In search of a mirror

He finds ways to entertain himself in the car.  He's such a silly turkey :)

For most events, my son is pretty easy to manage.  Getting into the car isn’t a problem.  As a matter of fact, he actually LIKES riding in the car.  He climbs right into his car seat and tries to “Buka in”.   I can even make trips to the grocery store without incident and take the dogs for a walk without too much hassle.  However, there is one daily event that gives me such frustration that I want to pull my hair out.  My son has decided that he likes to look at himself in the mirror…naked. 

So happy to be free!

I don’t really have an issue with the fact that he likes to look at himself naked.  It is actually pretty funny.  I cannot help laughing when I see his blonde hair bouncing, arms flailing and naked butt shining.  When he sees his reflection, he screams, “GAVIN NAKED!!!” and laughs so hard.  He’s such a happy little guy.  However, events like bath time or changing clothes now take 10 times as long as they should.  As soon as I pull off his shirt, he takes off to the kitchen to look at his reflection in the oven or to jump on to my bed so that he can see himself in our bedroom mirror.  He’s quick, too.  In the seconds that I take to deal with the dirty clothes and his diaper, he manages to sprint out of arms reach, giggling the whole way.  It’s extremely frustrating, but at the same time, it is REALLY hard to get mad.  Eventually, I am able to nab him and get him in the tub.  The bath is actually the easy part.  I can get his hair and body washed without many problems because he can play with ducks and splash to his little heart content.  However, once bath time is over, the struggle begins again.  I get him all wrapped up and carry him to the bed to apply his lotion and fresh clothes.  However, as soon as I lie him down, he rolls away and get to the closest location to see himself naked.  He continues to giggle and scream, “GAVIN NAKED!!!”  I swear it takes me twenty minutes to accomplish my tasks. 

He's decided to put on Daddy's socks instead of his own.

This doesn’t just happen at bath time either.  He does the same thing when I change his clothes in the morning.  He thinks it is so funny to have Mommy grabbing for him and chasing him around the house.  Most of the time, I just let him run away and have fun, but I have to get him dressed eventually, so the chase has to come to an end. This part is never pleasant…for either of us.   I am just hoping for the day when the light bulb goes off in his little head and he realizes, “This could be over really fast if I stop moving.”  Oh, the dreams of mothers…

It's What's for Dinner

There are some interesting things I’ve noticed since I started staying home with my son.  People are always making comments about how cute his curls are and how great his vocabulary is.  These things are true observations – He has these adorable little blonde curls and he can actually carry on a conversation with you by speaking in full sentences and responding to your questions with correct answers.   He is very social and loves to meet new children with which he can play.  He’s even began to have interactive play with some children (only those whom he likes) by kicking the ball to them with the expectation of them kicking or throwing it back.

All of those things are wonderful to see as a parent, but, of all of the things that he does to surprise me, the ones that amaze me the most, happen most often at the dinner table.  In the past, my son hasn’t really wanted (or been able to) eat whatever Simon and I might be eating for dinner.  However, several nights ago, he showed interest in the strangest thing.  We were eating salmon ravioli w/ steamed broccoli and he asks, “What’s that, Daddy?” and points to the broccoli.  Simon tells him “Broccoli.  Want some?”   He responds,” Yeah.”  (Yes, he responded with a “yeah”.)  So, Simon gives him a bite.  Thinking he wouldn’t want more we continue to eat ours and offer him the smaller bites of ravioli.  He then shakes his head no and say, ”Want more brocci, Daddy.”  Apparently, without coercion or bribery, my son decided (all by himself) that he likes broccoli.  He proceeded to eat approximately 10 toddler sized bites of Broccoli – some of which I had cleverly hidden some salmon.

This is just another in a list of vegetables that he prefers over the typical things that children eat.  Does he want a PB & J?  No sir.  He would rather eat baked beans.  Does he want the chicken strips with ketchup on them?  Nope.  He licks the ketchup off and then wants to eat his green beans (with butter, of course).  Most kids love mashed potatoes, right?  Not my son.  He prefers a baked sweet potato – with skin.  One of his favorite afternoon snacks is hummus…that’s right hummus.  Let’s not forget the enormous amounts of yogurt this little kid will eat.  I think he would eat it for every meal, if I let him.  I wish I could give Mom’s around the world some advice on how this has happened, but I have none.  Most parents with some success in this area will smugly say, “Oh, just don’t offer them the bad stuff and they’ll never know what they’re missing.”  That is not what happened in the case of my son.  He has tried all of those things that you “shouldn’t” give your child.  French Fries, check.  Potato chips, check.  Cookies, check.  White bread, check.  In fact, he asked for a chip at lunch just today.  He ate half of it then proceeded to break it up into little pieces to put into the back of his dump truck.  Instead of eating the chip he CHOSE to eat the grapes on his plate instead.  I suppose I have applied the same eating philosophy that I used while I was pregnant.  So, I tell myself, “Don’t eat anything that you wouldn’t give him a bite of.”  I offer him everything I would eat for myself.  Just because he isn’t in my tummy anymore, doesn’t mean that he won’t want to sit, stand or walk ON my tummy and to eat whatever it is that I’m choosing to munch.  

I See MOOOON, Mommy!

My son is always making me laugh.  He will get so excited about the smallest things…things that I don’t even notice anymore.  We were taking the dogs for a walk one evening and he looks up in the sky and sees the moon.  He exclaims, ”I see MOOON, Mommy!” like he had never seen the moon before in his life.  He does this every time we are out at night.  “Where moon go?” is the question that we get if he can’t see it.  Then we all have to search the sky until we find it.

The same curiosity and sense of discovery and excitement applies to many things in his little life.  Yesterday, I was holding the little guy just as my husband (Simon) came home from work.  He got so excited that I thought he was going to jump right out of my arms.  He squealed, “DAAADDDY Home!” and raised his fists into the air in this ‘HURRAY’ motion that most of us reserve for things like home runs, touch downs and goals.  I had to put him down quickly so that he could run to greet his daddy properly with a big hug.  (on a side note – I’m quite sure this is the best part of Simon’s day).  

Now that we live in a large city, there is a never-ending sound of jet planes in the distance.  Oh boy, does he love that.  I swear, the kid is going to be a pilot one day as much as he talks about the airplanes.  He woke up this morning and one of the first things he says is, “I wanna see airplane, Mommy.”  He had heard a large jet fly past with a loud roar and he has pointed out every plane since.   

I wish adults were this much fun.  We’ve “seen that”, “done that”, and “been there” so nothing is this exciting to us anymore.  I’m starting to discover that “ho, Hum” attitude is REALLY depressing.  This past week, I’ve been watching Moms (or Grandmoms as the case may be) at the playground and NONE of them are actually playing with their kids (or grandkids).  Most of them are sitting on a bench playing with their phones.  I’m a friendly type of person, so, of course, I will say hi and chat with them for awhile.  All of them were perfectly nice women and I enjoyed our chat, but going down the slide with my little kid is WAY more fun.   The trip to the playground would have been even more fun, if they had been going down the slide with their kids, too.  Oh well, I guess I will just be that Mom at the playground who can’t sit still.

A move and a basketball hoop

Now that my family and I have made our move to the Chicagoland area, I am finding that it has been more difficult on my 2 year old that I thought.  At first he didn’t seem unphased by all of the change.  He got really excited when he saw the “BIG TWUK” outside the South Bend house…the truck that was coming to take all of our things away.  He didn’t even seem bothered by fact that strangers were packing up all of his toys into boxes where he couldn’t play with them.

However, things started to take its toll on the little guy once we actually got to Illinois.  We had arranged to live in a furnished apartment for a couple of months, but it wouldn’t be ready for another four days.  So, off to the hotel we went.  This was actually pretty fun for him at first.  It was sorta small, but the indoor pool was right outside of our room and every time we took the dogs out, he would say “Wanna go pool, Mommy”.    Unfortunately, because of the small space, he couldn’t get too many toys out and nap time was really difficult.   Normally he had no difficulties going to sleep.   In the hotel space, however,  I had to lie down close to his bed for awhile just to get him to consider a nap.  Going to sleep at night was also a challenge.  He wanted to lie down in the bed with us, which is not something I allowed.  We finally realized that we weren’t doing all of his little bedtime routines.  Once we started reading more books and singing his favorite songs, he started to adjust.  By the time we had actually gotten used to the space and developed a routine, it was time to pack our stuff up again and make another temporary move.

We loaded up all of our belongings…again…and set ourselves up in a two bedroom, two bath, first floor apartment.  Our first day in the apartment was yesterday and as we were putting all of our clothes and groceries away, my son walks into the living area and says, “I’m ready go home, Mommy.”  My heart just crumbled.  To him, we were just on vacation and he’d had enough visiting.  He was ready to sleep in his bed again.  We had to try to explain to him that this is where we are going to be living for now.  Luckily, my husband and I took great care to make sure that we had many of his favorite things with us in the apartment, particularly, the four foot basketball hoop that my son just LOVES. That has made it a lot easier for him. “Play basketball hoooops, Mommy” is a very common phrase for me to hear and having it out on our small patio has worked out well.

Now that we’ve had our house offer accepted we can begin to make plans to move into a new house.  Hopefully, that will be an easier transition that it has been to the apartment.