May 2006

05/31/06

Tommy was so very good while Mel and Sylvia were here, but didn't sleep well for a few nights.  He's been getting more and more exhausted the last few days.  Last night, once all was back to normal and the company was gone, he finally lost it.  He was fighting all our normal evening routines and being a bit of a pill.  He wasn't melting down, just being contrary.  He refused to have his face washed in the bath so David eventually just gave up and cut the bath short.  When I went in for the drying off part, David and I were talking about what might be going on in his little head.  He was listening to us talk about how he's been getting more and more resistant to washing his face.  When we stopped talking and paid attention to him again he was doing this...

He was washing his face like a cat.  Meow!  Toddler logic at its best.

We were still struggling with him after his bath, and eventually just gave up on all our little soothing bedtime rituals.  We said "That's it.  Lie down and go to sleep.  Good night."  Surprisingly, he did exactly that.  We kissed him and turned out the light and left the room and didn't hear a peep from him until morning.  He was just too tired to cooperate last night.  Poor little guy.  All he needed was for us to leave him alone so he could go to sleep. 

05/30/06

Tommy's Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Mel have only been gone about 20 minutes and he's already telling his various puppets and dinosaurs "I miss Dam-ma.  I miss Dam-pa.  They gone now."  I never realized before this visit that he says D instead of G for those words.  I guess my brain just translates automatically.  We had a nice, relaxing weekend with them.  Tommy and Sylvia were practically inseparable all weekend.  "Come on Dam-ma!"  We went to the botanical gardens Sunday morning, and it was surprisingly empty of people.  Tommy scraped his knees just outside the butterfly pavilion.  He's pretty unhappy about the scabs.  I don't think they hurt that much now, but he kept wanting us to look at them.  "Look Dam-ma!"  On Monday we went to a couple of nurseries to buy plants.  Mel has a green arm (as opposed to the usual measly little green thumb) and nicely offered to redo my empty herb pots and a section of our backyard flower bed.  After lunch, he did the gardening while Tommy and Sylvia played and David and I went out to see X-Men 3 by ourselves.  I think everyone really enjoyed the afternoon.  Tommy said a couple of things that were memorable during the visit.  At one point, Sylvia asked him if he wanted to do something (I forget what) and Tommy responded, "Rather not!"  This morning, Tommy reminded Mel that, "I not Terry.  I Tommy."  Both Mel and Sylvia slip and call Tommy by his Uncle Terry's name, especially since Tommy looks so much like Terry did when he was two.  I had a sore throat and cough all weekend so I didn't take many pictures.  Here are the ones we managed to get.

Scabby knees!

05/28/06

(I started writing this yesterday morning before Mel & Sylvia arrived.  I'm just now finishing it up, so I'll post this for Sun/Mon and then write about their visit on Tuesday.)

Two Quirks...

Tommy discovered milk mustaches this week.  He knows about them from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but hadn't ever seen a real one.  Yesterday morning, I went to clean his face and said something about cleaning off his milk mustache.  He immediately covered his mouth with his hand, said "no, no, no, no, no" in a fast, sing-song-y way and ran to the mirror.  He wouldn't let me clean his face all day and checked to make sure it was still there at least once an hour.  If it wasn't there, he drank more milk and checked again.

I mopped the tile in the hall and kitchen Friday.  Tommy is very careful to stay on the carpet until everything is dry.  "Slippery!"  After everything was dry he carefully walked over the entire area looking for little bits of debris that I missed.  Whenever he found something he'd say.  "Mommy!  I found somefhing.  It monster!  I scared.  Oh.  No.  It not monster.  Don't worry.  It just a little trash.  I put it in kitchen trash.  There.  All clean now." 

He still loves red peppers.

We finally added a fish to the salt-water tank.  Welcome to your new home little clown fish.  You have lots of snails and hermit crabs to keep you company.  It seems to have already bonded with the tall, frilly soft coral. 

05/26/06

So yesterday Tommy managed to injure himself four times.  He bashed the side of his head on the corner of the kitchen counter.  He managed to do a face plant on the kitchen tile when I moved just as he lunged forward on hands and knees trying to head butt my legs.  (Why was he doing that?  I don't know.)  That resulted in a bruised cheek and small cut on his lip.  He decided he didn't want me to change his diaper and went running down the hall with his overalls down around his ankles.  He tripped of course, and one of the buckles gashed his leg.  Then he purposefully dove off our bed when Karen was babysitting in the afternoon.  He now has a huge goose egg on his forehead from landing on the step stool he uses to climb onto our bed.  I think he's trying to make himself as bruised and scabbed and little-boyish as possible before his Grandpa Mel and Grandma Sylvia arrive tomorrow.  They haven't seen him since Thanksgiving, so he wants to prove how much he's grown. 

05/25/06

Tommy told me all about shapes while I was getting dressed this morning...

"Square Mommy.  Square like box.  Jack in box!  Triangle like this (forms triangle with his fingers).  Cheese like triangle -- holes in it.  Nectangle.  Book like nectangle.  Oooo!  Lots of them nectangles.  Here's one!  Here's one! (pointing to various rectangles in the room)  Oval!  Me like oval.  Oval like turtle.  Oval like egg.  Oh Mommy!  Oval like your body!  Look!" 

Thanks bud.  

05/24/06

Tommy asked me to make a doghouse for his little doggie yesterday.  It has a big front door, a small back door, a big window on the side, a small window in front, grass, a snake named No-Feet, flowers and a mole (actually a warthog sticker).  The bird lives on top of the house and the doggie lives inside because "it cold outside doggie!  Brr!"

05/23/06

I'm just starting to think about the things I can do now that Tommy's weaned himself.  Yes, I know that most American mothers, even the ones who breastfeed, do these things before their babies are a year old.  It just took me a lot longer to get there because of both my personality and Tommy's personality.  All of a sudden, I've realized I can now...

• Wear dresses.  Cool, casual dresses used to be my most common clothing for the hot summer months.  It's been three summers since I wore them.  The ones in my closet are probably woefully out of style, but I don't care.  On a related note, I can also wear normal bras again.  Yippee!
• Go out in the evening.  I can now be away from home later than 7 either by myself or with David if we have a babysitter.  I always needed to be home at Tommy's bedtime, and then was too tired to go out after he feel asleep.  David's been out in the evenings lots of times, but I haven't. 
• Plan activities for the afternoon.  This is partially because Tommy's given up his nap, but it's also related to the weaning.  Before, it wasn't realistic or convenient to be away from home between 11:30 and 3:00.  Tommy still REALLY needed a nap every day and he'd only sleep more than 10 minutes if he was in his crib/bed after nursing at exactly the right time of day.  He'd occasionally take naps in the car, but they were always shorter than they needed to be unless I was willing to drive around aimlessly for two hours.  Now we just skip the whole rigmarole.
• Let David put Tommy to bed by himself.  Yeah, we should have done this a long time ago, but didn't or couldn't or wouldn't.  Someday soon I'll go out to a movie by myself in the evening and give David a chance to try.  He's always been so keen to do all the same parenting stuff I do, but for the longest time I was trapped in a place where I believed there were certain things that only I could do.  The final (possibly arbitrary) impediment is gone, so it's time to try.
• Caffeine!  Caffeine!  Caffeine!
• Margaritas!  Margaritas!  Margaritas!
• Take an overnight trip.  About a year ago, a couple of my girlfriends planned a weekend away.  I really wanted to go, but just couldn't bring myself to wean Tommy in time for it.  I made the right choice for us, since forcing him to wean at around a year would have been miserable.  We both really needed that extra year.  Tommy was dealing with teething pain, and we both had to deal with the difficult stage he went through from 15-18 months.  I was really disappointed about that trip though.  So if any of my friends out there are planning a weekend getaway, give me a call.  I'm ready!  David's been talking about sending me to a fancy hotel or spa for an overnight by myself sometime.  Mmm...sleeping in and long bubble baths and uninterrupted reading and leisurely meals.  That would be heavenly.  The spas here in New Mexico are wonderful, but very expensive, so it might have to be a big Christmas present from multiple people.  (hint, hint)
• Take an overnight trip with David.  This one would be more difficult since Tommy's so rarely been left with a baby sitter.  It would be really nice to try sometime though.    

05/22/06

We're home from our overnight trip to Taos.  It was nice to go out and do something on a whim, and Tommy traveled just as well this time as last time.   We did learn some important lessons though.

1.  Portable DVD players are wonderful on car trips. 

2.  Find out in advance what "off-season" really means.  The suite in the ski lodge was gorgeous, but there's a reason for the deep discount.  Absolutely nothing was open up there - no restaurants, no shops, no other hotels.  The one person working at the lodge left at 6 pm and we didn't see her or anyone else in the hotel for the remainder of the trip.

3.  Staying someplace gorgeous but 25 minutes away from food isn't a great idea with a two year old.  Luckily, we brought along lots of fruit and other snacks.  It was just hard to convince Tommy to get back in the car to go get dinner after the longer than expected drive up there.

4.  Tommy likes shopping more than David and I do.  We spent about an hour at the Taos Plaza.  That's about our limit for poking around little shops.  Tommy wanted to go into every single shop, much to our amusement.  He'd run into a t-shirt shop or a dress shop, look around, and then run out.  I think he didn't believe that we'd show him where the kitschy tourist shops were.  He was afraid he'd miss one.

5.  When Tommy tells you he doesn't want to stop shopping for lunch, listen to him.  He's just going to be cranky and probably needed some quiet time standing by a fountain someplace so he could poop.  It's silly to rush lunch because we think it's time to eat, cut it short when Tommy needs to go to the car for a diaper change, and then watch him inhale everything in the to-go boxes five minutes later.

6.  A rest stop can be the highlight of a trip for a two-year-old...as long as there are swarms of caterpillars.

This is the area around the ski lodge.  David explained to Tommy all about beavers, and tried to get Tommy to look for trees obviously chopped down by them.  Tommy wasn't very interested.  We have to work on educating our little suburban boy to the joys of nature.  He was very excited about the the paths.   "Path-es!  Two of them!  Go this way? Or this way?"  He wasn't so interested in the water or the flowers or the trees.

  Shopping and lunch in Taos.

Rest stop caterpillars!  Oh, and there was a gorge there too.  Tommy didn't care about that.

05/19/06

Tommy:  The sun's up!  It's morning time!

Me:  I'm so proud of you for sleeping until the sun's up.  Isn't it nicer than getting up when it's still dark outside?

Tommy:  Yes!  (pause, face falls)  I sorry.  I try.

Me:  Oh Tommy!  I'm saying you did a good thing.  Good job sleeping.  I'm proud of you.

Tommy:  Thank you Mommy!

******

Tommy and his small Totoro watch the movie My Neighbor Totoro.  We have the original 1988 version on DVD, dubbed into English, and not the 2005 Disney  version.  Tommy loves his small Totoro.  He sleeps with it and always holds it just like this anytime he watches the movie.  Thanks to my parents for finding it for him.  We're well on the way toward achieving geekdom!

******

Tommy and I were exploring the PBS Kids Sprout website yesterday.  We discovered a birthday cake game.  It didn't have any instructions or anything.  A cake-making machine and a variety of ingredients and items just appeared on the screen.  The audio part simply said, "Let's make a birthday cake!"  Tommy looked at the screen for a while.  Without prompting from me he said "Need eggs, sugar, milk.  Other things not in birthday cake!"  I clicked on those three things, and out popped a birthday cake.  He got it right on the first try.  He's so smart.  After playing the game 17 more times - doing exactly the same thing each time and getting quite frustrated when I wanted to see what would happen if we put shoes or an ice cream cone into the machine - he asked me if we could make a real birthday cake.  I'm all about expanding learning activities and following up on anything he's curious about, so I said yes.  I didn't have a cake mix on hand, but I did find a really old brownie mix in the pantry, so we made those.  We're still doing Weight Watchers, so making brownies probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but how could I say no to my smart boy?  (By the way, in the 12 weeks we've been doing Weight Watchers, I've lost 20 lbs and David's lost 30 lbs.)  (Oh, and isn't David doing better about taking pictures of me with Tommy?) 

******

We're going on a spur-of-the-moment overnight trip to Taos this weekend.  Now that Tommy's morphed into a fun traveler, we'll probably start doing this sort of thing a bit more often.  We found a last-minute, summer-time rate for one of the ski lodges up there.  It's only 2.5 hours by car, so it should be an inexpensive, fun weekend.  See you Monday!

05/18/06

Potty Training Update:  We're on hiatus.  Tommy used to love being naked.  Now he doesn't.  We tried not to push him at all, but somehow he developed a bit of performance anxiety.  All we did was let him run around the house naked anytime he asked.  While naked, we would remind him that it would be better to pee in the toilet instead of on the carpet.  We'd leave him alone mostly, but ask him if he needed to go once an hour or so.  Eventually, he'd tell us he had to pee, and ask to sit on the toilet.  Nothing would happen.  He'd get frustrated.  He'd finally give up and then accidentally pee on the carpet within five minutes.  That really upset him, even thought we didn't make a big deal about it.  After a few day of this pattern he started asking for a diaper after failing to pee in the toilet.  He'd pee in his diaper right after I put it on him.  Now he really doesn't want to be naked or without a diaper at all.  We're going to give him a nice long break so that hopefully he'll forget about his worries.  I'm thinking we'll try again in July or August.  He might agree to be naked outside, so we could set up a potty out there.  If he absolutely refuses to be naked we can buy him some fun underwear and try that route.  He does have some Thomas the Tank Engine underwear.  When he wears them he'll be fine until he has an accident and then ask for a diaper instead of a dry pair of underwear.  Our best bet might be to go cold-turkey, no more diapers except at night, but I really don't want to frustrate him.  I'm not in a hurry to do it so I really don't mind waiting until he's ready.  I just don't want to wait so long that he psyches himself out and gets stubborn about it. 

05/17/06

More Tommy Tidbits...  I know I just did this a few days ago, but I don't have the energy today for a real post.

• As we pulled up to the garage yesterday, I said "home again, home again."  Tommy replied, "Jiggity-Jig."
• Tommy was poking around and taking forever to finish eating dinner last night.  I was resting my head on my arm and drumming my fingers on the underside of the table.  (I set such a good example, don't I?)  Tommy cupped his hand to his ear and said "Shh.  Listen.  What that sound Mommy?  Oh, it your tummy growling."
• Tommy seems to have weaned himself this week.  This isn't really a tidbit, and probably deserves a post of it's own, but I'll leave it at this to protect the squeamish.  I was always slightly suspicious of the idea that a child like Tommy would just wean himself if given the time and freedom to do so.  I was too much of a coward to do anything proactive about it though.  What a pleasant surprise for me!  He's 2 years, 4 months old.  Depending on your perspective you're either thinking "it's about time!" or "he chose an easy, early age to self-wean!" 
• He's also given up his daytime nap, except for occasional short car naps.  I'm surprisingly calm about the whole thing.  It helps that he's moving towards sleeping 11-12 hours at night to make up for the missed naps.  That's such a long night compared with the 9.5 hours he's slept at night for most of his life.
• Tommy's gotten really good at understanding choices when we're out shopping.  I usually let him choose one small toy whenever we go to Target, for example.  He only gets one, and has to put things back on the shelf when he finds something he wants more.  He usually "chooses" five or six things before making a final decision.  I probably shouldn't let him get something EVERY time we go there, but we don't go that often and it's an easy way to keep him entertained.  Unfortunately, he's not so good about remembering the decision process later in the day.  Just five minutes ago he burst into tears over one of the toys he put back on the shelf this morning.  I reminded him that he didn't choose that toy so it's still on the shelf at Target.  I showed him the toy he chose instead.  He wasn't calming down, so I used the "look! something shiny!" method of distraction.  I hope he doesn't cry over it many more times today.   

Tommy plays with his hair when he's sleepy.  He's done it almost all of his life, and those of you who have seen him in person will recognize this pose. 

05/16/06

Tommy asked to go to the zoo again every five minutes between 6:30 and 8:00 this morning.  As you know from yesterday's post, we just went on Friday, but I agreed to take him again today.  Eh, we didn't have anything better to do.  We have a yearly membership so it's free entertainment, and I knew it wouldn't be too busy on a Tuesday morning.  Besides, this is volleyball night for David.  The long day without additional parenting moves along faster when we go out and do something in the morning. 

Behold, zoo trip 2.0, much improved and twice the fun.  It turned out to be a good day for a zoo visit.  It was nice and cool (upper 60s) and not at all crowded - those are my requirements for an enjoyable zoo trip.  We took a different route through the zoo, so at least half the animals we saw seemed new to Tommy.  He used to scream bloody murder if we went anywhere near the tropical America building.  I thought I'd try it today for the first time in at least a year, and Tommy didn't mind one bit.  He actually really enjoyed all the different monkeys and birds.  He kept looking at me like, "Hey!  How come I've never seen this part of the zoo?  You've been holding out on me woman!"  He was super excited about the capybara, reptile house and Macaws too (he can point out azure, scarlet and military).  Since they're on the path near the tropical America building it's probably been 6 months since we saw those animals.  His favorite part of the zoo today was the young alligator display.  Every other time we've gone in there they've been submerged in a foot of water, but I guess they drain it for a short time every day so they can sun under some heat lamps.  He was so excited to finally see them all out of the water.  He also got to pet a llama.  Tommy is quick to tell you that llamas say "pom-pom."  You didn't know that?  Heh.  You don't watch enough Go Diego Go.

He was up early this morning, so he got tired after about 40 minutes at the zoo.  He asked to ride in the stroller after that, and we left the zoo by 10:30.  Keeping it short is good for me because then I have much more stamina for the rest of the day, especially if he doesn't nap.  He was asleep 5 minutes after we started driving home, but instead of being frustrated by this I decided to just roll with it.  I got a caramel-light frappuchino (my new addiction) at a Starbucks drive-thru and drove around for a while so that he could get a good 40 minute nap.  We picked up lunch when he woke up and went home to eat.  After lunch, we played for a while and now Tommy's relaxing in front of the TV.  Our friend Karen has started working mornings instead of afternoons, and Tommy's really been missing our twice-weekly trips to the park with her.  She's coming over to play with him in a few minutes.  I'm guessing the rest of the afternoon will be pretty relaxing.  Tommy will go to bed easily tonight because of the short car nap. 

05/15/06

Here are some pictures I took last Friday.  Tommy and I went to the zoo.  We go often, so I don't usually take pictures.  It was actually a bad day to go.  A Friday at the end of the school year means lots of school groups.  We usually go in the middle of the week, first thing in the morning, when there's nobody there but a handful of stay-at-home-moms and the zoo keepers.  The ducks weren't even hungry, there were so many kids there throwing food at them.  We left when Tommy got hungry.  I'd packed a lunch and left it in the car, thinking we could pop out to get it when he got hungry.  It was way too crowded to go back inside though, so I decided we could eat in the car since the boy had been running around for two hours and was starving.  Unfortunately the parking lot was really full and people kept waiting impatiently for me to back out.  Instead of ignoring them and feeding the boy, I did that annoying worry-about-other-people thing I do.  I backed out and let someone have my space.  Then I couldn't find any place else to park and eat.  Tommy was sobbing he was so hungry.  After about five minutes of driving around, I found a church parking lot.  I shoveled cold pasta and meatballs into Tommy as fast as I could.  Then we went home.  By that time he was so over-tired and hot that a nap was impossible.  (He only naps when he's relaxed and just starting to get tired.  Wait too long and it's impossible.)  He did have a good time, and I did get some good pictures, but it wasn't the most enjoyable zoo trip.

05/14/06

Happy Mother's Day!

We all went out for breakfast this morning to Flying Star (a local place).  I go there for breakfast by myself once or twice a month.  This time, in honor of Mother's Day, I brought the family with me.  David entertained Tommy and coordinated Tommy's eating and playing relay while I ate at a leisurely pace and read.  It was only 9 am when we left the restaurant, so we took Tommy to a nearby, new-to-him park.  We stayed for over an hour, wearing Tommy out by playing.  Then we went home and Tommy relaxed with some cartoons while David and I called our mothers.  Tommy went to sleep easily for his nap, and two minutes after his head hit the pillow I went out for the afternoon. 

I went to see a movie (Mission Impossible III), and then I went to the mall.  I wore myself out walking around the mall, so I eventually ended up at Barnes & Noble where I had a Caramel Frappuchino and read a magazine.  I bought a new CD and headed home.  I got home at about 5:35, but Tommy and David weren't home so I had an extra half hour to myself ALONE IN THE HOUSE.  That never happens.  I spent part of the time talking to David's brother Terry who sweetly called to wish me a happy Mother's Day.  The rest of the time I sat on the couch, reading a great graphic novel just sent to me by an Internet friend (Hi Rachel!), and listening to my new CD. 

While I was away this afternoon, David and Tommy went out to buy me some presents.  When they got home from dinner (they went to McDonald's), they gave me my gifts.  David says Tommy took the present buying very seriously, and personally chose each item.  I got flowers, fruit jellies, yogurt covered blueberries, a bag of Cheetos and some chocolate cookies that have knights on them.  I can just imagine Tommy wandering around Trader Joe's choosing presents off the displays.  He's been saying for days that he wanted to buy me food for Mother's Day.  I don't even want to know how many Weight Watcher points Cheetos have.  What a good day! 

05/12/06

Tommy says "Happy Birthday Aunt Erin!  I miss you!"  (He really did say this.)

Tommy Tidbits...

• He's started calling David "Dad" instead of "Daddy."  It's pretty cute.  He kind of drawls it, so it comes out like "What doing Daaah-ud?"
• When Tommy plays with one animal of a type, an alligator for example, it's always a baby.  When he finds two of them, they are always the baby and the mommy.  When he has three, then they are the baby, mommy and daddy.  When there are four, they are the baby, mommy, daddy and "gramthather."  Pretty interesting hierarchy, don't you think?  We don't have five of any animal, but I'm pretty sure number five would be a grandma.
• Tommy was playing with his baby, mommy and daddy dragons this morning.  He kept having one of the big ones fly away, leaving the other two at the castle.  I asked him what he was doing and he told me all about it.  The daddy dragon goes to work and the baby and mommy dragons stay home at the castle.  "Bye Daddy dragon.  See you later.  I love you."  Then the daddy dragon comes home.  "All family together now.  Happy now."  Sometimes the mommy dragon goes "out" or "to the doctor."  Then the baby and daddy dragon stay home.  "Don't go mommy dragon!  Baby dragon miss you!  Oh.  She gone.  Baby and daddy play now."
• He's latched onto the idea that he's growing.  He keeps stretching up on his tiptoes and saying "I grow bigger and bigger and bigger.  Up and up and up.  I tall like Daddy soon!"  I hope he's not too disappointed when it doesn't happen right away.  He'll probably be as tall as me by the time he's eight, so he doesn't have long to wait.  Only 24 inches to go!
• Tommy and I were alone at the park yesterday.  Karen had to work and none of the other mothers or kids happened to be there.  We didn't stay for long because Tommy kept obsessing about us being there alone.  "Where IS evybody?"  At one point he talked into the speaker-tube phone thingies.  (I have no idea what they're called.)  I went over to the other end, out of his line of sight, and talked back to him.  He was convinced that the voice on the other end was Karen.  He'd jabber away to her and then run looking for her.  Then he'd be terribly disappointed that it was just me, even though I'd told him it was me over and over.  Then he'd run back and talk to "Karen" some more.  Poor little guy.  He eventually climbed into the stroller and asked to go home.   

Behold Tommy's post-park sweaty hat hair and rosy cheeks.  Tommy saw his reflection in the oven door and asked me to take his picture.  He's not sunburned, just hot. 

05/11/06

We had such a busy, good day yesterday!  Here's what happened.

5:45 David gets up.  I go back to sleep.

6:15  David's done showering so I get up to eat breakfast with him.  Surprisingly, Tommy's still asleep.

6:30  David leaves for work.  I clean up the kitchen from last night.  I then clean up the layer of desert dust deposited on all our furniture thanks to the freak wind storm that blew in the night before.  The cold wind felt great so we left the windows open.  Actually, I just cleaned up the noticeable areas. 

7:15  Tommy wakes up really well rested and ready to play.  We play with his Spiderman, his baby skunk puppet and his dragon castle.

7:45 Tommy sits down for breakfast - Eggo waffles, Laughing Cow cheese, milk and strawberries

8:10  I convince Tommy to watch a little TV while I take a shower.

8:30  I hurry Tommy into clothes and we go to Whole Foods to buy flowers and some New Mexican foodie gifts.

9:00 We arrive at the Sinars house for our weekly play date.  Tommy says "Happy Birthday Cindy" and hands over the flowers.  He and Claudia play.   Cindy and I talk.  Baby Duncan sits around looking especially cute.  Tommy takes a 10 minute break from Claudia to play with Duncan at one point.  Too bad I didn't have my camera.

11:00 We go home.  Tommy eats some chicken and plays in the living room while I continue getting the house ready for company.  I mop the kitchen floor, make the beds, spot-shine the bathroom and pick up clutter.  Tommy helps me wrap a present and put the New Mexican foodie gifts in a gift bag. 

11:45 Tommy decides he wants more for lunch so we sit down at the table where he eats... more chicken.  I eat my lunch and try to get him to eat something from another food group.

12:00 Tommy's getting sleepy, but we're postponing his nap today since we have a long drive ahead of us.  Luckily he slept really late this morning.  He zones out in front of the TV.  I answer some e-mails, then finish the book I've been reading.

12:45 Tommy sees some cookies on TV and asks to bake some.  We still have over an hour to fill so I agree.  Tommy eats two cookies when they're done.  Yay!  Chicken plus cookies equals a varied diet!

2:00  We get in the car to drive up to Santa Fe to pick up my good friend Lori who has been at a conference. 

2:08  Tommy's asleep before we get on the freeway.  I get to use the cruise control on my 2-year-old car for the first time.

3:20  We arrive at the hotel in Santa Fe after a winding detour around city construction.  Thankfully, Tommy wakes up happy.

3:30  We arrive at Lori's hotel room and Tommy gives her a big hug.  He's been talking about her for days now.  "Go get your friend Lori, Mommy.  Lori me friend too?  Please?  I miss her."  He spends some time looking out the window and reading the book she gave him.

3:50 Back in the car!  Tommy's OK with this for a while, but eventually starts getting antsy.  Lori entertains him, cementing her place in Tommy's heart.  Tommy impresses Lori by eating a whole apple.  Lori and I have the long drive to talk.  It's mostly chit-chat instead of heart-to-heart, but that's to be expected since we haven't seen each other in two years.

4:50 We reach the exit for our house and decide to drive on to the airport instead of stopping at our house.  All that cleaning was for naught.

5:10 We park and Lori checks in for her flight.  Tommy's really happy to be out of the car and running around.

5:20  David meets us at the airport Garduno's for dinner.  Tommy doesn't really want to sit still for dinner after all that time in the car, so David eats really fast and then takes Tommy out to ride the escalators.  Lori and I have more time to chat.  Then Lori runs around with Tommy, and David and I have some time to chat.

6:15  We say goodbye to Lori and head down to parking.  Tommy REALLY doesn't want to get back in the car.  We trick him into wanting to drive home by moving the car seat into David's truck.  He and Tommy are going to "chase" Mommy home.

6:40  We're home.  Play time!

7:15 Bath, pajamas, books, etc.  Tommy's really tired from the long day, but wound up from all the sitting and discombobulated from the late nap.

8:15  I say good night and leave the room.  He continues to bounce off the walls and come to the door every 10 minutes.

9:00 He's finally asleep.

10:00 I go to bed.  David stays up reading.

3:00 (am) I wake up and realize David still hasn't come to bed.  I find him asleep on the couch.  He's very confused when I wake him up, but eventually figures out he fell asleep reading and comes to bed.

THE END

05/09/06

I picked up some boring necessities at Target yesterday, including a big plastic storage bin for Tommy's 2T and winter clothes.  Tommy decided he wanted to sit in the bin which filled the shopping cart.  He squished in amongst the fabric softener and super glue.  Then he asked me to put the lid on the bin.  He hunched down as small as he could get, and I put on the lid.  I kept asking him if he wanted to get out or sit up, but he said, "No!  Put lid on now.  I hiding."  I was getting some amused looks from fellow shoppers.  Then I said, "You're such a goofy little boy!" (in a nice way)  Tommy's disembodied voice responded, "No Mommy.  I a cute little boy.  I a sweet little boy.  I not goofy."  Everyone around us laughed.

When we got home, Tommy decided that the bin is now his toy and shouldn't be filled up with boring old clothes.  He hid in the bin and asked me to put on the lid.  I jokingly told him he was a "Tommy-in-the-Box" just like a Jack-in-the-Box.  He thought that was hilarious.  Now I get to sit next to the bin for 30 minutes at a time, multiple times a day, singing Pop Goes the Weasel so Tommy can jump out and "surprise" me over and over again.  The first time I sang the song for him, I used "do-do-do-do..." instead of the words.  Now he won't let me do it any other way.  If I start the song with "da-da-da..." or just hum, he immediately calls out from within the box "No!  Sing do-do-do Mommy.  Tommy in a Box surprise you now."  Like I said, he's a goofy little boy.

Surprise!

05/08/06

It's been a while since I posted a sleeping picture.  As Tommy often says, "I soooo cute!"

05/07/06

Because of his obsession with that aquarium decoration castle at the pet store a few days ago, as well as his ongoing love of dragons, we decided to buy Tommy a castle.  Yes, he has lots of toys already.  One of my fellow mommy friends even comments on it every time she comes over.  "You have so many toys!  It's the first thing I noticed when I walked into your house!"  (Hrumph.)  I don't think we have TOO many though.  And I'm certain he has more books than toys.  We do cull the ones he's outgrown from time to time, and he does play with all of the ones we keep out.  Besides, he really isn't any fun when he gets bored.  That's when the TV goes on for hours at a time, and I'd rather play with him using our multitudes of toys than do that.  Maybe it looks like we have a lot since we keep most of his favorites in our big living room.  That's where we spend most of our time, and he likes to be where we are.  We also keep some of his toys in every other room of the house, but most of them are smack dab in the middle of the living room.  It's a huge room and doesn't look crowded even with a kiva fireplace and hearth, a widescreen TV, two couches, an arm chair with footstool, a coffee table, two bookshelves, a 30 gallon fish tank, Tommy's play table, an easel and lots of toys.  It just makes sense to have most of the big toys in the biggest room in which we spend most of our time.  So yes, guests are going to see toys as soon as they enter our comfortable, well-lived in house.  No toy-free, formal sitting room for us!   

(Not that I'm defensive...well maybe a little.  Did I mention I'm trying a new strategy of "describe, don't explain"?  That last paragraph doesn't really live up to it.  Let's try that again.)

We bought Tommy a castle.  It's the Fisher-Price Imaginext Dragonmont's Fortress.  He absolutely loves it.  He spent a couple of hours playing with it as soon as David put it together.  The castle came with a dragon and has all sorts of do-dads that he can really play with -- a gate, a rotating lava moat, a trap door in one floor, windows that open and close, a cage for the dragon, etc.  He's really getting into the kind of imaginative action play that older little boys do.  He isn't making the knights fight with swords yet, but the story he's telling himself out loud as he's playing is quite complex. 

After David put it together, and we found out how much he's really going to enjoy playing with this toy labeled "ages 4-10", I decided to look up the expansion kits online.  The castle is part of the Imaginext Dragon Adventure line, and on the shelf next to it were some compatible toys in the Imaginext King Arthur line.  It looks like Fisher Price is discontinuing these lines, because the only Imaginext products I can find on the website are the dinosaurs.  I found the "Sir Gawain and The Dragon" set on E-Bay for more than $15, even though it was right there at our Toys R Us for $3.99.  Of course, this new information brought out the collector in me.  Coincidentally, the vocabulary word on Pinky Dinky Doo that day was "accumulate" and the moral of the story was that it's better to have one well-loved toy than to "accumulate" lots of toys in a set just so you can have them all.  Ahem.  After much teasing from David, I went back to Toys R Us for the on-sale "Sir Gawain and The Dragon" and I picked up "King Arthur" too.  They're being discontinued!  Tommy might have little friends over to play someday and need to have two dragons, two bad guys and two good guys!  I'm encouraging imaginative play!  Um, yeah.  I'm a collector and I can't resist on-sale, soon-to-be-discontinued components that are selling for more than three times the price on E-Bay.  At least I'm buying them for Tommy to play with and not to re-sell.  So anyway, family members who like to buy Tommy presents might be interested in watching for medieval Imaginext stuff in sale bins at toy stores.  Join the madness!  Don't make me spoil him alone!

05/05/06

Computer time combined with balance exercises

He has a fake smile-for-the-camera now.  Cucumbers make a yummy breakfast.

05/04/06

Tommy knew what he was talking about.  He woke up really cranky and clingy this morning, and was still asking me to take him to the doctor.  In case there was some chance he knew what he was talking about, I made an appointment.  He has strep throat.  It's a mild case since he has no fever, but I guess the only way he knew to tell us about the throat pain was to talk about his ears.  He should feel better after 24 hrs of antibiotics.  I had them test me too, but mine came up negative.  That doesn't mean I don't have it though.  I probably have to have a raging fever and white spots on my throat before the test comes up positive.

05/03/06

Who says TV for toddlers isn't educational?

Tommy:  Make volcano Mommy?  Max 'n Ruby did it.  Make volcano?  Pleeeeeease?!  It big mountain.  Put stuff in it.  Ka-Booooom!

Me:  Um.  Ok.  I guess we can, but not until Daddy gets home.

        (10 hours and one nap later)

Tommy:  Daddy home!  Make volcano now!

Me:  Oh, I forgot about that.  We can do it after dinner.  Dinner first, then volcano.  Hey David, Tommy wants to make a volcano.  I told him you'd help him.

        (5 minutes and two bites of chicken later)

Tommy:  All done dinner.  Eat Mommy eat!  Volcano now!

        (15 minutes and a bit of not-so-patient waiting later)

David:  Ok Tommy, we're going to make a small volcano with your sand.  We need baking soda, vinegar, the big plastic bowl and a plastic cup.

Tommy:  Baking soda!  That like Pinky Dinky Doo.  Make cake bigger and bigger and bigger.  Me get it.

        (5 minutes and some cupboard rummaging later)

Tommy:  Me carry it. 

David:  Hey buddy, why don't you let me carry that vinegar.  It's very heavy.  You carry the baking soda.

Tommy:  Ok.  It tooooo heavy.  I carry baking soda like Pinky Dinky Doo.

        (5 minutes and some sand volcano construction later)

Tommy:  Bubbles!  Me volcano has bubbles!

        (15 minutes and lots of eruptions later)

Me:  Are you still doing this?  Is Tommy still watching?

David:  I'm almost done.  Tommy's over there.  I was just playing around.  We're out of baking soda.

05/02/06

We went out to the pet store after dinner last night because David was feeling antsy.  Sometimes he just doesn't want to hang around at home after dinner.  I knew Tommy wasn't feeling well because of his cold, but we thought he might enjoy the distraction.  He did, of course, but eventually went into complete meltdown mode.  It was late in the day, he was feeling sick, and we told him it was time to leave while he was seriously contemplating a large castle (aquarium decoration).  Poor Tommy.  After about 10 minutes of tantrum in the car he started to calm down.  After some prompting from me he said "Don't like upset.  Don't like angry.  Calm down now."  Yay!  He's gaining language to describe his emotions!  Then he started telling me his ear hurt.  I'm not sure what to make of this.  He talked about his ear for a while and then asked to go to the doctor.  He wanted her to look in his ear and "make me feel better."  He was quite upset when we arrived home instead of at the doctor's office.  He seems to be feeling about the same today as yesterday -- running around and playing, some congestion and a cough, not acting like he's feverish or in pain or anything.  I asked him if his ear hurt and his initial answer was no, but then he thought about it and said, "Oh!  Me doctor.  Look in me ear.  Ear hurts.  Go see doctor now?"  He was pointing to a different ear than last night.  I'm going to ignore his talk about his ear for now because I think he just wants to go to the doctor.  He likes it there and we play around with his doctor's kit a lot so he knows all about how she looks in his ears and throat and things.  I think he knows he feels bad and wants the doctor to fix it, but I don't think he really has an ear infection.  I don't know for sure though, since he's never had one.  I'd hate to ignore it and discover later that he knew what he was talking about.    

05/01/06

I can't believe it's May already.  This time last year we were just entering Tommy's most difficult stage to date, the 15-18 month screaming, tantrum, can't communicate well enough to avoid frustration stage.  It got so bad at one point that I even wrote a poem about it.  That's something I never do.  What a difference a year makes!  I guess I should be thankful he went through that stage early, because things have been pretty easy since he reached 18 months.  The terrible twos have been terrific for us so far.

Tommy Tidbits for today...

• There's a round power button on the front of the new TV.  Tommy was examining it yesterday, and we were reminding him of the "don't touch the new TV" rule.  He was itching to push it, but held himself back by verbalizing what was so alluring about it.  "TV button has light on it.  Red light.  It a circle.  A circle like me eye.  I look button with me eye.  Button round, round, round.  I push it Mommy?  No.  I sorry."
• We made cherry Jello together Friday and this was Tommy commentary.  "Pour sand in bowl.  Don't touch!  Wait, wait, wait.  Water bubbles now?  Yes!  Pour water on sand.  It hot.  (fake cough - his response to steam)  Oooooo!  It so beautiful.  Red!  It so beautiful.  Stir it!  Stir it!  Sand all gone now.  Me taste it?   Yummy jello juice in my stomach.  Wait, wait, wait more.  Cook it in fridge.  It hot, then warm, then cold.  Brrr."
• Tommy's comment on seeing a picture of a bumblebee.  "There bungle-bee!  He so beautiful!" 

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