Best Shot(s) Monday

I went on a hike with a photography group at the Albion Basin over the weekend.  I took about 150 shots and liked three of them.  I am terrible at landscape photography, and even after spending three hours surrounded by beautiful scenery, I came home with further proof that, for whatever reason, landscape photography is just not my forte.  I can't seem to find my subject and all my pictures look flat and boring.  I think my problem may be that I get overwhelmed by how beautiful the scenery is and I try to get it all in one shot.

Anyhow, here are the three I liked:

Sunday morning confessional

Alienphobia.  I have an irrational fear of aliens.  I have neither seen a UFO nor have I been abducted.  In fact, I don't really believe that aliens have ever visited our fine planet (yet).  All the same, I have a very real, physical and psychological reaction to the very idea of aliens.  I still can't watch the movie Signs the whole way through with my eyes open.

Diet update - no progress

I think I've said before I'm a stress eater, which explains why I've gained the 2 pounds I'd lost back.  This week has been monumentally stressful for no other reason than I have an almost two year old who is testing my limits each and every day, hour, minute...  It's a constant, unending struggle that leaves me some days feeling drained of my very will to live.  Yea, I know, dramatic much?

My goal is to parent in a loving, caring and calm manner.  I don't want to spank, and I haven't.  I don't want to yell, but I do.  I want to discipline him in a way that is positive and effective, but trust me, time-outs, they. are. not. working.  So, we're doing a lot of distraction, which is exhausting given the fact that my son, well, he's just like his daddy in that he's incredibly focused and stubborn.  If he wants to shove all of his hot wheels and transformer toys into the air vents, well by god, he's gonna do it!

The good news is that Alex is turning into such a fun, exciting, happy little boy and even given his stubbornness and ridiculously high activity level, I wouldn't have him any other way.  Being his mommy may cause me to crash into bed at the end of the day clutching a half eaten cheeseburger in one hand and an empty bottle of Merlot in the other, but it sure is a wild ride I'm |most of the time| happy to be on.

We're going on "vacation" next week.  I say "vacation" because there really is no such thing as a vacation if you take a toddler with you.  It's against the law to diet while on vacation, so I'm just going to enjoy myself the best I can and assess the damage when we get back.

Five word combinations

I have been secretly harboring a worry that Alex may be speech delayed.  Even though he is nearing the 40 word mark, he seems to be behind his peers due to the fact that he isn't using any descriptive or feeling words (unless "no", "vroom" or "wocka wocka" count), all of his words are nouns, names of things.  Also, he hasn't started stringing any words together.  Now, a couple of weeks ago he did say "eat cheese" while he was eating cheese, but it seems to have been a fluke because he hasn't done it since.  This week, however, it seems his love for Go Diego Go (or "Diegogo" as Alex calls it) has helped him grasp the concept of stringing words together.  I'm still not sure this would count to a speech pathologist, but to me it's progress.  His new "sentences" are:

1. Diegogo juice (referring to his Go Diego Go sippy)



2. Diegogo bankie (referring to his Go Diego Go blanket)



3. Diegogo Mommy (this is usually a request to "Turn on Diegogo Woman!")



4. No Mommy (It's usually more like "NOOOOOOOO Mommy!")



5. Go Diegogo (as a statement when the show starts, as if saying "Finally!  THIS is what I wanted!")

It doesn't help that I encourage it

with steam coming out of my ears

A month ago I gathered up all, ALL, of my negatives from my wedding and honeymoon and took them to Inkley's to have them scanned onto high res CDs.  I got a call this morning that they were done, so I went to pick them up and I received a CD with 12 wedding pictures on it.  TWELVE!  Not the several hundred that I was expecting.  I got twelve very lovely wedding photos on a single CD.  Not a single honeymoon picture in the bunch.

It seems they'd lost or misplaced all of the 35mm negatives taken by me, John and the two rolls of 35mm from the professional photographer and only had the 12-120 negatives (big square negatives) from the professional. 

I think I handled the situation pretty well.  I didn't take the kid behind the counter by his collar and shake him until he had brain damage.  I didn't break a single frame nor did I utter a single profanity.  I told them to keep looking and I would call back every single day until my negatives were found.  Then I got into the car and cried.

By the time I got home, I was reasonably calmed down.  After all, I had all of those pictures already printed and in photo albums, and on my high res CD I had this picture (my favorite, and likely the only one I'd ever reprint anyway):

I'm still mad, but it's not the end of the world.  Even so, I'm going to go eat a cookie.  Or two. 

why is it...

...that even after almost two years, I still can't seem to put a diaper on him without having one of his buttcheeks hanging out?

Best Shot Monday

Forget Bob the Builder, it's Alex the Builder!

Sunday morning confessional

Alex watched TV almost all day long yesterday so I could finish reading Life of Pi. 

It was worth it.

Five things I've had to give up since becoming a mom

1. Pooping in private



2. Wearing clothes that stay clean for more than 20 minutes



3. Eating or drinking things that haven't already been slobbered on



4. Noisy sex



5. Being the only person who wears my underwear and bras (Alex gets into my dresser and puts my underwear and bras on his head regularly)

Do you see how I get treated around here?

I just found a stash of SpongeBob birthday hats.  I gave them all to Alex who is standing next to me shoving the hats in my direction and yelling what sounds like "HATS!  HATS WOMAN!"  acting like the 8 hats I gave him are insufficient.  He needs the world's entire supply of SpongeBob birthday hats to be satisfied.

My baby can read?

I was at a mom's club brunch yesterday morning with Alex.  There were a couple potential new members attending, so everyone was wearing nametags.  Including the kids.  I stuck Alex's on his back so he wouldn't peel it off and eat it.  He went around pointing at everyone's nametags and then he stopped at a little redhead girl, pointed at her nametag and declared "MINE!" took it off of her and ran away.  I went to retrieve the nametag to discover it said "Alexa"

Could it be he recognized the name as his?  It certainly is a coincedence.  I for one am pointing to this incident as further proof that my child is brilliant.

Quitter

So one day into this cloth diaper experiment and already I want to take these cloth diapers outside, light them on fire and dance around them like a crazed lunatic.  Seriously, this is insane!  Leave it to me to take a perfectly working system that is easy and relatively mess free and make it more involved, complicated and smelly.  What was I thinking?  Oh right, landfills.  And the earlier potty training?  Now I understand why cloth diapered kids potty train earlier, TO GET OUT OF THESE SOGGY CLOTH DIAPERS!  As a parent, I certainly have more incentive to teach him to use the toilet.

I really hate to quit after only one day, but damn, disposables are so much easier.  They are slimmer, and I actually use less diapers.  I use maybe five disposables per day, compared with about 8 cloth diapers.  And the disposables go right outside to the garbage while the cloth diapers sit in a bag in Alex's room and stink.  Also, I have to wash the cloth diapers every night since I only bought 12 of them and two wraps.  So I'm using gallons and gallons more water than I did before.  If we go into a drought, it'll probably be entirely my fault.

Maybe I'll put them away until Alex turns two when I plan to start working on actually potty training.

The great diaper experiment

Yep, that's my son wearing a cloth diaper.  Even before he was born I considered cloth diapering, but knowing I was going to work full time, he'd likely have to be in disposables for daycare, and why torture myself with cloth diapers the few hours a day I was home?  So, we went disposable.  When I quit my job, I again considered cloth diapers, but was so used to disposables, I never did switchover.  Well, I've been thinking about it again, and with potty training looming in the not so far of distance, I figured, hey, what the hell, might as well give it a go.  studies show that toddlers in cloth diapers tend to potty train faster than kids in disposables.  And of course there is the financial and ecological benefits to cloth diapering. 

I went to the hippie store (aka Wild Oats) and picked up a diapering kit that actually consisted of two cloth wraps with disposable/flushable inserts.  To start my experiment, I'm using the wrap with a Chinese prefold inside.  This gives my son some serious booty.  My baby's finally got back! 

I admit, I'm a little scared of the first poop.  I have no idea what kind of mess this is going to be.  I don't really know how gross it will be to wash these things.  But, I've got plenty of time, energy and hand sanitizer to explore my inner hippie.

Dieting tip #136

Eat lunch while watching Bizarre Foods on the Travel channel.  Nothing will kill your appetite faster than watching Andrew Zimmern eat balut (steamed 18 day old duck embryos right out of the shell). Bleah!

Best Shot Monday

A rare moment of peace.

This was taken late Saturday afternoon.  John and I had escaped to a matinee (Transformers, more than meets the eye) and left Alex with his aunt Heidi.  She came over right at nap time and I expected him to crash shortly after we left and sleep until we got back, allowing Heidi to do some work she'd brought home for the weekend.  When we came home, Heidi told us he didn't sleep a wink and spent the entire time tormenting her dog Doobie.  Poor Doobs.  About 20 minutes after she and Doobie left, he zonked out on the couch looking so angelic you'd never know he'd spent the afternoon throwing toys at a Cocker Spaniel.

Taking charge of his own safety

Alex has spent his entire life being strapped into things; carseat, highchair, grocery cart.  Very rarely he is in a sitting position without a belt buckle on.  He's gotten so used to it that now, when I take him to the grocery store and put him in the cart, he will actually buckle himself in.

Sunday morning confessional

Daily I sneak into Alex's room and watch him nap.  I'll do it in the evenings as well, on the rare occasions he goes to bed before I do.  I find myself in awe of him still, almost two years after his birth.  Surprised at the knowledge that I made him.  That I get to keep him.  I am filled completely to the top with an all consuming love for this tiny little person.  I love him in a way I never thought possible to love another living thing.  It's terrifying.

Alex the party animal

I was Alex's date to a party this afternoon.  We attend a playgroup with two brothers, one is two and the other turned four this week.  The four year old, Kennan, invited Alex to his birthday party this weekend.  Alex got his very own invitation, and this would be the very first little kid party he's ever been to. 

It was outside in Kennan's backyard, despite the 100 degree heat, all the kids seemed to have a ball.  They had a couple of pools setup, a sprinkler, a sandbox and a little bounce house.  There were games, a treasure hunt, a pinata, hot dogs, cupcakes (though all Alex ate was 1/2 a hot dog and about 50 olives) and at the end there was a little firework show. 

Alex, aka Mr. Independent, abandoned me at the door and ran off with his friends to splash in the pool.  Most of the kids were bigger than him, though there were about four around his age, he still preferred to hang out with the big kids.  Rejected by my date, I elected to sit in the shade on the porch with a glass of chilled white wine with the other parents.  I was fine with this arrangement.

When it was finally time for cupcakes, Alex shared his with me, all he wanted was the candy off the top, and a little chocolate icing to smear in his hair.  By the time present opening came around, he was throughly worn out, sitting in the corner, thumb in mouth clutching one of Kennan's bother Cayden's stuffed bears.  We declined a second dip in the kiddie pool, took our goodie bag and went home, Alex crying the entire way because the car was hot.  Once at home, it only took about 30 seconds to put him down for his nap, still with chocolate icing all over his face and hair.

It occurred to me today that I am going to love the next few years with Alex.  The years when a $10 kiddie pool, lawn sprinkler and a paper bag full of candy can make a kid's whole day.  A woman stopped me at the store this morning, commenting on how cute Alex was (we were buying Gatorade and he kept grabbing bottles saying "Mine! mine!").  She told me her kids were teenagers now and how much she missed her boys being little.  "Enjoy this time, it goes so fast"  she told me.  Yea, yea, sure, sure I thought as I nodded and smiled at her, while trying not to get too frustrated at Alex for knocking almost every single bottle of Gatorade off the bottom two shelves.  At that moment, I would have loved having a surly teenager sulking by my grocery cart instead of this wild animal who is entering the "terrible two's" like a torpedo before his second birthday even arrives.  But today, watching a dozen kids aged 1-5 years run wild and splash and laugh, soaking up every second of the warm weather and the cool water.  Getting so excited about cracking open a pinata and scurrying to get their share of Smarties and Tootsie Rolls, I think I understand why someone would miss this.  This is the fun stuff.  Sure there are challenges and times when you want to run screaming from the room never wanting to return, but for the most part, the fun of childhood is intoxicating.  It's contagious, and I think I've caught the bug.

Day with the dinosaurs

I indulged myself today and took Alex to the Museum of Ancient Life.  Isn't it sad what qualifies as an indulgence for me these days?  Though our original plans consisted of going to the park to play at the sprinkler pad with the mom's group, I just couldn't get excited about being outside, burning to a crisp in this god-awful heat all morning long.  We do that every morning, and I desperately needed a break.  I call this an indulgence because sprinkler pad at the park = free and museum with air conditioning = $$$. Luckily, for the next year he's still free admission to almost everywhere we go, so I only have to pay for myself.  Turns out, it was well worth the $10 bucks.  Both Alex and I had a wonderful time and we were there almost 3 hours!

The exhibits were all very impressive and informative which appealed to me and there were areas all through the museum geared towards little guys like Alex so he didn't get bored with all the displays.  There was an area where kids could build their own dinosaur using huge stuffed legs, heads and tails and sticking them on a generic body.  Kids could color, build wooden dinosaur skeletons, play with dinosaur puppets and plastic toys.  The best part for Alex was the erosion table, a big pond filled with water, sand and plastic dinosaurs.  The idea was to teach kids how water erodes the earth to form canyons and how mud slides can crush the dinosaurs and they become fossils.  Alex just liked it because it was water and sand and toy dinosaurs.  He played

and played

and played

He spent an entire hour in there before I had to drag him out (he had started throwing mud at people and wouldn't stop.  Had he behaved himself,  he could have probably spent the entire afternoon in there). Thank goodness for those aprons!

The T-Rex and giant turtle skeletons took his mind off of having to leave all the fun of the water and soon we got to the dig site, basically two sandboxes with dinosaur skeletons in them.  Kids were given brushes to sweep away the sand and expose the bones.  Alex's career as a paleontologist was cut short when he began to use the brush as a sand flinging tool.

It was just as well though, because it was past both lunch time and nap time.  We ate lunch in the car and Alex zonked out before he could finish his Lunchable.  It was definitely a morning well spent.

Five things that made me happy this week

1. Alex's new Superman jammies (complete with cape)
   



2. Watching Alex watch fireworks



3. Discovering Diet Pepsi Max (oh, sweet caffine, how I love thee)



4. Alex handed me his echo microphone and I said into it "I love...ALEX!" and handed it back to him and he said into it "Love...Mommy!"  I don't know if he knew what he was saying, he was probably just copying me, but to hear "love mommy" made me feel all fuzzy inside.



5. This video:

Bots

John has really been enjoying introducing Alex to the wonderful world of Transformers.  Ever since he went to see the movie, he's brought home toy after toy, some even for Alex.  The other day John bought a couple of mini transformers for himself (designed for three year olds) and showed them to Alex.  Well, Alex fell in love with Bumblebee and refused to give him back to John.  When Bumblebee is laying rejected on the floor, John will sneak over and snatch him up, only to have Alex, clearly with some kind of Transformer-stealing radar, drop whatever he's doing and come running into the room screaming "BOTS!" (Alexese for Robot) and stick his gimmie hand at John to hand over the goods. Today John came home with six new bots just for Alex.  Same style as the Bumblebee bot, but different ones.  So far it's been a successful trade-off, six new bots for the one, now beat up, Bumblebee bot.

In other Transformer news, Alex also now owns a stuffed Bumblebee transformer that actually transforms from car to bot.  It starts as the bot, like a little yellow stuffed robot doll, then it opens up in the back and you pull out a pouch that looks like a yellow VW bug and stuff the robot doll into it, effectively transforming it into the car.  This is hours of fun for Alex.  He'll hand you the bot and demand "CAHS!" (Car) and as you're transforming it, he'll do the "cha cha choo" thing (the sound Transformers make when they transform) until it's a car.  You give it back to him and he'll hand it right back and demand "BOT!", again with the noises until it's a bot again.  This goes on and on and on and on...all day long. 

Geez, just nothing is going on around here.  I think I've kind of been in a bad mood the last few days.  It could be the diet.  Dieting always makes me pissy.  Alex and I have been watching  all together too much television because it's too hot to go to the park in the afternoons.  John won't talk about anything but Transformers. It's Transformers this... Transformers that...  I'm actually considering seeing the stupid movie, just so we can have a conversation.  And Alex, he can take off all of his clothes all by himself, so I spend most of my day chasing around a skinny naked child and cleaning up piddle puddles.

It's not all bad.  In fact, it's not bad at all, just a little boring right now.  Some of this weeks highlights include Alex recognizing capitol letters by pointing at them in a book (He knows A, B, C, D for sure, gets confused by E and F, and the rest of the alphabet he only recognizes sporadically.)  I'm going to go out today for some alphabet flashcards. 

I've also been entertaining myself by trying to get Alex to say big words:

Me:  Say mamacita
Him: dadita!
Me: Say patriotic
Him: Potic!
Me:  Say testicles
Him: Siticals!
Me:  Say manatee
Him: Pee pee!

We took Alex to the Real soccer game last night (we lost and Cunningham tried to start a brawl) and they had fireworks afterward.  I was cursing myself for not bringing a camera, not to get the fireworks, but for the look on Alex's face, being lit up by the lights in the sky, big eyes opened wide in amazement.  Fireworks are one of my favorite things and to see my son watching them for the first time (he saw them last year, but was too little to care), almost brought tears to my eyes.  I spent almost the entire show, turned around watching the fireworks reflect in his face.  He made it the best fireworks show I've ever seen.

...and we're back

It's a Fourth of July Miracle!  We have wireless internet access again!  <<Takes deep breath>>  It was getting hairy there for a while there, John and I bickering at eachother, fighting over who got to crouch in the coveted "web corner" of our family room basking in the warm glow of the laptop monitor.  At this very moment Alex is napping in his room and both John and I are happily surfing away on our respective machines (me on the laptop, him on the desktop in the office).  All is now right in our world.

Withdrawl

Our power went out yesterday afternoon for about 2 seconds.  When it came on, our Internet was missing.  MISSING!  As it turns out, somehow our router went kaput.  So I've been without internet for 24 hours.  I tried to make the most of it, played playdough and colored with Alex.  We spent the entire morning at Thanksgiving Point today until Alex passed out.  But once we got home, I got all twitchy again and yanked the cable out of the router, hooked it up to my laptop and have been holed up in the corner next to TV getting my web fix.  Since we have (or had) wireless, this little corner with the itty bitty cord is the only place I can get online.  So, this is probably where I'll be until we get a new router. 

Best Shot Monday

I shot this while trying to walk the Jordan River Parkway, at 3:00 in the afternoon in 90+ degree heat.  We did not make it very far.  All of Alex's yogurt covered pretzels I'd brought him for a snack melted.  There was a gigantic fly harrassing me the entire time, buzzing around my ears. A bee flew down my shirt and I freaked out causing Alex to laugh hysterically.  Basically it wasn't all that fun, but, I got a pretty picture of a flower.