rolls in his class

 He can lift his feet up while hanging, using his tummy muscles.  (He's not sitting on the yellow thing here, even though it looks like it.)

 Even though he no longer takes a morning nap, he still stops to rest now and then around the time that he used to always nep.

 

His teacher Miss Diedre adores him, and he's pretty fond of her too.

He's been the youngest in the class all semester.  It will be very different to see what it's like next week when some new, younger kids start.  He really knows what he's doing now.  Yay Little Gym!  

Karate Finale

Today was Tommy's final karate class of the semester.  The new semester starts next week, and he's definitely continuing.  He loved it.  They did some regular karate stuff - punches and blocks and escaping from holds, as well as units on fighting sticks and Tai Chi.  Tai Chi was by far Tommy's favorite part of it.  They had a clever story that went along with all the moves, and that made it kind of like acting for Tommy.  David couldn't make it to his exhibition tonight and taking pictures of Tommy while wrangling Charlie was difficult.  These are the best of the bunch. 

 

Tommy does his karate kata on his own with Miss Courtney

 

Tommy doing Tai Chi - the story of the tiger

  

Tommy and his lead teacher, Mister Steve

Slipped into an Alternate Dimension

I went to bed at 8:30 last night thinking that I'd like to get a bit more sleep.  The cluster headache is back after only 36 hours without it, and although the Excederine Migraine worked I don't want to take any more because it made Charlie CRAZY.  At least I think it was the caffeine in the meds.  It had to be something. 

I woke up at SIX this morning and nobody was stirring.  What?!  Six!?  It's now seven and Charlie's still not up.  Tommy and I aren't really sure what we're supposed to be doing at seven o'clock without Charlie here to resist eating breakfast.  I hope it's just a growth spurt or we've slipped into an alternate dimension where Charlie sleeps until sunrise.  That would be awesome...if I didn't have a headache.

Happy Anniversary to Us

Thirteen years.  Roses were purchased.  Steaks were consumed.  Happiness continues.  Tommy summed it up best:  "I'm so glad we're all together forever and always."  What more can I say? 

Swimmers

I took Tommy to his first ABQ Dolphins Swim Team lesson yesterday.  He absolutely loved it.  They stayed in the pool 15 minutes longer than I expected, and I suspect it was because Tommy was so enthusiastic.  The boy is fearless, and this made an immediate difference between him and the other two kiddos who are also starting to learn to swim.  (The head coach is an former Olympic swimmer who only takes 3 new kids at a time, remember?)

He loved every minute he spent in the pool.  It helps that he believes that he can do ANYTHING and absolutely trusts any adult I turn him over to.  Confidence is not a problem for Tommy.  I think this personality profile is 85% inborn, but suspect that the other 15% can be contributed to our easy-going natures and never, ever forcing him to do somthing scary until he's ready.  Of course, that's easy for me to say because he becomes ready and enthusiastic about almost everything eventually.

I only bring this up because there were a couple of kids there who were terrified with a capital T.  I'm so glad Tommy doesn't seem to have that problem, because I was not at all comfortable watching the coaches' methods for dealing with their hysterics.  Nobody was ever in danger or anything, but let's just say that if Tommy was that upset and somebody tried to force him into the water - even calmly and gently...  Well, we would be out of there in a matter of minutes.  It put me into  a bit of a fight or flight to rescue mode as a maternal observer, but I probably shouldn't judge because I don't know the kids and parents involved AT ALL and have no idea of the history or background or anything.  It was the first day after all.

Regardless, Tommy had a wonderful time.  His teacher was warm and engaging and supportive and full of praise and smiles.  He was so proud of his goggles and swooned over his swim cap when I gave it to him after dinner.  He seemed to make a lot of progress just in this first class, so now I believe that he really might be racing by summer.  He was super nice to the other kids too, as usual.  He gave them thumbs up when they finally tried something that was making them nervous and kept getting in the way because he wanted to "help" them. 

The funniest thing is that Tommy figured out how to do pratfalls in the water about 20 minutes in.  I don't know if I've mentioned his tendency to go all Laurel and Hardy and Mr. Bean on occasion.  He loves to lighten tension by pretending to fall and making people laugh.  It's one of the reasons I searched out that theater class for him.  In Karate, when they're practicing jumping over things, he practices pretending to fall.  If we're at the park and some kid is crying, he'll walk near them and do a pratfall to distract them.  Well, in swimming yesterday Tommy figured out how to do a pratfall in the water to make his swim partner laugh whenever he started getting nervous.  He'd reach for the swim noodle and pretend to miss it and flail about with a big "Whoah!"  Hilarious.

I'm glad he's getting to do this.  I just hope David will be able to take him to practice most of the time.  I don't think I can handle watching kids who don't want to get in the water learn to swim week after week.

 Tommy says, "I am a swimmer, hear me roar!"

 Charlie says, "I swim too?" 

Charlie Says (Yes, he really said these things while I was taking the pictures.)

 "Wow!  This so funny!"

  "This tickles Mommy!" 

Once again the doctor advises "you should get more sleep." Pssssht. I knew that.

I took some migraine meds last night and the headaches didn't come back today.  It was probably cluster headaches.  Google it if you're interested.  Disrupted sleep and too much caffeine were probably the cause.  Now if only David weren't working nights, then maybe I could do something about getting more sleep.  Eh, I'm just glad it stopped hurting.

Tooth Fairy Alert!

Tommy lost his first tooth while rough housing with David tonight.  He's very excited for the tooth fairy to visit, although he's kind of hoping the Night Brigade will come instead.

 

 

Pretty Sparse Around Here

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.  I've had a headache for two weeks, and only just figured out that it's been that long and that I should probably do something about it.  I have a doctor appointment tomorrow.  I guess it kind of got lost in the great no-nap-and-4-am-morning debacle of 2009.  I'm getting more sleep now because Charlie's stopped waking up in the middle of the night.  (However, he's still starting the day at 4 am and only napping one day out of four - grr, arg.)  I still have the headache despite the pretty good sleep (for me), so I guess it's something other than tiredness.  Anyway, that's why I haven't had much to say over here. 

Here's a photo to make up for it.

They were just snuggling together watching TV.  This is what you do at 6 am when one of you has been up for 2 hours and it's still dark outside.  Oh, and Charlie's not asleep.  He was just pretending to be asleep.  Right after I took the picture he popped up and said "I sleep NICE.  Good job Charlie."

Story Time and Sleep Time

I did storytime for Tommy's class again today.  It was really funny to watch two particular boys in his class interact with Charlie.  All the other kids hung on the edge of their carpet squares as I drew them into the stories (always good for my children's librarian ego - proof that I've still got mad skillz.)  Two of the boys, however, just couldn't focus on the stories with Charlie there as a distraction. 

One little boy wanted to play with whatever Charlie was playing with.  He couldn't understand why he was expected to sit still while this "new kid" was allowed to wander around playing quietly with toys.  He didn't want to sit still.  He wanted to play.

The second boy was very frustrated and even angered by the fact that Charlie wasn't following the rules.  He kept trying to get Charlie to do what everyone else was doing.  Charlie did sit on his carpet square; he just didn't stay there because the books were too long for him.  He did all the actions with the game song and pulled an animal out of the bag just like everyone else, but he wasn't "doing it right."

So storytime was fun this morning.  Afterwards, we had to go to the grocery store.  Charlie FELL ASLEEP IN THE CART.  I didn't even notice until a grandmotherly lady started cooing and clucking over him.  It was one of those car carts, with the pretend car in front of the basket, so I guess he felt like he was falling asleep in the real car.  He woke up when we checked out and is happily watching Wiggles and eating grapes while we wait to go pick up Tommy.  I'm hoping he'll go back to sleep OK in 30 minutes.

Better

Thanks for all the supportive wishes.  It's been much better since I decided to stop trying to make him sleep and set up that extra mattress in his room.  Charlie loves his new bed on the floor.  He's been napping there exclusively, and we've all been much happier now that he's more rested. 

As for night time, he's been in much less of a panic now that he's more rested.  The last couple of nights he's slept 8 hours in his crib and then I've been able to get him to go back to sleep on the mattress after 4 am.  Getting an extra hour or two of sleep after 4 am has been heavenly.  Last night actually felt pretty normal.  He went to bed awake at 8 pm, happily clutching the green blanket his Aunt Erin made for us long before he was born.  He didn't wake up until 4, but let me lie down with him on his mattress on the floor, and went back to sleep from about 4:45 to 6.  Not bad.

David's still working nights, which is part of why this sleep snaffu has been difficult.  It's hard to be calm when you're the only adult in the house at 1am.  Last night was his last night of six to work, and now he has a few days off before the next stretch of nights.  It will be nice to have him home, and nice to not have to try to keep the boys quiet during the day.  We painted a box this morning as a quiet activity.  Charlie loved it and Tommy got bored after about 10 minutes and moved onto playing with his Lego Storm Troopers.

 

Speaking of Lego Storm Troopers, Tommy was quite insistent that the black one is not Darth Vader.  He's figured out enough of the minutae to be picky like that.  He did, however, pretend that the black one was Darth Vader for a while.  He was quite sure to point out to me that he was just pretending.  At one point he told me, "This Darth Vader accidentally killed some storm troopers, but he liked it, so now he wants to be a good guy.  I'm so proud of him."  I had no response to that.  I guess we need to have a discussion about morality.  I guess he just thinks the big difference between good guys and bad guys is that they're on different teams.