Recharged

Right after I posted my last blog, I felt whiney and decided to take charge. I strapped on my running shoes, changed Kane out of his pajamas and headed to the gym.

If you "Like" me on facebook, you know that Kane has separation anxiety issues. He's always been a little shy, takes a long time to warm up to new people, and is much more comfortable in his momma's arms than anywhere else. To help with his separation anxiety, we joined a gym with a childcare center. He needed to be cared for by people other than his parents or grandparents. And realize that when I leave, I come back. And it's not the end of the world. And how to play with other kiddos.

It's been a little over a month, and it's been rough. He bawls when I drop him off. He has cried hysterically for 30 minutes straight. I promised the workers I wouldn't be gone for more than 30 minutes at a time because they have other kids to take care of and a screaming child is no fun. Not for a momma and not for someone with 4 other kids to care for, even if they are being paid.

Of course they are super nice and say things like "Oh, he's not the first one to cry" and "It's ok, we know how to handle it". But they also say things like "I'm not going to lie to you - he was pretty upset the whole time". Bless them.

So on Thursday, I wasn't surprised when he cried when I dropped him off. I went to the cardio room and 5 minutes later Miss Nancy came to tell me that he settled down very fast and was fine. She just wanted to let me so that I would have a good workout and not be worried. Like I said, bless them. So I did my 25 minutes on the elliptical and went to pick him up and saw this:

[note - this is a cell phone picture]

Holy Moly. That's my child, not crying, and actually playing! I was ecstatic. I snapped this picture and sent it to Matthew, accompanied with twelve exclamation points. I wanted him to feel my elation and an excessive number of these - !!!!!!!!!- is the only way to get it done. True story.

Miss Nancy even said "It's so cool - I've never seen him play with anything, ever." Talk about being recharged. And being so proud. What a great start to the weekend, even if it was only Thursday.

Our Friday started with a breakfast playdate and then a trip to the Barnes & Noble at the mall where we found a train table.

And at the mall, we saw a little girl with a yellow balloon. Kane loves balloons. And he loves anything yellow. He can say "weh-whoa", but calls balloons "balls". I always correct him by saying "ball-oooooooon", as if there are twelve o's that make the word four times longer than it really is. So he's probably never going to know how to correctly pronounce balloon.

Anyway, he saw her balloon, tried to take her balloon, she wasn't having it, so we asked her mom where she got that balloon and off we went to the Nordstoms kids shoes section. The nice guys hooked us up with a yellow balloon and I had one happy baby.

And I think shot should be an advertisement for Nordstroms. Call me if you want to talk business.

And since it was Friday afternoon and we were energized, we put on some music and cleaned the house.

Guess what my guy picked...Bob Marley. Very few people know that I love Bob Marley. When Kane and I have a dance party, 90% of the time it's either Bob Marley or the Beach Boys. [As I was writing this post, I got to see the Beach Boys on the Grammys. Love it.] When we hear Bob's beats, we sway, we bounce, we dance and we sing. And we clean.

And sometime during our dance party, Matthew came home and we celebrated the Official Start to the Weekend. And I got to enjoy some loving from my little cuddler.

He loves it when I lift him so high he can touch the ceiling. And when I blow raspberries on his belly. Since he's 20+ pounds, I get to skip the bicep curls at the gym when we play that game.

[In case you didn't already know, I have gray hairs. You can see them here:]

See - he's pointing to the ceiling and saying "up!". And check out the reflection in the mirror - that's Matthew being our camera guy.

And Saturday morning did not disappoint. These guys made me French freedom toast.

And on Sunday morning, Kane had a meeting with his Chief Advisors and they handled some business.

It was a great, slow weekend. I'm recharged. And ready to take on this week. And so is the spotted puppy.

Wellies Bubbles & Rain

My boy woke up hungry today. It seems as though his appetite is back. For now. But I know it could disappear just as quickly, so I'm going to ride this wave for as long as I can. Carpe Diem. Shovel as much food into that little mouth as I can. Or just let him do the shoveling.

We had a grand breakfast of eggs, waffles and berries. Delicious. And then he let me know he was "all done".

And with the return of the appetite, comes better nights. More sleep. Less waking to nurse. Happy momma. But we've also had some fun packed days, so maybe he's just worn out. Either way, I will take it.

Last weekend, Annie bought Kane some wellies. Galoshes. Rain boots. We call them wellies around here, but you know what I'm talking about. Earlier this week, Kane was modeling his new boots. Now that he has his modeling credentials, his ego is humongous. He struts around without pants on, striking poses, thinking he is the center of my world. Damn, he knows too much already.

Sing with me...

I'm a model you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah on the catwalk, on the catwalk yeah
I shake my little tush on the catwalk

And then we had a special middle-of-the-week treat when Annie was in town for a work meeting and stopped by. Now, when Annie comes, she always has a bag of presents. Like, a Mary Poppins bag. A magical bag, filled with treats and gifts and fun. And Kane knows this.

This week was BUBBLES. Now, Kane has seen bubbles before. He likes bubbles. But these were special bubbles. Not only did they come from an ice cream cone, they were flavored. I guess scented is more accurate...I'm sure they weren't meant to be eaten because even special scented bubbles are still just soap.

He kept saying "bubbles, bubbles". The other word he repeatedly says is "dog". Well, that and "momma, momma, momma, MOMMA". Point is, he doesn't usually keep repeating the same word. But "bubbles" got to cut the line, head straight to the VIP room, and enjoy the bottle service. Bubbles must be very special.

And after that nice, warm day, came the rain. We needed it and are happy to have it. But it came fast and hard and flooded the yard.

But the earth soaked up the water and we headed out front to find the perfect puddle to test out the wellies.

Babies are funny. They find one spot they like and stick with it. There were about 20 other puddles within a few feet of this one. Some were bigger, some were deeper. But Kane liked this puddle and nothing I said would make him leave his beloved area where the sidewalk dips and leans and traps rain along with grass and dirt. Maybe he knows a good thing when he sees it. Maybe the grass isn't always greener in a new puddle. Guess he's not a maximizer like his momma.

And after playing in puddles, what else can you do on a rainy day? Go to the museum, that's what. If you live in Dallas and haven't visited The Children's Museum at the Museum of Nature and Science, you're missing out. We love it so much, we are members. They have great stuff for kids from crawling to walking to climbing to jumping age.

We started our trip in the fossil park, which was a new adventure for us. It's filled with very small rocks and I always thought he would try to eat them and I would have to spend the whole time saying "Yuck. Don't eat that" and he would keep doing it and I would be scared he would choke so I would have to drag him out of there crying. Geez, I sound like a crazy person just typing that. Well, I should have given him some more credit because he didn't put a single pebble in his mouth.

He loved digging around for those fossils. I wonder how many times I've skipped letting him experience something fun because I had this completely made up scenario in my head and expected the worse. I don't want to be that mom. And funny enough, I get to choose what kind of mom to be. It's another life lesson a baby will teach you. Carpe Diem, right?

And after my 16 month old showed me how to be a parent, we went to explore the rest of the museum. We found animals.

We found musical instruments. My little artist can use both mallots at the same time. No need to hide your amazement. I already know he's the most talented toddler around. I can be proud of anything, remember?

We found a theatre area with Hollywood lights and a stage.

We found a thermo-heat-sensor-tv-area thing. Very technical and very fancy. I love how you can see my camera.

And, we found a Lego urinal. Seriously, where else in Dallas can you find a Lego urinal? The membership is worth that alone.

Peace & Quiet & Sunrises

When my husband was little, his parents thought he might be deaf. He was a quiet little boy who would sit in a corner and play with his blocks. Alone, silently. They would sneak up behind him and clap to see if he could hear the noise and turn around. They found out he wasn’t deaf, just a quiet guy. And he still is.

His little brother, on the other hand, was not quiet. He was adventurous and one time they found him on top of the refrigerator. He had somehow climbed up there, looking for something to do. And so far, Kane has been a lot like his Uncle Erik. Adventurous, talkative, wants to be around other people, a CLIMBER.

But as he gets older, I see his personality rounding out a bit more. I find him playing alone more than I used to. I've even had to go searching for him because he wasn't making any noise. I think his imagination is starting to be a friend to him.

Remember these record players? Kane got one for Christmas from his Nonni & PopPop (Matthew's parents). It's basically the same one you had as a kid, except it takes batteries now even though you still have to wind it up. Don't ask, I don't know why.

This play mat, a Road Roll Up, is courtesy of Annie. The cars live in the pockets at the end (on the left) and it rolls up like a mat so you can take it anywhere. Very neat, and Kane loves it.

I like seeing the different sides of him develop and bubble to the surface. He loves music like his dad and loves to read like me and loves cars like his Uncle Nathan and loves to fix things like his Papa and so on. But he's his own person and gets to choose how much of each to keep in the mix.  He's deciding which bubbles will continue to surface and which will fade away.

I get to sit back and watch the mixture reveal itself. And today, I got to see an extra hour of the bubbling personality traits because he got up extra early. Like 'wanted to watch the sunrise' early.

It was a good show and he was thrilled to be outside that early in the morning, so I was ok with it. Let's just not make it a habit, ok?

Later, in an attempt to quench his thirst for adventure and things to climb, we went to the park.

Ok, I have a confession. After the eighth time of putting his shoe back on his foot, I was so over the whole "wearing shoes in public" thing and let him play in his socks. He has fat little feet and needs a wide shoe and I just haven't taken him to the store to get a pair. Bad mom, I know. But he didn't want to wear shoes anyway.

Side note - he looks so much like my brother in this picture, it's a little freaky.

And he hit a milestone today. Kane climbed to the twisty slide, sat down, and slid to the bottom, all-by-himself! He's been down the straight slides before, but this was his first time to brave the turns of the biggest slide, the one with twists, the one where you can't see where you are going. I told y'all he was adventurous. And once he reached the bottom, he went right back to the stairs, climbed up and went down the slide again. Three times! I was so proud of him and as we know, a mom has the right to be proud of anything.

After our climbing and sliding, we saw this old man sitting on a park bench. Uncanny how much he looks like my toddler, but I swear it's an old man.

And then I caught that little old man going thru my bag and stealing my wallet.

But he gave me the $20 bill he found, so I decided not to press charges. Now I just need to teach him to take money out of dad's wallet and give it to me.