{this moment}

From SouleMama: {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Share your own moment in the comments or at SouleMama.com.

 

 

NaBloPoMo Advice Column: Day 5 - No Sweatpants

This ditty comes from my sister. After Connor's birth, I had a bit of difficulty getting my groove back. So she sent me a book, which basically said "start putting yourself back together - and start with your clothes because that's an easy place to start". It would take me a while to admit this, but about 2 years ago, I finally implemented a "no sweat pants" rule for myself - with the only exceptions being around the house late at night and while working in the garden.

I don't think any further explanation is needed on this one.

Elaine

Building a worldview:
Day 1: Surround Yourself With Brilliant People (though my friend Susan makes a good point that clever is pretty good, too).
Day 2: Whatever, it works.
Day 3: Surround Yourself With Beauty
Day 4: When You Go Through Something New - Drag Someone With You

Back from Kansas

For those following along at home - this actually happened in July. For whatever reason, I never published it. Enjoy!

We just spent a week in Kansas, and the whole time we were there, it was super hot, and I resisted mightily the urge to cry out "I'm melting" just like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. But really, I should've. I was able to remember the absolute best thing about my family. We don't believe in sunk costs. Ever. And that means, if we have purchased tickets for an amusement park, and we have made plans to go, if it is open, we go. Even if it's 200 degrees outside. We make a pact to all pretend like we don't notice it's 200 degrees outside, we don our hats, and we drink lots and lots of water.

And so it was, that on what was possibly the hottest day of the year, we found ourselves on our annual adventure to Worlds of Fun. Connor is now big enough to enjoy quite a few of the rides, and Helen is daring enough to climb in with him whenever the gatekeeper will let her.

Here we are at the entrance, totally ready to rock it! Ed is holding a coffee cup behind his back. Yeah, like that was necessary!

One of the things I like best about Worlds of Fun is that many of the rides are the same as when I was a kid, pounding pavement in 200 degree whether if that's what the weather happened to be. The "Old Cars" are classic. My sister and I decided to let Dad drive. I'm not sure if he fell asleep at the wheel or if he's reading a map so he knows where he is going. Both are equally likely.

Although I am becoming a greater and greater wimp when it comes to rides, my sister is defying age and getting more and more daring. Here she is with Ed (our normal go-to guy for all things dangerous at amusement parks) and Emily - thrill-seeker extraordinaire on the Detonator. I'm not going to tell you whether anyone vomited, but I will tell you that I don't remember anyone going a second time.

Before the ride.

After the ride.

During the ride.

Last year, Helen was too short to go on the log ride, and everyone in the park knew it. This year? Score!

At lunch, we had Connor practice being tall so he could go on the Fury of the Nile. Fail.

Add a few spins on the Octopus, a roller coaster, the train in the kid section of the park, and several other days and you have a family visit to Worlds of Fun.

Rather than whining about how hot it was all night - do you know what we did?

We patted ourselves on the back for choosing a day when the LINES WERE SHORT. Now that's a good attitude - friends!

Elaine

The Albert Einstein Look Better Suit Me

When I turned 16, my dad taught me how to drive. That same summer, his hair went from virtually black, to mostly white. Maybe it was the driving lessons, maybe just a coincidence of time.

A few years ago, I noticed my first white hair. It stuck out of my head like a crazy antennae, and it was then that I realized as an old lady, I might have hair that made me look as if I had just put my finger in an electric socket. I didn't notice another until today.

A few hours ago, I looked in the mirror and noticed two more white hairs sticking straight out. I share this with you in case the next time you see me, you feel compelled to ask me if I have recently electrocuted myself.

Rest assured. I have not.

But I have worked hard for those white hairs, and I'm not about to color them.

Bring it, old age. I'm ready. (And it is not lost on me that today, my sister celebrates her 40th birthday.)  I'm pretty sure her husband isn't posting on his blog about any white hairs on her head.

Elaine

Rubik's Cube: I have the answer key! Take that, Sister!

Many, many years ago (probably 30!), my sister received a Rubik's Cube as a gift. She definitely told me not to touch it, and I definitely did not listen to her, and I remember very well hiding it, and being frantic with worry trying to figure out how to solve it without her knowing that I had totally and completely screwed it up.

I thought of this a few weeks ago when I received an email indicating that the Rubik's Cube was turning 30 this year. And partly in honor of that, there was going to be a competition on the National Mall sponsored by the organization "You Can Do the Rubik's Cube". Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event. However, the organization did offer to send me my very own Rubik's Cube (guess what my sister is getting for Christmas this year?) with an answer booklet.

Naturally, I was very excited to receive the cube, because I still feel a little bit guilty about my sister's cube. And well, Christmas is coming... However, I told the man offering the answer booklet that I totally knew how to solve that bugger already - either take it apart and reassemble it, or remove all the stickers. What more did I need to learn.

My cube arrived - complete with the fixing's for a party - woohoo!

It was also completely solved when it arrived. Witness. A perfect cube.

And then, naturally, Connor and Helen set about destroying it.

And then Ed got the thing and he freakin' solved it. Yes. Solved it. It didn't even take him that long, though he did look at the answer key at one point.

He even tried to explain it to me, stuck in my one-side solved only world, and he was talking about math, and blah, blah, blah and I was all, look, pal, I got a perfect score on my math GRE, this thing is NOT about math, because if it was, I could totally solve it.

Only, it is all about math concepts. And maybe that's why my little number lover Connor is loving the cube, though has yet to show me up in solving it. I'm thinking of having Ed train Helen to solve it so she can be the youngest kid to solve it someday in competition. Right now, that distinction is held by a 4 year old.

I'm planning on studying the guide until Christmas, and then at Christmas, when my sister opens this irresistible morsel, I'll let her gasp as Helen and Connor destroy it and then I'll place a friendly wager with her over who can solve it faster.

Even with my advanced studying, I might put my money on either her or Ed.

Elaine

Disclosure: As mentioned in the post, I received my cube free. I hope this toy becomes a huge hit on its 30th birthday because it definitely provided many hours of fun (and anxiety!) in my house.

From Left to Write Book Club: The Kids Are All Right

After Connor was born, Ed and I spent a fair amount of time discussing whether we would ever go through that again, and by that, I mean - sleepless nights, a child who would not allow me to leave the room without making his displeasure known, and did I mention the sleep? Wow, was Connor an intense baby.

When we bandied about the idea of another child, I kept returning to this. My sister will, at some point, be the only person who holds my past. She was there from the beginning, and I fully expect her to be around with me for a good number of years - quite possibly to the end.

She's great, but she's not perfect. Unlike many older siblings, my sister did not break my parents in, which is a bummer because as a younger sister, I shouldn't have had to tread on territory like breaking curfew and bending other random rules. This territory should have been covered with her teen years.

On the flip side, she helped me navigate through high school, she tried to keep me out of trouble (and this is where she will insert the story about how she rode her bike all the way to our elementary school and back one day when I left my lunchbox there, and my mom had frankly, had it with me leaving my stuff everywhere - she tells it in a selfless way, as if she were just being nice, but I believe having that lunchbox at home when my mom got home meant I got to spend the night with a friend, so in retrospect, I think she might've just done it to get rid of me for the night). And, my sister, who NEVER raised her voice, and never got in trouble, and was never mean to anyone once told this punk on the school bus to "SHUT UP" when he was making fun of me. And he did. I had been in a bike wreck and scraped my upper lip pretty badly. At one point during the healing process, it was all yellowy, and this jerk on the bus started taunting me about boogers on my face and my sister silenced him. I would've just ignored him and cried about it at home, but she stood up for me. And in doing so, taught me an important lesson.

Sure, we went through a few tough years, where I was trying to find my independent place in the world and she was in my way. And even now, life isn't always perfect. She happens to be very opinionated and those opinions can be based on her random thinking, rather than actual facts, and that can be annoying. Seriously. She'll still tell me I should not have given birth to my children at home. And those two birth experiences? They rank as the only reason I would ever even consider having a third child.

But no matter what, she holds my past. And it's a shared past, and having someone like that in life has been very important to me. It's a way to sort through history, with someone who views it through roughly the same lens, or at least with similar formative experiences.

The discourse over whether Connor would or would not have a sibling often ended with me saying "but if he doesn't have a sibling, who will he have when we die?" and Ed was all logical and stuff, and would say things like "not all siblings are friends, so having a second child does not guarantee bliss ever more".

I was reminded of just how important my sis is to me when I read the latest From Left to Write Book Club selection, The Kids are All Right. In this book, four siblings record memories from their childhood: before their father died, while their mother battled cancer, and after their mother died.

This book not only reminded me about my own sister, but it also made me panic several times, as I thought about what would happen to Connor and Helen if Ed and I were to die. And even though the thought of leaving Helen and Connor alone in the world at some point makes my heart hurt, I do feel good that, in all likelihood, they'll have each other.

No one could possibly understand them better than their sibling.

I received a free copy of this book as part of the From Left to Write Book Club. We write posts inspired by the books, not reviews. I laughed, I cried, I thought a lot about my sister and my own mortality. It's a great read. Now that I've read it, I'll be passing it along to a friend.

Thanks, Aunt Linda!

Dear Aunt Linda, Emily, and Anna -

Thank you so much for the very fancy dress-up clothes. I adore my wedding shoes, and feel I can now look my very best wherever I go. Finally, someone who understands me!




Love,
Helen

Connor Dives off the Diving Board

Connor loves jumping off the diving board. But, apparently he's getting a little bored with his standard jump, because he's started adding a few "tricks" to his repertoire. He started out by doing some twisting or turning once he hit the water. Then, he decided to try jumping off the board backwards (and almost clipped his chin, and I am not looking forward to another trip to the ER). Finally, he decided he was going to dive in. Only when he tried to dive the first time from the board, as was completely predictable, he performed a belly flop instead of a dive (ouch!). Luckily, he was wearing his standard wetsuit*, which probably makes it hurt a lot less, but he still decided not to try that again for a while.

A few weeks passed, and he decided to attempt a dive off the board again. Now, mind you, he doesn't bother telling anyone he's going to try this, he just gets this impish grin on his face and goes for it. So no one ever has the opportunity to provide him any helpful tips. And besides, we're parents, and it is already clear to Connor at times that we have nothing to add. The second attempt was actually much better than the first, but his hands weren't together, so his big head hit the surface of the water first. Ouch, again.

He studied the diving lessons going on one day while we were at the pool pretty intently, and I asked him he wanted to take a lesson so that the coach could show him how to dive without it being painful. He thought that was a good idea. The coach suggested he join a group lesson that started in a few days, but I thought five days in a row with kids who probably knew how to dive might be pretty intimidating. Plus, I didn't know if Connor would actually like diving once he tried it (he is, after all, related to Aunt Linda - see below), so I wanted him to have the opportunity to try it once and walk away without it being awkward. I asked the coach if Connor could have a private lesson instead. The coach was happy to do this, it just wouldn't be as economical as the group lesson. It was the end of the diving season, and the coach's schedule was busy, and then we were in Cape May, and finally our schedules met up last Friday, and Connor went to his diving lesson.

Coach Bobby Meeks is fantastic. He started the lesson by watching Connor jump off the board a few times. Then he showed Connor how to really bounce on the board. After that, he showed Connor how to dive forward, backward, and then do a roll off the board. Connor then talked the coach into showing him how high he could dive, and then begged the coach to give him just 8 more minutes of a lesson, or maybe 16, please, please, please!! (And yes, Coach Bobby did indeed stay a little late with Connor - who could resist, really?)

My very favorite part of this video is about 10 seconds in when Connor struts out to the board to do his first dive. He is completely confident, and definitely ready to impress.
After his lesson, Connor asked me if he could have at least twenty more lessons, a number he revised to 100 shortly after I agreed that yes, in his lifetime, he could surely have twenty more lessons.

Congratulations, Connor. Your Aunt Linda might fall over when she sees this video. Although Aunt Linda ended up being a very good long distance racer, my whole family remembers the two or so years it took her to learn to dive. I have to say, though, the people teaching Aunt Linda how to dive totally sucked compared to Coach Bobby. If she had been taught by him, she would've learned the first day, just like you did.

*We've learned that in diving nomenclature, a wetsuit is a "smack suit". As in "Wow! He must be getting ready to do something really cool. Look at that smack suit!"

Happy 59 Months, Little Dude

Dear Connor,

I know I've said it before, but stop the clocks. You are going to be 5 - FIVE, in just a few weeks. FIVE. That seems impossible, because five seems like such a big kid number, especially since you could be heading off to public school come September. But because I just can't imagine you crossing that threshold, you'll be in Kindergarten at your beloved Waldorf school, and I know already it will be a fantastic year. You'll have the same wonderful teacher you had last year, and almost all of your crew is returning, which is a good thing. I hope you will treasure the time you'll have with this group as much as I treasure the thought of you having it.

You have spent the last few weeks showing how utterly reasonable you can be. Except for on the car ride home from Chincoteague, but you were exhausted, and sad that our fun vacation was ending, so I forgive you that one. Helen and you fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but other times, you two are the best of friends. Take, for example, a few nights ago when there was a whale of a thunderstorm. You and Helen remain convinced that your room has less thunder, so she piled into your bed with you, and she hugged cat all night, and you hugged her. It might rank as my most precious moment relating to parenting the two of you to date. I almost photographed it, but I was afraid I'd wake one of you up, and I don't like the idea of waking two perfectly happy, sleeping children.

Your swimming continues to improve. Now, you almost have a legitimate stroke. And really, it's not even scary at all to watch you jump off the diving board over, and over, and over again. Tonight though, we were at a friend's pool party and I did have to end your time on the slide. You must have gone off that thing 50 times, and I was starting to get worried you were just too exhausted to swim safely to the side. You protested, of course, but then had a fun time swimming around with other kids.

Rules.Rules.Rules. You love making them, love slanting them in your favor, and get super annoyed when I overrule you or Helen ignores you. Chill out, dude. Life is short. You also tend to think the world is out to get you sometimes, and probably it is some days. But most days, you live on easy street.

You play with your stuffed animals a lot, and often have a very elaborate animal hospital with animals with all matter of injuries or illnesses. Lucky for them, you seem to be pretty adept at fixing them.

You're a thoughful little guy. Tonight, you insisted we bring a pitcher of lemonade and a cucumber to share at the brithday party we were attending. Both went over quite well. It's always nice to bring a little something to the host.

I love our afternoons together. You've started napping a bit lately, but I think that's just because the heat is so draining. Most of the time, Helen naps while you enjoy a book or craft project. It's nice to spend time alone with you. One day, we even went to our first Broadway style show and that was really quite fun. I'm curious what you'll think of the show at the children's theatre we frequent next time we're there. It will certainly be quite scaled back. But, it will also be with friends and something that will be much more easily digested.

Oh, and how could I forget this? We went to see THOMAS THE TRAIN. It seems like ages ago now, but when we spent the week in Kansas, Thomas the Train was there, and against my better judgment, we went. You can thank my friends with older children for that, since every one of them told me it was fantastic. What was not fantastic was that it had poured the day before, and the Thomas event was in a huge mudpit by the time we got there. In fact, we borrowed Aunt Linda's car to get there, and it got stuck in the parking lot. And since all of the volunteers in the parking were at least 80 years old, your dad ended up pushing the car out by himself. The car (and your dad) were covered in mud. That might have been the last time Aunt Linda allowed us to borrow her car, in fact. Lucky for us, we were all pretty clean because Grandma had brought a towel, so we stopped at a water pump to clean up while Dad was fetching the car.

We also went to our first opera! Nancy Faber wrote an opera for children based on the story of the Snow Queen. She played flute, her husband, Randall Faber played piano, and a real opera singer sang. It was really cool, and might have been your dad's first opera as well. You sat through the whole thing watching intently. Aunt Linda is a fancy dan in the community of Kansas and Missouri piano teachers, so she invited us to attend this performance. The Fabers are well known for their innovative approach to teaching piano.

Time is really starting to race, Connor. I'm glad I have you to run through it with.

Love,
Mommy

Cupcake Battle Week 3: Smallcakes in Overland Park, KS

This week's cupcake tasting took us all the way to Overland Park, Kansas. I'd heard from my sister that Smallcakes put crack in their cupcakes, and I thought my team out to check it out. So, we flew across the country to do just that. Oh, and we also visited my family for the week.



The selection was fabulous, which means they had one that was pink and a bunch of other random flavors. The pink one came with either chocolate or vanilla cake, eliciting several "hoorays" from my youngest taster. And, because my oldest taster never wants to feel left out of anything that my youngest taster is loving, he chose pink frosting over a vanilla cupcake. It doesn't seem like Connor is keeping true to his goal of trying lots of flavors, but maybe he's going to breakout with something crazy at the next shop.



My sister and neices accompanied me on the trip. You can see my younger neice here, checking out the goods. She's been here before, and wasn't about to be tricked into something so boring as a vanilla, vanilla cupcake. She wanted something deluxe!



I chose "drumstick", my older neice chose "cookies and cream", I think that's what my younger neice chose, but I can't remember because I was so busy snapping photos of my sister who chose the world's messiest cupcake. It had some sort of gooey chocolate filling in it. All my life I have loved chocolate. I never thought of my sister as a chocolate lover--except for milk chocolate covered caramels. Then a few years ago she busted out with an incredibly decadent chocolate dessert at dinner and I was totally shocked and she informed me she did love chocolate. Only she likes the milk chocolate kind and I like the dark chocolate kind. That's how we roll on a lot of things. Similar, but not quite the same. My sister, by the way, can eat whatever she wants because about a week before this photo was taken, she biked across half the state of Kansas - about 200 miles.



My cupcake was sublime. There weren't very many nuts on top and I'm pretty sure the frosting has some lard in it. Which might be other people's thing, but it is not my thing. However, although I have never tested crack on my own, I do read stories about such people, and I didn't find myself running across the parking lot like a wild banshee, nor did my heart start racing, and I had no strange urge to commit any crimes. So, I'm going with my gut that there isn't actually crack in the cupcakes.

Although I was not terribly impressed by the shop, all five other people involved in the contest devoured their cupcakes, and the ratings were a nearly across the board two thumbs up. Helen is turning out to be a pretty harsh critic with another two thumbs down. That's the same rating she gave Clarendon's Bakeshop. A bit of a contrarian do we think? I'll give them 3.5 stars.



It occurred to me during this visit that this cupcake battle might have two side effects, one intended and one not inttended. The intended side effect is that Connor and Helen are having a ball, even though Helen claims by her rating to not enjoy these cupcakes at all. The unintended side effect is that I might need to buy a new wardrobe at the end of this summer. I'll count this photo below as my "before" photo, even though I'm three weeks into this already.



Wrap up (in rank order - and week order at this point, but that will surely change):

Week One: Georgetown Cupcake (Washington, DC)
Week Two: Bakeshop in Clarendon (Arlington, VA)
Week Three: Smallcakes in Overland Park, KS

Elaine

Recommendation for a good vacation

A few weeks ago, Connor, Helen, and I traveled to Kansas for a 5 day visit, and I learned a great tip about how to have a really great vacation.

Go to the house of a 'tween preparing to open a babysitting business in the near future.

If you are lucky like me, you just might find both of your children adoring this 'tween and her sis' so that you can actually kick your heels up and have an adult conversation or two. It's a great way to travel. My other recommendation is to get lucky and have your kids sleep all night, every night. Well, Miss Helen woke up once the first night, but once she saw I was in the same room as her, she piped down and went back to sleep. This means that the trip to my sister's and parents' homes might just possibly be the best vacation I have taken in the past three and a half years. It does not even come close to some vacations that date before that, but it's a start. A really good start.



On day 1 of our trip, we hung out at my sister's house, with said 'tween (Anna) and my dad until my sister and Emily came home from a big girl scouting adventure. Anna is what you would call a "hands on" babysitter. From the moment we arrived until we departed, Anna could almost always be found within five feet of Helen or Connor.

We started out playing a little hoops in her backyard.



During the time, Connor busied himself cleaning out the playhouse and checking out the sand and the dirt in the yard. Sally, my sister's new puppy, was recovering from surgery, which made for a rather sedate dog - which suited Helen just fine.



The next day, when Helen was a bit more courageous about approaching Sally, an unfortunate toppling of Helen occurred as a very excited puppy attempted to give her a little smooch. Helen was not so interested in Sally for the rest of the vacation, unless Sally was behind bars or Helen was in someone's arms. One can never be too careful, you know.

Because Helen is so tiny, she's easy to treat as if she's a doll, which luckily, she seems to enjoy. In fact, I'm sure Helen is fairly confident that toys intended for dolls were made just for her. Because, after all, the world does (mostly) revolve around her, or so she wishes, at least. Here's the photo I took after my sister told her younger daughter, Emily, that the shopping cart should not be taken outside. Both Helen and Emily disagreed.



I don't recall a single argument between the cousins the entire time I was in Kansas, which is even more remarkable that you might think since every day was jam packed with activities, and bedtime was completely abandoned. There was a lot of this though!



My mom's one wish for the trip was to capture the cousins in one photo. Mission accomplished in the backyard.



My mom rewarded them all with her famous mashed potatoes which are a hit with each of her grandchildren. If Helen could be trusted to sit on the bench, I'm sure she would've been laughing with the others, but she would almost certainly fall off, so she was stuck looking across the table laughing at the others.



Elaine

The loot

Every year for Halloween, my mom would make costumes for my sister and me. I had the BEST witch costume ever. It had this outrageous orange fringe on the edge of a black cape and I still remember how fabulous it was and I was probably 7 when I wore it. My mom also fashioned a bride outfit, helped my sister dress as George Brett one year, helped me dress as Cyndi Lauper (in case you were wondering how darn cool I used to be), and many others. My dad would accompany us trick-or-treating wearing some old overalls that he put patches on and a clown mask. I remember a few of the neighbors giving him some candy for his efforts.

So, because I like to think I am as crafty as my mom, I always presumed I would make my children fabulous Halloween costumes. This year, Connor decided he was going to be a giraffe, and I spent many an hour trying to figure out how I was going to pull this off, until one day, after reading a book my mom gave him, he announced he was going to be a ghost. Awesome. Even with my sewing machine packed away I could pull this off. So, off to the fabric store I went, and this is what I came up with. It's not as fabulous as I might have dreamed, but Connor loved it. At each house he would say "Trick-or-Treat" and "BOO!". When one neighbor asked if he was a nice ghost or a scary ghost, he pondered the query for a moment and then said "I'm a little bit of both", which I thought was a pretty good answer.


He went around the neighborhood asking for hand-outs and the loot he brought home? It was deemed acceptable to the masses.

Elaine

Danger man, Connor!

Now that my sister no longer has toddlers around the house, I figure it's wise to seek activities outside the home for Connor to do, lest he unleash his destructive forces on her nice suburban home. For this visit, I planned to go to Worlds of Fun and the Kansas City Zoo. Unfortunately, when we got off the plane it was SNOWING. (Did I mention when we got ON the plane in DC it was 70?) As we landed, Connor told me that he was going to build a giant snowman in front of Aunt Linda's house. Then, he corrected himself and told me "Actually, Mommy, I am going to build an ENORMOUS snowman!" As it turns out, the snowman wouldn't even happen because the snow was melting as soon as it hit the ground. But, it was cold enough that outdoor activities would not be on the agenda.

Obviously, my sister knows a thing or two about toddlers and their destructive powers, because she had a back-up plan involving leaving her home both days we were there. On day 1, we went to a place called Zonkers, which is a place definitely intended to drive adults to the loony bin. Connor, naturally, was smitten at first sight. And, lucky for me his cousin Anna was willing to play the role of "parent" and accompany him on the rides until he was comfortable on his own. Connor asked me to ride, but I reminded him that my bottom was too big for the seats and it might get stuck. I think Connor rode this little train about 25 times and these planes another 15. He even rode the "big kid" roller coaster and it was really sweet that his other cousin, Emily, was willing to go on this because between the two girls, Connor was nicely wedged into the seat. The roller coaster appeared a bit scary and I thought he wouldn't enjoy it, but he was game for a few rides.

On day 2, my sister took us to an enormous indoor swimming area complete with "beach entry", buckets of water dropping, a "lazy river", and the object pictured below that is intended for children to flip little gates and watch water move at different paces. Never one to be far from the action, Connor decided to climb onto the metal structure and really get into the fun. I presumed one of the very vigilant 12 year old lifeguards would tell Connor to get off, but they did not. Eventually my heart gave out one too many times as I envisioned a trip to the ER not just to visit Connor's Uncle Bill but to get treatment, so I told him he had to get down - but not before snapping a few photos. That's me in the background, averting my eyes from the danger and Helen reminding me that she wanted no part of the water.

It was great for me that my parents met us there, because that meant I had some extra eyes to watch Connor attempt to kill himself in any number of ways at the pool - or so I thought. At one point, Connor came up to me and asked if he could go on the lazy river. I presumed he meant with my dad, but in fact, he and Anna had decided they could go alone. I looked up to see Anna holding him high enough that he wasn't drowning, but it definitely seemed unsafe to me so I walked over to where they were and my sister noticed about the same time and created the "no lazy river without a life jacket" rule, which was a good thing. My dad? He was probably wondering where Anna and Connor had gone. The lesson for me? Ask for more details when my very excited toddler asks to do something. To her credit, Anna did steer him through the river safely.

Ahhh...two days in KC. Next up? My parent's home.

Elaine

I love a piano

Now this is a cool toy! Connor can already bang on the keys - always a good skill for a budding Mozart. He can't sit up and play it by himself, but he's excellent at playing it while supported. At this pace, he might not even need Aunt Linda to teach him how it's done - he's probably a natural.

Tonight we went to a local pool hall and enjoyed a rousing round of pass the baby. Many thanks to my co-workers who held him and entertained him while I cruised into the final four of the winners bracket in the pool tournament. Unfortunately, my streak was ended by the person who eventually won the bracket and I left the bar before dueling to the finish of the loser's bracket.

Last night Ed was a rockin' champ putting Connor back to sleep every hour after Connor woke up and indeed, it seems as if Dr. Gandhi was right that Connor wouldn't be starved by not eating every hour. However, when Ed brought Connor to me at 5:00 to eat (the time we had agreed upon at the start of the night), Connor gave me the biggest smile ever and started chowing while Ed passed out. Connor woke up for good around 7:00 when he once again was quite a good eater and he smiled at Ed and looked at him with wide open eyes letting Ed know that the day was starting! Tonight Ed is once again taking nighttime duty (yeehaw!).

Elaine

Ouch!

Yesterday, Connor and Ed went to the doctor for Connor's two month check-up and vaccinations. Can I just say that avoiding the appointment so I didn't have to hear Connor cry when he got the shots was nothing compared to the dose of screaming I got after the Motrin wore off. He cried inconsolably for 20 minutes, at which point he passed out. I called the pediatrician during this bout of crying because NEVER has Connor done this before. The pediatrician's office was busy, so I called the next best thing, another mom of a newborn. She read to me from the baby owner's manual (which I have but was so distracted and distressed by the crying that I never thought about looking at it), and ultimately we decided that the shots could indeed be causing this trauma. The pediatrician then called back and told me this was normal and OK'd giving Connor more Motrin (amen!), which we have continued to give him today on the advice of my sister.

On the bright side, Connor weighed in at 10 pounds, which is not exactly accurate since Ed reported that Connor had a wet diaper and clothes on - but hey, when you've fallen off the growth chart, you need every advantage your daddy can give you. He's almost two feet tall, or should I say, long (since tall seems to imply an upright position which Connor has yet to attain). This puts him in the 50th percentile for length and his head is also in the 50th percentile - woohoo!

Today Connor went to a postpartum yoga class with me and he made an adorable yogi. He started class off sleeping, woke up during the class and entertained himself by staring at one of his favorite toys (a Lamaze Cube) and then got restless at about the time the rest of the class babies got restless at which time he did yoga with me. Yoga definitely agrees with him. I wonder if I'll be able to convince Ed to take him to yoga on Fridays in November and December when I'm back at work?

The photo above was taken yesterday.

Elaine

Take Two...

Hi All,

Looks like I'm worse at maintaining a blog than I thought I would be - and my standards were pretty low. However, I'm going to try this one more time. Here's where you can now check in to see how fabulous my peanut is!

Today we went to the movies for the first time and saw Elizabethtown. with a group called "reel moms". Basically, you're free to bring your quiet or not so quiet kiddo to the movies and enjoy! Connor must have found the event quite exciting because he couldn't even muster the energy to really throw a good protest at being placed in the carseat (one of his least favorite places) when we left the movie. He didn't even scream all the way out of the garage. He's still sleeping in his hated carseat enjoying some fresh air while I set this up.

Last weekend, Connor's grandparents (Dad's side) came to visit and the weekend before that his Aunt Linda and cousins Anna and Emily were here. (Uncle Bill had been here earlier in the week for a conference.) His grandparents from my side had been out when he was three weeks old - and Grandma Carlene is making her second trip next Monday! I am definitely looking forward to the visit - and I'm sure Connor will enjoy it too (even though Grandma is going to try and get him to sleep independently).