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Archive for August, 2010

And then I begged for plasticware. For fun. And for the environment.

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I’m having a birthday party dilemma. Cy’s birthday party, specifically. And if I lived close to an IKEA it would be solved by now. I REALLY want to put together a B-Day “kit” with reusable and festive plates, etc. I thought it’d be a great thing to have around, and I could even LOAN it to other people and be SUPER GREEN AND NICE. (I swear I read about this online. It’s not my idea, but I can’t find the post…)

And I’ve shopped around online for 100 million hours and cannot find a better price for BPA free kid’s dishes than IKEA. But we don’t live near an IKEA.

So. Um. I’m wondering if anyone who goes to IKEA often would be willing to buy me 4 sets of these:

and 4 sets of these:

and four sets of these:

and send them to me (flat rate box? boxes? maybe?)

and then I will give you money? But please email me first so that I don’t end up with 45,987 of them? I would be SO muy grateful.

And so would he.

I know. Shameless.


Hey look! Grainy iPhone photos!

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

Cy likes the big boy swing now.

And seriously.  Will you check out the hugeness of this playplace? Insane.  (John is the guy in the top right tower, following our son down the humongous slide.)

And then there was the day he wouldn’t put the truck down.

Alphabet magnet time, looking like a baby thug.

Cy and the “howl.”  He loves owls.

and finally, the only “person” benefiting from our potty training efforts.

Oh Cruel Trick of Nature

Friday, August 27th, 2010

When Cy and I went outside this morning, the weather was perfect.  It was breezy and cool, sunny and bright, and the sky was filled with wondrous clouds.  Like this.

See the beautiful-ness?  Cy and I talked about the clouds, how happy they looked, and how one of them looked like Thomas.  (By the way, he’s fostering a pretty healthy confusion between Thomas S. Monson and Thomas, Engine Number 1. Friend of Hiro of the Rails. So I don’t know which Thomas he meant. But then he asked me to sing, “Temples,” so maybe he was thinking about the first Thomas.)

So I decided to be super crafty, and cut out some cloud and tree shapes for him to glue on a blue sky after he woke up from his nap.  We’ve been doing gluing lately.  It’s pretty exciting.  I was going to sit outside with him and try to match the clouds that I cut out with the sky, pretty much feel like super-awesome-bonding-with-my-son-teaching-him-life-skills Mom of the day.

And then he woke up, we went outside, and it looked like this.

Life can be cruel sometimes.

So we went inside and did our gluing there.

The end.

To Cy at 23 Months

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Dear Cy,

Life has just exploded on us lately, and here I am writing your monthly letter late.  For the first time EVER. I guess there’s always a first time for everything.

Cy, you are so different now! When I think about this:

or this:

or this:

(um Mom, my vest’s too big!)

It makes me laugh! It makes me reflect on how little we knew you, how much we GUESSED about what you wanted all the time.  But also how we DID know you, too.  Even though you were so young, we had glimpses of who you are.

Now you want to “haf one?” all the time.  Whatever “one” someone else has, that is.  “A bite?”  of someone’s food is a constant request, until you look at whatever they’re eating.  “La La Cool?” which means, “Will La La play on my road rug with me?” (Yes, you call it cool.  Because Pop Pop brought it home and Daddy said, “That’s cool!” and Cool it is, forevermore.)  You love to act out “Ok?” with EVERYTHING.  And it goes like this:

sheep/car/spoon: Falls on floor

cow/other car/fork: Looks at sheep/car/spoon and asks, “Ok?”

It’s actually funnier than it sounds.  Let’s hope it means you’re learning empathy.

You are also all into “Kiss to all-bettah?” lately.  You get bonked on something and request a kiss, in a very specific spot (I think La La had to kiss the underside of your knee today) and even if you were hemorrhaging, I think you’d stop crying and say, “All-bettah?” Today you bit your lip while we were driving, and I thought you were going to FLIP A WIG because I couldn’t give you a kiss, I tried to blow you one, throw you one, just about everything you one and finally you understood what I was trying to do and looked at me like, “Really, Mom?  That’s all you can muster?”

You eat nothing.  NOTHING child.  I read about other children that eat mixed vegetables and well…ANYTHING and I wonder.  What it would be like.  All you want is rice and “keese.”  AKA cheese.  In any form, mostly cottage cheese.  And sometimes you have a ‘na.  (banana.)  It’s amazing that you don’t faint.  All the time.  You’ve taken to rejecting dinner and in a fit of frenzy and DESPERATION the other day I heard the words: “Kiki, Santa Claus and Jesus all WANT YOU TO EAT YOUR DINNER RIGHT NOW!!!!” come out of my mouth.  And the thing is, I don’t think I was lying.  Was I Kiki?

You’ve started to scale the gates, play the pee-no (piano), have had a few hour stint with potty-training (left off to another month, another day, because I realized that I DON’T HAVE A PLAN), watch Cars? Nemo? Manny? and you call Elmo BoBo.  Actually, you call any Sesame St. character BoBo, which means I need to DVR it so you can get your facts straight before Pre-school yo.

The other day I got the genius idea to teach you how to sort! With noodles!  I put four different shapes of noddles in a bowl, then gave you four bowls, and before I knew it you had sorted them out.  Picking them up in handfuls, then using the other hand to sort them into the bowls.  I was TRIUMPHANT.  My child can SORT.  And then you tried to eat them, and because I don’t know the Heimlich Maneuver well enough that ended that, but I think it’s time for some official projects and activities, just in time for the weather to turn cold.

I’m excited about our next fall and winter together, baby.  Because no matter how big you get, you still need kisses and hugs goodnight and for someone to know what you mean when you want “Happy!” before bed.  I really don’t like that Pigeon.

I love you so much baby.

Love,

Mommy

PS: Next month you’ll be two.


Understandings

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

I love posts like this, that provide me a new insight into another faith, especially a faith that I already admire so much. I love how insights into other people’s religions so often make me think about my own, and how I can deepen my faith while also deepening my connection with people all over the world.

Thanks Itto’s Living Faith.

HERE’SYOURONECHANCEFANCYDON’TLETMEDOOWWWNNNN

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

So. What was I up to this past weekend, you may ask? Well. Let me tell you:

REBA. BAM. (Sorry. That Bam got carried over from the Little Hotdogs post. CAN’T LET IT GO.)

I think it’s time to come out of the closet.

I love Reba. I love everything about this happy little redheaded woman, with all her songs filled with abused/neglected/recently-empowered women and also FANCY.

I started to watch her show when John worked nights in Utah. He’d get home from school, me from work? school? the details are hazy now…eat something and chillax, watch two episodes of Reba, and then he’d go to work til 11. I love Van. He cracks me up.

Hey guys, how ya doin’? Ah Reba’s green sweater.

Then, when I was pregnant and faced with a colonoscopy prep (TMI?) when I was just into my third tri-mester…and then it got called off because it was dangerous for the baby…I drowned my health-related anxiety in some sort of show honoring her career achievements. There were tons of country singers singing her songs, and it was awesome. (But I don’t like country music, ok?)

So, for our anniversary…my Mom and Dad surprised us with a night away and a date to see REBA! in concert. We stayed at a nice hotel and went to the concert on Friday night. It was amazing. I do love her, and I secretly hoped Van would show up and be funny. But he did not. But Barbara Jean did! They did a hysterical skit that had everyone rolling in the aisles (most especially a woman I nicknamed “Blondie” who was basically sitting on my feet due to the smallish nature of the arena, and who was recently divorced…or so her dramatic swaying to the “my love for you is dead” songs would indicate, and her mother, who started the night off as a perfectly respectable older woman and three beers later reminded me more of Lindsay Lohan plus forty years. It was kind of great). We were all horribly disappointed that Reba would leave the stage without singing Fancy. But she did not disappoint. After faking us out, she reappeared on stage in a red-sequined dress and sang her heart out one of the best songs EVER. Right up there next to Cher’s Gypsies & Tramps and Thieves. And Meatloaf’s Anything for Love. Which I can be found dancing to in the kitchen with my two year old any night of the week between 5 and 6pm. If you don’t believe me stop on by. Oh, and Toto’s Africa.

And for the record I love Bill Cosby, too. And I will not have a second child one second before John agrees to name it Cosby. Boy or girl.

BAM. (‘ll stop with that soon.)

Thanks Mom and Dad for watching Cy, and giving us a much-needed time out. And thanks Reba, for being freaking awesome. Because we needed that.

Toddler Book Fun

Monday, August 16th, 2010

So I was reading Cy his chosen bed-time stories tonight, when I realized how much of a real-to-life treasure this book is.  So I thought I’d share it with you.  In all it’s grainy, iPhone photo goodness.  My friend Amy sent it to Cy awhile back, and he loves looking at it.  But I’ve never really looked at it like I did tonight.

Where Is Baby’s Mommy? Karen Katz

I can tell you right now that Mommy is not in the closet.

Even still, a little anticlimactic.

I know very few Mommies who could successfully hide behind a plant. But look anyway Baby.

Is it routine for you to leave your crap laying all over the place?

Here we go again.

Ok.

What? With the rice you begged for then threw under there in a fit of rage before bed time? No. Probably not.

So yes.  You do routinely leave your crap everywhere.

If so, better hope Mommy is alone.

Of course.  One Freudian crisis averted.

I don’t know. Is Mommy under the blanket? (Please, for the love of Allah let Mommy be under the blanket.)

Of course she is! While you were macking on the cat Mommy was taking a NAP. SUCKA.

Also, I found this priceless gem at the library today. I was looking for toddler activities to store up for the long winter ahead.  Brace yourself.

BAM.

Don’t they have medicine for this?

Oh Sunday.

Monday, August 16th, 2010

I left church a little early yesterday.  Both Cy and I were DONE.  I want to preface this post with saying that I like church.  I’ve always liked church. (New website for people wanting to know more about the LDS faith. It’s looking pretty good over there!)

But yo, church with a two-year 0ld (ok, minus a month, don’t be so technical) is a whole different story.

We’ve actually recently had to move where we sit in order to ensure that our son isn’t faced with too much temptation.  Too much temptation being other kids playing with cars or ANYTHING ELSE.  That he can’t have.  It used to be that sitting near other children kept him entertained.  Now it keeps him straining all of his muscles trying to get whatever they have over the pew.  For now, at least, it’s much easier to get him to sit still and play quietly if we’re sitting near boringish adults.

And he likes to go to the foyer.  Where there other children.  I went out there one day to change his diaper and found kids playing with a soccer ball.  In church.  What? Of course, Cy thought that was just great and could hardly be contained for the rest of the meeting.

I think maybe we should remodel the chapel, 1800′s Quaker style.

photo credit: Staci Hopkin*

Just lock ‘em in.  They’ll get splinters trying to get out.  (Slivers, you say? We call them splinters.)

Other happy Sunday moments included someone going into my classroom and removing all the stuff I put in there (chalk, eraser, crayons) for my lesson, perhaps for their own use? I don’t know.  But it definitely had me scrambling just before my class.  And Cy peeing out his newest diaper (which I still can’t believe happened, cloth has never failed us before. I must of put it on funky.)  And Cy getting tackled and then subsequently learning to tackle others in nursery.  I had to take him out (I was in there because he was having a separation anxiety day) and convince him to “play nice” before letting him back in.  I want him to stand up for himself when other kids beat on him, but because he’s so young, he doesn’t know where to stop.  So there I am, playing referee. I swear I need to have like 3 Diet Cokes before church on Sunday.  Not even kidding.

Also, Cy didn’t nap today.  He fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept for 20 minutes.  And then didn’t go back to bed.  Which resulted in CRAZY BABY DAY!!!! I pointed out to John that Cy’s sleeping and eating patterns are so important to us that NOTHING routinely gets in the way of nap time and meal time.  He’s happiest and therefore WE are happiest when we stick to the routine.  So why is church different?  I mean…I know it’s church.  We’re supposed to go to be with other people, learn and support each other.  And I think it’s important for him to learn to sit through Sacrament Meeting, which will only happen if (DUH) he’s there.  But if we spend the last two hours chasing him, keeping him from learning bad things or teaching bad things to the other kids in a tired/hungry fit…is it worth it?  Should we just wait a couple months until his nap starts later and then try again?  I’m really starting to wonder…

*One of my favorite blogs lately.  You think YOU’VE had a busy summer.

Also, some cuteness.

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

Yes.  He is in a laundry basket.

Playing the “Pee-no!” table.  (Piano.)

Telling you that he’s “one.” Sorry for the crooked shot.

Blogging.  My son. :)

Mom-ergency Saturday

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

So, over the last few weeks I have read some HILARIOUS/HORRENDOUSLY scary posts.  Posts involving situations in which there is some sort of child-related emergency and panic-level is high, but the blog post afterward is good for some “Oh holy crap what would I have done?” chuckles.

So I thought I’d try to collect them for you and share them with you on Saturdays, while giving some of my favorite bloggers some link love, as well.

So, for your Saturday reading pleasure…

Mom-ergency number one from Fluent Brittish. The pictures are what really made it.

Thanks for reading.