Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
I don’t normally do a lot of traveling. But I spent the first 3 weeks of the month without spending a full week in Jersey. I’ve been down to Maryland, out to Chicago and down to Florida. And now I’m happy to say that it’s Friday, and I am not headed to another airport or train station, and there’s no drive ahead of me longer than heading to the Ocean County Courthouse.

Tonight, after many months of waiting, Cars 2 is finally out. Every day for the past two months (at least) when I’ve picked Andrew up from school, he’s asked, “We go to Cars 2 today?” And he has been extremely disappointed when I’ve told him (repeatedly) that it’s not out yet.

Yesterday I asked Andrew if he knew what we were going to do after school on Friday. He got all excited and said, “GO TO FLORIDA!” (Nope, that was last week.) “Ummm…go to the beach?” (Try again, also last week). “I GO FISHING WITH PAPA?” (Two weeks ago)

“I no no mommy. What we do?” he finally asked, thoroughly defeated when he couldn’t figure it out.

So I told him we were finally going to see the movie. He started cheering and running around the classroom chanting something incoherent that may have had a little resemblance to “I’M GOING TO CARS 2 AND GETTING SKITTLES!”

So tonight, we’ve got a hot date with Lightening McQueen…  Jealous, are you? 😉

Have a great weekend everyone! I know we will… It’s good to finally spend a week at home!

Sorry to get your hopes up to any of my family who might be reading this. I am most definitely not talking about an expansion to OUR family.

Our good friends just had a baby. An almost 7 pound girl – Olivia (with no middle name, because they can’t agree on one yet). She was born at 7:34 in the morning on September 8. They’re bringing her home this morning.

One of my bosses had two pieces of advice for me when I told him I was pregnant with Andrew:

“Little boys are like fire hoses.” (I don’t need to elaborate on this do I? Good. It should be sufficient to know that I always kept a towel, other diaper or something handy in case of a “fire hose” incident.)

The other piece of advice was that no matter what you do, your kid is going to cry for like the first 24 hours when they get home from the hospital. They’re in a new environment. New smells. New sounds. New everything. It’s overwhelming to the little guy. Just know it’s not you. It’s normal. Get some earplugs and do the best you can. They’ll get over it.

So despite the fact that Jim warned me in advance, I was absolutely horrified when we got home and Andrew immediately started wailing. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. We changed him. We fed him. We held him. We rocked him. I sang to him until my voice gave out. Hubby tried to walk with him around the house (I could barely handle walking to the house from the car at that point). NOTHING WORKED.

After about 4 hours of this, both of us were at our wits end. Andrew was crying. I was crying. We were all dead tired. And around that time Hubby and I looked at each other, both thinking “WHAT did we get ourselves in to?”

Kids don’t come with an instruction manual. And while I still maintain they should, it’s one you have to write yourself. If anyone had told me that the only way to calm Andrew down and get him to sleep those first few nights was to lay him with his head against my heart and sing him (in this exact order) House on Pooh Corner, Frere Jacques and Time Well Wasted, I would have laughed at them. But that’s what it took…

Those days don’t seem all that far off, but they were an entire lifetime ago! I still have to sing Andrew House on Pooh Corner before he’ll go to sleep though. He doesn’t believe me that my dad sang me that song to put me to sleep too.

So, to our friends, good luck today – I hope you all have an easy transition home. And to the rest of you, have a great weekend

This week we are preparing to move back to the home we left nearly half a year ago. Brady’s daddy has been living there, so we have only been there to visit; we just have not been living there. But now I have bought it from him, and we are going home. I sit here and wonder how we will explain to Brady that he and mama are going back, but daddy won’t be there. I have been giving him little bits of information throughout the past month, but seeing it in reality might be different. I think divorce is hard on a child at any age, but I think Brady, at age 3-4 years old, is going to be OK. He understands why we left, why he lives with his mama, and why we won’t be back together. He gets it that he will continue to see his daddy and that daddy loves him very much.

I plan to paint the walls and get all new carpet. Daddy was a bit particular about the walls, so the new color will be a welcome change. I am even going to try out those sticker decals (in construction trucks, of course). I might even put some Thomas ones around the playroom. I am trying to make it look as different as possible.

I hope in the long run that this is best for Brady. His friends are there, kids whom he has seen at church, the pool, and other places while we have been living at my parents’ house. It is kind of scary to go back, but at the same time, it’s exciting. There are some “not so good” memories within those walls, but I plan to start to make our own memories, our own traditions, and our own home. Wish me luck!

A week ago, Jack and I were able to reunite with our personal hero, Daddy. Jack helped me hang our “Welcome Home Daddy” banner and put American flags all over our yard.  We both felt pretty patriotic supporting our #1 guy (and all of the military).  Every time he returns from deployment there is a strange mix of anticipation, anxiety and excitement. Unfortunately, it was also an all too familiar feeling, since this was our third deployment in as many years.

I vividly remember the day my husband left for deployment. We shared countless hugs, kisses and tears between the three of us.  We knew the sooner Daddy left, the sooner he would return.  It was a sad day, but we are so proud of what he does for our family and our country.  Although it’s very taxing on us, we are emotionally there to support him 100%.  Jack and I constructed a countdown calendar.  Every night Jack would cross off a day knowing he was one day closer to being with Daddy again.  It was a good tool that helped give Jack a way to understand his father’s return. It also gave me something to look forward to.

When the big day finally came, Jack and I waited for Daddy at the air terminal. We were both giddy and excited to see him.  I was really curious to see what Jack’s reaction would be.  We talked about Daddy everyday and we chatted with him via Skype when he was in port. We also sent a lot of pictures so he could see Jack and watch him grow.  When Daddy came through the door Jack was a little unsure of the situation at first.  Jack was smiling at his dad but was suddenly a little more shy than normal. Daddy got down to Jack’s level and let him come to him at his own pace. After some apprehension Jack gave his dad a familiar hug. It was such a great feeling knowing our family was back together.  With in a few hours my boys were both rolling around the living room floor as though they had never been apart.

Welcome Home, Daddy!  We missed you!

Well, we have officially survived our week with two-year-old Jack. Mommy arrived home very early Monday morning, much to his delight. We were doing fine, but I’ll admit that there’s no substitute for Mom.

I learned (or, more precisely, re-learned) several things about living with toddlers this past week. First off, routine rules. We survived in large part because we did not alter Jack’s normal daily routine. OK, there was a hot fudge sundae, and a trip to run under the sprinklers at the park, and a couple of other indulgences. For the most part though, we did what Jack was expecting to do, and he was fine with that.

I also re-learned that small people don’t miss a trick; they know-and usually understand-exactly what’s going on. At the same time, they can’t always process what they’re seeing or hearing. Jack was entranced by the Munchkin scene from the Wizard of Oz, but by the time we all got to the Emerald City, he was on sensory overload… so that was enough wizard for one night.  I suspect that the ensuing bath-time meltdown had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t process what he had just seen. Since we never got to the flying monkeys, I suspect we haven’t scarred him for life, though.

Finally, we learned that hugs, cuddles, and reassurance can cure almost anything that goes awry. Most importantly, though, we learned that none of this would have gone as well as it did if Mom and Dad weren’t already doing their parenting very well. Caring for a well-loved, engaged child is still an almost full-time job, but it can also be a whole lot of fun. After all, grandfathers have very few other excuses for spending a couple of hours each day playing with wooden trains.

Gotta go… it’s my turn to run the railroad.

Grandpa Wednesday