Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

I don’t do anything half way… If I’m actually going to get involved with something – whether it’s a file, an organization, or a hobby – I do it full out. There really isn’t a way to do it other than all in.

But after checking out Andrew’s Valentine’s loot, I’m feeling like a slacker mom.

Andrew picked out individual valentines for each of his friends. The girls got puppy valentines. The boys got Toy Story ones. He picked out which color each of their names were written in. He decorated each with stickers. We had a good time doing it.

One of Andrew’s friends decorated a construction paper tube, which housed not only a hand-made valentine, but a box of Toy Story posters that Andrew could decorate himself. Another one gave him a bag of homemade cookies as part of his valentine. A little girl gave him a bag full of chocolate hearts.

Really? Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I supposed to bake four dozen cookies so that the 24 other kids in his class can take home baked goods? Is every kid supposed to get presents on MY kid’s birthday, even though there’s no party that they’re attending?

I don’t know… If that’s how things are supposed to work, then I’m clearly doing things all wrong. But maybe it’s okay to have varying levels of participation in this stuff. At least, I hope that’s the case!

What do you think?

Have a great weekend everyone

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
We’ve been looking for a house for almost 2 years now. First down in this area, and then up north once I changed jobs. I honestly thought that we were never going to find anything and keep doing this insane commute every day… But the good news is that we’re getting close to being done with that!

The bad news is that we haven’t even begun to think about things like finding new pediatricians, new places to take Andrew on rainy days and – probably most importantly – a new daycare provider. It’s the stuff you don’t really think about until you REALLY need to think about it. I mean, we just got out of attorney review. Just did our inspection on Tuesday. We don’t close for another month, assuming everything continues to go well.

And if we don’t go check out the daycare place across the street this Saturday when they have their open house, they probably won’t have any spots left for Andrew – not just for April when we’re actually needing him to be in a new place – but for next SEPTEMBER. WHAT? People are booking spots now for September? I guess it’s the kind of thing I’ve had the luxury of not thinking about since we’ve had Andrew in the same place since he was 4 months old.

Which brings up another concern… He’s going to be somewhere new. Somewhere that is unfamiliar. Where everyone in the entire school doesn’t know and love him. Where he isn’t going to be the favorite kid of everyone in the classroom. Someone else will already have that role and Andrew will have to try to fit in.

I know. We all go through this at some point. And he’s still young enough that he should be able to do it easily. But I still feel badly that he’ll have to go through it.

Anyone have any ideas on how to make the transition easier on him?

Have a great weekend everyone

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
My dad’s birthday was last Friday. (I apologize for not doing the birthday shout out in last week’s post, dad.) It was the day before Andrew’s kid party and he could talk about little else. Friday night he was an absolute crazy man. His rendition of singing happy birthday to my dad went on for…forever. When I got back on the phone my mom told me that this was normal birthday craziness and that my sister and I did the same thing before our parties. Actually, she told me we were completely unbearable and no one would want to be around us – but we’d return to normal shortly after the party.

Turns out, she was absolutely right.

He was in full on cranky kid mode all morning. He refused to take a nap and managed to conk out less than 30 minutes before his party. We woke him up out of a dead sleep to get ready, which prompted a massive temper tantrum about why we were even having a “STUPID” party at that “STUPID” place. (Ummm… you begged for it, kiddo. What do you mean you don’t want it????)

Despite the rockiness leading up to walking through the door, once we got there, the party went well. Everyone – especially Andrew – seemed to have a great time. His friends were really cute coming over thanking me for inviting them. Only one actually did it without parental prompting. (I was duly impressed) Andrew and my dad eat cake the same way – icing only – and I’m still not sure which one of them consumed more of it.

Afterwards, in the midst of a total sugar high, Andrew tore into all of his presents. His was totally impressed with all the new loot. His friends got him lots of artsy stuff, which is great, and we’ve been playing his new games all week.

Just as predicted, Andrew settled back into being himself after all the presents were open and the wrapping paper was thrown away. He curled up in my lap and thanked me for his party.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I took him out to see Beauty and the Beast later that night. He remembered to say please and thank you, held my hand through most of the movie (unless he was using those hands to shove Skittles into his mouth) and reminded me where I parked my car so we wouldn’t get lost in the parking lot…again… (LONG story – don’t ask)

I’m glad I had my mom’s warning that what we were experiencing pre-party was totally normal and, more importantly, temporary. I’m also glad that we’re a year off from having this kind of experience again

Have a great weekend everyone. And thanks (again) to my parents who are watching Andrew while hubby and I are away in New Orleans.

Oh…and for all you baseball fans…yes, it may be time for the Super Bowl, but pitchers and catchers report very soon. Can’t wait for the official start of Spring!

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
We’re having Andrew’s “kid party” tomorrow. At Bounce U. With a ton of screaming, running, rambunctious 4 year-olds. (Wish us luck)

As he was talking to one of his friends and that kid’s dad about the party (and how they were about to buy Andrew’s present), my son decides to announce, “Aiden…If you’re GOOD, THEN you can play on MY inflatables. But if you’re NAUGHTY, you are NOT playing with ME.”

Oh, the attitude of a 4 year old…

Right now I’m downstairs listening to the sounds of him throwing a massive temper tantrum in his room. I think this one started because I told him to climb into bed.

Remember when everyone said “Oh, it’s just the terrible 2s” as your kid was throwing a fit for no apparent reason? That kind of talk leads you to believe that once you get past 2, it’s like a magic wand gets waived and suddenly you get your sweet, angelic child back.

But then, right around birthday time, you start to hear: “Oh, no. Three is MUCH worse than 2.” Wait a minute. Where have you been for the past year? You know, as I’ve been telling myself the attitude is eminently going to get better at Andrew’s 4th birthday.

So age 4 rolls around and at his party I’m told, “Nah, Jaime. Two was bad. Three was rough. FOUR? Nightmare.”

Really? At Andrew’s birthday party next year is someone going to say the same thing to me about age 5?

How do you deal with the attitudes and temper tantrums?

Hope you all have a great (tantrum free) weekend!

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
I love to read. Even with all the time that I spend reading all day long, I still enjoy unwinding and relaxing with a good book where I can get lost in the story and characters. I love to write too, so the storytelling of other writers both fascinates and frustrates me (frustrating mostly when I catch typos that writers and editors both neglected to discover in the editing process)…

So I love that Andrew also seems to share my enthusiasm for reading. Right now he has memorized a handful of books and “reads” them to me. The other day, he told me to lay down in bed so he could read me to sleep. It was really cute, but also really cool that he would want to reverse our bedtime ritual so he could get in on the reading.

Andrew is currently obsessed with the Little Mister and Little Miss books we read when we were kids. It’s cool that he wants books instead of toys (occasionally – not always) as his presents from Bob the Bed Fairy. (Yes, Bob is still around. We haven’t kicked the crawling into our bed in the middle of the night habit yet).

Andrew likes to read the same books over and over again until he has them memorized and then tells US that we are reading the story wrong because he wants to tell the story HIS way. It’s hard to say no to reading to him, even when I can barely bring myself to re-read the same words one more time.

So, this brings me to the point of my post. I’m going to combine three things I love: writing, reading and my son. I’m going to write him some stories. Jaime originals. Yes, in all my free time. We’ll see how this goes – wish me luck!

Have a great weekend everyone

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
So as an update to last week’s post, I’m sorry to say that Andrew was right. He got sick (all over me) Thursday night, had a really bad tummy ache Friday and was out of commission all weekend. Maybe we can add psychic to the list of his other talents?

As I was trying for the 10th time to put Andrew to sleep tonight, he asked me if I would sleep in his room. This isn’t an unusual thing for him to lobby for, but tonight he took it to new extremes.

First I told him I was tired and wanted to crawl into my bed. So he nodded thoughtfully and said, “That’s okay mommy. You can take the bed. I want to sleep in my tent tonight. I promise not to wake you up.”

Blocked on that front, I went to the fact that I had to wake up early for court in the morning and there’s no alarm clock in his room. This was quickly countered with, “How about you bring your alarm clock in HERE and then you can get up on time!”

I was rapidly running out of excuses, which is what ultimately led me to tell him that if he ate dinner without fighting us and actually listened with no talking back, I’d stay in his room tomorrow night. He looked at me suspiciously. “Tomorrow? That’s not today, but the next day?” (Yes, baby. That’s when tomorrow is) “So, if I listen and don’t back talk and eat my chicken nuggets or whatever I want for dinner, you stay?” (Yup, that’s the deal)

So he sticks out his hand and waits for me to shake on it. Then he smiled broadly and I knew in that moment I was stuck. I am SO going to be spending tomorrow night sleeping in his tent.

I know that I could somehow weasel out of this one. But the kid made a decent deal for himself and if he holds up his end of the bargain, I will too. Even if it’s something this trivial, I want him to know if I tell him I’m going to do something, I’m really going to do it…

But it’s scary how well this kid negotiates. I think I’m pretty good at it. I mean, it is an essential part of what I do for a living. But Andrew is, without a doubt, the product of two stubborn lawyers. Watch out world! If he’s this good now, just wait until he has a whole arsenal of vocabulary at his disposal…

Have a great weekend everyone.

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
So, first off, I have to say that since you all are reading this, it does confirm that I survived my first 5k. In order to ensure (mostly for my own benefit) that this wasn’t a fluke, I signed up for another one next month. But that wasn’t really the point of this post…

I picked Andrew up from daycare last night, got him strapped into his car seat and he proceeds to tell me, “Mommy. Tomorrow I am going to be really sick. I think I may need to stay home from school.”

I laughed and asked him what would be wrong with him. “Um… I’m not really sure. But I’m going to hurt. And be sick. Yeah! Really sick.”

He confirmed this story for me a few minutes ago when I asked him what I should write about for this post. The response? “Me being sick”

He’s trying to further this story by holding his stomach and telling me his belly hurts. (Yes, this is still his go-to complaint whenever he wants to try to get out of anything and everything.) Then 2 seconds later, he’s running around the house begging to eat candy.

I suppose I should be happy that I have fair warning about his intention to play sick in the morning. He’s not very good at this whole being sneaky thing yet… (No, I’m most definitely NOT complaining about this)

Probably like a lot of you, I get emails from various places telling me about developmental things my kid is either going through now or about to go through soon. Not that long ago, I got one about how kids around this age will start making up stories…that it’s important not to call them “lies” even when they blatantly are…because that could discourage the development of a healthy imagination.

I’m trying to remember that email as my darling child is outright telling me that he’s going to pretend to be sick in the morning. So I’m going to pretend that this is a really good heads up – for daddy – since I have court in the morning

Have a good weekend everyone. (And wish us luck in the morning)

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
Somehow it’s December 30th already.

Andrew turned 4 last week. He actually ate a few bites of pizza and some cake to go with all the frosting he sucked down. He had a Cars cake, courtesy of Nana, and asked for the ENTIRE piece that made up Lightening McQueen. It was bigger than his head. And led to one nasty sugar high…

The next couple days were full of airplanes, chasing seagulls and running after Andrew on the beach. Not a bad way to spend a long weekend away from the office. Andrew even managed to only eat mac n cheese once the entire trip

I’ve been told that in the upcoming year, I have to actually take time off and go on vacation. That’s definitely something to look forward to…

We have Andrew’s first “kid party” coming up in January. At Bounce U. Wish us luck. And on Sunday, while most of you are still in bed, I’ll be getting ready to run my first race. REALLY wish me luck…

Here’s wishing all of us all good things in the new year. And, of course, I can’t conclude this post without wishing my grandma a very happy birthday!

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
At 3:30 this afternoon, I will be watching Andrew’s first holiday show at daycare. I asked him what they were going to sing and, at first, his response was the standard, “I don’t know.” Then he launches into the entire show, beginning with the introductory comments leading into the songs and concluding with “That was our last song. Thank you all for coming. Happy holidays!”

I honestly don’t know how I’m going to keep a straight face while Andrew’s class sings Feliz Navidad… If the rest of them are anything like Andrew, the song will come out something like “Feeeleeeseeee Bobidob.” But he belts it out excitedly. Very cute. (Yes, I’ll take lots of pictures and video of the thing. MAYBE I’ll refrain from busting them out years later when he brings a girl home…)

This year we continued with our Build-A-Bear tradition. On the first night of Hanukkah, we took Andrew to the mall (a scary prospect this time of year) and led him to the store. We told him that he could pick out any toy he wanted for himself, but he would also have to pick out a toy for another child that he would then give away. Andrew made two teddy bears, selecting one for himself. Then proudly walked up to the toys for tots bin and deposited the other bear inside for another kid. He looked up at both of us and asked if we were proud of him for sharing.

Of course, I can’t let this opportunity to mention that I ALMOST HAVE A FOUR YEAR OLD go by. Andrew’s birthday is Saturday. I can’t believe it. We’re going to have a kid party for him this year in January so he can actually celebrate with his friends, in addition to the little pizza party he has with the family on his actual birthday.

So, happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Happy birthday to my little guy. And happy whatever else you may be celebrating this weekend.

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
It seems like the days and weeks are just flying by. This week was over in the blink of an eye, which is why this post is coming late. I didn’t really realize today was Friday. (Sorry, grandma. I know how much you enjoy reading these posts with your morning coffee)

Andrew will be 4 next week. I don’t feel like I’m old enough to have a 4 year old. I called him my baby earlier this week. He turned around, put his hands on his hips and with the attitude of a full-blown teenager proceeded to tell me that he is NOT a baby. He is a big boy.

Excuse me. I stand corrected…

For an almost 4-year old, the things that this kid says amazes me sometimes. Wednesday morning he was mad at me because I was at the gym when he woke up and he didn’t know where I was. I got home and he demanded to know why I wasn’t there when he came into my room. I told him I was working out because I didn’t want to embarrass myself when I ran in a race in a couple weeks. He asked a couple questions about the race, if he could join in and why I was doing it. When I answered the questions to his satisfaction, he cocked his head to the side thoughtfully before telling me that he would run with me so I could get fast and win my race.

It was cute. Especially since I’m not hoping to WIN. I’m just hoping to not completely embarrass myself and actually finish the same day I start…

Speaking of time flying, hopefully everyone has all their holiday shopping under control. I, for one, do not… so I will have to brave the malls this weekend. Wish me luck!