it might be time

this past week
i have noticed
that chace has been
pulling on his diaper.

yesterday, he looked at my dad
and said "i potty."
my dad then relayed
the information to me.

i put chace on the potty.
nothing happened.
i took him off.
less than five minutes later
he peed on the bathroom floor.

i think it might be
time to think about
potty training.
let the good times begin.

for the good of food

we like food.

not just any food.

good food.

pure food.

simple food.

complicated food.

food full of flavor.

ok, we like most foods

with the exception of processed foods.

i meticulously plan out

the meals each week

carefully balancing flavors,

proteins and produce.

i don't buy cookies,

chips or junk food.

part of it is because i will eat it

and the other part is i don't

want chace to eat this type of food.

we eat this way, not because it

makes us better parents

or individuals.

it is choice we have made

for ourselves and our family.

this being said, 

eating this way can be expensive.

the majority of our grocery bill

is spent on produce.

saturday at yoga, 

i saw a flier for a csa

called the good food collective.

this option makes sense to me.

we get fresh produce

for 4 months during the winter.

it will cut down on our grocery bill.

we are helping local farmers.

and we are consuming good, healthy pure food.

for me this is a no brainer.

now i have to convince ph.

phase 2

its just a phase
its just a phase
its just a phase
this was the phrase i repeated to myself
all day long.

sometimes, with every breath.
its just a phase
its just a phase.

the sweet child pictured above,
my precious boy,
is beginning to assert his will
and it is ugly.

it is like some alien
takes over his body.

seriously,
he rolls around on the floor.
kick his legs.
screams.
turns red.
hits whatever he can find.
and sometimes bites the floor.

who is this child?
and where did my sweet chace go?

sometimes i laugh at him.
i mean his behavior is absurd.
sometimes i get very annoyed.
like when i am changing a poop diaper
and he is trashing around on the floor,
acting as if i am trying to hog tie him
and brand him with a hot iron.

i have to tell myself to breathe
that this too shall pass.
i am the parent.
i am in charge.
he doesn't always get his way.
he needs to learn this lesson early.

its just a phase.
an age appropriate phase.
a phase that will pass.
soon, i hope.

collector

what: a conversation
when: july 17, 2011
who: ph and luc

ph: why do you have all those grey rocks in the back seat of your car?

ph: there are some sticks and leaves in there too...

luc: ummm. they are chace's.

ph: huh?

luc: everywhere we go he collects things and puts them in the car. i figure it's better to leave it all in the car rather than bring it in the house.

ph: chuckles to himself. and then says your great aunt dede would be so proud. (aunt dede is my 90 something great aunt who is a geologist. growing up she used to give us rock collections for christmas).

luc: i just hope he doesn't ask for a pet rock.

playground rules

c and i  have an activity
every morning.
its our routine.
sometimes its just us.
other times we have a playdate.

now that summer is here.
we usually go to
the pool after nap.

when c and i are
on an outing by ourselves
i often have this feeling
of being back in high school,
or grade school
or any other situation where there are cliques
and i am the odd girl out.
or the new girl.

it happens when there is
a group of moms who know each other.
i can feel them watching me.
i can see them looking at my child.
is he well behaved?
is he clean?

they talk.
they laugh.
they watch.
and there we are, on the outside.

i dont like this feeling.
i am not one to make small talk.
or start a conversation.
particularly if i feel like
i am being judged.

my brain has been spinning lately
wondering when it is that we lose
our self confidence.
is it a certain age?
is it an event?

c is so sure of himself.
he initiates interaction
with children and adults.
if they don't pay attention,
he simply stares at them
or talks to them until they acknowledge
his presence.

i hope he never loses this.
maybe i need to take some
playground lessons
from my son.

happy fathers day

happy father's day.
there is nothing better
than seeing your son's
face light up when you pull in the driveway
and run to you with open arms.

you are an awesome papa.
he is lucky to have you.

its just a phase

for the last week
i have been repeating
the following to myself,
"its just a phase" and
"this too shall pass"

you see my child
has turned into a tree monkey
one who likes to hold on
to his mama's neck for dear life.

he has also come to hate bath time.
come on, chace
you have had a bath
every single day of your life.

he screams
and screams
and climbs
and clings.

you would think we
were dropping him in
a vat of boiling peanut oil.

so, please.
if your child has been
through this phase
tell me its just a phase.

uneven

so i have another one
to add to the list.
the ever growing list
of things i never thought
i would do as a mother.

i have been adamant
about not cutting
chace's hair.
i love those curls
in the back.

they make my heart sing.

my reasoning for not
cutting his hair
is not emotional
or sentimental.

it is purely because i do not want to.
i am the mama.
and i don't have to cut his hair
if i dont want to.

oh, and i think toddlers
look absolutely ridiculous
with grown up haircuts.

so with that being said,
i am letting it grow.
be curly, be wild
just be.

with one tiny exception
his bangs.
they were so long
that they were constantly
in this eyes.

so after much pestering.
i attempted to trim them.
and i did a horrible job.
they are uneven.
they are too short.

i keep apologizing to chace
and telling them it is only hair.
that it will grow back in no time.

and i promised him that next
time i had the urge to trim
his bangs i would refrain
and take him to scott miller.

21 memos from your child

i saw this on jora of domestic reflections blog yesterday and it moved me. i felt the need to share, mainly as a reminder to myself, but it is really powerful.


enjoy

21 Memos From Your Child

1. Don’t spoil me. I know quite well that I ought not have all I ask for. 
I am only testing you. 

2. Don’t be afraid to be firm with me. 
I prefer it, it makes me feel secure. 

3. Don’t let me form bad habits. 
I have to rely on you to detect them in the early stages. 

4. Don’t make me feel smaller than I am. 
It only makes me behave stupidly “big”. 

5. Don’t correct me in front of people if you can help it. 
I’ll take much more notice if you talk quietly with me in private. 

6. Don’t make me feel all of my mistakes are sins. 
It upsets my sense of values. 

7. Don’t protect me from consequences. 
I need to learn the painful way, sometimes. 

8. Don’t be upset when I say “I hate you”. 
It isn’t you I hate, but your power to thwart me. 

9. Don’t take too much notice of my small ailments. 
Sometimes they get me the attention I need. 

10. Don’t nag. 
If you do, I shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf. 

11. Don’t forget that I can’t explain myself as well as I should like.
 This is why I’m not always very accurate.

12. Don’t make rash promises. 
Remember that I feel badly let down when promises are broken. 

13. Don’t tax my honesty too much. 
I am easily frightened into telling lies. 

14. Don’t be inconsistent. 
That completely confuses me and makes me lose faith in you. 

15. Don’t tell me my fears are silly. 
They are terribly real to me and you can do much to reassure me if you try to understand. 

16. Don’t put me off when I ask questions. 
If you do, you will find that I stop asking and seek my information elsewhere. 

17. Don’t ever suggest that you are perfect or infallible. 
It gives me too great a shock when I discover that you are neither. 

18. Don’t ever think it is beneath your dignity to apologize to me. 
An honest apology makes me feel surprisingly warm toward you. 

19. Don’t forget how quickly I am growing up. 
It must be very difficult to keep pace with me, but please try. 

20. Don’t forget I love experimenting. 
I couldn’t do without it, so please be patient with it.

21. Don’t forget that I can’t thrive without lots of understanding and unconditional love,
 but I don’t need to tell you that, do I? 

original author unknown

feet

my child has the stinkiest feet.
seriously, he could clear a room
with those little feet.

mama does not like feet.
she really does not like smelly feet.
and she is concerned about how his feet
will smell when he is a teenager.

i cant believe i just.....

i can not tell you how many times

i have said this to myself

the last several days.

it began when

i let chace sleep in bed

with me in santa fe

because his ears and teeth hurt.

i cant believe i just let my 15 month old sleep in bed with me.

then in the atlanta airport

in the family restroom

chace decided to throw his

beloved duckie into the toilet.

i saved duckie from drowning, 

dried him off

and returned him to his keeper.

i cant believe i just took a lovey out of the toilet and gave it to my son.

thursday, it was warm out.

we were outside

and chace spotted a puddle.

i let him play in it.

he had a a blast.

i am still regretting that decision.

i cant believe i just let my son play in the puddle with his clothes on.

and to be quite honest, i cant believe i just admitted this to you.

sleep interuptus

most people don't realize
that the elevation in
santa fe is 6800 feet above sea level.

this altitude has been known
to reek havoc on visitors.
common side effects are

nausea,
shortness of breath,
headaches,
alcohol goes to your head quicker,
and for some
a hard time sleeping.

i have never had
a hard time sleeping,
probably because
this is home for me.

this has not been the
case for my son.
every time we visit santa fe
chace has a hard time sleeping at night.

and when mama is used
to her son sleeping
12 hours at night without interruption
this altitude side effect is rough.

or maybe it is the
fact that he is beginning to
get an ear infection.

foundation

today, chace and i met with the director of webster montessori for our official interview.
it went very well.
and i am happy to report that chace was accepted into the program.
once we sign all the paper work, it will be official.

he will start in september.

education is something that i feel very strongly about.
i believe with my whole heart
that it is my job as a parent to give chace the best possible educational foundation
so that he can achieve whatever it is he desires.

i believe that a montessori education 

will provide this foundation.

in a world that is full of technology,
information in sound bites,
and a desire for instant gratification,

i often wonder how much our children are learning?
if we are sucking the imagination out of our children
by overloading them with toys that blink, talk, and sing?
are taking the joy out of learning by having everything at our fingertips?

i want chace to love learning.
the way i loved learning.
i believe that montessori will help foster
his desire to seek knowledge.

one of the things that i noticed when
observing the toddler classroom last week
was the glaring absence of plastic, battery operated toys.
the classroom was filled with the most awesome wooden toys.

and the children were interacting with each other.
they were actively using their imaginations.
they were engaged in the learning process.
i could see there minds at work.

this is what i want for my son.
so, i will be cleaning house.
i will be removing all plastic/ battery operated toys from the house.
we will be a wooden toy only house.

of course there are a few exceptions.
like legos
or cars
and playmobile.

this was not a decision i took lightly
and i know not everyone will agree
but i believe in the montessori way
and that it will help chace soar to unimaginable heights.

do you have it?

my mom taught us how to write thank you notes.
she made us to eat with our elbows off the table.
to say please and thank you, yes ma'am and no ma'am.
to be polite and do the right thing.

she provided us with home-training.
that is what we call it on our house.
if you were not taught these things
well, you have no home-training.
and yes we talk about this very openly in our family.

today,  i took chace to a local rec center for open gym.
he loves it. he can run around and interact with other kids.
but these types of activities are an interesting study in human behavior,
more specifically parenting.
and home training.

as i was observing the chaos around us.
it was very evident which children
were going to have home training and which ones were not.

the child who kept screaming while slamming the riding motorcycle
on the ground while his father looked on.
no home training.
the little girl who shared her ball with chace.
home training.
the little boy who drove his motorcycle into chace
and then looked at me like chace did something wrong.
no home training.
the little girl who accidentally kicked chace but then apologized.
home training.

i could go on and on and on.
what amazes me is that children are just like their parents.
it is so obvious to recognize, even at such an early age.
so not only do i know who is going to have home training,
but i know which adults had no home training when they were young.

this is an aspect of parenting that is inevitable
i just did not think it be so soon.
and based on our outing today
i think we need more home training in the world.

just sayin.....

my how we have grown

last night, i was rereading some posts from last year.
oh my how things have changed.
i was laughing so hard i was crying.
if you need a good laugh,
read this post.
and the one before
and the one after.

after i wiped the tears from my eyes
and stopped laughing.
i asked ph if i had lost my
blogging mojo.
i am not funny anymore.
i don't have funny stories.

i began obsessing and over thinking
because, well that is what i do.
i obsess.
so obsess is what i did for
most of the night and most of the day.

then i had a thought.
its not that i am not funny.
or funny things dont happen.
its just that we have settled into life.
life as a parent.
life as a family.
and that is a very good thing.

i am still neurotic,
driven, obsessive.
the things i worried about last year
are not concerns this year.
this is how life progresses.

these days
i follow chace around the house
making sure he remembers
to go down the stairs feet first.
telling him that we do not
play in the toilet bowl.
reminding him that he could drown
in the dog's water bowl.

we spend the mornings
taking socks out of bins
and putting them back.
we smell the people.
we play with puzzles,
read books and practice our colors.

most afternoons
we climb the stairs,
play with the tupperware,
and have at least one meltdown.
the falling on the floor, kicking our feet
and biting the carpet kind of meltdown.

i laugh hysterically.
chace decides its not worth
getting carpet burn over
and joins in the laughter.

this is how we spend our days.
i am sure once chace starts talking.
i will become funny again.
have funny stories to share.

but for now.
i will take comfort in our growth.

much ado about nothing

is what chace's doctor told me
on this phone this afternoon.
the bump on this mouth
is how his palette formed.
it is his normal.
no need to worry.
the CT scan was
perfectly normal.

whew!

relief

this morning was hard.
really hard.
but chace did great
and made it through
with flying colors.

we wont know
the results of the test
or what the next step will be
until we have our follow up
appointment next week.

i did not sleep much last night.
i woke up every hour.
i realized that today was the 17th
the same date as cooper's surgery.

the drive in to the hospital was long.
when the nice woman in radiology
handed me the green id tag for chace
i thought i was going to come unglued.

but i kept it together.

the nurses and doctors were great.
they understood that the last time
i gave my baby to an anesthesiologist
he did not come home with me.

so they let ph and i stay with chace
in the CT suite until
he was asleep.
and then we waited.

when chace woke up
he started talking.
they came to get us
and chace reached for us.

that was the best sight ever.
he was a brave little guy
and it was much harder
on his mama and daddy.

thank you for all your
thoughts, prayers, and good thoughts.
it helped us make it
through the morning.

too familiar

chace has to have a CT scan.
he has this bump
on the roof of his mouth.
we have seen several doctors
and no one can decide what it is.

they all say it is nothing to worry about
that the probability of it being something bad
is very small ( which means absolutely nothing to me)
and that they have never seen this in someone so young.

all of these things make the hair
on the back of my neck stand up.
the oral surgeon feels that the CT scan
will clear up the confusion.

the kicker is
that in order to get a CT scan
of a 13 month old
you have to sedate them.

this makes me very nervous.
and needless to say brings back
cooper's surgery flooding to the surface.
hell, we could even have the
same anesthesiologist.

i keep telling myself that it
will be fine.
but i am still nervous.
and i am sure that
i will cry the entire time.

so if you dont mind,
good you send some
positive thoughts our way today.

a wider view

ph and i have been talking alot about life, our life and what is important to us. one thing that keeps coming up is our desire to give chace as much exposure to the world outside of new york.

my parents did a good job of this with my brothers and i. we traveled alot when we were growing up. those trips, together as family, shaped who we are as adults. i strongly believe that this is exposure is why all of us left texas for other parts of the country and world.  our family trips were not always glamourous or fancy, but we didn't care. it did not bother us if we ate peanut butter and jelly for breakfast, lunch and dinner because that was all we could afford, we were in another country.  what we remember and still talk about today are the moments, the memories, the family time and the laughter. like the amazing candy store in london. or when during the performance of CATS, one of the characters came out into the audience and rubbed my dad's bald head. or how we were in the subway station in london and hear " hey, dr snyder." what one of dad's patient's in london? then there was the trip to st. barts for christmas. epic.  my grandfather trying to drive a moped with no shoes on and crashing said moped. i could go on and on about our family adventures traveling.

not only did our travels give us stories to share, but gave us an appreciation of other cultures and people. it showed that despite the faults of our country we are lucky to live in the united states, but that does not make us better than those who do not. we are not privileged because we are american. we are just people like those who live in france, egypt, greece, colombia or any other corner of the globe.

this is what i want to teach my son. that though we may speak different languages, eat different foods, or worship different gods, we are all just people. ph and i feel that the best way to teach him this is travel, to experience life outside of our comfort zone, to explore and learn, and be good stewards of the planet. this is what we have been talking about lately, and why we are seriously thinking about living abroad during the winter months. there are plenty of opportunities out there to make our own memories and family moments, and hopefully all learn something along the way.

show me your nose..

i asked chace to show me his nose
he stuck out his tongue
i captured it on photo booth
i guess we have some work to do.....