Oliver Writes to Santa

Dear Santa,

I am sorry about my behavior Friday, I was unaware of our meeting and felt most awkward that I did not wear my most festive of outfits, nor did I prepare for such an occasion with a gift. Understandably, I cried in frustration at my parents who brought me to you and placed me unceremoniously on your lap, where I sat trying my hardest to think of what exactly WAS on my Christmas List. Two year olds have bad memories you see, I am nothing without my Google Docs, and I am not permitted to access daddy's iphone until I am 3. I could have kicked myself for saying "ball" when you asked what it was I wanted. UGH! I have balls! Don't send me any balls! It was just the first thing that popped into my head!

Thankfully, I found a loophole. After doing some research online, I read that there are TWO ways of contacting you. One being the traditional meet and greet at a central location, the second - and here is where I had my aha moment - a letter!! So it is with my humblest of apologies for the emotional outbursts yesterday, and my assurences that I have indeed been a good boy, that I give you my list.

Sincerely,
Oliver Goss

The List

• CD of the Laurie Berkner Band (this lady is a genius)
• Play food and kitchen, so I can teach my mom to cook the foods I like
• Musical instruments so I can be as popular as daddy was in school (band kids are the coolest)
• DVDs of newer Disney/Pixar movies, apparently tastes DO change in 80 years.
• Dinosaurs
• Art supplies (except playdough, I snuck a peek at the gifts I am getting from the 'rents)
• Rug for my new play room!
• Two words, choo. choo.
• Water/Sand table
  

A week without a daddy

Good lord single parenting is difficult. I have so much more respect for military wives, single moms, and wives to asses after this week. It is exhausting being the only care giver for a small child! Even when they are in the best of moods, you still have to sing 100 verses of the Zoo song, you have to build 43 block towers, you have to watch numerous hours of Sesame Street, and you have to toss a ball of the top of the roof until your arms fall off (again, thanks SO much for teaching him THAT one Pete Wilson!!). You have to read Corduroy Bear one whole time and Go Dog Go one half time before bed, in that order, or you will have a crying and confused baby on your hands. The bedtime water MUST be on the left side of him, within reaching distance and wedged so as to not fall over and soak the baby. In short (too late!!) it is exhausting!!

Meanwhile, your husband calls from San Francisco where I am sure he is doing a lot of hard work in between the open bars, the 4 different parties he had to go to in one night, the Black Crows concert, and the eating of food that remains safe from toddler fingers, to see how you are doing. Ooops, sorry hon, I can only talk for as long as it takes to walk to the restaurant. Huh? What's that you said about Oliver's speech evaluation? I can't hear you over this throbbing music. Sorry, gotta go, this trashed salesgirl is grinding my leg too hard for me to hold my phone. Apparently, there isn't an app for that...

Anyway, we survived, and it made me ever so greatful for the time when my husband IS home. The kitchen is clean, the baby is bathed and put away ever so quietly while I munch on bon bons downstairs, the dog is fed (sorry about that Dante!) and the yard is kept neat and tidy. People need partners for a reason, and while it is POSSIBLE to raise kids by yourself, I don't have a clue why anyone would want to. I am far far too lazy to do it all by myself. His absence did make my heart grow fonder, until I found stripper glitter all over his shirt that is...

Game Day

Football season is upon us, and as all you NFL widows know, this means no good TV watching on Sunday or Monday nights. Eff you John Madden and the Turducken you rode in on!! I am of course talking about American Football, this is not to be confused with European Football (soccer to stupid Americans) which as far as I can tell is just a bunch of hot foreign guys running around in tiny shorts. In my opinion, watching this would be FAR superior to watching five minutes of commercials, commentary, and cheerleader boobs for every ten seconds of actual play time that you get with American Football.

Anyway, CT is forcing the love of all things Cowboys onto our son. Every Sunday after church, he forces the poor PBS loving kid to watch a bunch of huge men in even bigger protective gear push each other around. This of course comes in the middle of trying to also teach him not to push or hit or kick people. Awesome! It is pretty cute to watch Oliver watch football though, I admit! When someone gets tackled he says OH NO! With his head in his hands. When someone has the ball, he encourages them to throw or kick the ball, demonstrating how this should best be done. Mostly though he just begs CT to change the channel to something interesting...oh wait, that's me.

Anyway, the picture above is Oliver enjoying a hot wing on game day. All he needs is a brewski and the picture would be complete.

WordWorld

Oliver is 22 months old, or will be on Wednesday. He was starting to concern me, throwing tantrums for no reason, not sleeping, and just making my life a living hell. He still hasn't said more than a few words I finally made a decision to do something that I have been thinking about for a while.

The state offers an early intervention program where a worker comes to your house and looks into why your kid is behind on talking, or motor skills or whatever. In our case, they are sending a case worker who specializes in speech therapy. They assess his nutrition, his environment ("I swear, we don't even OWN belts!!"), his hearing and vision, etc. It is a free program so I was shocked at how fast they could see us. I made an appointment for Wednesday, the 18th (Oliver's 22nd month birthday if you are paying attention).

I was even MORE shocked when he started talking the next day. Since making the appointment, mind you, not HAVING the appointment, just scheduling it was enough, Oliver has added the following words and phrases:
Hat
Grandmama
banana
I don't like ants
I don't know
Kick
More
Granddad (sorta sounds like dada, but the inflection is different)
Please

Sigh. If I had known he just simply had to hear me make an appointment for him, I would have done it months ago. Truth be told, and since hindsight is 20/20, I think the tantrums and the lack of sleeping, and the acting out were all his way of telling me, "hey big huge pregnant mom who is distracted by cute kicks, watch what I am about to do!!!" Personally, using words or sending an email would have been more effective, but it did push me to research some toddler behavior books I wouldn't have otherwise looked into. While trying to get Oliver to quit with the tantrums I started talking to him more, letting him know about plans before, during and after they happened, trying to reduce the frustration levels. In retrospect, I wonder if that had anything to do with his sudden interest in language as well.

That, or the huge whoopin' finally knocked some sense into him. I assure you I jest.

The Toddler Man Cometh

My son is driving me crazy. Either the twos have come early, or he has lost the will to live. We have a meltdown an hour, he wakes up every half hours, he has all but given up naps and he pretty much has a blood grudge against his daddy.

Last night, he just about drowned himself by throwing himself down into a full bathtub during a tantrum. I know this is frustration, but when I am so tired, and so frustrated myself that I can't even see straight.

I think CT thinks I am either crazy or sick, because every single night for a week, I have been going to bed at 6pm. I just can't take it any more, I hold and coddle and console this child all. day. long. At the end of the day, my ears are ringing with his cries, and I can't even keep my eyes open any longer.

Finally, yesterday, he got a taste of what Oliver has been like lately. He knows now that at least I am not the crazy one. I took advantage of having CT home and ordered every single gentle parenting book written this weekend, I plan on reading them all immediately. Starting tomorrow morning I am also going to start talking to Oliver more. I think half the frustration comes from him not knowing that we are interrupting his play because we have to go to church, or the store, or cleaning up the trains means that he can have a book read to him, etc.

I also plan on giving him boundaries for the first time in his tiny life. Part of the issue has to be we will give him anything to stop the tantrums, which is frustrating him more because he doesn't know where the walls are. So, rules are going to be enforced. Another HUGE thing that we are going to be doing is putting the baby down earlier for nighttime. I believe he is getting too hungry by waiting until 6 or 6:30 to eat, causing him not to eat, throwing a fit instead and wake up at night being too hungry still. So, dinner time is now at 5:30pm, bath at 6pm, bedtime is at 7pm.

Shout out to all my chicas on Natural Parents who are full of awesome advice, and the friends at church who have offered me books to help!

Halfway there!

First, let me say this pregnancy is going SO FAST. It feels like just yesterday I was obsessing about keeping this one fastened securely to my uterine wall, and now the little one keeps reminding me that indeed it is healthy by squirming constantly. Sure, I have Oliver there to distract me, but I don't think that is why it is going by so fast, I think it is because I am so excited by what I know is coming this time, I anticipate the wonderful parts of being pregnancy instead of letting fear take over my ever waking moment. I know that my body was made to do this, that this baby is healthy and that I will have the birth that I want with out 100 people telling me how I should be doing things. Sometime in March or April, I will push a new life into the world and then not have to do anything but snuggle it in our own bed for a week or so. This is, by the way, what CT looks forward to the most with a home birth, not sleeping on the hospital issued "Husband Cot".

I wanted to give a shout out here to my amazing midwife Kristen Elliot. She has had a tough past two months, because babies come when they want, and apparently they all decided to come in October. Normally she delivers no more than 4 babies a month. In October, she caught 8. The last of which was an 11.5 pounder who arrived on my appointment day. Suffice to say, my appointments were bumped many times. Gotta have patience though, especially when it could be ME bumping another mom's appointment in the spring. She made a special trip last time to see me because her assistant made an appointment without her knowledge or consent. I really appreciated her taking the time out of her schedule to do this for me!

Oliver is starting to grasp the idea of having a baby soon. Each time we are with infants, I make a point of holding them, and showing him how to be gentle and how mommy has room on her lap for both babies. He is wonderful with my friend Carolyn's daughter Cora. He dances and makes faces and squeezes her tiny hands and makes her laugh. I love that I am raising a boy who can wrestle a dog one minute, and the next, gently stroke a baby's head. This is the goal people! He isn't all boy, but he is all Oliver.

We have an ultrasound scheduled for the 24th of November, just to make sure all the bits and pieces were where they should be, STILL not finding out the sex of the baby though. It is far too much fun making everyone wait! This is quite the adventure we are embarking on, this family of four we are creating. I wonder if we will parent a little girl differently, I wonder how similar a little boy would look and act to Oliver. The amazing part, is there is no fear, just excitement and anticipation and joy. As wonderful as my last pregnancy was, the worry of the unknown and the fear of the hospital treatment really took over in my last months, and I am glad not to have to deal with that this time.

The Halloween Flu

Well hello there Ghouls and Boils! I wish we could say that Halloween this year was fun, and Oliver loved going trick or treating, and that we told ghost stories around a crackling fire. I wish we could, but we can't. I had the flu, not sure if it was The Flu, or just a lesser less publicized strain. I avoided hospitalization, didn't go to the doctor to get Tamaflu and was feeling much better in about a week, but the worst of it came right around Halloween. By the way, to anyone who is also suffering this season, a cocktail of Tylenol, Mucinex Expectorant and Mucinex "Full Force" nasal spray is AMAZING along with a little thing I call Auntie Neti(pot). I was able to sleep and breathe most of the time!

So back to this Halloween business. I had high hopes. One of the major reasons I wanted to have kids was Halloween. Some people love Christmas, but for me, and probably because it was forbidden, Halloween was such a magical and fun childhood thing. I had these ideals of my little man, dressed as the goblin or character of his choice marching down the street demanding sweets of our friends and neighbors. Well, ideals are called that for a reason...if they actually came true, they would call them reals.

First off, Oliver did NOT like his costume. Which was just too damn bad because we had it already and I was not about to spend money on a new costume when we have a perfectly good one already. We finally bribed him with a kit kat bar to at least put on the body part. The hat part we couldn't have super-glued on.

Secondly, I had the flu. So this is what I looked like walking down the street. Awww, look kids, its an elephant and a little boy dressed as a business man!
My favorite part of the whole thing was that when we went trick or treating to our neighbors, there were a few that were unprepared. Oliver then found something in their houses that looked interesting (read: ball) and demanded to be treated to them. He knew exactly what to do with the candy he got though!!

It was really nice to carve a pumpkin with the little man, he drew on his baby pumpkins with markers while daddy used the sharp tools on the big pumpkin. This was the first time we have ever carved pumpkins, and I may have had more fun that Ollie, but it was worth it. I love creating family traditions with my little family!


Happy Halloween everyone!!