Category Archives: Our Kid is Cute

Dear William,

On November 8, 2013, you turned 23 months old.

One of the biggest things this month is that we’ve having been working with you on your fear of water in the bath tub. Since you were 12 months old, I’ve been washing your hair with just a damp washcloth. A week before you turned 22 months old, something made me think you were ready to work through this. So, I started then asking you to lie back (while I hold your head) and rinsing your hair with water from a container. This was coinciding with your desperate need for yet another hair cut, because when you’re hair is longer, it’s difficult to get the soap out with a damp washcloth.

While we worked with you on this, I knew it was impacting you, because at various points throughout the day when it crossed your mind, you would say, “I laid back! You did it! Yay!” But when it came time to actually do it, you would start to cry and I would reassure you, “Mommy has you! Trust me! We’re just rinsing your hair.” And then praising you, “You did it! You laid back!”

Now, at 23 months old, you can’t wait to get in the bath tub. All the way home from running errands in the evening, you say from the back seat, “It’s not bath time yet!” Then when we get home, and get you in the tub, you start laying back on your own to rinse your hair, first thing. It looks like you’ve truly overcome your fear of water on your head, at least in this instance. Coinciding with this notable development is your love for “washing cars.” You rinse and rinse your bath cars and say that you’re washing them. You have very clean bath toys.

You now love bath time so much, that I have to set a timer and tell you, “When it goes ‘beep beep’ it’s time to get out of the tub.” Ridiculous, I know, but it really helps with the transition through the bath time routine.

STATS/TEETH:

You are weighing in at 33 pounds 14 ounces this month. You are 37 inches tall. You are in 3T clothing.

Teeth: Your two year molars are moving in. Often when we brush your teeth, we get blood on the toothbrush. I think both sides are coming in, because blood comes from both sides of your mouth. Poor baby.

THINGS YOU SAY:
Con-toy is guitar. Bicycle, you say the “y” with a long “i” sound. Police car – Podeece car. Ambulance is amubance. You stopped saying “s” in front of words for some reason, kind of weird.

The first week after having turned 22 months old is the first time you started regularly saying “mommy” when you woke from your sleeps, instead of crying. You still cry out in the middle of the night. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that your molars are coming in. It also appears as if you’re gaining control of your emotions or frustrations… if you’re crying and upset, I usually ask you to please stop crying and use your words so I can help you. Sometimes, you’ll stop mid-cry, sniffle and tell me what you want. Then you say, “Yay! You stopped crying!” That is not something I’ve ever told you, but apparently you apply praise liberally to any occasion.

You know your right and left. When I ask you for your right or left hand, or right or left foot to wash in the bath tub, you lift it for me.

You hear the cat’s collars from upstairs and say, “That’s a cat downstairs.” Indeed.

You know by sound what is going by on the street, a bus, motorcycle, fast car, or our neighbor, Michael’s car. ha

You know your primary colors… we ask you what color your diaper is when we change you or get you ready for your bath, and you always say the correct color. Red, blue, green, white, yellow… you know them. Also, your various cars, you ask for your purple car, red car, blue car, etc. Even though you’ve been doing this for awhile now, it never fails to surprise me.

You request specific songs from your music class CDs… “Want to hear the car song, please? Want to hear the train song, please? Trot Old Joe song, please?” So we often drive down the road listening to repeat of the same song over and over again. Just this past month you’ve started singing the words to some of them. I came home one day for lunch and you serenaded me with B-I-N-G-O. I was so shocked, not believing what I was hearing. We still have some to go before you sing on tune, though.

Also, when you have a stuffy nose, communication is helping you when I need to use the nose frieda on you. Instead of screaming and fighting us, and instead of just sticking the thing up your nose, I ask your permission first… “May I suction your nose? Are you ready?” And you reply, “Mommy suction nose! I’ll feel better.” And then you always like to see what I get out of there, and same for when I clean your ears, you like to see it. A human curiosity, I guess.

Your memory is amazing… we decided to stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch one day, as we pulled into the shopping center, you said, “I go to Monkey Class???” Your gymnastics class is in the same shopping center, you recognized it despite not having been for a couple months. We went to JoAnn’s shortly before Halloween and there was lots of motion sensor, scary stuff. You talked repeatedly about “the scary aisle.” Just a couple days ago we went back, you looked around and then looked at me and asked, “Where’s the scary aisle?”

One evening I sat down to nurse you and you repeatedly requested your blue car. I repeatedly told you I didn’t have it. It turns out that technically, I did have the blue car, I just didn’t know it. When I stood up after nursing on you, I was sitting on the thing.

You tell me, “You’re my baby.” I have no idea where you get THAT from. ha

NURSING/FOOD:
You still nurse a lot, and enjoy it. I’m grateful that I have this comfort that I can give you. I still pump whie I’m at work, although I’m down to 2 sessions per day instead of the 5 sessions I was doing a year ago. Those two sessions give me a mental break, too, and I spend the time reading eBooks on my netbook.

SLEEP:
This month has been rough in the sleep department. Often you wake in the early mornings, and then don’t fall asleep nursing. In fact, I kind of think the nursing keeps you in a light dozing state. Your sleep is much more adult-like now (since you were 20 months old). So when I’m certain you’re not swallowing milk anymore, I will ask you to unlatch. You do, but aren’t too happy about it. I put you back in your crib and then you ask me to stay with you and hold your hand. I’m OK with doing that, but your father and I need to figure out a better configuration for that because I’m lying on the floor sticking my hand through the crib siding, and that’s just not very comfortable and makes for a very long day for me, if I’m getting up with you at 3:30am. To complicate matters, we had the time change this month…

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:

10/12 — Tanaka Farms, we saw lots of pumpkins, a pumpkin cannon, we took a tractor pulled wagon ride, went through a corn maze and pet lots of goats. The baby goats were the cutest and softest. We also met up with a couple moms from our birthing class. The one mom, Claudia, was wearing her 2 month old baby girl and I was wearing you… you wanted to “pet her” and then I showed you her tiny little toes… the next day you were saying, “Saw a baby, saw tiny toes!”
10/19 — we spent the morning at Grandma D.’s condo and the afternoon at your Grandma and Grandpa H.’s house, visiting them and your cousins
10/26 — we attended Dr. Werlin’s reunion.
10/26 — we went to the Great OC Park’s Halloween event. You visited their pumpkin patch and rode their Wild Train Ride.
10/31 — you trick-or-treated as Krypto (aka Super Dog). It took you one time and you had the routine down, knock on the door, say trick-or-treat, get candy, say thank you … visit if they want to and then move on. You loved your pumpkin with candy it, although you don’t yet know that candy gets opened and eaten. You just like to have it and add to your candy collection.
11/1 — we went to our mountain cabin for a couple days
11/3 — we visited Mason Regional Park for the morning

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
I’m super excited to have found a less expensive music class. Unfortunately I cannot attend, as it’s Tuesday mornings, but your Grandma D. graciously takes you. It’s 30 minutes (instead of 45) long and there’s a playground right near that you can visit before or afterwards.

Since our community pool’s heat is turned off for the winter, I’ve been swimming at the gym. This is noteworthy, because we’ve taken you a couple times and let you play in the Kid’s Klub there. You love it and get all excited to “go to the gym!” You lead us out to the garage the moment mention is made of this outing.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How you stroke my arm while nursing.
How, when asked if you’re done nursing, you say “no” around a mouth full of boob. You’ve also started humming songs to me while your nursing, mostly identifiable by the rhythm of it.
How you go into a sing-songy voice when you’re imitating something we’ve said to you.
How you love all the Christmas trees and decorations that are out in the store. In fact, you ask to “go see Christmas trees?” or “Go see big snowman?” the second we get into the store.
How your play has gotten so creative and imaginative. You pretend eat, we have delightful snack times out in your playhouse in the afternoons, with pretend “chicken pancakes,” leaves, spiders, persimmons, and whatever other items you think might be a good snack.
How you loved my Halloween costume, that I carry a Barbie doll dressed identically to me. You called her “mini mommy!” and you wanted to carry the doll around with you all night long.
How you love your sonic toothbrush. One night you ran off stealthily with mine and I found you sitting on the guest bed leaning back with it turned on and in your mouth. That evening I bought you one of your own. Best thing I ever did!
How you ask permission to do things, but it sounds like you’re making a statement. You’ll say, “You can touch that…” But what you mean is, “May I touch that?” It’s so funny.
How gentle you are with babies… at the gym’s Kid’s Klub, I came back to check on you after I was done swimming. You were lying on the floor, your face in your hands, your eyes closed, while a 7 month old patted your face. You patiently let him explore. When he was done, you got up, ran over and got a dump truck and rolled that toy over to the “baby” so he could play with it.
How you have entire conversations while holding your play phone up to your ear… and you really do have conversations when you’re on the phone with someone.
How you love cars. Hot Wheels to be precise. You currently have over 50 Hot Wheels. That means that we’ve gone shopping at least 50 times over the last couple months and purchased you a Hot Wheel. We purchased a case for them at Toys R Us when we went there the other day (that was the item on the list). It holds 72 cars. It’s half full. You even love carrying just the case around. We are doomed. It’s a good thing I like Hot Wheels. In my mind’s eye, I can see our house getting wheeled down the street by tiny little wheels… you love them, I mean LOVE them.You know when one is missing and will ask for it specifically. You send them spinning across the living room floor (hard wood). If it goes far, and doesn’t spin out, you stand up, clasp your hands together gleefully and say, “Oh! That’s a good one!” You lined your cars up one night and said, “They’re waiting…” I asked you what they were waiting for. You replied, “Green light!” I said, what happens when the light turns green? You said, “It turns red.” Huh. I guess you’re kind of right, I’ve certainly seen lights like that! The things you think of just make me laugh.

These things you do make me wonder what you have in store for you in the future, and who you will be. I have no idea, of course, but I’m absolutely adoring watching you figure it out.

Love you forever,
Momma

Dear William,

On October 8, 2013, you turned 22 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
I’ve noticed that you’re slimming down this month, your diapers have been fitting you differently. The scale and ruler are true to my observations — you weigh 32 pounds 10 ounces. You are 37 inches tall. You wear size 3T in most everything, except footed jammies — in those you wear size 4T or 5T, depending on the brand.

On 9/28, your two year molars started claiming the landscape of your gums, starting with your lower left side (one point has come through), and your upper left side is a bump on the horizon. They must be a doozy, because you are not normally one who drools, but I’ve noticed you drooling a few times… and your cheeks turn bright red and you get a rash on your bottom.

NURSING/FOOD:
You love to nurse and I love to nurse you. You are a very well-mannered nursling, so we’ll continue our special relationship for as long as you need. This month, you have started to request “switch sides!” You’re so sweet about it, and always request it with a smile. You love all your nursing toys that I keep downstairs in the pocket of the nursing pillow and, while nursing, you fling your hand back to request each one until they’re all out, either in your hand, on the armrest above your head, or sitting on your cheek while you nurse. It’s quite a show! You hum to me while we nurse and we’re working with glisses and holding notes, and humming duets… my heart melts every time we do that. When I nurse you to sleep at night, you request Froggy and when I finally latch you and hand you Froggy, your eyes immediately start to close. Despite what you eat or don’t eat, since you’ll always nurse, I feel reassured that you’re at least getting the nutrients you need, custom tailored to your needs.

You continue to do well with table food… some days are hit and miss, though, and you display a definite preference via specific requests for the things you want to eat. For example, this past weekend, we went to Target which is in the same shopping center as Chick-Fil-A. You recognized this (you recognize where we’re at much of the time), “I want chicken nuggets, please!” and I promised them to you, only to realize as we drove over there that it was Sunday and Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sundays. You in tears and me in desperation, we went to McDonald’s for a lame substitute… you only ate one of their chicken nuggets. Clearly McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets are inferior compared to Chick-Fil-A’s.

It is with some chagrin that I share when we were in Hawaii, we were driving to Haleakala and you started saying, “I want pancakes! Pancakes!” I realized we had driven past a Jack In The box, you father didn’t even know it was there. It was notable because YOU recognized the Jack in the Box sign and correlated that with your pancakes. Since we were all hungry, it made sense to turn around and get breakfast there and pancakes for you.

THINGS YOU SAY:

Speech development is such a funny thing to watch develop.   The other thing I’ve noticed is you will sometimes speak your own language when you’re being silly, usually it’s if you’re playing with other kids… like on the airplane when we returned from Hawaii, you were turned around “talking” to them and just saying nonsense stuff.  Yet, you’ll turn and look at me or your father and speak English clear as day to us, and then go back to your “Williamism” language, and laugh hysterically at yourself.  You do it to your friend/neighbor, Josh, too.  He says, “What?” over and over again, and the more he does that, the more you laugh about it.

Words you used to say perfectly or will say perfectly if specifically requested, you now have developed a “Williamism” version of it.  I want to write them here, because I know as you get older and grow out of them, I’ll miss them.  “Wi-are” is water.  “Balicious” is delicious. “Watermeldon” is watermelon.  “Dingbell” is doorbell.  “Kank-you” is thank you.

SLEEP:
Since I’ve night weaned myself from nursing you, you’ve had some really good, long, uninterrupted nights of sleep. I, however, no longer sleep through the night. I still wake up and go in your room and check the temperature, adjust the windows and drapes and sit for a moment and listen to you breathe. Although, now that your two year molars are moving in, we’ve returned to nursing in the middle of the night, at your request, though. And while I’m tired, because it’s harder for me to be awakened in the middle of my sleep cycle, I recognize that this is but a short time in your life. I want you to know I will always be there for you — now, while you’re a child, and in the future, when you’re an adult — no matter what the clock reads or what anyone says.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
09/14/2013 – Legoland. You recognized where we were the second we pulled into the parking lot. You really love LegoLand!
09/15/2013 – Church with your daddy. You held your Grandma H.’s hand when leaving and when she knelt to talk to you, you knelt down too.
Wednesdays are Library storytime… a different, bigger library. One that I’ve been informed by you has a “castle!”
09/21/2013 – Disneyland. You saw Mickey Mouse, Goofy, a firetruck, rode the monorail, Pirates of the Carribean, and the train.
09/28/2013 – we went to the mountain cabin for the weekend
10/05/2013 – visited Fire Station #19 Open House
10/05/2013 – we had a mom/son date at Yogurtland and then visited the newly opened PetCo

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
09/22/2013 – we hung out with your cousins for Huck’s birthday
10/06/2013 – Saw your cousins at their house — you were amazed at their “LegoLand” (they have lots of Legos)
Library Story Time — Monday mornings and Wednesday mornings with Grandma D., park time afterwards.
Gymnastics and Music Class — we’ve discontinued those for the time being due to budgetary limitations.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How sweet you are when you don’t want us to leave the room, you cry out, “Be right back!” One evening, I needed to go upstairs, so I asked you if you wanted to stay downstairs and play with your toys or come upstairs while I changed. You replied, “Stay downstairs, please.” And you did and continued to peacefully play with your toys. How I’ve started doing the countdown to something, like putting your toys away… you didn’t get the connection the first time I did it, “One, two…” You interrupted me with a happy, “THREE!!” and then realized that it was a trick. I felt kind of bad. How whenever you walk backwards, you say, “Beep Beep Beep Beep” because that’s what big vehicles do when they’re backing up. How whenever I pick a booger out of your nose, you say, “That’s a booger… don’t eat it!” Same thing for flowers, you say, “That’s a flower…. don’t eat it!” How you still love sniffing lotions and candles, and you accompany that with, *Sniff* “Mmmm, smell good.” Also, if I turn a fan on and you feel the breeze, you said, “That feels good!”

This past month you’ve started going up and down a stair or two without needing to hold on to anything. When facing a flight of stairs, however, you still reach for my hand or a rail.

How after we finish nursing in the morning, you tell me you wanna “Go see Daddy!” “Go see Mickey Mouse!” and then when I stand up, you tell me, “Put Froggy to bed… mommy carry me.” Then you tuck your head under my chin and we go find either Daddy or Mickey Mouse, sometimes they’re one and the same.

How obsessed you are with your Hot Wheels and you keep them all in a plastic basket. We limit you to only taking 2 when we go somewhere, otherwise you grab as many as you can fit in your hands and then you leave a sad trail of Hot Wheels that you can’t carry. This past Saturday we were headed out to Fire Station #19, and I requested that you pick a toy and let’s get going… and I walked out to the garage. You followed after a moment, and when I turned to look at you, you had a huge grin on your face and were carrying “one toy” “Got my basket?”… yep, you had the basket full of Hot Wheels. Now you haul your “basket” with you whenever we go somewhere.

How you love to hold your Hot Wheels out to your side and shake them around and then tell me that “They’re dancing!”

How you love saying “thank you” to people. You practice your gratefulness every chance you get. You love saying “thank you for… ” and you look around and take inventory of everything in your immediate vicinity.  You will tell yourself thank you, if I ask you do something, when you’ve done it you say, “Thank you!” to yourself.

Your relationship with Tuggy, our cat, is progressing nicely. You have a tendency to pat a little hard sometimes, but you love him… and you TELL him, “Love you, Tuggy!” Especially after we got back from the mountains. You also have a tendency to try and use him as a pillow, so there  you are, lying on the floor with your head resting on him.  You really miss your cats when you’re away from them. You really love all cats… we went to the pet store, and you were just beside yourself with joy at all the cats they had there.  You looked inside each cage and said, “HI CAT!”   You also love dogs. And turtles. And birds.  I’m just astounded at your gentleness with other creatures, it’s amazing!

How you adore babies. There’s a new baby in the neighborhood, Abigail is her name. You walked up to her and took her tiny little hand in your toddler hand and just looked at her. Her mom was ready to arrange a marriage right then and there.

How you love to laugh, and love to make us laugh.  You have this BIG FAKE laugh that you do, and it cracks everyone up.  One morning you were playing with a Thomas Kinkade nightlight.  You were pushing on the picture part of it, and it fell out of the frame.  Half joking, I asked in a fake-horrified voice, “Did you just break that?”  You looked at me, looked back at it and replied, “Froggy broke it!”  Skeptically, I responded, “Froggy broke it?”  You replied, “Noooo-hooo-hooooo!  MUWAHAHAAA!”

In our office/guest room where Grandma D. has her computer set up. She covers it with a yellow-checkered cloth when it’s off.  You were in there playing and picked up that cloth, then looked down at it and in astonishment said, “That’s not Froggy!”  You put it back on her computer and ran into your bedroom to get Froggy and said, “This is Froggy!”

How your Grandma D. took you on a walk one day and showed you a traffic light.  Ever since then, when we’re driving along, if we come to a stop  you say, “Red light” and then when we go again, you’ll say, “Green light…  now we can go! Go Go Go!!!”

How the night of your 22 month birthday, you were playing with your “piano” that your godmother gave you. You pressed the demo key and then danced to whatever song is playing. Your father and I were being silly and we started dancing around the kitchen with each other. After watching us dance together and laughing happily at seeing us do so, you came up to me and asked me to dance. My world stood still … a sweeter moment I’ve never had, but to be asked to dance by my son. And so we danced, a rousing bouncing, twisting, silly dance full of giggles and laughter.

And how you were distracted with your DJ duties, and you would run over to check the music because you didn’t want it to end, and then come running back to me and ask me to dance again. Your bedtime loomed nearer and nearer, and I shrugged to myself, sometimes making memories is more important than bedtime.

Love forever,

Momma

Dear William,

On 09/08/2013, you turned 21 months old.

STATS/TEETH:
You are weighing in at 33 pounds 4 ounces. You are 36 inches tall and are comfortably wearing size 3T in clothes. You are wearing toddler size 8.5 EW in shoes. No new teeth have shown up this month, and I’m grateful for the respite.

We bought you a froggy potty chair this month and the first night I opened it up, I told you what it was and took it up to the bathtub bathroom. After your bath that night you asked, “Sit on froggy potty, please?” As you were sitting there, with your bath towel wrapped around you because, “don’t want to get cold!” I asked what you were doing. You replied, “I go potty on froggy potty.” And… well… you DID go potty. And so every night after your bath, our routine now is we wait for you to go potty on the froggy potty, because that’s what you want to do.

NEW WORDS:
The other day we were at Chick-Fil-A, and you were running around in there, chattering non-stop as you normally do. There was another mom in the playground area with her son who was the same age as you, and she was so impressed at your speech and how well you talk. She kept saying, “Oh, wow!” That’s pretty much what most people say when they spend any amount of time with you. Your linguistic skills are very impressive for your age. Scarily so.

People tell you the wrong name for things thinking you can’t say it. For example, we bought you an ukelele in Hawaii as a souvenir. You’ve been told it’s a guitar and I’m coming along behind trying to correctly teach you that it’s an ukelele… and you say the word just fine. Truth be told, I would rather you know the correct name for things, even if it’s harder to pronounce and challenge you to say it, rather than you be told incorrect information! After all, we (your family) are not the only people in the world with whom you’ll be communicating, and not everyone will know what “pet” names you’ve been told things are called.

When I yawn, you tell me, “Mommy tired!” When you managed to reach into the plastic container which held grapes, you informed me, “It’s kinda sharp.” You are very good at opening closed boxes of food that are left within your reach, by the way. I watched you open a box of ice cream cones the other day in 20 seconds flat — I was impressed. You love to tell me about the “container” that you managed to grasp, there’s no secrets, even when you do something you shouldn’t. You love to turn the water on in your bath tub. You also love to turn it off. And then you tell me, “I turned water on!” The reason for that is that you love to “wash bath cars” and stick them up the water spout. You tell me “car parked. It’s home.” Indeed. I guess, with a little imagination, the water spout does look kind of like a garage. I was reading a book the other day, and you walked up and bent it back, looked at it and said, “No pictures.” I replied, “Correct. It’s a word book only.” You said, “Word book, no pictures.” That’s right. Some would tell you those kinds of books are boring, but that’s not me. I say, “Some books have only words, and in those books you make pictures with your imagination.”

NURSING/FOOD:
You love to nurse and one of my favorite things to hear from you is, “Wanna nurse? Please?” Or at night or naptime when the thrill of nursing overcomes you, your whole body goes crazy with glee and you say, “NAH NAHS!” I learned this month while we on vacation, and I nursed you to sleep with no white noise machine, that you do still make noises, and moan and groan while you nurse, it’s just much softer than what you used to do in the first 13 months of your life. I was glad to make that discovery.

A week ago, I made the determination that I needed to end our middle of the night nursing sessions. It appears that your sleep pattern has changed this past month to be more like an adult’s, and that what was intended to be a “dreamfeed” was actually serving to wake you up for the day. It happened twice and so now I leave it up to you. It will take about 3 weeks for my supply to adjust, and until then I’m waking several times in the wee hours of the morning, uncomfortable due to engorgement. This decision makes me sad, as that session was, hands-down, my favorite nursing session of all of them. But you are growing up and the timing feels right.

You do well with table food and enjoy a lot of variety. You will try most anything, and walk up to us and say, “Wanna bite, please?” You also desperately love to eat out at restaurants and one night this week we ordered our food to go, and when you figured out we were leaving, you got very upset that we were not eating there!  You’ve also fooled many waitresses when they come to take drink orders.  Your father always says, “Iced tea.”  I always say, “Iced tea.”  And then the waitress looks at you and you respond, “Iced tea!”  The waitress this weekend paused, looked at you and said, “Seriously??”  You grinned back at her, she wasn’t sure what to make of you.  ha

I’m trying to be conscious of my word choices when talking to you about food. So I’m cognizant of using the word “enjoy” instead of the word “like” … sometimes we enjoy our food, and other times we don’t, but we still need to eat. I also am uber-aware of simply telling you what the food is and not adding any qualifying statement. For example, “This is turkey.” and then DON’T say, “You really liked/enjoyed/didn’t like/didn’t enjoy/should taste this, etc.” Whatever you choose to do with it is your business.  If you’re hungry, I expect you to eat, if you’re not, then don’t. Also, if you’re done eating, I don’t negotiate with you. I simply confirm, “You’re all done?” “All done,” you’ll respond. I say, “OK. We’re still eating. I’ll clean up your plate in a moment. Please wait. Here’s a car to play with.” And that’s that. Sometimes you’ll eat some more, other times you’re not happy with sitting there, but I firmly believe that good table manners are an important part of life. Given all the food issues I’ve had in my life, I want to give you the opportunity to do better.

SLEEP:
When we traveled this month your sleep was simply awful. You were overstimulated by all the things we were doing and seeing, and woke multiple times a night with nightmares. There were a couple nights when I brought you into the big bed with me and we snuggled/slept in the wee hours of the morning.  I’m not big on co-sleeping, as I don’t rest well, but turns out those moments are some of my fondest vacation memories.  The first morning we were on vacation, you woke at 3:45am and was so surprised there was no sunshine. You looked out our lanai windows and said, “I see lights.” You were looking across the way at the security lights on buildings. I told you that’s what happens when you wake in the middle of the night, you see lights. The second morning you woke at 4:15am and without missing a beat, you said, “I go see lights?”

You napped well, better than I expected, while we traveled. Even on the airplane, as we flew, you took solid 2 hour naps in my arms. Once we got back home, it took a few days for you to adjust to being back home, but then (now that I don’t dreamfeed you) you’ve started sleeping solid 10 hour stretches. You wake ravenous in the morning and drink all the milk I’ve been storing away, and would like to go back to sleep in my arms, and do on the weekends, but during the week I don’t let you because I want to keep you on a somewhat decent schedule.

THINGS WE DID/PLACES WE WENT:
08/17 – we went to LegoLand and its waterpark.
08/23 – we flew to Maui (Hawaii) for 6 days/5 nights… it was a 5 hour flight each way.
09/05 – First Emergency Response Vehicles event at Chick-Fil-A – got to sit in a police car and ambulance; that same night you went into the playtubes all by yourself.
09/07 – breakfast with your godparents at Bruxie’s, and saw your cousins
You had gym class and music class, as well this month.

PLAYTIME AND CHILDREN INTERACTION:
You frequently request to see your “Cousins! Huck and Milo… friends” and your “Grandma and Grandpa H.”

On Labor Day, our neighborhood had a block party which we stopped by for a few minutes. You were playing with a ball. Another boy, a 4 year old, decided he wanted the ball and so he grabbed it out of your hands. Then, for good measure, he then turned back around and shoved you and knocked you straight on your butt. I ran across to you, as it looked like the kid was getting ready to kick you … and yelled, “Hey! No pushing!” I was behind you, and moved another kid out of the way to get to you. I could hear you saying something, over and over again, but couldn’t make out what it was. I finally got to you and picked you up, only to hear you saying repeatedly, “Oh goodness! Oh goodness! Oh goodness!” in the saddest little voice.  Your sweet spirit always touches me when I least expect it.

You are definitely in the little boy phase of being obsessed with cars, trains and airplanes. Your father pulled out his remote control car after you spent the evening previous chasing the neighbor’s. When your father finally let you “get it”, you were in awe of it and inspected every minute detail of it, telling us that, “It’s a car! It has wheels! They turn! It has lights! It goes fast!

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:
~How you love to stand at my nightstand and push the buttons on my clock/radio/CD player. When you finally get the right button and the radio turns on, you turn around and look at me and exclaim in a wondrous voice, “It’s music! It’s music!”
~You love to get into my bottles of lotion and walk around sniffing them, saying, “Mmmmm. Smells so good!” And then you found the vanilla scented one and told me, “It’s green!” And then, “It’s yogurt! Yummy, yummy, yummy!” Because the bottle is indeed green and it does smell remarkably like vanilla yogurt.

~The way you take roll call of those around you, constantly, “Grandma D.? Mommy? Daddy?” And wait for us to respond to you so you know we’re there.

~How you recount sitting in a police car and ambulance to me every time it enters your mind.

~How when people come over you love to show them all your special toys. I remember doing that as a child… it’s adorable.
~How, last Saturday, we had breakfast with your godparents. You were so excited about it that every time we left the house that day, you asked, “Go see Grace?” Funny thing, we went to Costco later that day and you asked, “Go see Grace?” I told you that we were going to Costco… and wouldn’t you know? Grace was there! ha
~How you love stampers and getting your hand stamped, this started because of gymnastics class, so I stamped your hand with a pumpkin stamper one day and you spent the entire day, even after it had mostly washed off, walking around showing people your pumpkin. You also really enjoy stickers and so we stuck a bunch of stickers on a piece of paper, and you happily show everyone your masterpiece, and constantly asked to “see it!”
~How you are obsessed with getting out into the cat run so you can pet your cats. This is not a particularly endearing thing, by the way.

~The way you love to love on Tuggy and lean way over him and rest your head on him, gentle as can be. He tolerates you well, and this relationship you have with him might even turn into a true pet type relationship as you get older.
~How when we were driving home from Costco, we heard you saying in the backseat, “I see sunset! I see sunset!”

Sure enough, you were seeing the sunset and sharing your world with us. We probably wouldn’t have seen this amazing sunset without you alerting us to it. Which makes me wonder how much more beauty I would have missed if you weren’t here?

Love, Momma