Halloween

After much wavering, O decided this year to be the Cat in the Hat. He was lobbying for Colin and me to be Nick and Sally, the two kids who accompany the Cat on his adventures, but he had to settle for his little sister as the Cat's fish friend.

We started the Halloween fun with a party and parade at O's school, then went to Channel 3 for some trick or treating around the office. O loved handing out candy to trick or treaters who rang our doorbell (every night since he's asked if more kids are going to come by) Colin got home from work, the two of them went to a couple of houses in our neighborhood.

(Here's a photo of the originals -- how did I do?)

Future footballer?

It's no surprise that Owen already loves soccer. He gets a healthy dose of it at home. Throughout the winter, we entertained ourselves with many many many games of living room soccer, using the fireplace as on of our goals. As soon as the snow melted, we were at the field at our park, practicing dribbling, shooting and taking corner kicks.
Most "organized" soccer groups start with kids who are 3 years old - O is just shy of that. My friend Polly decided to put together an informal group though, and when I asked O if he wanted to go, his "Yes!" couldn't have been more emphatic. Then he proceeded to have a five-minute discussion with himself about what he should wear. "Maybe I'll wear Liverpool. Or Roma. Or Liverpool. I'll wear Liverpool."
Having all the right gear is very important to him. When we play T-ball, he has to wear a pair of purple gardening gloves for batting gloves. So, knowing this, I took him to get a pair of shin guards and size 3 ball, and we found a bag that would work for his stuff. He was so proud walking out the door with the bag on his back, all ready to play.
After some initial trepidation, by the time his coaches got to a game of "Red Light, Green Light," he was having a ball. He's gotten pretty good at passing and dribbling, so all our home practice must be good for something.
Then again, maybe he'll decide hockey is his game. This morning I got out of the shower and discovered he had emptied all the diapers from his drawer in to a pile in the hallway.
I asked him what he was doing with them.
"Skating."

Leaving for work

As I was heading out the door for work, O stopped me.

"Mom, I want to tell you something!"

I came back to where he was eating breakfast to listen.

"I love you a whole much!"

Good start to the day

It took the little man a long time to settle down last night, and I actually had to rouse him this morning to get him ready.

He got out of bed and crawled in my lap, then hugged me sleepily and said, "I'm so happy you're here."

From the backseat

O: "I don't have a Joe Mauer bobblehead. Let's look for one online."

Baseball according to O

We went to the Brewers game today and I discovered baseball with O requires a translator.

Glover: the pitcher
Masker: the catcher
Every masker must be Joe Mauer
Sometimes a mitt is a "mitten"
Every hit must be a home run, meaning Bernie Brewer has to go down the big slide in left field
Everything that happens must be followed with a question starting with "Why?"

When we got home from the game, he set up
his John Axford bobblehead that we got at the gate and pretended he was the hitter facing Axford's pitches. I remembered we had a Robin Yount bobblehead from a game last year and now the two of them are facing off in the living room.

The best text ever

Not long after I settled in to my desk this morning, I received this text message from Colin:

"O: I have a good mommy. She's cute and I like her."

If that doesn't get me through the roughest days, I don't know what will.

Consumerism

I'm not sure whether to be impressed or frightened by this -- help me decide.

Tonight, when O and I were driving home, we were stopped at a red light next to an office building. O looked at the sign and said, "Mom, is that insurance?" I made him repeat it because I wanted to be sure that's what he was saying, because, in fact, he was looking at an American Family Insurance sign. We're not entirely sure where he picked that up, but we're thinking he saw it on a commercial somewhere and got the logo stuck in his head.

It's not the first time something like this has happened. A month or so ago, he was in the backseat talking to himself and started saying, "Boo hoo! They like customers, I like cash!" He kept repeating it and we had no idea where he'd gotten it. Colin suggested I Google it and sure enough, it was a line from a Southwest Airlines commercial that he had likely seen during the football playoff games.

And around Christmas, he was playing with his phone and pretending to talk to "Peggy" -- a character in a Discover card ad. (I had to Google that one, too.)

So, that gets me back to my first point -- I don't quite know what to do with this. Maybe we're just better at tuning out the ads and he picks up more of the details and the stories being told. Maybe we should offer him up to a researcher on how kids interact with advertising. Maybe we should be impressed with his concentration and recall. Maybe we should stop letting him watch so much television (he really doesn't watch that much -- some Curious George, news and sports on weekends).

Announcer

Overheard in the backseat, says Colin: "This is News 3 weather!"

Maybe he's watching a little too much news.

Tired

The last time I posted, we were getting ready to move O to a toddler bed. He was really excited about it, so we moved the bed in and trashed the crib (long story but acting on advice from the Consumer Product Safety Commission). But it didn't take him long to figure out the bed meant mobility and a way of engaging us after bedtime. Add that to his disposition as a very active boy and you have the recipe for some very long nights...and early mornings. Asleep at 10 p.m., up at 5:45 a.m. So we continue to search for the magic solution that will keep him in bed and help him wind down, but we haven't found it yet. (I came close tonight - a CD of Curious George stories got him to be still in bed, but he didn't drift off until after 10 p.m.) let's just hope this is his 2-and-a-half-year-old phase.

Despite the circles under his eyes - yes, it about makes me cry to see them - he's still delightful. He's really good at matching the pictures in a Memory game we got him for Valentine's Day and his ability to remember lyrics and lines from movies astounds me. He loves to know who everyone is on the news and is still talking about going to the TV station with his dad a few weeks ago.

More soon when we all get some sleep.

Snow holiday

It turned out to be a good day for a holiday -- we got at least six inches of snow and O and I were hunkered down inside for most of the day. But when he got up from his nap, I thought we needed to get some air. I practically had to drag him outside but I eventually sold him on going out when I suggested we bring the snowball maker he got for Christmas. (It's great, by the way -- today's snow wasn't quite wet enough for good snowball making, but we'll have a ton of fun with it when the snow cooperates.)
Once we got outside, he had a really fun time. He made flaky snowballs, helped me shovel, made a snow angel, and then wanted to make a "Frosty." Here's our handiwork, with a corncob pipe and magic hat made out of leftover Christmas tree branches. We also made a Professor Hinkle (the magician in Frosty) and Frosty's friend Karen, also made of tree branches. He then wanted to make an Owen and dad along with a TV. Hmmm. They got Liverpool FC insignias made out of fir fronds.
After spending about an hour outside, we came in for grapes and cocoa. Maybe I can use that as a bargaining chip the next time I'm trying to get him out in the snow.

Tomorrow

When I was first pregnant with O, I searched for a way to relax myself - to take me to a mental place where I was blissful and not worried. The place I found was familiar - I had inhabited it when I was about 10, when I was obsessed with "Annie." So , throughout that first trimester, I listened to the soundtrack...over and over and over. I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he now loves the songs. Tonight, I had to have "Maybe," "Tomorrow" and "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" on repeat as we drove home from Target, and he thought it was funny when I made up new lyrics as I got his dinner. ("oh pizza, pizza, I want to eat some pizza, with pineapple on the cheeeeeese.")

Energizer

This is the scene I walked into when I went to pick O up from school the other day: He dribbled a soccer ball, shot it in to the hole of a cushioned tunnel, then did his post-goal celebration, complete with jumping, fist pumping and yelling "I scored a goal!"

One of the teachers shook her head at him and said, "I don't know where he gets so much energy!" I know just what she's thinking -- I don't know how he does it. Right now, it's almost 10 p.m. and he's still stirring around in his bed, trying to fall asleep. Earlier, when we were supposed to be quietly singing in the rocking chair, he was belting out "People in our Neighborhood" from Sesame Street. (And he was doing it with different voices. That's one of his new things -- when he's pretending, he speaks in a lower register or makes his voice scratchy to be a man, and a little gurgle when he's pretending to be a baby.) Tonight he's quiet in there , but some nights there's singing and talking to his stuffed animals as he tries to settle down. I guess that two-hour nap today did its job for the afternoon, but charged his batteries for the whole evening.

I'll be interested to see how things change when he's out of his crib and in to the new toddler bed we bought for him...


He's been doing this "pretend to be a baby" thing a lot lately, including tonight after his bath, when he was lying on our bed as I toweled him off. But then, as I tried to get his pajama bottoms on, I pulled him to standing. He threw his arms around my neck to give me a big hug, and after I told him I loved him, I got an "I love you, too" back. And so while it's fun to remember what he was like as a baby, having an expressive, loving 2-year-old is pretty incredible.

P.S. He managed to fall asleep while I was writing this.

Reflections

The begging to watch "Curious George" started the minute we got to the car this afternoon. I mentioned that we were going to go home and make dinner and Owen said, "Can I watch something while you make dinner?" Then it was repeated, about two dozen times. I made the decision that we weren't going to watch anything and I'd try to find some alternative entertainment. So, after dinner Owen and I spent about an hour tonight going through the old blog posts looking at his pictures and watching videos -- over and over and over again. I told him stories about what he was doing in them, and he loved it. I think he was most amazed at the things he can do now that he couldn't when he was a baby -- roll over, talk, sing.

After his bath and some stories, he and I were sitting in his rocking chair to quiet down for the evening. I looked down at how big he's getting and realized he's not going to be able to sit in my lap much longer, so we stayed there for a long time tonight -- he was unusually cuddly and still (rocking is typically a squirmy affair), so we sang songs and talked for longer than usual. Aside from the moment he sees me when I arrive at school to pick him up -- he shouts a hearty "Hi Mom!," drops whatever he's holding, runs to me and says, "Let's go home!" - talking with him and remembering the best pieces of our time together is my favorite part of the day.

Little man

After I posted last night's blog, I went back and looked at all the old blog posts I'd written, and as I got to those from when he was a baby, Colin asked me, "Are you going to start crying now?" A few tears were shed, I'll admit, but you can't help it, especially when watching the ones with videos of him giggling (he still belly laughs that way).

And as I read back through the old posts, I found some threads that are still relevant today, and I'll revisit those. But this evening I've been reflecting a lot on my Grandpa Maher, who would have been 94 today. I wish he had gotten to meet our kids -- he would have gotten such a kick out of them. When O senses a new audience and starts to ham it up, I know he got that from his Grandpa Bernie. And every time O is asked who is his favorite baseball player is, and he yells "Joe Mauer!" I can see my grandpa's smile. So, even though he didn't get to meet O, little pieces of him lives on.

As for the little man, he becomes more grown up every day. After I picked him up, we went to Sport Clips for a haircut and despite crying, "I don't want a haircut!" through the whole thing, he was a good sport and did really well. (My coat is covered in hair, but oh well.) It helps that the place is plastered with hockey sticks, soccer balls, and pictures of football, baseball and Bucky Badger. He does great when we have lots of distractions.

Yes, dear, I'm very happy

I know I said last year I was going to blog more, but this year I really mean it. I have a warning, however: If you don't like stories about O, you can stop reading. It's really going to be dedicated to the funny, insightful, sweet things he says every day. Another blogger I read says she writes a blog about her kids and prints out the previous year's entries on their birthdays. So, even though blogs are soooo 2006, my mom doesn't want to join Facebook and misses out on a lot of the stories, and I want to have a better record of O's childhood, because it's speeding by.

We just enjoyed a nearly two week break together and we seem to have hit some stretch of the third year where he (temporarily?) dropped the "terrible" part of the terrible twos and has been a ton of fun. Tonight, even though Mr. No Nap was bordering on deliriously tired, he wanted to play a game where he was a baby and thought it was hysterical that we were talking to him and carrying him like a baby. It sure made the bath a lot easier; for the last month, he's pitched a fit and splashed us away when we tried to wash his hair. Instead, he giggled away and cooed like a infant as I lathered him up. (I seem to remember him not liking the bath at some stage of infancy, but I'm not going to remind him of that. I will remind him that last night -- out of the blue -- he declared that I am smart.)

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have been less stressed out over the holidays, but in our best moments, he keeps turning to ask me, "Are you happy, Mom?" with his big grin. Yes, I tell him, I am terrifically happy.