Unsupervised, A Short Play

Scene: Forty minutes before dinner, kids downstairs, Mom in kitchen

(overheard from basement): lots of giggling, squeal of laughter

Abbey (running upstairs): I wanted to make him look pretty! (gales of laughter)

Mom (hurries around corner)

crickets chirp

Dylan and Abbey (laughing uncontrollably)

Fade to black

I'm linking up with Funny or Snot for WTF Wednesdays

Thing One & Thing Two

Shell, at Things I Can't Say, is drumming up baby fever* with her cuteness overloaded Rockin' the Baby link-up.  Without further ado, here are a couple of vintage shots of Abbey and Dylan.

*any baby fever in this house will be unfulfilled, but tired moms should feel free to drop off any newborns for holding and snuggling if you need a break

one of my favorite baby pictures of Abbey

she's three months and already so silly 

cutie patootie Dylan

he was so chill and didn't mind being posed any which way 

because even Baby Elmo loves babywearing

The Cat's In the Bag

Bonus (one of Joe & Amanda's two cats)

Abbey says "Bonus is friendly!"

thankfully Bonus is also beyond patient with two little people who love him

Abbey likes to play with him aka relentlessly chase him with his toys

Dylan breaks out into a huge grin whenever Bonus enters a room 

it's tiring having so much fun

He's Full of Surprises

Pregnant, coloring at the dining room table with Abbey, I worried.

Somehow, I had made it through the ultrasound without caving and begging the technician to tell us the sex of our healthy baby.  After finding out with Abbey, Ryan and I had agreed that this baby would be a surprise.

But now, coloring at the table with my relatively calm daughter, I worried.

I was scared to have a boy.

I wanted a son.  A little guy to look up to Ryan and wear preppy clothes and tattered baseball caps.  A grown man to dance with as a mother of the groom.

Still, I was scared to have a boy.

My own childhood was filled with dance classes and days spent at the library devouring books and playing school in my room next to my canopy bed.  I loved skirts that twirled in circles.  I didn't like bugs or dirt.

What would I do with a boy?

Of course, I fell in love with him the moment I met him.

There's nothing sweeter than the ten times a day he stops what he's doing to come hug me and bestow one or two or seven slobbery kisses on me before returning to wreck havoc on the house.

Little plaid shirts and sweater vests and khaki shorts catch my eye nearly as much as tulle skirts and hand-crafted headbands.

Still, he proves daily that my fears weren't unfounded.  He presses every button within reach and loads the DVD player with any CD or DVD he manages to find around the house.  We've strategically positioned three gates and could use at least one more.  Our chosen cupboard locks stop him for approximately eight seconds when he decides to open them.  He gleefully runs anywhere he shouldn't and has an inner device that leads him to drinking fountains and doors he can open himself.

I worry when I take him places, because he's notoriously unpredictable and not quiet about his preferences.

Waiting for Abbey's recital to start, he climbed up and down and up and down the wide steps of the auditorium.  Ryan and my dad were on alert that they would likely spend the majority of the show in the hall with Dylan.  Trying to get him to sit on my lap when the lights dimmed elicited his loudest vocal protests, and even his beloved Cheerios did little to distract him from the thought of climbing those stairs again.

Then the music started, the lights shone on the dancers, throwing rainbows off their sequined costumes, and he leaned against me, mesmerized.  Later, as Ryan held him, snack cup still clenched in one hand, I was amazed.  He craned his head to get a better view.  He spontaneously clapped during performances.  He didn't have to leave the theater until he went home at intermission.

Maybe boys aren't so scary after all.

not scared of Colleen's play structure at all

Looking for My Mojo

It's a fill-in-the-blank-for-your-own-prompt Prompt: 

The first time I ________-ed after _________-ing.

I chose to write about the first time I ran after having Dylan.

I bent to retie my shoes, loosening my laces and pulling them tight, though they felt perfect before the tweaking.  My mood wavered between unsettled and apprehensive, my eight-week old at home, without me.

 

I worried he had woken up.  I worried he would miss me.  I wondered if Ryan would call me if there was a crisis.  I wondered what kind of crisis could possibly arise during the forty-five minutes I planned to be gone.

I bent to tie my shoes again, then abruptly straightened and stepped onto the treadmill, out of excuses.  Sliding earbuds into my ears, I turned on my carefully prepared workout mix, the hip hop jarring after carefully monitoring the child-appropriateness of my music choices during my gym hiatus.

The warm-up walk was familiar, easy in fact without a massive double stroller in front of me.  My stride turned almost to a strut as I contemplated changing speeds.  Inexplicably, I probed at my caesarean incision, testing for soreness, for pain, for a challenge to my plan to get back into shape.

Numbness. The best I could hope for.

I wondered what was happening at home.

I eased the speed up to a twelve-minute mile, thinking back to the hours I had logged on the elliptical during my pregnancy.  My legs fell into a remembered rhythm, awkwardly and tightly, feeling heavy and unfamiliar above my shoes.

 

My tight sports bras reminded me of the tether that would link me to Dylan for the next year.

Minutes later, my lungs were as heavy as my legs, my breathing labored and forced.

Walking, pre-natal yoga, and the elliptical machine had kept my weight gain within a respectable range, but my body was eager to remind me that nothing could make me sweat like a good run.

Turning up my music so I couldn’t hear myself panting, I forced my legs to move back and forth, slowly waking my muscles from hibernation.  Sweat snaked down my temples by the end of the second song, but I lumbered on, attempting to ignore the discomfort.

Refusing to take a pacifier meant Dylan could be difficult to soothe if he woke hungry from his brief naps.

But as my feet struck the rubber belt, left right left right, I felt another familiar sensation.  Briefly, fleetingly, joy flickered, teasing my lips into a grimacing smile.  Anxiety flowed out of me with the sweat.

Ryan could handle any emergency manufactured by a sleeping two-month old and a toddler.

Muscle memory pumped my arms back and forth, my stride quickening to its accustomed beat.  The bass in the background propelled me along.  I eased the speed up a few more notches.

That lasted for a few brief, glorious minutes before I had to slow back down to a walk or risk keeling over and flying off the back of the treadmill.

Still, those marvelous moments reminded me of why I had a training schedule written, in pen, in my planner. 

Running keeps me in shape and keeps my stress at bay and keeps me from throwing the Glee soundtrack out the window after hearing it countless times.  Running brings me joy.

And now, over a year, and hundreds of miles later, I need to recapture that joy.  Running has morphed into a chore, an item on my to-do list, a burden.

I need to reevaluate my goals or my mindset or my running playlist.  I need to lace up my shoes and turn up my music and follow my feet.

I need to remember why I run.

showing that even though he doesn't have a recital costume, he's still a cutie pie

Making Him Laugh

Not only can Aunt Jessica take some fun pictures, she can make Dylan giggle like crazy.  I'm pretty sure listening to Dylan laughing reduces stress by 38% or some similar statistic, because he is that adorable when he's laughing!

Goodbye Winter

I'm not sure if I'm to blame for exposing my kids to an unusual number of germs or if this year's viruses were stronger than we're used to, but we definitely seemed to have a sicker-than-normal winter around here.

From stomach viruses to the common cold to unknown fever and general malaise, Ryan, Abbey, Dylan, and I were all hit hard this year. 

Until this year, Abbey's managed to stay fairly healthy, and it was difficult to see her sick.  It was even more difficult to get her to take any sort of medicine, and I had my first foray into Mommy bribing, letting her have ice cream in exchange for simply swallowing some baby Motrin.

Dylan, thankfully, is better with taking medicine, but it may have been even sadder to see such a little guy getting sick over and over.  Sleepy and cuddly when he doesn't feel well, it broke my heart a little that he was sicker in one year than Abbey has been in three!

Needless to say, despite many fun moments, we are all ready to finally say "see ya!" to the Winter of 2010!

feeling sick and snuggling with teddy 

a little Cookie Monster helps a little, too

Recovering from the Weekend

When picturing the aftermath of our Vegas trip, I imagined Ryan and I would need a few days to recover from all of the fun.  Vegas, after all, is a city where sleeping is an afterthought, maybe done in brief naps in the afternoon or snoozes by the pool.

Plus, let's be honest, Ryan and I haven't exactly been breaking any curfews lately, unless you count late night studying and blogging.

I guess my late nights sleeping on the couch with the worst teether in the entire world Dylan prepared my body for a lack of sleep, and our daily dance parties prepared me to sing out of tune and make a fool of myself on the dance floor, because days after our return, I'm feeling fine.

Other people in the family weren't so well-prepared for a weekend away.

Grandma and Grandpa have some explaining to do.  They obviously run a party establishment that rivals anything found on the Vegas strip.

after lunch the other day, I ran upstairs to pick up a few things

less than five minutes later, I returned to find this 

we went to Costco the other morning

he fell asleep in the car, so I put him on the couch

he always wakes up within minutes of a car nap

this time it took about 120 minutes

Hunting Eggs and Busting Myths

Days after Easter was officially over, we celebrated with a final "spring egg hunt".  Overkill?  Maybe.  I'm a self-confessed holiday junkie, though, so I don't mind squeezing each bit of magic and excitement out of a holiday, stretching them into preparations and celebrations that last long enough to see the next one looming on the horizon.

Abbey happily toted their Easter baskets on her lap as we trekked over to a neighborhood park in the big double stroller, feeling a little sentimental and weepy about how much heavier they were to push this year, little people ready to find eggs and nosh on candy before lunch.

Dylan cracked open an egg almost immediately, spilling M & M's into his little basket, more colorful with their red and blue shells than the packets from my childhood.  He carefully chose a blue morsel, but kept it gripped in his hand while searching around for a glimpse of his sister. 

I can attest that the old slogan, "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" isn't technically true.  When the hand is the tightly-clenched, chubby fist of a toddler running and stumbling around a park, the candy does, indeed, melt in your hand, leaving trails of blue dye and warm chocolate clinging to faces and fingers and clothes.

Thankfully blue and brown blend right in with his usual streaks of dirt that we are inevitably cleaning after a park visit.

the egg containing the myth-busting m & m's 

his favorite egg, even though he needed both hands to hold it 

pink AND metallic, it was practically custom made for her

Bubbles Aren't Fun Dip

There's an overwhelming consensus that women forget about the physical pain of labor as a defense mechanism designed to make sure we have more babies. 

I seem to have blocked out the pesky phase in Abbey's life when she ate everything and anything she could get into her little hands.  I don't mean the phase where she happily ate a wide variety of foods, because I'm still waiting for that one.  I mean the phase where she liked to nosh on non-food items.

Dylan has gleefully galloped into that phase with open arms, an open mouth, and little fists clenched around anything I don't want near his mouth.

I vaguely remember having to watch Abbey in stores to make sure she wasn't picking up things from the shelves to eat.  But mostly, it's a hazy memory of a cute little girl investigating the world around her.

That memory is a lie.

Because this phase?  The eating everything in sight phase?  This phase is disgusting.

In Macy's, he bent down to find a half-eaten Oreo under a display.  I tackled him before he got it in his mouth. (Aunt Jessica witnessed that one, lucky her!)

At the park, he munches on sticks and wood chips and grass.

Outside, he delicately licks stones and dandelions and my keys.

In our driveway, he samples sidewalk chalk and bubbles.

He's learned the word "yuck", because I say it each time I remove an offending object from his hand or his mouth.

I think he has the meaning confused with "yum".

I hope this isn't a long phase.

Yuck.

hmm, looks interesting

this little stick is kind of like a spoon

tastes a little like my bath toys

because I like chewing on those, too

The Shop is Closed

A year.

Before he was born, I made a conscious decision to breastfeed Dylan for a full year if at all possible. 

My breastfeeding experience with Abbey went as well as could be expected, considering my pumping option at work was a dirty supply closet attached to a friend's classroom or under my desk, with the blinds closed, posterboards on the windows on my two hallway doors, chatting with a friend whose desk was housed in my classroom.

I ended up supplementing with formula for daytime feedings.

Since I wouldn't be working outside of the home when I had Dylan, exclusively breastfeeding until he was ready for cow's milk seemed like a reasonable goal, a good fit for our family.

There were times I questioned the decision.  He (mostly) rejected bottles and always rejected nursing covers or blankets or anything that might have added discretion to his feedings.  Since we were often out and about, I was a virtual National Geographic mother (sorry Metro Detroit.)

But in the chaos of having a two-year old and an itty bitty baby, nursing became the eye of the storm for Dylan and me.  It was the time when we were able to carve out some mother-child alone time, even in the middle of a playdate or a shopping trip.  Abbey would sometimes share the moment, listening to a book on the couch with us or just snuggling into my free side, her head on my shoulder.

As his one-year birthday drew near, and he discovered the wonder of solid foods, his feedings naturally decreased.  I groaned about his middle of the night feeding but privately cherished the moments we had alone in a silent house, his sleepy gulps of milk comforting him back to sleep.

It hurt to drop that feeding.

I held onto his final feeding, before bed, until he was fourteen months.  I used his follow-up appointment to his surgery as an end date, and shed tears at that final feeding.

He's our last baby, so that final feeding was truly the final feeding.

He is still a hugger and a kisser and a snuggler and a giggler, so there are plently of moments of closeness to savor and appreciate.  I try to remember that when I look back on those early feedings, when I was the only person who mattered for just a few minutes.

This milk buffet is closed, and some days I feel a little sad about that.

his daddy 

his favorite books 

his sippy of water

When Sampling Goes Too Far

Years ago, Ryan and I stopped going to Costco after an unfortunate incident involving the purchase of a fifty-gallon tub of mustard.  That could be an exaggeration, but somewhere, that mustard is still only half empty.


This year, we decided we could try a membership again, since we now have extra little people to throw food on the floor feed.


I am a little obsessed; squeezable applesauce, giant bags of sweet potato fries, a wide variety of cheese snacks (we're paying for our membership in cheese savings alone, for real), I could go on and on.


If you aren't a Costco member, you might not be aware that on the weekends they offer free meals.  Those meals masquerade as sample stations scattered throughout the stores, but I've come to learn that they are most definitely meals for many, many of the people that frequent Costco each Saturday and Sunday.


In one visit, I overheard someone complaining about being in line for over ten minutes.  That was for a sample of Costco's chicken salad.  Another woman was berating the poor sample server because the shopper had been back to the sample station three times and hadn't gotten a sample yet (cream puffs).


Finally, I had the audacity to need some flour.  A man was sitting on the flour, eating something out of a little white sample cup.  I politely (I thought) asked him man if I could grab some flour.  I smiled, expecting him to smile back.


"I'm SITTING here!" he retorted, huffing and puffing and shooting eye daggers with me as he stood up.  He continued to mumble under his breath, "People can SIT around here."


I'm still enamored with Costco.  Now, though, I try to schedule our rendezvous for weekdays, preferably early afternoon, when I don't have to play cart bumper cars around the ends of each aisle.


Then you have the gas lines...

Dylan eating his Costco apple

at home

Things I Shouldn't Be Doing

inside his head (maybe):

"I shouldn't be doing this

but you shouldn't be taking a picture of it either!"

Playing with the Big Kids

My baby thinks he is a big boy now that he is walking (still like Frankenstein, for the record, but a fast Frankenstein). 

No more breaking up his food into pieces, cheese snacks and granola bars and bananas all have to be consumed whole, just like Abbey. 

No more sitting happily at the table; he eats his food and immediately wants down so he can walk around the table and giggle at how fun it is to walk. 

Some days he won't even tolerate me feeding him, which is adding exponentially to my already staggering laundry load.

More and more he wants to play with Abbey and the other "big" kids at her playdates.  Even when he's not sure what they're doing, he wants to be in the middle of the action, figuring out the whole parallel play stage of interaction.  At a recent playdate with our BFFs Brendan and Lainey, Dylan jumped right into the playing action.

Thankfully he's good-natured, because Abbey's tolerance is hit-or-miss (and unfortunately, sometimes the hitting isn't so figurative nor is it only coming from her). 

Also thankfully, she gets a kick out of him in ways that even bewilder me at times, and I think he's pretty fabulous.  When I least expect it, she is patient and laughing with him and holding his hand to lead him into something new.

I know they're mine, and I shouldn't gush too much, but they are marvelous.

Brendan's cheese face

Colleen says it's his favorite, and it was in all three pictures I tried to take

Say Hi to My Toddler

I should be the mom who meticulously records each of Abbey and Dylan's milestones in a gorgeous baby book.

I should do this both for them and for all of my current and future friends, because I have a terrible memory. I don't want to be that annoying mother who swears her child was discussing the effect of expatriate authors on American literature at eighteen months. (Is it wrong that I am looking forward to having that discussion with my kids?)

However, it's been over three years since Abbey's birth, and her one-year scrapbook is still a scrapbox. Which means that there is a scrapbook, various paper crafting supplies, and lots of pictures thrown into a wicker box in her closet. I even started a more traditional baby book halfway through 2008 in hopes that I would be more consistent with that. It's in the scrapbox as well.

Dylan's first steps? I don't know exactly, though the date's on a post-it note somewhere. Despite those first steps, he's been sticking with his speed-of-light crawling for a while. Something about the Nashville air inspired him, though, because he's suddenly walking much more than crawling and building up to speeds I don't even want to think about.

Suddenly, he's upgraded from a crawler who sometimes walks to this little man who stalks around the house like Frankenstein, all flat feet and balancing arms. And I'm upgraded from a mommy of a baby and a preschooler to a mommy of a toddler and a preschooler.
 
I need to stop blinking, because I need to soak in every single moment of their beautiful little lives.

Wild Things

"Dylan's wild!" is one of Abbey's favorite comments, especially since we recently checked out Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendack) from our library. 

Sometimes she uses it as an explanation for his frustrated tantrums, but sometimes she uses it as her highest compliment, such as when they're playing together, and he's crawling after her at warp speed and laughing like crazy.  During those moments, between giggles, she might interject: "WE'RE wild!"

Demonstrating his true place amongst the Wild Things, Abbey gleefully pointed out that Dylan, "has a horn like Max!  Max has two, but Dylan has only one horn!"  I didn't have the heart to tell her that Max's "horns" are really just the ears on his wolf costume.  Or that Dylan's horn is just a symptom of a bad hair day.

I'm not going to contradict a Wild Thing.

she's drawing a picture of "Wild Dylan"

he's waiting for me to turn around so he can eat the dry-erase crayon

seriously, Mommy, I won't eat it, I promise

Tea Party Redux

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I'm not Irish, but Dylan and I will be decked out in green at the zoo today, while Abbey will be wearing some variation of pink or purple.  Such is life in the closet of a three-year-old in love with pink.

My days of celebrating with flat, green beer are over, but there are still many delicious beverages to be enjoyed on this day of the Irish.  One of those beverages is tea.  Invisible tea, to be exact.

Since our tea party playdate, Abbey has been into tea parties.

Since I stopped nursing, Dylan has been into napping (more on that in another post!)

Therefore, a few opportunities have arisen for Abbey and I to play Cootie (too many mini-pieces for Dylan's quick fingers).  And then have Cootie tea parties.  In case you aren't aware, all Cooties love to have tea parties with tea and pizza, even "Little Brother Cootie".

Unfortunately, Abbey's love of tea parties is overshadowed by her love of looking at pictures, specifically pictures of herself.  I tried to casually take some photos of our Cootie Tea Party (so I can blackmail her she can't deny these moments in twelve years), and she immediately went into picture mode, which involves making the goofiest faces and most contorted poses and then sweetly asking, "Can I see THAT one?"

Remember when you didn't get to see the picture until you paid to have it developed?  I am thrilled those days are over, because I would be paying for many, many shots of silliness and little hands grabbing for the camera.

Abbey is always, always the pink Cootie

I shudder to think of what will happen when she plays with another pink lover, like her BFF Brendan

she's dancing here

sister and little brother Cootie are having tea

mommy Cootie has fallen apart

daddy Cootie is going to get the pizza

(without his head)

Real Men Like Pink

what's cuter than a little guy wearing trucks surrounded by a sea of pink and flowers and butterflies?

nothing, right?

Wishful Thinking

We recently received an invitation to a tea party playdate, complete with the suggestion that the moms should dress up, too.  Never one to pass up an opportunity to wear a dress and cute shoes, I eagerly accepted and talked about it frequently with Abbey.

I shouldn't have been surprised that she chose a pink, sleeveless, tulle dress, right?  Or that she proceeded to paw around in my closet until she found a white and pink sleeveless dress for me to wear?  Trying to foster independent thinking, I went with it, after slapping on some tights (cute ones for her, not-really-matching black ones for me) and cardigans and saying a quick thanks that we didn't have far to walk from the parking lot to my friend's condo!

The playdate was absolute genius, by the way.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed the little tea set and then proceeded to move past the "tea party" part of the playdate to the "play" part.  As for the moms, I think we all enjoyed an opportunity to feel pretty and put-together. 

I can't speak for everyone, but although I am making an effort to wear cuter clothes and make-up most days, the lingering winter weather is really beginning to take a toll on any fashion baby steps I might be making.

Feeling ready to welcome spring, I was sure that Mother Nature would appreciate our efforts to retire our heavy sweaters and boots for the season.  I was wrong.  Snow blustered in again, and there's snow blanketing the ground and wind making Dylan gasp in surprise each time we step outside. 

I guess Mother Nature didn't get her tea party invitation.

at home & still wearing her dress 

not the happiest picture of my little guy

but he wore spring clothes to try to will winter away, too!

Mr. Fix-It

Gender stereotypes are annoying.  Yet I find myself mentally saying, "he's such a boy!" almost daily with Dylan.  He never stops moving, he's never met an electronic device that he doesn't want to investigate, and he's recently discovered the joys of tools.

Abbey never had toy tools, so Dylan improvises as he goes along, which often means he slyly pilfers a screwdriver that you put down for a moment while working on a project.  While putting together my Bissell Sweep & Steam (love, love, love by the way), he tried to help when I had to take a minute to scratch my head read the directions.  He still smears food all over his face when he attempts to use utensils, but he actually had the screwdriver in the little screw hole and was turning it around and around.  Craziness.

My idea about the "best" part of being a parent changes all. the. time. but I have to say that I adore observing them develop into their own little selves.  My goal is to let them find their own ways in this big world, trying on different interests and passions as they discover new things, with me playing the role of cheerleader, my pom poms filled with strands of love, support, a little bit of wisdom, and hope for their futures.

another project?

helping Daddy fix the sound on the DVD player