Wyatt

I think Wyatt would be a great farmer. The number one reason? He is wide awake at the break of dawn.

I love my son, but if he could sleep just a little longer, that’d be awesome.

Twice a week I roll out of bed to turn my computer on at my desk at quarter to six to start work…and he’s already awake. The other mornings I am out of the house at five to five to head to the gym (and thankfully he is not up quite yet) but somewhere between the time that I get home at ten to six, he wakes up. I don’t usually mind (except maybe on Saturdays) because I am already awake. So, we live, even if the sun hasn’t even peeked its little head up yet.

I think Wyatt would be a great early morning radio talk show host. The number one reason? He is a yapper.
I am fine to wake up early, but holding a conversation first thing? Not so much. If I head to the gym I put my hat on, ear phones in, and do my thing. Please don’t try and talk to me. If I start work right away, I can barely answer the “good morning” IM’s with enthusiasm. It takes me a little bit to get going. For Wyatt, who knows what rigmarole he’s talking about so early. Whatever it is, he has a lot to say. Maybe he’s telling all his little animal friends that he sleeps with about the dreams he had. Or maybe he’s trying to chirp back at the birds that sing in the tree outside his bedroom window. Maybe he knows that Dax sleeps in the bedroom next door and he’s trying to wake up his brother. Maybe he just likes to confuse the train’s choo choo sound with garbage truck. Who the heck knows?

But for sure, I think Wyatt would be a great speech pathologist. The number one reason? He has a HUGE vocabulary. Ok, maybe not huge, but I think it’s pretty impressive. It’s probably because Dax didn’t quite talking or really communicating with us until he was closer to two. Wyatt on the other hand has a lot to say. He turns 18 months in just a couple of weeks and I wanted to remember all the words he is using. Here goes…

momma
da-e (daddy)
ba ba (bottle)
wa wa (water)
boo (book)
chew (shoe)
bay- be (baby)
ba (ball)
no
bubble (he says this one really good)
side (outside)
hi
ane (plane)
choo choo
do (dog)
bye bye
ack (snack)
koo-key (ccokie)
bath
ease (please or cheese)
ou (out)
bi (bite)

Oddly, lots of his words start with B’s. Maybe when he’s a speech pathologist he can tell me why.

Girlfriends

Everyone says kids grow up way too fast. You hear it all the time when you are pregnant or with a newborn and a sweet (or kinda strange), little lady walks up and wants to touch your belly or oooh and ahhh over your little one. You can see how they are reminiscing of their grown children and how they miss their babies. I’ll admit some days I can’t imagine the day going any slower, wishing time would speed up, but ninety nine percent of the time, I totally believe that. My kids are growing up way too fast. Dax especially is on the fast track. And I wish he would stop.

There are things daily that remind me he is getting big. For instance, when he uses the word “intentionally” or “sophisticated”. Or his mannerisms look so grown up. Lately he would rather fold his arms and walk next to me rather than hold my hand because somehow he has figured it out that he looks older (and cooler) walking by himself than hand in hand with his mom. I love to hold his hand. And I’ve had to start making up stories about when he wipes off my kisses. I just tell him he is just rubbing them in more just to make my secretly breaking heart feel better. I know when he starts pre-school in the next few months I’ll hyperventilate seeing him walk up to his teachers house, wearing his back pack that is the same size as him. And even though nothing is actually in his back pack, I know he’ll want to wear it because he will feel big just because he gets to go to school. He has no problem leaving me.

All these things remind me how before I know it he is going to be all grown up and it’s all going to happen right before my eyes. But this morning….that was the kicker. I literally cried.

Last week my sweet friend dropped her 11 and 8 year old girls off to play with Dax and Wyatt while I ran up the street for a quick meeting. The boys were so happy to have friends come play and the four of them got along great. When I got home I asked how everything went and the report was great all the way around. I’ve posted before how Dax can’t remember anyone’s name. He is just horrible at it. So I knew, even after playing with these girls and swimming together afterwards, he would never, ever remember what their names were.

This morning when I was getting Dax dressed he showed me the train table in his room. Instead of train cars, tracks, bridges, wooden trees and anything else that had landed on the train table the past few days strewn all across the top in a big mess, it was set up like a perfect little train town. There was the train station in the middle with tracks going out each side, two bridges, a tunnel, a track around the mountain dotted with wooden pine trees and even a few houses around the lake. It was a way better set up than I have ever done for him. I was sure he was going to tell me how my niece had set it up for him when she was over playing, or maybe the babysitter Saturday night. No. None of those. He said, “Mom, look what my girlfriends built for me.”

He caught me so off guard. He has never said that word before. He kinda took my breath away. I said, “You mean your friends who are girls.” He wasn’t having that. He said, “No, my girlfriends.” Deep breath. Deep breath. I kept telling myself he was only calling them that because he couldn’t remember their names. It surely didn’t have anything to do with him really thinking he has girlfriends, he doesn’t even know what that is. I had to drop it. I couldn’t think about it one more second.

Except I can’t stop thinking about it. One day, a lot sooner than I think it’ll be, my son is going to have girlfriends. He definitely won’t want to be my shopping buddy anymore, or have me take him out to dinner or have a special date night and rent Alvin and the Chipmunks and eat popcorn with me. He’ll be wanting to do that with a girl. A girlfriend. I know I have years to go, but this is a little overwhelming. I’m no expert on being a mother to a boy, but this has got to be one of the hardest parts of raising a son, right? Having them leave you one day? It’s breaking my heart.

I guess all's I can do for the time being is accept those flowers he picks for me with pure delight and let him build me all the castles he wants with his Mega Blocks and Legos. I’ll pick him up and hold him when he asks me to even though that’s his way of saying he has to go potty and doesn’t want to stop what he is doing to go. And when he asks, I’ll stay in his room and lay on his bed with him until he falls asleep. And don’t tell, but as long as I can get away with it, I may just do like my favorite book says and once he falls asleep, pick him up and rock him and whisper, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.

Because one day, those flowers won’t be coming to me. They’ll be going to a girlfriend. Just kill me now.

One Fish, Two Fish

Dax started swim lessons last week, one of my favorite things to watch him do. The first three days were a little rough, but by the middle of last week he was happily swimming, and starting to sport a nice little tan. He has a great little class and a wonderful teacher (even though she had to kick me out the first two days because the pool isn’t gated in and Dax was running around hysterical). But, once he settled in he remembered how much he loves being in the water and what a great swimmer he is. This is a little of what he’s been doing:

\float\-noun : something that floats in or on the surface of a fluid

\jump\-verb : to spring into the air : leap ; especially : to spring free from the ground or other base by the muscular action of feet and legs

\swim\ -verb : to propel oneself in water by natural means (as movements of the limbs, fins, or tail) b: to play in the water (as at a beach or swimming pool)

\kick-board\ -noun : a buoyant, usually small board that is used to support the arms of a swimmer, used chiefly in practicing kicking movements.

\dive\-verb : to plunge into water intentionally and especially headfirst \fish in a towel exhausted and cold after a late swim\ -noun : Dax 3 1/2 years old

Hot Dog

I think I am a bad mom. But I know without a shadow of a doubt I am definitely the mother of my son.

A few weeks ago Dax’s teacher asked him to fill out a tiny questionnaire about himself for his class. The questions started off with the typical questioner type questions: Where were you born? When is your birthday? How many brothers and/or sisters do you have? He knew all those, (except when he said “cake” for when his birthday was--silly). Then he started in with the really crazy answers. When I asked him what color his hair was he said he would be right back and ran to my mirror. He came back and answered very matter of factly, “silver.” OK, silver it is….60 years from now. When I asked him what his favorite song was he said “Do As I’m Doing” but didn't know any of the words beyond the first line, which is the same as the title.

There were a few more silly ones like that. Then came the answer of all answers....and reason number one that makes me a bad mom. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. I have never asked him this. Ever. I kinda feel like that makes me a bad mom, that I have no idea what my son wants to be when he grows up. I couldn’t wait to see what he said. And guess what he said. He wanted to be a “helper”. Wow! That’s great I thought. "You want to help people! Kinda like how daddy does at work or a policeman or fire fighter, even a teacher" I was thinking. Nope. Not even close. When I asked him “a helper of what?” he says very unwavering, “a helper of making hot dogs.”

Awesome.

If not knowing what my child wants to be when he grows up doesn’t make me a bad mom, then definitely his obsession with hot dogs does.

I love hot dogs. I really do. I have for as long as I can remember. I’ll take them a number of ways. A nice hot dog on a bun with ketchup and onions, a chilidog smothered with chili and cheese, a corn dog, a hot dog cut into bite size pieces dipped in ketchup, macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, Costco hot dogs. I used to even roll a hot dog up in a quesadilla and eat it like a burrito. Boiled, BBQ-ed, microwaved, it doesn’t matter. If you lined every fast food restaurant in the world on a single street I would choose Wienerschnitzel every time. Even when I am pregnant and not supposed to eat hot dogs, I can’t help it every once in awhile. It’s a sick sick addiction.

Apparently my love for all things grinded meat has been passed on to my son because Dax loves hot dogs as much, if not more, than I do. Every morning I ask what he wants for breakfast and he says “ hot dogs”. Trust me, I have never given my kids hot dogs for breakfast, but I’d be lying if I said they haven’t had them two out of three meals a day.

So, if Dax wants to be a “helper of making hot dogs” when he grows up, then by all means I will support him 100%.

And if one day the two of us turn up missing, we just might have packed up and moved to New York to pursue our dream of owning a hot dog cart. After all, it is a 3.5 billion dollar industry.

Oh yes, I’ve researched that, and between Dax and I, we contribute very dearly to that number and the billions of hot dogs consumed by Americans.

National Hot Dog Month, we look forward to seeing you in July. Love Bryn and Dax

Invitation

We're headed to the pool this week with our lunches. Wanna come??