A Two Year Old and a Three Week Old!

Andy turned two on the day Alex turned three weeks.  We decided to celebrate this event with a trip to Pirate's Cove, a super tiny theme park specifically for kids ages one to nine. I tried to find a theme park specifically for kids ages three weeks and up, but when I googled that, the only thing that came up was a list of pediatricians, and, for some reason, a map of bars in Alabama.

The first ride Andy went on was the merry go round.  I think the pregnancy hormones may still be working their way out of my system, because I got all choked up and teary as the merry go round started up and my sweet little two year old clutched the pole of his pony and began his first solo trip on a merry go round.  The opening bars of "Sunrise, Sunset" began playing in my head, and I was thankful for my dark sunglasses, lest the other mothers label me some kind of unfit, weepy weirdo.  Suddenly, I just couldn't believe how big and grown up my little baby was.  Riding a merry go round!  By himself!  Jeez, imagine what a mess I'm going to be on the day of his high school graduation, his wedding, the first time I have to post bail for him. My baby! All grown up.

Andy rode the merry go round, two different trains, played for a few minutes in the bouncy house, had a melt down waiting in line for the paddle boats (during which time he tried to undress himself because he thought it was a swimming pool and not a paddle boat pool), and after much too short of a visit, we deemed it was time to leave.  Alex was sweating up a storm in his carrier, his perfect little newborn skin growing red from the heat.  The first of many times one will ruin the other's good time- or one will come down with a mild case of heat stroke due to poor planning on mine and Chris' part.  Who takes a newborn to an outdoor theme park on a ninety-plus degree day?  Weepy, unfit parents, that's who.

We headed over to the Choo-Choo restaurant for Andy's free birthday lunch.  Can I just say:  Never Again.  Sure, the restaurant is kind of cute, as long as you sit in one of the booths where the miniature train actually comes by with your food.  Sure, the hamburgers were okay.  But, really?  Is this the kind of thing that passes for entertainment these days?  Some too tiny, overheated diner where you have to wait in a very disorderly line nearly half an hour just so your food can be delivered out via a small, crappy train?  The place was packed to the gills with parents and kids, thus reaffirming my stance on how I feel about other people and their children.  I'll let you fill in the blanks on that one.

After the Choo-Choo, we got back in the car where Andy and Alex both screamed for attention.  Alex because he'd been stuck in his carrier for freaking ever and Andy because he'd seen a bus driving down the opposite side of the street and wanted us to follow it.  Bus.  BUS!  Just to break up the drive, we stopped at a playground where Andy ran free and Alex got his diaper changed behind a bunch of bushes.  "I'm sorry to expose you this way," I whispered to Alex as I tried to quickly cover up his penis before a passing stranger could get a good look at it.  "Changing a baby in a public park is so very uncivilized, I know."

The week before Andy turned two, we put him into his twin bed.  The twin bed is totally a girl's bed, which we tried to make more masculine with dinosaur bedding.  It's basically the bed of a confused, tomboyish little girl, but I guess Andy has yet to notice or complain about it.  The transition to his twin bed has been pretty good.  He's only fallen out once (any concussion suffered was too mild for us to notice), and he basically stays in it until the morning, until his ungodly wake up hour of five o'clock.  Chris and I put a gate at the entrance to his room.  The gate does nothing- for some reason, we can't get the pressure-mounted gate to stay up properly, so basically, when Andy wakes up and walks out of his room, he walks right through the gate as if it's not even there, knocking it down, stepping over it, and continuing on his way.  But, the gate and the booming noise it makes when it hits the ground at least alerts us that Andy's up and on the move, so in that respect, keeping the gate propped up in the doorway has been a resounding success.

Alex, on the other hand, sleeps in.  He wakes up to feed at about six but then easily falls back asleep until about eight or nine.  My new challenge- to get Andy to sleep in until eight or nine as well and to make my life just a tiny bit more manageable.  I'd like to accomplish this while keeping Andy at his current bed time of 7:27 pm.  If anyone knows how to get a two year to sleep thirteen hours straight, please let me know.  I NEED THIS.  I don't know if I'll survive otherwise.

Chris returns to work on Monday.  He's been home with us for three weeks.  I have no idea how I'm going to manage these two kids on my own, especially since the amount of sleep I'm getting is about to be reduced, since Chris has been nice enough to wake up with Andy in the morning and let Alex and me sleep until eight or nine.  I am hoping that Chris still wakes up with Andy and then just takes him to work with him.  Now that would be amazing.  If Chris were a good father, that's what he would do.

There's not a whole lot else to report on Alex.  He's still at that stage where he's mostly uninteresting.  I will say that he squeaks a lot.  He squeaks when he eats and when he sleeps.  He squeaks like a rubber ducky.  He's one squeaky little bastard, and it's just about the cutest thing in the world.  Actually, everything about Alex is the cutest thing in the world.  He's got a great head of hair, a sweet little face, beautiful hazel-ish eyes, and the kind of feet you just want to eat.  If you were into eating feet.  And I think most mothers are.

So I have a squeaky, adorable three week old and an all grown up two year old.  There are moments when I am holding my squeaky baby and my two year old is snuggled up against me when I feel like I have somehow won the lottery (the kind of lottery that pays out in love instead of cash) and everything is right with the world.  And then there are moments when I am bouncing my crying, squeaky three week old while my all grown up two year old clings to my leg demanding something bus-related when I think:  Oh crap.  Can I really do this on my own?  And still manage to eat, use the bathroom, and stay marginally sane?

I'll let you know.