Birthday, Take 1

So...Jacob's birthday was this weekend. But, of course, for reasons I've already discussed, we opted to not have his party this weekend...or next weekend, for that matter. Instead, we were off to Buffalo for some family time, first with my parents on Saturday, then with Craig's family on Sunday. We spent most of Friday evening trying to get packed up and ready for the weekend. I did some clothes shopping (I am seriously lacking appropriate summer clothing this year--between shifts in my body from pre-pregnancy to nursing to now and just general style changes, I'm at a loss) and then ordered pizza. Some packing, some wrapping, and that was the extent of it.

Saturday morning we got up with Jacob (around 8am, not bad) and then scrambled to finish last minute packing. Our pool is still vexing us a bit, between chemicals and filters and timers, but at this point we're ok to swim in it...we just need to work a couple maintenance things out. Figuring out how it had to be set for the weekend set us back a bit, but we got on the road about when we'd hoped to, which was a small miracle. We got to NT a little after noon, had time for some lunch, and then headed out to the Firemen's Parade, a longstanding tradition. I hadn't been to that parade in ages, so it was neat to go again. Jacob's first parade was last summer, but obviously he was a little more conscious of it all this year and we got to watch longer. He wasn't particularly phased by it all, though did sit nicely most of the time. He was referring to the fire trucks as "buses", and my dad corrected me when I said that buses are yellow and fire trucks are red, because some fire trucks are yellow. And sure enough, the City of Tonawanda has yellow fire trucks. Why? Ugh. He just seemed to take it all in. He even got to try his first Tootsie Roll, courtesy of one of the candy throwers during the parade. He loved it, as evidenced by the bite mark on my finger as he nearly bit it off trying to chew the last piece. Seeing as it was his first one, I was making him take bites, and the last bite got me. Ouch. Anyway, here are a couple cute pics from when we were waiting for the parade to make it to us...it was a hot day, but Jacob was having a lot of fun running around between water breaks!

Once we were back at my parents' house we had some time to relax and play. Lots of baseball in the backyard, and a couple slides down their little slide. Jacob did really good hitting the baseball, and I will post a video soon with proof! After dinner we headed over to my grandma's house with some cupcakes for a mini-birthday celebration. I brought some extras from the batch I made for daycare. It was a little experimental thanks to not being sure if my oil was still good. I opted to do the egg-free recipe, so I had to use the only light-colored soda we had, Wegmans Diet Cherry Wedge--a cherry-grapefruit flavor. It gave the white cake a hint of cherry flavor, and I did my experimental icing with milk, powdered sugar, vanilla and a drop of blue food coloring. It didn't turn out too bad! Here's our happy little family...

After that we headed out to Craig's side of the family. Jacob fell asleep on the way there, which led to the snuggling I posted about yesterday. When we woke up the next morning, I decided to try to institute a tradition from when I was a kid into my own family. I remember many birthday mornings where I headed into my parents' room and got to open my birthday gifts from them on their bed. I don't know if that was all my gifts or just a select few, if it was done that way on purpose or if that's just how it worked out, or even if it happened that way every year, but I have vivid memories of that and I always thought it was sort of cool. So, once Jacob was up he got to open up the one gift I bothering bringing with us--his magnetic doodler. He didn't get all jumping up and down excited, but few things do that for him outside of sports and Elmocizing. But he still seemed very interested and couldn't wait to play with it. Based on his responses to it since, I think I picked a winner. He was so obsessed with the ones at daycare that I figured I had to give it a shot.

Craig was recruited to help with his brother's campaign for a good chunk of the day, so for a while it was just Jacob and me. We ran to get the ice cream needed to make the ice cream cake I was making for the tiny Jacob portion of his cousins' birthday party, and then stopped at the playground while the ice cream softened up in the car. We did the slide, the swings, and a couple other random things before heading back to Craig's parents'. I worked on the cake while Jacob played, then took him on a little walk to knock him out and get him napped before the party. He fell asleep pretty quickly, but only stayed asleep for about 30-45 minutes. Ugh. Still, other than a couple small tantrums, he was a very good boy for most of the day. We played a lot of baseball, ate a LOT of fruit and tortilla chips, and finally did get him in the pool after cake time. He was staring at it all day but kept saying "no" when we asked him if he wanted to go in. I think he didn't want to take time away from his playing to get changed, honestly. He got sung to after the twins, and he really seemed to enjoy the attention. He sings "Happy Birthday" a lot, and even tries to sing "Sto lat", the Polish version of the song. Here are the lyrics, per Wikipedia:

Sto lat, sto lat,
Niech żyje, żyje nam.
Sto lat, sto lat, Niech żyje, żyje nam,
Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz,
niech żyje, żyje nam,
Niech żyje nam!

This translates roughly into English as:

A hundred years, a hundred years,

May he (she) live for us.

A hundred years, a hundred years,

May he live for us.

Once again, once again,

may he live, live for us,

May he live for us!

Jacob only gets the "Sto lat" part out, but it's cute that he tries. He'll still probaly learn it quicker than I did. I think it took me a good six years or so to be able to sing along completely. As has been his M.O. lately, he didn't eat any cake. I think he's just too busy running around doing other things. I think I ate plenty for both of us, though. It was just too good!

After a great swim in the toasty warm pool it was time to head home. Jacob was out practically before we were out of Craig's parents' neighborhood, and Craig was out before we even hit the second exit on the Thruway. I have a picture of both of them sleeping (yeah, I took it while driving on the Thruway, using my rear view mirror and holding the camera up--I swear, I was careful), but I will refrain from posting it here (for now) because Craig might not appreciate it. It's cute, though.

Jacob woke up a bit when we got home and I got him in bed, but he stayed quiet and snuggled with me in bed while Craig unpacked and we chatted a bit. Eventually he just fell back to sleep and that was it. I finished off the evening with a new batch of icing for the remaining cupcakes, some laundry and a blog post. Weekend complete.

Now we just need to get through this week for what we hope will be a pleasant weekend including lots of pool time and a trip to the drive-in, among other things. Craig and I are going to a fundraising event tonight (night out!), Craig has softball tomorrow, and I'm planning an ill-advised trip to IKEA in Burlington, ON on Wednesday to try to buy a piece of furniture that's too long for my car. I'm either going to try to bungee it in (at least until I get back to Buffalo, if all else fails), or I'll return it on the spot, or I'll look into shipping it back. The piece I want is ridiculously on sale ($99 down from $229) for one day, and I'm determined to get it here somehow. I'd like a riding/shopping/lifting/bungeeing partner, but so far no takers. Even better if that person came with a bigger vehicle. I keep thinking about renting a vehicle, but for one that big it appears to be cost-prohibitive. Still thinking about it, though. So, yeah, busy week coming up...but busy's good, I guess...it keeps things interesting!

Two Years Old!

Wow...Jacob is officially two years old!  What an amazing two years it has been.  A lot of random thoughts have floated in and out of my head in the last few days, thinking back to what I was doing two years ago at any given moment.  I couldn't help but smile and laugh a little on Friday night as I climbed into bed, thinking about how two years ago at that moment I was probably wandering around the house waiting for the doctor to call back and advise us on how to proceed with my leaking amniotic fluid.  I was half panicked, half full of adrenaline, and completely overwhelmed.  How can I focus enough to pack my hospital bag?  Are we going to be up all night, waiting to run to the hospital at any given moment?  And if we stayed at home, would I even be able to sleep when every shift of my body caused another trickle?  What a night that was.  Yesterday morning I thought about the visit to the doctor's to confirm what was happening, followed by a non-stress test and our stop at our respective offices to wrap things up before getting the official call to head to the hospital.  At lunch time I thought about our long wait in the hospital lobby before they got us into a room.  At dinner I recalled how I was just starting to feel some pain at that point, and by bedtime I was thinking about the odd hours in between the epidural and full dilation, prior to pushing.  Such an odd time of trying to rest, knowing I could never sleep, and yet being a little jealous of whatever sleep and food Craig got.  And today I relived a couple moments as well, though Jacob's birth day was a little less triumphant than the rest, I suppose, for reasons I'll get into in a bit.

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of snuggling Jacob for a good hour or two.  Craig was headed out for a guys night out with his dad and brother, and Jacob was headed to bed...but he'd napped a bit on our way to Craig's parents, for about an hour between 7:00 and 8:00, and he was having trouble winding down.  I was pretty sleepy myself, so I laid down with him...and much to my surprise he snuggled right in.  It's rare he does that these days, since he's always moving!  We snuggled for quite a while, both of us unable to sleep.  But it was the most relaxing and enjoyable time, other than the nagging thought that Jacob needed to be sleeping so he'd be in a good mood for his birthday!  Eventually I did have to put him in his pack 'n' play and let him nod off on his own, but I truly enjoyed the experience.  And we did much the same tonight after he woke up upon our arrival home and didn't quite seem ready to go to bed.  This time he did fall asleep with me, though, and I was more than happy to put him into bed sleeping soundly.  It just seemed appropriate to spend that one-on-one close time with him these last couple days, almost commemorating the closeness we left behind two years ago today, that of him actually living inside my belly.

I still think back on pregnancy often...probably too often, in fact.  I'll leave that topic for another post, but I suppose his approaching birthday probably brought up more memories than usual in the last week or two.  And tonight on the drive home I couldn't help but think of that awkward first day post-pregnancy.  Looking back on it now I realize just how awkward it was.  As you may recall, Jacob was born at 2:40am.  After a couple hours of cleanup and regaining full control of my body, I finally got transferred into my hospital room, ate a good meal (one of the best of my life, despite its contents), and called my parents.  The next couple hours were a blur, somewhere between sleep and awkward attempts to nurse.  I could hardly move from my bed and Jacob's bassinet was at the end of my bed, and Craig was too sound asleep to help me when Jacob cried.  Arg.  Sometime around 6am, I think, a nurse came in and didn't like what she was seeing. She whisked Jacob off to the nursery to have him checked out, and there he stayed.  I got a couple updates here and there, but in all of my concern and confusion I never really figured out what my role should be that day.  I couldn't nurse him yet because he was all hooked up to IVs and machines, and I wasn't too mobile anyway to get up and wander there myself.  I blogged and watched a lot of TV, tried to nap, and just generally worried.  Craig went down to the nursery a couple times, but I don't think I made my way down there until the early evening.  I just wasn't sure what to do.  I don't think anyone told me that I could go down there, and I was too tired to think to ask.  I think I eventually just went because I figured I should.  And that time was great.  I got some awesome pictures, had some great visitors, and really enjoyed motherhood for the first time.  The rest of the week probably went downhill pretty fast with all of Jacob's treatments and my mental breakdown, but it was a nice moment nonetheless. 

I still look back on that first week with a little regret, because we never got the traditional picture in the hospital room of mom and baby, or our new little family.  And I don't have nearly enough pictures of Jacob from that first week, since the whole thing of being in the hospital, overtired, uncomfortable and definitely not feeling at home was quite a distraction.  I guess I didn't want a bunch of pictures of my bionic baby all hooked up to wires.  Not exactly the picture-perfect, adorable shots most people have filling their albums from that first week or two.  It's definitely one of the things I hope to do differently next time, regardless of any tubes and wires that might get in the way.

But here we are two years later with a healthy, happy little boy.  He's four times heavier and nearly a foot longer than he was back then, and is such an armful now that I've pretty much given up standing up while rocking him, on the rare occasions that he needs it.  I marvel as I run my fingers through his full head of hair, grab his chubby thighs and rub his round belly, sans umbilical cord...appreciating all of the things that were so different the day he was born.  He's talking up a storm these days, using adjectives and full (short) sentences now.  It's amazing.  Today we played on a playground (more on our weekend coming soon) and I smiled as he climbed up the stairs to the slide all by himself (with me closely behind, of course).  I never could have thought far enough ahead back then to imagine the little boy he'd be two years later.  Back then it was one day at a time, if not one hour.  Lately I've been second-guessing the sure-thing second child decree I had back when I was pregnant ("If we have one, we're having two"), for a few reasons that I'll get into another time (perhaps as part of the pregnancy post), but today was a reminder of how far we've come, and how amazing it is to watch your child grow when you have a benchmark like today to help mark your progress.  It's hard, hard work, but it's amazing and rewarding and such a unique experience that you can never wish it away.  Sure, sometimes you need a break, or wish you could hop in a time machine to go back to a more carefree time, but parenthood changes you in ways you never imagined.  I'm a vastly different person than who I was two years ago, in some ways I can't even explain and in others far too obvious (yes, I worry and yell a lot more, but I also love more, too).  It's been one heck of a ride and it's hard to believe our lives have been upside down (or right side up?) for two whole years.  Sleep deprivation and stress aside, it's an honor to be Jacob's mommy.  When we were cuddling and he grabbed my hand to hold it or put it around him tighter, there's nothing better in the world than that.  Simply perfect.  He's not a perfect child and we're not perfect parents, but that was a perfect moment nonetheless.  Happy Birthday to my little man, the greatest gift I have ever received. 

Birthday Celebrating

I'm feeling a little discombobulated when it comes to Jacob's birthday. His actual birthday is Sunday, but due to numerous family conflicts (parties Saturday, Sunday, and next Saturday), not to mention Father's Day, we figured it would be a tough sell to get anyone out to Rochester during either of those weekends. So, we're going to have Jacob's party on July 3rd, assuming I can ever get the invites out. Yes, it's July 4th weekend, but let's face it, for as many people as might be involved with other parties or picnics, there's that many more that might find that weekend more convenient since they might have an extra day to work with, assuming their employers are nice and give them the 5th off (like both of ours). And really, anytime past that is just getting to be too far out. I should have just snagged this Saturday (the 19th) ages ago, but I'm a procrastinator and this is what happens. It doesn't help that we have big families with lots of birthdays, graduations and first communions this time of year. God forbid baby #2 is born in June. Anyway...

For so long Jacob's birthday seemed so far off. But just when it started to get closer, then the party planning issues came up and all of a sudden it felt far away again since we wouldn't be having the official celebration for another couple weeks after. BUT...his actual birthday is still this Sunday and I'm suddenly feeling a little panicked because 1) I still don't feel like we're done buying gifts; 2) We still have two other birthday gifts to buy and pack for our niece and nephew whose birthday is today and party is Sunday; 3) I feel like I should be a good mom and send a birthday treat to daycare on Friday, and was given no other guidance besides, "Nothing with a lot of frosting"; 4) I want to celebrate with cake this weekend, though we're traveling which makes that considerably more complicated.

My sister-in-law offered to make another cake for Jacob for Sunday since she's already making one for her own kids. I appreciate this immensely, particularly considering the egg allergy thing, but at the same time...she's got enough to do and I feel like I should make my own cake for my own kid...if only for practice! I also thought about doing an ice cream cake, which would be something different than the cake for the twins, and probably rather easy to make egg-free. I have a couple recipes I've been dying to try (for years!) so this might be the chance. It's just how convenient (or not) it will be to make it. It might be easier (read: more comfortable) to make it ahead at our house or my parents' house, but transporting would be an issue. So...I need to think about that a little more. I'd like to bring something to my parents' as well, for when we're there Saturday (I think--still scheduling) but I'm still pondering that as well.

For daycare, I really wanted to be Super Mom and bring in cupcakes. That was THE BEST as a kid, so I'd like to start that now. I think other kids have brought goodie bags (at least, I think the Spongebob goodie bag Jacob brought home was from a birthday) and cake for theirs, and I'd like to be a cool mom, too. No time like the present. But the "no frosting" request sort of made me stop and think. I mean, I could do just a nice light frost, which I think is probably acceptable in contrast to those crazy cupcakes that Wegmans sells with the half-cup dollop of fluorescent frosting. Or I could just do some icing--you know, powdered sugar, milk and maybe some vanilla, which will harden and in theory be less of a mess. Or maybe I just go the cop-out route and buy something like cookies, or go the healthy route and bring in fruit cups or something. No idea. It's only nine kids, so inevitably something will either go to waste or provide us with leftovers (which are great but probably the last thing we need sitting around).

Gifts are probably the last worry on my list, because we have two good ones. He's getting a baseball tee and a Fisher-Price Doodle Pro. The baseball tee will save Jacob a lot of frustration and us some broken bones in our hands. It's a real one, not just a kiddie one, so not only was it cheaper, but it will also last longer. The Doodle Pro (one of those magnetic drawing boards) is because he's obsessed with the one at daycare. Inevitably, he will not play with it at all at home, but I figured I'd take the chance. If nothing else it will be a car toy for trips. I would still like to get him a pool toy for our pool, maybe something to ride in or float on. We had also talked about getting him a baseball glove, but he did get a free one at the Red Wings game and he doesn't seem quite ready yet so maybe that will wait for Christmas or his next birthday. I've had about 30 things run through my mind in the past six months, and yet, this is where we stand with two gifts in hand four days before.

Of course, right now he doesn't know the difference. It doesn't really matter to him that his party is in two weeks or that he might not get his gifts on his birthday because it doesn't make a lot of sense to transport them. Sure, the Doodle Pro might be handy for the trip (though I do still prefer a sleeping child for long drives), but giving him the tee and leaving home for two days without it just seems cruel. He doesn't really care about cake (though I'm sure he will enjoy being able to eat it multiple times--assuming he'll sit long enough to do it) and won't really understand why he's being sung to multiple times over the next few weeks. And thank goodness for that. I'm convinced God gave us clueless babies to give us time to refine our parenting skills in many different ways before they truly know the difference. It takes time to get in the groove of the many kid-related activities surrounding birthdays and holidays, so at least we get a couple years before our kids know any better.

All in all, this birthday feels a bit cobbled together. One celebration here, another there, travels back and forth, and a holiday thrown in for good measure. Should be fun, but still lots of work ahead!

General Updates

Since I got all of my complaining out of my system yesterday, I guess I can try to focus on some other things today. And before I go any further, I apologize if I sounded like a cruel, harsh parent in yesterday's post. Sunday's events seriously made me crazy, and I literally couldn't spend any more time with Jacob...for the good of both of us. I was so fed up with his behavior and couldn't even look at things objectively anymore, so every little thing he did just made things exponentially worse. But I did say, too, obviously you don't stop loving your child even at moments like that. And probably admitting you need a break is better than what some parents do, which is explode and take it out on their kids. If I would have been alone in that scenario, I probably would have left Jacob in his crib for the rest of the day, or at least until I chilled out. I actually did do that for about 15 minutes during one freak-out when it was obvious that he needed to calm down and I was tired of yelling and dealing with a kicking, screaming child. But fortunately, that evening I did have Craig, and even more fortunately, Jacob fell asleep on the way home and stayed asleep, which meant we didn't have to do our bedtime routine. It was a relief, to say the least. I know that he's two (or almost, anyway) and he's going to have those moments. Sunday was an extreme example, for sure. I can't expect perfection. But I can still hope for some logic to creep in at some point.

So...that said....in other news...

Yesterday's post was #450 in the life of this blog. That's pretty crazy. I've been at it for almost 2-1/2 years now. Some people ask me if I'm ever going to do anything with the blog to keep it for posterity. I'm honestly not sure how I would go about that, particularly now that it's so big. I'd love to go to Kinko's and say, "Can you open up this webpage, click on every month, and print each one in color?" I doubt that would go over well, and it could end up pretty darn expensive. Hopefully it will be here forever, but it would be nice to have a printed copy somewhere, just in case the internet blows up or Blogspot goes away. It happened to my beloved webpage, so if Geocities can go away, I suppose this can too someday. Or maybe someday I'll have a decent printer and just commit one toner cartridge to doing it myself. Or maybe I can pay off my office and do it here based on our cost per page. Hmmm. In any event, it's an interesting version of a baby book, and over the long term, a form of a family history.

Jacob is getting his two-year molars. Thus far there have been no major side effects beyond a lot of hand chewing. Jacob either seems to have a lot of buildup to the teething process, or he's a compulsive hand chewer. I think he started drooling and knawing on his fingers (not sucking, mind you, just chewing) very early on, but didn't get teeth until about he was eight months old. His last batch of teeth came in quite a while ago, but he's been chewing on his hands a lot for the last few months even though there was no sign of the two-year molars. Since he's been doing it so much for so long, it hardly occurred to me (despite his rapidly approaching birthday) that they could be coming in since we've been sleeping blissfully. Usually teething has been accompanied by a few horrific weeks of sleeping (or lack thereof), so I fully expected to be back in sleep deprivation mode the second those teeth started breaking through. Jacob almost never lets me look in his mouth anyway, even when I'm brushing his teeth (I must say, "Open your mouth" about 20 times in less than two minutes), so I'd hardly ever get a good chance to see anyway. But the other night I happened to get a brief view, and caught a glimpse of something. Jacob was (finally) accomodating enough to let me stick my fingers in his mouth (ahhh, motherhood), and sure enough, one bottom molar had definitely poked through and the other was right there. I'm pretty sure that one's in now too. I still don't see anything up top. At the risk of jinxing myself, I must say that I am utterly relieved that we've made it this far without nighttime misery. It's like a miracle, particularly since I've heard these are often nightmarish teeth to come in. I'd imagine terrible twos and teething combine into a pretty nasty monster. Maybe general discomfort has been part of Jacob's tantrums...who knows? He has been having some cold sensitivity issues with some foods, but I can't tell if it's just a mental thing for him or if the cold causes him physical discomfort. Normally teething rings are cold and feel good during teething, but maybe there's something else at work here.

Jacob is really becoming an old pro at this talking thing. We still have our share of hard-to-decipher words, but he's definitely getting better at stringing words together. We've started getting into the "I do it"/"I get it"/"I hold it" statements, which are usually pretty cute. He can definitely put together a lot of subject/verb phases like, "Mommy bat" or "Daddy pitch" when we're playing baseball with him, or encouraging us to eat or drink or play. He's probably a little borderline bossy right now, but at the moment I have a hard time seeing him as being bossy with his friends. He's always been the center of our universe, so I suppose he'd think we'd be up for whatever he is.

That's all for today, I guess... :)

Fed Up

I had a bad weekend. That almost never happens. I spend all week waiting for the weekend (yeah, way to wish away my summer), and then weekends usually go all too quick. I look forward to time with Jacob and Craig, and hope to do some fun stuff like hang out with family or go to the zoo or shopping for stuff we need or on some other adventure. For example, this coming weekend is Father's Day and we'll be heading to Buffalo for at least some time with family. We also want to try, if possible, to hit up the drive-in to see Toy Story 3. So just the mere prospect of those adventures is enough to keep me going all week. But this past weekend...ugh. It just stunk. And perhaps it's my own fault. But not entirely.

The biggest problem was that I just didn't do anything. I didn't even leave our property until Sunday morning for church. And beyond that we did go out to dinner. But that ended up just being a painful capper to the rest of the weekend, so I'm not sure it counts. Like I said, it may have been at least partially my fault. I should have just invented something to do instead of sitting around the house all weekend, but that's easier said than done. Friday night I had hoped to go out for ice cream or something, but that just didn't happen. Craig was mowing the lawn when Jacob and I got home, and all of a sudden he just stopped. It took a while to figure out, but a belt came off of our NEW lawn mower. Seriously? Figuring that out took a while, and by the time that was done (it's covered under warranty but they're not picking it up until tomorrow--our lawn is going to look awesome), we had a late dinner and it was really too late to do much else. Saturday Craig was playing in a golf tournament with a couple of the Knighthawks. Originally I was fine with that (although I don't think he told me until like, mid-week last week), but as the day wore on, it got to be frustrating. The weather was annoying...hot and humid early on, then cold and miserable after that. The weirdest thing about Saturday was that it actually wasn't a bad day. Jacob slept in late, was actually fun in the morning, had a slightly frustrating beginning to lunch, but ended up eating pretty well (albeit on my lap), then took a good two hour nap. I got some cleaning and yardwork done during that time, and then after some so-so playtime, we had a nice visit from Lori that lasted until Craig got home. Dinner actually went well, but then we stayed home that night again and I guess I was just sort of bored. Like, I waited all day for the evening so I/we could do something interesting (even if it was just going to the mall for a few minutes alone) but much like Friday, for various reasons it just didn't happen. And it was just disappointing.

So along came Sunday. I knew from the moment Jacob woke up that he was a little extra hyper, which didn't bode well for church. But breakfast was fine and church actually wasn't terrible. Near the end Jacob started getting loud and darting back and forth around the room, but fortunately there was a little boy there about the same age that was worse, so in comparison he didn't look too bad. More "high energy" than a "pain in the butt". Once we got home, the "fun" started. Jacob fell asleep on the way back from church, so we immediately put him in bed when we got home. Before we could even eat lunch, a guy came over to help Craig open our pool. He was there for five hours. Which meant that it was just Jacob and me for all five hours. His nap wasn't nearly long enough (maybe a little over an hour), and once he was up, he didn't sleep a wink for the rest of the day. He actually ate his lunch very well, but beyond that, he was hyper and fought me on everything--diaper changes, clothing changes, going outside and coming back in, what we did outside, you name it. By late afternoon, I was ready for the pool thing to be done so we could just go out to dinner. Oh, and did I mention that I was exhausted? I'm trying a new allergy medicine that can cause drowsiness, and while it doesn't seem to do it to me all the time, I have been having short spans where I am absolutely beat. One of those spans coming at the end of a very long afternoon (not helped by pool issues, either) just about did me in. And dinner? Ugh, it was a disaster. I don't think Jacob ate a bite of his food. He had a couple things off of our plates, but nothing from his. And I refused to let him eat the large helping of mandarin oranges he got with his meal until he ate some of his real food...but since that never happened, no oranges either (because I can't give in later, right?). And then he just got annoying. He starting throwing his placemat, screaming, hitting me (not hard, but repetitive), throwing food, squirming out of the booster seat (it got us a table immediately...they didn't seem jazzed about finding us a highchair-compatible table, and he HAS done a booster before so we figured we'd give it a shot--bad idea, though I'm not sure a high chair would have been any better), and just generally being a nasty little boy. Craig and I ended up switching spots, but eventually it got bad enough that even Craig was fed up and took him out for a spanking. And believe me, it usually takes a lot for that to happen. It was awful. Craig ended up taking him out for good when his behavior didn't improve, leaving me to wrap up the food and pay the bill. Jacob was falling asleep by the time I got into the car, so I know he was overtired. It was still frustrating, though, because he actually had earlier bedtimes all weekend than he usually does, and it was still an issue. Nothing felt better than plopping him into bed the moment we got home. I literally could not spend another moment with him.

I think what bothers us the most is that Jacob doesn't respond to any sort of discipline right now. Sure, if he gets a little handslap or spanking he might whine for a few seconds, but that's it. Raising voices does nothing. He will literally continue the bad behavior and smile at you. No matter how angry or direct you are to try to stop the behavior, he laughs through it. It's like he's missing the gene that tells you that an angry voice or actual physical restraint (i.e., covering his mouth when he's screaming in an inappropriate setting or holding his arm when he's trying to hit) is a bad thing. We haven't really gone the timeout route yet, but short of strapping him down, I don't know how we'd ever get him to sit down for one...because obviously yelling or constantly moving him back to the timeout area would not be effective. And how effective can it be if we're physically holding him there? We've tried taking things away. He'll lose his privileges to play with his baseball bat or hockey stick if he doesn't at least give dinner a good effort, or if he hits one of us with one of them. Usually it's just for the evening, because I'm not sure he'd remember the next day why he can't play with it, nor am I sure he's actually capable of controlling himself enough to make a continued punishment necessary. I think we need to start teaching him to be responsible with those things and to eat his dinner, but I'm just not sure there's enough malice behind it to prolong things. When we take things away, he usually spends the entire evening whining for that thing. We don't give in, of course, but I'm just not sure he's learning anything from it either because things never seem to get better.

It all seems like a big game to him, perhaps an attention grabber. He likes being cute and funny. And while I sometimes wonder if he doesn't respect me, I truly think that for some reason he just doesn't get it. And I just don't know why. Mommy and Daddy are mad. It's not funny. We're loud and we spank sometimes, yet he doesn't make the connection. There a few things more infuriating as a parent than being so angry you could spit, and yet having your child giggling through any sort of reprimand. I suppose on one hand it might be good that he doesn't fear us. I mean, I've read repeatedly that your kid shouldn't fear you, just respect you. Kids often misbehave more around their parents because they trust them and feel safe testing boundaries (yeah, lucky us). You know, there were times as a kid that I feared my parents and their punishments. And no, it wasn't fun. But if that's the only way to get Jacob to know we mean business when we scream at him not to run in the road or put something dangerous in his mouth, I'm willing to try it. But it's not my preferred method. Nor do I think it's working with him right now. Perhaps he knows we love him so much that he shouldn't possibly need to fear us. Or maybe he's just oblivious to needing to fear anything. There isn't much that phases him, actually. It's not too often he's glued to our laps in fear these days. But maybe he's just not cognitively at a point where he CAN respect us, or understand what that means. But to be unphased when we're angry...so frustrating.

I've tried positive reinforcement so he's not seeking out negative attention, but it only goes so far. I've tried talking to him calmly. But nothing seems to resonate with him. He just doesn't listen, no matter our tone or mood or method. This morning I asked at daycare if they could make a concerted effort to make sure that when they're reprimanding him, they're not injecting one ounce of humor into it. You know, like when your kid is sneaking somewhere he shouldn't, and you give them the, "What do you think you're doing?" line with a smile on your face. I don't want him thinking it's any sort of game or a situation where he can test us. And I suppose that's part of the problem--him being at daycare and us not having a lot of control over the discipline. While I don't doubt their methods, it's hard to make things 100% consistent, you know? But of course, as this weekend reminded me, I don't think I could do the stay-at-home mom thing either. All I do know is that by the time we left the restaurant, I couldn't even look at him. I had had it.

Of course, our kids can drive us nuts and we will still love them. It doesn't mean it's easy sometimes, but we do. And in the short term it can make it hard to even be a functional parent around them. It's easy to fall into a slippery slope where one little misbehavior on Jacob's part causes an overreaction on my part because I'm so sick of what we've already dealt with and freak out at the thought of going through it again. I need to try to put yesterday behind me and just deal with each day and each incident with a fresh outlook. I know that like all things, this phase will pass. He'll get into trouble of other sorts in future phases, but I just keep hoping that one day it will click in his head that he actually has to listen to us and obey us, and it will keep him (reasonably) out of trouble. And right now that's just not happening so we have to deal with it. We're not sure what the next step is right now, but we're just going to have to meander through it a bit.

Days like this bring up a lot of stuff in your mind, particularly when they coincide with a generally crappy period apart from child issues. As I mentioned, my allergy meds may have added to my misery (giving them a shot for a while to see if I adjust), and the weather going from hot and humid to cold and rainy and back didn't help. Having Craig out of commission for a couple days added to things, and so did stress relating to getting the pool open. The methods they used were desperation methods to get it all done in one day (next year we'll know how to start early) and it left us with a wet backyard. We actually had to call the former owners to figure out a couple things, and in general I'm hoping that I suddenly become a pool devotee so keeping it around is worth it. It's just one more thing to think about. So when you add in the Jacob stuff and think about where you went wrong, how you can fix it, what you'd ever do if you had to deal with another child at the same time, particularly one as difficult as Jacob can be...it's all pretty overwhelming. It makes you question a lot of things. Maybe I'll get into those in another post, but for now I'll say that I still had to remind myself this morning how ridiculously blessed we are to have a little boy who does bring us joy when he's not making us crazy, to have a lovely house (with a pool!), and all of these other "problems" in our lives. While it's frustrating to deal with it all sometimes, they're good problems to have compared to so many others. And in just a few more days, we will celebrate the two year anniversary of the day our lives changed forever. Wow.

Obsessions

Why do kids become fixated on certain things? I see it all the time with Jacob, and sure enough, thinking back on my own childhood, I did it too. I'm pretty sure we've all done it, actually, though I'd have to think that some kids (studiers, sensory kids, those who notice every little detail) probably do it more. There are just certain things kids gravitate to for no apparent reason, and it's so odd to watch from an adult's perspective. But as a kid, I know it seemed completely normal. I'm sure a shrink would have volumes to say on a lot of these fixations, but I'd have to think that a lot of it comes back to imagination and how a child-like brain sees a particular object. Or maybe something's happened that makes an object resonate like never before.

From my own experience I can think back to certain types of toys I gravitated to, or certain storylines my Barbies lived out repeatedly, or certain toys that I probably never used for their official purpose because my imagination thought they should be used in another way. I could probably dig in my memory bank and come up with tons of stories, but I'll give you two...at the risk of embarrassing myself. Example 1: We had this set of colorful clear plastic octagons that were slotted so you could interlock them and build things. But I don't think I ever built much. More often I used them in some sort of imaginary storyline where they were some sort of colorful food item or something. I would just distribute them into piles, stack them in the six sections of their box, and presumably just enjoy the colors. No clue what the draw was there, though to this day I still love brightly colored things like that. They'd make a lovely mobile or something now if I strung them up. Example 2: My dentist used to give out cheap rings after each appointment. Between those and ones that I found in the "junk boxes" at my grandma's house (from years of her four children living next door to a little grocery store with those alluring kiddie vending machines that every store has), I had quite an assortment. But the odd thing? I pried the stones out of all of them, so I just had a collection of the stones themselves. And at the time I became obsessed with the Home Shopping Network, and would often use the stones and a set of plastic chopsticks I had (from God knows where) to display and poke at the stones like they did on HSN when showing off jewelry. Again, no idea why that was something fun for me, but I turned into a relatively functional adult so I guess it didn't scar me in any way. I also had a thing for those colorful little rocks you find at science/educational stores....still do, actually ;-)

So, that said, I guess there's no telling what a child is going to be interested in or intrigued by. I can list off a whole slew of things that Jacob is bizarrely attached to. Let's see...

Anything sports - He pretty much has a hockey stick, lacrosse stick, or baseball bat in his hand at any given moment. However, there are times when he needs to have a certain one or the world will end. This morning he was determined to find a certain ball. He's also been obsessed with Craig's batting helmet that I posted a picture of the other day. I think the thing that's funniest though, is what he will turn into a hockey stick, lacrosse stick, or baseball bat. Yesterday at daycare he apparently pointed to his celery and said "baseball bat" and then pointed to a plum and decided it was a ball.

Stuffed animals - He definitely gets on stuffed animal kicks. Sometimes he nees to have a certain one in hand to get him to do anything. His crib is practically a zoo, not to mention a potential suffocation hazard, I suppose. But he just doesn't want to send any of his animals to the basket next to the crib at bedtime. He's also wanted to stockpile blankets in his crib, but I draw the line at two--one folded up like a pillow, and one blanket to cover him. One of the stuffed animal oddities lately is that he's been keeping this bear in his crib. It's a little knit/crocheted blue bear that my mom got him at the church bazaar back when he wasn't even six months old. He's checked it out a bit every now and then since then, but lately he's had that bear in his crib all the time. One night I tried putting some animals back in the basket, and he specifically asked for that one. Not that it isn't super cute, but it's just odd that all of a sudden he's totally into that one after months of indifference.

Sunglasses - After fighting us over wearing sunglasses last summer and part of this spring, Jacob now does not want to take his off. Ever. He wears them in the house and cries when we take them off, even before meals or bedtime. They do look pretty cool, but considering his track record of clumsiness, obstructed or darkened vision is probably not the best thing for him.

Elmocize - I already covered this one previously, but why is this video so darn addictive compared to regular Sesame Street or any other show on TV? Sure, the music's catchy, but so is the Elmo's World song and the little song Elmo sings at the end of Elmo's World to the tune of Jingle Bells, at the end of each Sesame Street episode. Part of me wants to let him explore the world of kids' TV a bit, but I'm afraid of a new, more annoying obsession. Craig talked about getting him some kids movies as well, but I'm just not sure I want to go there, both because he doesn't need to sit and watch TV, and because I don't need to memorize any kids movies from being on repeat play.

Turtle - Yesterday morning Jacob wandered into our room and noticed this clear plastic (lucite?) turtle that was on one of the shelves of my nightstand. It was a dollar store purchase years ago, basically a gag gift for Craig as I recall, because it's a back massager. Rub the feet up your back and it will give you chills. I actually have a non-dollar store version that's a dolphin, which lives on a shelf in the bathroom. So the turtle has sat near the bed for years, in one spot or another, just in case either of us ever feels generous and wants to give the other a backrub. Yeah, right. But Jacob found it interesting and he's been toting it around ever since. He even took it to bed with him last night. I took it back out after he fell asleep (that would be a rude awakening), but he asked for it first thing this morning. So odd.

Food - Jacob isn't much of a foodie. It's hard to get him to sit and eat a meal unless he's the right mood (which I have yet to figure out) or the food is what he wants right then and there. However, there are certain things that he constantly asks for or gets seriously excited about when he gets one. He loves pretzels. He's eaten them a lot at my parents, where there's a good, readily accessible supply. And now he knows where we keep them in one of our lower kitchen cabinets, so he's constantly digging in there to find them. Same with the Goldfish we keep there too. But he asks for pretzels by name quite often. He also asks for "beans" a lot. "Beans" are actually M&Ms or any other candy coated chocolate. He's also a big fan of Lucky Charms. Craig gave him a few of the oat pieces in the mornings when he poured his own cereal, and now Jacob loves them. And yes, he does get a few marshmallows but I try to weed them out when I can. Believe me, it was not my plan to get him into sugar cereals this early. He also loves smoothies that I make with strawberries, bananas, yougurt, milk and ice...though he usually sees me with the banana and says, "No 'nana." But he loves them anyway. He's also still a big fan of ice cream cones, with or without the ice cream. So weird.

Wearing Shoes - For some reason, just like he wants to wear his sunglasses inside, he always wants to wear shoes. He cries when we take them off, and points to them when he sees them. Not sure what the draw is, but he totally loves to wear shoes.

So, he's a bit of an oddball, but I guess if he didn't have weird obsessions, he'd be an even odder oddball! Gotta love the quirks, though :) And I'm sure there will be many, many more to come!

Baseball!

We had a tough decision to make leading up to this past weekend...do we go to Toronto for a couple days, or stay home and relax? The Toronto trip idea was spawned by a lacrosse game (one featuring the Toronto Nationals, who used to be the Rochester Rattlers, as well as the Chicago Machine, which is actually a nomadic franchise this season, one that people are hoping lands permanently in Rochester next year) and some potentially useful trips to the Hockey Hall of Fame and IKEA. Craig wants to buy a bunch of those little hockey player keychains that Jacob plays with to use as future potty training bribes, and the HHOF has a ton of them. I want to go to IKEA to look at a few pieces of furniture for our house--namely a kitchen dinette and a bookshelf/cabinet. I'd even found (but not booked) a reasonably priced room at a Holiday Inn Express with free parking and breakfast. However, at the 11th hour on Friday we decided not to do it. Between my nasty cold, the thought of packing and driving to Buffalo after work, and just a long weekend in general, we decided to stay home. We figured we could to go a baseball game, maybe hit up a drive-in, and just enjoy the time at home. In the end, we only did the baseball game and tacked on a trip to Fairport Canal Days (a quaint festival across town), but it was a pleasant weekend, I guess.

We started out at the baseball game. We hadn't been to a Rochester Red Wings game since last summer, when we went to a couple, and since we can generally go for free one way or another, it's an easy night out. It was a pleasant but cool evening and we had great seats. One of the big motivators to go was that it was glove night, where the first 1,500 kids got a baseball glove. Yeah, it was just a vinyl one with sponsor logos all over it, but it's good enough for Jacob and potentially saves us a birthday present to buy ;-) He's obsessed with Craig's gloves and while this one is a little smaller, at least it's closer to fitting! Despite having gotten a glove, though, Jacob was distracted by the little girl with a pink one sitting behind us, which is what he's pointing to in the picture below. Hmmm. Don't think that will fly out on the field...
Jacob wasn't quite as entranced by baseball as he is with hockey and lacrosse, so after a few innings and some dinner (Jacob ate a hot dog, minus the bun, and lots of pretzels) we did some walking around. Here are the boys with the Red Wings-sponsored bird from an Animals on Parade thing they did here a few years back.

And here they are with a horse from the Rochester "Horses on Parade" from even longer ago. This one's made from old baseball mitts.

Eventually we headed down to the ice cream stand for dessert. Craig and Jacob shared a vanilla cone with chocolate sprinkles. Jacob is now obsessed with sprinkles after the cone he shared with me last weekend. It was getting late and Jacob was already a little past-bedtime punchy. The ice cream put Jacob into a bit of a sugar high, as well, so he was running around like a maniac in the middle of his ice cream licks. You can't see it here, but he's got ice cream all over his mouth. But the pose--mid-swing and running--sums up what he was doing for a good 15 minutes solid.

Here he is being lured by the remaining cone...

He fell asleep on the way home and didn't even wake up once we got there and changed him into his PJs. A good night as a whole.

On Saturday afternoon after Jacob's first nap (yeah, on weekends he usually takes two...no idea why. Must be the way our schedule goes. He poops out around 11am no matter when he wakes up, sleeps for an hour to an hour and a half, and then goes like crazy again until about 4 or so, when he takes another medium length nap. It's odd.), we decided to head out. First we stopped at Friendly's for free ice cream. Once in a while they have a day where everyone can get a free one-scoop cone. My favorite one was when I was pregnant and I treated myself to a full-fat Vienna Mocha Chunk cone without guilt. Fantastic. After that we headed out to Fairport Canal Days. It's a weekend fesitval in one of the more quaint towns outside Rochester. The fesitval goes up and down their Main St., across the Erie Canal, and spills over into a couple large parking lots. There's lots of food, a bunch of crafters, and some local vendors, as well. It's a pleasant walk, if nothing else. The weather was nice and we had a good time, but by the end Jacob was beat and ended up on Daddy's shoulders again (recurring theme of the weekend, if you hadn't noticed). This was the sight on the way back to the car...and as you can imagine, it was followed by a nap.

Sunday was a pretty low key day. We went to church, came home, Jacob napped for over two hours, had a late lunch, did a little running around (during which the weather finally turned from 60, rainy & windy to 70 and pleasant), and came home for a dinner of homemade chicken pot pie...which Jacob didn't each much of but which tasted pretty good! Other than that we had a little outside time--Jacob and Craig played with his basketball hoop and I gave 1/3 of our evergreens a haircut--and a couple tantrum battles in between.

It wasn't some amazingly fantastic exciting weekend, but it was a good quality weekend at home. We have a busy month ahead of us so I guess we figured we'd enjoy it while we could. We're still trying to figure out Jacob's birthday party, by the way. Our first two choices of dates were scooped up by other family events, and we're just not sure what to do now. Do a 4th of July weekend party for both families at our house? Do separate parties in Buffalo for each side of the family whenever we can schedule them? Go up against one of the other parties and just deal? No idea. I guess it was bad planning, procrastination, and bad assumptions on our part, coupled with some bad luck and busy schedules that were out of our control. I will never again assume that the weekend of Jacob's birthday will be avoided by all others for their own parties. Lesson learned. We'll definitely have cake and gifts on his actual birthday, so I know he won't miss out on the birthday experience, but we probably should have a real party just because it seems wrong not to. We want to see family, show off the house, and give Jacob the celebration he deserves. It just may not be in close proximity to his real birthday. Oh, to live close to family and be able to pick a random evening, even on a weekday...arg. And yes, we do still have to work around our nephew's allergies in planning for the party, so I really must get on the ball and start planning menus and a cake theme now. Way too much to think about!

And on that note, I'm off to go stress...