She Says… And Speaking Of Loveys

And speaking of Loveys, Owen did his first “big brother duty” by helping me choose a lovey for the new babe.

I learned a few lessons with Owen and his gross Lovey-sucking habits:

• Don’t get the kind that have big “feet” (fabric after the knot), which essentially makes a cloth pacifier
• Don’t get any with a looped tag that you will eventually want to cut and break your child’s heart
• Don’t get any that are white or partially white — they will not be white for very long
• Get 4 – we currently have 3, and sometimes have emergencies where the “laundry” one hasn’t been washed and the others are looking grody

With that in mind, I opted for the ubiquitous Angel Dear loveys. Everyone seems to have them and there must be a reason why. They come in a billion and one different designs, so if you choose a less-popular one, your kid hopefully won’t have to “share” at daycare (wouldn’t that be disconcerting, to see another kid cuddling YOUR Lovey?).

I have a few favorites (the spotted dog, zebra and raccoon, even though two of those three break my “no white” rule) but decided that this was a perfect job for the new big brother to feel like he was helping and picking something very special for his little bro. I gave Owen the choice between 3 different animals and he chose the gray raccoon. Without a doubt.

So the unborn is now the proud owner of 4 little gray raccoons, currently keeping his crib warm until he arrives.

On Mother’s Day Benjamin and I were putting together a new glider for the nursery and Owen was “helping”. I opened the Amazon box with the Loveys in it and Owen was immediately smitten. He quickly made them all kiss each other and then lifted up my shirt so they could kiss my belly/the baby. He talked in this sweet sing-songy voice and said, “These are your loveys, baby! I will give them to you when you cry!”. My eyes were welling up with tears as he gently, gently laid them down on the new ottoman, covered them with a blanket and shhhed us while he pretended to put them to sleep. He said he would do the same to the baby when he arrives.

I die.

That was worth every penny. I look forward to many more sweet moments with the new baby and his Lovey!

She Says… Bestill My Heart

It’s Valentine’s Day, y’all.

I told Owen it was “a day we tell our friends and family how much we love them”. He grabbed my cheeks, looked me right in the eyes and gushed, “I love you so much, Mommy”.

I’m done. That’s all I ever wanted for Valentine’s Day. Or any day, really.

Owen’s school has a cute tradition of celebrating this lovey dovey holiday by “Fancy Friendship Day”, which essentially means the kids dress up in fancy clothes and celebrate having each other as friends. It’s pretty much the sweetest thing ever.

The only problem, for us at least, is that Owen doesn’t have fancy clothes. The kid wears jeans and t-shirts every day. He’s comfortable. He usually comes home covered in paint anyway. I shop mostly at the consignment store. He is all boy. And, even if he was a girl, I think my philosophy would be generally the same (though, man, I saw some of the cutest little dresses ever the other day while I was shopping and I got a little giddy imagining if Baby #2 will ever wear them).

So, last night, in the final hour, I had just enough time to run to Target to see if I could find any accessories that could transform something in Owen’s wardrobe into something appropriate for Fancy Day. My heart just about melted when I saw this blazer. And, though the shelves were almost bare, this bowtie. Sold.

Oh, and to top off the specialness of this sweet holiday, I let Owen have half of a marshmallow Peep heart (one of my favorite [disgusting] holiday indulgences and also gluten free!), and made his lunch a little special too (heart-shaped polenta with feta cheese, heart-shaped cucumbers, red peppers and no-fake-stuff-added-hot dog).

Happy Fancy Friendship Day, friends. Tell your friends and family how much you love them, today and every day.

She Says… New England’s Specialty

Baltimore, where I grew up, is famous for crabs. Oh, they have the best crabs. Vegas is famous for glitz and glam and gambling. New Orleans is famous for Mardi Gras and jazz. Similarly, New England, hands down, is famous for fall.

Apples. Pumpkins. Crisp air. Changing leaves.

Fall really doesn’t get much better than this.

And last weekend was the beginning of the really good fall-like weather. So we did what almost every New England family did last weekend. We went apple picking.

Except, here’s the thing. When we arrived at the orchard, there was a big sign that said “Pick-Your-Own Apples SOLD OUT”. Ummm, what? It’s only the middle of September! In my mind, that’s the very beginning of apple season. Apparently for some reason this season’s crop of apples is particularly puny. As in, all of the apples within arm’s reach have already been picked, despite the fact that it’s not even October yet.

Bummer. But the good news is that Owen’s attention span isn’t really suited for hours of picking anyway, and though I love to bake delicious apple treats, we didn’t really need bags and bags of apples to take home either.

So we happily enjoyed a hayride on one of the most beautiful days of the year. Owen couldn’t contain his excitement as he handed the driver his ticket and got bounced around behind a tractor. A REAL, LIVE TRACTOR, OHMYGOODNESS. He was in little boy heaven.

After our hayride we went into the barn and there was an amazing apple sorter machine. Owen couldn’t take his eyes off of it and kept asking everyone, even people we didn’t know, how it worked. He watched the apples go from the crates to the water bath to the shiner to the conveyor belt and squealed when they dropped from the conveyor belt onto the various tables, sorted by size.

And, of course, there was lot of quality control. Owen ate at least 2 whole apples and even tried to eat the cores (in addition to sharing one of the most delicious cider donuts I’ve ever had in my life with me). He dropped one apple on the floor and, after I told him it was too yucky and we had to throw it away, he asked everyone in the store, “Hey! Can I eat the yucky apple?”, in hopes of getting a different answer than I gave him.

We have a date with friends to go apple picking again at a different orchard this weekend, but who knows if there will be any apples! If not, I’m sure Owen will be just as happy with a hayride and a trip to the pumpkin patch.

Fall at its best, my friends.

She Says… Whaddayou hmell, Mommy?

Last night, I smelled it. You know… it.

Fall.

Chilly air with a hint of smoke, like someone, somewhere is snuggling in front of a fire with a cozy blanket. The house filled with the smell of something yummy simmering away in the slow cooker (last night it was my chicken curry). The smell of leaves. You can almost taste it.

One of Owen’s favorite questions these days is, “Whaddayou hmell, Mommy?”. (Still working on starting words with an “s” sound). Sometimes it’s trash, sometimes it’s onion and garlic on the stove, sometimes it’s gasoline or baking bread. Yesterday I got to tell him, “Fall, buddy! It smells like fall. Mommy loves fall.”.

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts recently about yay pumpkins and yay scarves and yay cool weather and I couldn’t agree more. But I won’t bore you with all of the things I love about fall (a list of which, especially living in New England, could go on for days). This picture says it for me.

She Says… Stalling

Owen’s power of communication has always been strong. Even as an infant, before he had any words, the kid could tell you with his eyes and his expressive eyebrows and his scrunchy little nose exactly what he was trying to say. As he’s grown, he has picked up on very subtle emotional cues and adult words, phrases and patterns of speech. And humor! Oh, humor. I would not be at all surprised if Owen grows up to be a comedian. He can imitate me with such precision that it often makes me laugh so hard I can barely breathe. He takes dramatic pauses before he does something in front of a group just to drum up the laughter. It’s an art.

Lately this understanding of language and emotion and cues means that he can tell what is about to happen before it happens. By the way I breathe in to say something or look at the door for his shoes before I say it’s time to put them on. Sometimes he reads my mind and says what I was about to say. And other times… he stalls.

His stall tactics have gotten quite good recently. Especially when it comes to flossing and brushing his teeth at night. The kid know exactly which buttons to push.

The latest [totally irresistible] technique?

Owen: I wanna hug me, Mommy.
Me: (Grinning.) You mean YOU want to hug ME? You say, “I want to hug YOU, Mommy!”
Owen: I WANNA HUG YOU, MOMMY.

Then he climbs into my lap and wraps his little arms so tightly around my neck and doesn’t let go. He pats my back or strokes my hair until I’m laugh crying because he’s just. so. precious.

And then I am forced to say things like this:

Me: Ok. Enough hugging. Now it’s time to floss!

 

 

 

 

She Says… 2 Years

To my big two year old,

Where do I begin? The person that you are becoming is absolutely impossible to capture in words. It’s surprising to me that so much of your personality was evident from the day you were born, but I didn’t recognize it at the time. I still remember all of the details of that day so vividly. The way my stomach involuntarily clenched tighter than I ever thought possible, and grew tighter and tighter with each contraction. The way I squeezed my eyes shut and furrowed my brow and tried my best to breathe deeply as my body, and your little body, took over my mind. The way the light came into my hospital room. The way Daddy looked so helpless. The squeak of the exercise ball under my extra weight as I rolled around the room trying to be as comfortable as possible. The way my swollen feet stuck to the floor as I paced back and forth from the bed to the ball to the bathroom. The way I looked out the window at the clouds in the morning sky and wondered what your sweet little face would look like when this was all over. What your voice would sound like. What you’d be like when you grew up.

I had no idea, at that moment, that in two years you would be the hilarious, silly, rambunctious, fearless, wildly extroverted, sweet little charmer that you are today. I had no idea that Daddy and I would sit around at night and marvel at how perfect you are. (It’s true. We do. Yes, still.). I had no idea that you would become the funniest person I’ve ever met. I had no idea that you would be so hungry to learn new things, and, even at two years old, ask incredibly astute questions.

I had no idea that you would be so social that you would learn everyone’s name you have ever met, and that you would repeat them day after day and constantly ask “What’s her name? What’s his name?” about everyone from the mailman to the person on tv. I had no idea that you would love to sing to yourself. (Confession: Your newly discovered “singing voice” is just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. An awesome remix of “Tinkle, Tinkle” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is, by far, your favorite song to sing).

I had no idea you would get so much joy out of running around with balloons on your birthday. I had no idea you would look forward to bathtime every night so you could chase the bar of soap around and squeal, “WHERE’D IT GO?!”.

I had no idea you would adore being the center of attention as much as you do. (Ok, I could have guessed that, judging by the fact that you are a product of Daddy and I, but you really glow in the spotlight. People can’t take their eyes off of you, and you’ll do anything to keep the show going.). I had no idea that you could fall off the couch a million times, bang your face on the coffee table, fall off the climbing wall at the playground and get countless bruises and scrapes every day, and still grin and say, “AGAIN!” instead of crying. You are like a rubber ball. You’re so tough it takes my breath away. And scares the crap out of me at the same time.

And yet, I had no idea you would also wake up tearful sometimes and say, “Hold you, Mommy? Rock in chair?”, looking up at me with your clear, blue eyes. You love to snuggle, and to pretend to sleep together (which you dubbed “honk-shooing” the other night, because we always pretend to snore). (I think I died a little right there from the cuteness.). There is nothing I love more than those sweet cuddles. I don’t care how big you get; I hope you always want to rock with me. I’ll always be here to rock with you.

I had no idea, two years ago, that you would be so darn smart. Do you know what words you learned at school today? “Constantinople” and “Timbuktu”. Do you even know you just turned two today? Sometimes your sentences are so clear and your statements are so profound that I forget too. I had no idea I would want to videotape everything you do and send it to all of our friends and family constantly. But honestly, you amaze me just about every minute of every day.

In short, you are an awesome kid. And you’re growing up to be such an awesome person. And I bet when you read this you’ll be all, “Aww, Mom. Shut up. And stop saying awesome. You’re so lame.”. But I mean it. Your personality is absolutely the best parts of Daddy and the best parts of me, and some of your own special sauce too. It’s a combination far better than I ever could have imagined, two years ago, while I waited to see your face.

I love you. I love every little bit of you, even the parts I haven’t even seen yet. Don’t ever forget it.

Love,
Mommy

She Says… Memories

Today was an unofficial “last day of the school year” for Owen. Even though he will be continuing through the summer (and, you know, forever, indefinitely…), some kids in his school will be graduating, so the school had a big breakfast where parents could come hang out in their kids’ classrooms and thank the teachers for a wonderful year. The teachers gave us tie-dyed shirts that the kids made recently with their names on them. So adorable!

One thing I love about Owen’s school is the journal that they keep for him. Since his very first day they have been writing notes, taking pictures and jotting down little stories as they happen. When Owen graduates to elementary school in a few years, he will have several journals worth of scrapbooked memories. It is so special to me to see how his teachers are delighting in every day with him, just like I do at home.

It started last June when we moved and Owen first joined this school. He was in the infant room and had barely begun to take his first steps.

When the kids turn 1, they all start sleeping on mats instead of in cribs. I still have NO IDEA how they get a room full of toddlers to lay down on their mats together and fall asleep, but they do.

They snapped a photo of the first time Owen slept on his mat to prove it to me

This one brings tears to my eyes. Owen looked at this picture while “reading” his book with me this morning and lovingly crooned, “Dat’s LOVEY!”.

It’s no wonder this kid loves the camera so much. Paparazzi at home and at school!

The book is filled with some of his art projects, and pictures of him making them. Like this one, filled with feathers. Yet another thing I never would have thought of to do at home. His teachers are amazing.

My favorite pages, though, are the little stories. This one is about Owen finding the letter “O” everywhere.

Another page from when he was younger said that he always finds the books with Daddys in them and smiles and pats the page. Bestill my heart.

Painting with apples?! Love this idea, especially for a kid who is STILL putting everything in his mouth, edible or not.

I always knew we had found a very special school when we moved here, but looking through this book gives me a new appreciation for just how much they actually love Owen.

I couldn’t ask for anything more.

She Says… Sad Song. Again!

Oh, I wish you had been flies on the wall in Owen’s bedroom on Wednesday night.

Here’s the scene: It was just about bedtime. We had a nice bathtime and he was all sweet and clean and wrapped in his towel. I laid him on the changing table to get diapered and pajama-ed. As we were joking and playing around, I started singing “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. I’d never sung that one before, and Owen was staring at me wide-eyed and totally engaged in the song.

When I got to the part that says, “When I’m feeling sad”, all of sudden his little brow knit together and his lip quivered. I had moved on to “I simply remember my favorite things.. and then I don’t feel…” and he started WAILING. I mean huge, crocodile tears rolling down his cheeks. Body-heaving sobs.

I stopped singing. “What happened? Why are you sad, buddy?”. “SAD SONG. OWEN SAD. HUG, MOMMY!”. He was reaching for me from the changing table with the most pitiful face. I hugged him and tried to explain (through my giggles) that the song was actually about being happy (but the expression “then I don’t feel so bad” doesn’t exactly mean “happy” to a toddler). I stifled my laughter, finished pajama-ing, dried his tears and sent him to the bookshelf to pick a book to read.

But he didn’t want a book.

“Sad song ‘gain, Mommy?”.

He wanted me to sing it again. Even though it made him cry.

So I sang it again, thinking he was over the word sad. But when I got to “when I’m feeling sad”, the SAME THING happened. He cried and cried. Hard. He pulled me to him and said, “Rock in chair. SAD SONG.” At this point I’m practically peeing my pants I’m laughing so hard. I know it’s not nice to laugh at your child crying, but really. How sweet! What raw emotion! What a strong connection between the word sad and actually being sad! What an empathetic little boy! Is “My Favorite Things” really the saddest song he’s ever heard? That, for some reason, struck me as hilarious.

I rocked him in the rocking chair and he said, “Sing it again! SAD SONG!”. I told him no, I didn’t want to sing the song again if it made him sad. He tried everything he could remember from the song, “Kitten song ‘gain? ‘Nofake song ‘gain? Packages ‘tring song again?”.

I asked him why it made him sad and he just nodded his head yes. I asked him if he just needed to cry (what kind of question is that for a 2 year old?!), and he kept nodding. I sang it again. He cried. I rocked.

Catharsis, I guess.

Soon tears were rolling down my face too, but they weren’t sad tears. I literally couldn’t stop laughing about it all night. I hope to get this on video for you very soon. You’ll pee your pants too.

She Says… Like Father, Like Son

Yard work has just gotten a lot easier at our house. We used to try to squeeze it in during Owen’s naptime because it was too hard to entertain/corral him while he was awake. But what we realized recently is that involving him works even better!

He will follow Benjamin around with his tiny lawnmower all day, if that’s how long it took. In fact, the child (bless his little heart) is obsessed with lawnmowers. He loves to put his ear to his ear when he hears one (anywhere, even miles away) and exclaims, “Yissen! A lawnmower! See it?”.

Last Christmas I happened to see a little bubble-blowing lawnmower on sale and decided to snatch it up as a backyard toy. I had NO IDEA it would become Owen’s favorite thing to do, bar none.

Sometimes Owen will wake up from a nap with a huge smile on his face and start babbling, “Daddy BIG lawnmower, Owen TINY lawnmower! Daddy Owen mow lawn ‘GETHER.”

It’s brilliant, actually. The lawn gets mowed, Owen is happy, the dog gets exercise staying out of the way (he’s terrified of the lawnmower) and I get to make dinner on the grill. That’s a summer tradition I can get behind.

I wonder how long this will last?

Look at the little Daddy wanna-be in action (excuse the standard definition video — it was a spur-of-the-moment iPhone catch and I don’t have Wifi right now to upload in HD):

She Says… School Picture Day

I’m dying over here this week, folks. DYING. It’s only Tuesday and I’m hanging on by a thread. Hence, no blog posts yet this week. Please excuse me while I do my darndest to get my life under control.

In the meantime, would you like to see just about the cutest thing ever?

Owen had “picture day” at daycare a few weeks ago. You know, just like back in the day where they passed around wet combs and every kid argued to tears with their parents for them to pay extra for the laser background. (Oh, you didn’t do that? Must’ve just been me, then. I do hereby solemnly swear I will get my kid the stupid laser background if he ever throws a fit over it. That’s NOT a battle I’m willing to fight.)

I didn’t have high hopes. We take a LOT of pictures of Owen and I debated even ordering one of these cheesy, posed ones. But I wanted a class photo (so Owen can show his buddies senior year that they’ve known each other since they were 1), and the cheapest package wasn’t much more than that to include an individual shot. Benjamin assured me it was just one of those rights of passage that you kind of have to do. So your kid can look back decades from now and laugh at themselves. (Also, Meghan got me pretty excited due to her kid’s amazing daycare picture day shots. Totally hilarious.)

Without further ado, behold…

THE HAPPIEST KID TO EVER POSE FOR A PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL PICTURE PHOTOGRAPHER

Man, I love this kid.