"That's Not Food!"

As Alex is now the ripe old age of two, he has suddenly become extremely independent.  There are exceptions to this independence, of course, in which I'm mainly thinking of when I'm trying to prepare a meal, use the bathroom, or present myself with any type of dignity to the cashier at Home Depot whilst my Al Pal proceeds to roll six things of painters tape down the aisle as if they were little, four dollar bowling balls. And yet, Alex is very independent, refusing my help to get in and out of the car and protesting "No!" when I try to assist him with basic tasks.  He bats away my hand when I help him to the next level of "Car Puzzles For Toddlers Lite!" on the iPad and does not want an ounce of assistance getting into his chair for dinner. He doesn't want to be held as we cross a parking lot; he cries out "Walk! Walk!" as if he is a prisoner who wants just the tiniest taste of freedom.  He refuses to sit in the stroller anymore, bucking his ...

Andy, Alex's Protector Every couple weeks or so, I have The Talk with Andy.  Not THE Talk, unless you count the "No, Andy, you don't have boobies" talk as part of THE Talk, but the OTHER talk.  The Stranger Danger Talk.  Andy is pretty squared away on what do if someone approaches him and says, "Your Mommy says it's okay if you come with me" or "I have an adorable puppy holding six lollipops in that creepy looking van over there, want to come take a look?"  Just say no.  Run for Mommy.  Use vulgar language if you'd like. We were having our talk, and I continued on with the questions.  "What if a stranger picks up Alex and tries to take him?"  I asked.  "Then what should you do?" Andy answered swiftly.  "I would scream at him and kick his legs and step on his feet until he put Alex down." "That's a pretty good idea.  But then what if he picked up YOU?" Andy shook his head and replied wi...

Saturday is Alex's second birthday.  I can hardly believe it.  It's such a cliched thing to say, but, seriously, where does the time go?  I am holding on to Alex's last little fragments of babyhood.  His chubby thighs, the way he curls against me when I hold him in my arms, that angelic look on his face when he's napping.  My sweet baby boy.  Not really too much of a baby anymore. For your second birthday, here are ten things I love about you.  Just ten.  I'm really limiting myself here. 1.  I love your smile.  You've been smiling since the day you were born, and it's a big, glorious one.  Everyone remarks on your smile.  It's infectious, like catching awesome-itis.  You spread sunshine and rainbows with your grin, and that's hardly an exaggeration. 2.  I love that you're such an athlete.  I mean, sure, I'm probably the foremost authority on being so very nonathletic that it would be an embarrassment if I a...

What size was this jacket anyway??? Andy and Alex got to tour a fire station this past Tuesday!  It was courtesy of one of Andy's good friends, whose dad happens to be a real live firefighter.  I'm convinced that this has to be the parental career that a preschooler is most proud of.  If you were to ask little Eddie what his daddy does, he would likely scream, "My daddy is a FIREMAN!  HE'S AWESOME!"  Meanwhile, earlier today, I asked Andy what his daddy did for a living, and this was his exact reply. "I don't know.  Oh wait.  He uses the computer.  He does that over and over again." See, even Andy understands how mundane an office job can be. So we toured the firehouse, which reminded me of that time about eight years ago when I had to be rescued by a fireman. Chris and I were out on the little balcony of our old second floor townhouse.  I was always so careful about making sure the sliding glass door didn't latch behind us, and C...

We returned from our little vacation today, having spent the past three days in Wisconsin Dells in a repeat of last year's summer's excursion .  Same lodge, same morning at Tommy Bartlett's Exploratory, same Northwood's style McDonalds.  This year, we added a visit to Circus World in nearby Baraboo, WI .  And, objectively speaking, that ended up being my favorite part.  During my last five visits to Brookfield Zoo, I have not been able to see an elephant.  Like, you just assume, oh, I'm going to the zoo, I'm definitely going to see an elephant.  Nope, not the case!  I don't know what the deal is in Brookfield, but there are no elephants and the price of admission is the same and/or higher despite this fact.  Unbelievable.  But, at Circus World, I got to see an elephant.  Three of them, in fact!  Very up close and personal during the circus performance part of our visit, so up close and personal that I can honestly say I've now visu...

Alex's two year appointment looms on the horizon, and I am anxious for the developmental questions.  I remember at Andy's two year appointment, they asked me if he could stack six blocks.  To which I immediately thought, "Blocks!  Damn!  Blocks!  I FORGOT ALL ABOUT BLOCKS."  I answered, tentatively, yes, and then shuttled Andy back home where I managed to dig up six blocks and command him to stack them.  Which, thankfully, he could, otherwise I would have had to live with a huge lie weighing on my conscious. The nurses are totally going to ask me about Alex's speech.  At fifteen months, they asked me how many words he could string together.  The answer to that riddle was zero.  Capital Z, Zero.  Nothing.  Now, at almost two years old, Alex says words, but only one at a time, unless you count "all done," which I'm pretty sure Alex considers to be one compound word.  Alldone. The thing is, Alex's one word has lately ...

Andy had his last day of three year old preschool yesterday, and with that we slammed shut another chapter of their young lives. Since I am switching Andy to another preschool next year (per Andy's request, as my number one personality trait seems to be "caves to the whim of a three year old"), we will no longer be hanging at the local park district two days a week.  And since Alex will also be in two year old preschool, my youngest buddy and I will no longer do those park district things we did while Andy was in class.  No more kids' "museum," no more parent-tot gym class, no more nonsensically riding the elevator up, dropping two handfuls of dried cranberries all over the elevator carpeting, and then holding hands and slowly taking the stairs back down. It's enough to choke this mommy up a little. But, instead of getting all teary-eyed about the transition of things, I'm trying instead to focus on how wonderful I intend for this summer will be....