It’s been a while since I’ve done a good ol’ fashion update of what we’ve been up to. I realized today also that my mom and I haven’t talked in like, 2 or 3 weeks, which is crazy! We usually talk much more frequently than that. So she and my dad probably don’t know what we’ve been up to lately.
We signed BBZ up for private swim lessons at his school. He swims once/week with his class and his teacher is also a private swim instructor. BBZ is an extremely cautious little boy. This is good in some ways and not-so-good in other ways. He is very reluctant to try new things. His teacher describes him as a charmer who talks his way out of doing what he doesn’t want to do, especially during the group swim class. She asked me a few times about wanting to work with him one on one, and I really think she just wants to get her hands on him in a private session to gently force him to face his fears about the water. I am really, really happy about this because we do a lot of swimming activities in the summer with our friends, and I would like him to be comfortable in and around the water.
I think that some of his reluctance to try new things is just his personality, but I also think I may have been a bit too helicopter-y with him in his early years. As I have mentioned before, I am a worrier. I don’t worry about the typical things a child might do while exploring the world around him, I worry about the catastrophic things that rarely happen to kids. Some of it might be that I work in the disability field, so the reality of what can happen is in my face daily. But I also come from a long line of worriers, so some of it is in my blood.
I’m really trying to work on the language that I use and pay attention to how it affects BBZ’s willingness to explore his world. We were at the Zoo not too long ago and he was climbing on this big metal spider web looking playground equipment. I saw him going higher and I could feel my anxiety increasing. My mind began to picture him falling, but not scraping his knee or bruising his elbow, but rather him knocking out all of his teeth and/or ending up with a traumatic brain injury and permanent paralysis.
Yes I realize how irrational that is.
So as I felt my anxiety increase, I didn’t want to squash his desire to explore, so rather than saying my usual “be careful, honey” thus causing him to realize there was danger where he was and perhaps causing him to stop immediately and becoming afraid of an otherwise safe situation, I said “pay attention to what you are doing, honey. Look at where your feet are and where your hands are and plan your next step”. And that he did. He climbed higher and higher and then back down without any trouble.
The next thing I want to work on is my initial reaction to this because I really believe that my energy contributes to how comfortable or uncomfortable he is in a given situation. No, I don’t think he can read my mind, but I do think that he feeds off of my energy. I would love to genuinely feel comfortable when he is in a situation like this, so I am working on thinking in my head “he will be ok, he will be ok” rather than jumping to the thoughts of him seriously injuring himself. Baby steps.
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We (or really N) are taking on the job of re-tiling our front foyer. Our tile is now a bright shade of blue, which I don’t mind, but N has disliked since we moved into our house. He has been working on breaking up the tile all week, and his parents are coming over on Saturday to lay the new tile. Well, N and his dad will lay the tile, N’s mom and I will spend the day playing with the boys. Then we have N’s work holiday party Saturday night, so N’s parents will do the babysitting thing for us. We picked out the tile last night and I can’t wait to see it all done!
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N’s 35th birthday was Monday, and I bought him tickets to the Todd Snider show to celebrate. Todd generally comes to our city in January, so this is the 3rd time I’ve bought tickets for us for his birthday. It was a great show. He is such a fun performer and seems to love coming to our city.
We were sitting in the balcony waiting for the show to start (and people watching) when we saw a group of 3 grey-haired women sit down in the front balcony row. One woman had tiny little binoculars that she used to look at the stage set-up before the show. We thought this was funny because the hall where we were was quite small. We kind of giggled at them and moved on.
Next we watched a grey-haired man come in and also sit in the front row of the balcony. He had huge, and I mean HUGE binoculars hanging around his neck. Again we poked fun and him and laughed at his expense. I ran off to the bathroom and when I came back N said “you won’t believe this, those binoculars are full of whiskey”. Apparently, when I was gone, N saw him open the lens cap and pour some whiskey into his soda cup. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. We vastly underestimated that guy.
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LBZ is unbelievably close to rolling over. I’m not sure when babies usually do this. I think it’s around 3 months or so and LBZ is 4 months, but I’m not worried about that. I’m not worried about his development at all. If there is anything I have learned about kids it’s that they will do things at their own pace. I may worry about them getting hurt, but developmentally I know my boys are right where they should be. Anyway, we were at N’s sister’s house celebrating his birthday and LBZ was playing on the floor. He was so close! I thought for sure he’d roll all the way onto his tummy, but not yet! It’s so fun looking forward to all that is to come!
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I ordered my winning diapers yesterday and can’t wait to get them! The ones for the commenter are being mailed directly to her. I am so excited about this! I don’t really need extra diapers, so I think I will sell some of my older ones on Craig’s List and keep the new ones since LBZ has at least 2 years left in diapers. Some of the first BGs I bought are starting to lose their elastic and I know I could replace it, but since I won 6 new diapers I don’t really need to! This way someone can have some used, but still in good condition, cloth for cheap. I love cloth diapering. The new colors I bought are ones I haven’t seen in person before, so I can’t wait for them to come.
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N and I contracted some kind of stomach sickness last week. It sucked. It hit me about 3 hours before it hit N and we were up all night. Luckily, it somehow missed the boys. LBZ had his doctor appointment scheduled for the next day and while I was incredibly dehydrated and still woozy from the illness, I didn’t want to cancel the appointment and use even more sick time, so I took him anyway. What other place should I go then to a doctor office after being sick anyway, right? LBZ got shots that day, so I really didn’t want to take him to school afterwards, especially since I was going to be home anyway. I hanitized (which is a cute combination of the words hand and sanitizer that BBZ invented) like crazy and hoped that he wouldn’t get it.
LBZ managed to avoid it, but his teacher wasn’t so lucky. She actually went to the hospital for it about 3 days after we had it. I hope we didn’t give it to her, but somehow it could have been in LBZ’s classroom and he managed to avoid it. Thank goodness! I’d hate to see a little baby as sick as we were.
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I know I have mentioned BBZ’s love for Legos. After seeing a commercial for the new Lego Forest Police and Fire Station line, N went onto Amazon and bought the Forest Fire Truck. No, BBZ doesn’t really need more Legos especially after Christmas, but I don’t think N could help himself. Maybe Legos for N are kind of like cloth diapers for me. Hmm.
Anyway, so N ordered it online. This is a difficult concept for my 3-year-old to grasp. He could not understand why the mailman didn’t bring the fire truck THAT DAY. This was last week and with the holiday on Monday, the darn thing didn’t come until yesterday. It was pretty hard to help BBZ understand that it had to come from the warehouse to the post office there to our city then to our post office than to our house. Whew, that was a lot for a little person to process! He survived though, and now we have a Lego Forest Fire Truck to play with. He is one happy camper.
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I have a lot coming up this weekend. Tonight is my La Leche League meeting, tomorrow I’m having sushi with 2 of my girlfriends, and Saturday is N’s work holiday party that I mentioned. We’re certainly staying busy!
I hope all is well in everyone else’s part of the world!
