As time goes by

I have been "about" 1 cm dilated for the last two weeks.  *Deep sigh*  With no other signs of labor to speak of, I decided after my appointment yesterday that I should focus on enjoying each day for the next couple weeks rather than moodily waiting for each day to be over so that I'll be one day closer to baby boy #2's arrival.  Fortunately we've had a fun last couple days.  Hopefully Little B and I can keep this up so that I'm not driven completely crazy with waiting for this child the way I was for his brother!

Yesterday's excursion was a trip to Jamestown.  Hooray for new places to explore!

On board one of the recreated ships.  I thought Little B would be more excited since it resembles the pirate ships in his room, but he was only mildly interested.

They really should leave this bell untied so that kids can ring it.  It's the only thing on board he understood!

"I'm using the corn grinder!"  Little B was extremely interested in these Native American "caves."

Today we finally made it to the pool!  Last summer Little B was more interested in walking around the pool deck than playing in the water.  Today we struck a happy balance.  Three cheers for Auntie A for coming up and making this excursion possible!

Happy aunt, happy nephew:)

Kudos to the pool people for buying a water table this year.  Perfect for these boys!

Love, flying through the air, and splashing in the water - what more could a little boy ask for? :)

Friday Fun

I drove home from our morning at the beach thinking to myself, "It's amazing how much a beautiful day at the beach with friends can lift my spirits." 

Digging in the water

Dumping the sand on Mommy

Snack time in the sun tent with BFF Little D

Apparently Little B felt the same way, because Mr. I-say-no-to-peanut-butter-everytime-Mom-asks was perfectly delighted to "make" his own lunch today, which looked like this...

Yes, that is a knife he is licking the peanut butter from.  Don't judge, its really not that sharp.  And apparently peanut butter is incredibly invigorating, because an hour into nap time the UPS man rang the door bell and I heard "ding dong! ding dong!" through the monitor from a very awake little boy.  So my beloved afternoon quiet alone time turned into this.

"I am swimming in the bubbles!"

Naps are for wimps!

I hoped that he would be tired enough to rest with Hubby T when he got home.  No such luck. 

Ah well.  At least it's Friday:)  And I wonder who will sleep better tonight, me or Little B?!

To some special mothers

It feels a little cliche to write a blog post on Mother's Day about my mothers, especially because I hope they already know how much I love and appreciate them.  I decided instead to offer a little tribute to the other mothers in my life.  They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I think that's true for many reasons, not the least of which is that it also takes a village to be a mom!  Two plus years into this motherhood thing and I cannot imagine doing this without the love, help, and encouragement of my fellow mom friends.  I'm not going to include any pictures or names of specific people here because there are too many, but please know that if you are my friend and you are a mom, these words of appreciation are for you.

When Hubby T and I started attending our church almost five years ago, we quickly joined a small group that was just forming.  Although most of the couples in the group had started having kids we weren't the only ones who hadn't.  Those first couple years before our son came along were full of amazing opportunities to witness, experience, and learn about pregnancies, births, and the joys and heartaches of young children.  All of those friends were there to support us when we started down the parenthood path, and continue to be there for us to this day.  Once I started staying at home, I also joined a play group, where I haven't formed as many close relationships but its still been extremely valuable...sometimes it feels like we get together just because us moms need the company more than our kids do!  And thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I've been able to keep in touch with friends who geographically are no longer part of our regular daily life, yet we remain connected to each others families.  Whether they are near or far, I cannot overstate how valuable the fellowship of other moms has been to me.

So thank you to each and every mom friend out there for being you and sharing your motherhood journeys with me.  Thank you for the hand-me-downs, for getting us through the blur of Little B's newborn weeks, for the subscriptions to parenting magazines, for pushing "like" on Facebook or commenting on a blog post to validate and share my parenting experiences, for playing with us on rainy days, for sharing the joys and struggles of your older children so that I have a clue what's coming, for demonstrating how to know who your kid is and build activities into their lives that allow them to grow and flourish, for reminding me to love and respect others even when they don't parent as I do, and for all the ways you love my child as your own.  We are all in this together, and I hope that I've been at least a little bit of the blessing to you and yours as you have been to me and mine.  Happy Mother's Day friends:)

When I was a child

Confession: I do not read parenting books.  It's not that I don't find them interesting, but in the limited amount of time I have to read, I enjoy reading for my pleasure, not to keep my brain in toddler-land for even longer than it already is everyday!  So maybe if I was a parenting book reader I would have known that when people talk about the "terrible two's" what they are really talking about is control.  At least that's what it means for my son.  Little B's independence has been growing for many months and at first I enjoyed giving him choices because I liked to see him think independently.  And it's not that I don't enjoy that anymore, but giving him choices has become a much trickier business. 

For example, pretty much every weekday morning starts like this.  Little B and I get up when Hubby T is walking out the door for work.  We go downstairs and I pull out Little B's chair while he pulls out whichever boxes of cereal from the pantry he wants, along with whatever other food he's in the mood for, and then climbs into his booster seat (unassisted).  I ask him which cereal he wants first, if he wants it in a scoop or a bowl or on the table or sometimes he even insists on eating it directly from the box.  Eventually he will ask for milk, at which point I ask him what cup he wants it in, and if he wants it with a straw, and if so he gets to pick from the bag which straw he wants.  And so it goes until he declares he's ready to get down.

Does all that sound ridiculous?  Just reading it makes me shake my head in amazement and wonder, am I catering to his little toddler whims too much?  But I also know that if I try to make any of those decisions for him - to lift him into his chair, to give him one type of cereal in a bowl, to pick out a milk cup - chances are very high that he will immediately protest, whine, cry, and refuse to eat or drink until he gets "his" way.  Giving him control over these things seems an easy trade-off for getting him to eat breakfast.  But then repeat this scenario in a million other ways: putting clothes on, which clothes to put on, which toothbrush to use, when to get buckled in the car seat, climbing into the car seat, climbing into the car, lunchtime, dinnertime, bathtime...our days have somehow become a series of moments that have the potential to be completely unmemorable or complete disasters and how I approach them, whether Little B has any control over them and whether they go his way, makes the difference between a good day and a bad day. 

Now don't get me wrong.  I am not a pushover parent.  On the things that matter, things will go my way no matter how he reacts.  And if that leads to a meltdown then so be it.  But I also don't like how the bad times can wear on me, and how I can turn into the type of parent I don't want to be in those times.  I'm sure that being pregnant doesn't help, but sometimes I sit down for my bible study quiet time in the afternoon after putting the boys down for nap and all I can think is, "Lord, please forgive me for loving so imperfectly.  Please refresh my spirit so that I can get through the rest of this day."  And then I give thanks for nap time and the quiet it brings and the break it gives me and let myself relax for a little while...

A couple days ago, after a particularly wearying and frustrating morning, my thoughts were floating in this area when I started comparing my parenting relationship with Little B to God's parenting relationship with me.  Like me and my son, God only wants what is best for his me.  Like me and my son, God gives me choices in my life (free will).  Like me and my son, God will sometimes put His foot down and things will not go the way I want them to.  And like Little B, I can have major temper tantrums during those occasions.  It is uncomfortably humbling to put myself in the role of the two year old and God in the parent role.  Generally I think I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing in my life, but from God's perspective, maybe I really am an incredibly young, unwise two year old.  God has a much bigger understanding of the world that I live in, He has a much bigger understanding of me and what's good for me and what's not, and He has immensely more control over my life than I give him credit for on a day to day basis.  Most of the time I am confident in my interactions with Little B, in giving him room to grow and learn through his choices when it's appropriate and intervening when it's not... shouldn't that give me a deeply abiding confidence in God's Father role in my own life?

It's hard to "let go and let God."  It's hard to admit that we are not in control.  It's hard when life doesn't go our way.  But it's also infinitely comforting to know that not only does God love me as much as I love my own son, but times a hundred thousand million trillion.  He loves me as I love my own son but He loves me perfectly.  And no matter how happy I am or not with how things go in my life, I know that He is guiding me and molding me, helping me to grow and become the new creation that Christ has declared me to be.  What a daunting job!  Maybe it's not so bad to not be in control sometimes...if only I could teach the peace that comes from that trust to Little B! 

^"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 
~ 1 Corinthians 13: 11-12

Music class

Little B experienced another “first” this week – he completed his first music class!  I’ve known about our town’s highly regarded early childhood music school since he was about five months old but we never signed up because I knew I couldn’t do it with him and Little D together.  So when I learned last fall that they were offering evening classes, I couldn’t wait to jump in.  There are all kinds of studies out there touting the benefits of music for children, even at young ages, and Hubby T and I both come from musical childhoods, so it was inevitable that we'd enroll him in a musical activity of some sort eventually.  (And just for the record, Gramma and Grampa gave him these lessons as a Christmas gift...got to give credit where credit is due!)

So every Wednesday evening since January Hubby T or me or both of us have taken Little B to his “Musical Explorers” class.  He was one of, if not the, youngest kids in the class, and many of them had been in the classes before, so we weren’t surprised that he was pretty shy and reserved during the first few classes.  He became a little less clingy of us over time but he never fully relaxed to show his charming, energetic side in class.  We knew that he was getting something out of the class, however, when he started singing the songs at home completely on his own!  We also have a CD of the songs our teacher used, and he now requests specific songs from it several days a week.  We were so excited to realize that even though his face may appear completely vacant (see below), he was absorbing everything around him like a sponge.  Such a good thing to know about our kid!

 The other big thing we learned from this class is that Little B is an introvert.  We mostly knew that already, but his behavior here definitely confirmed it.   I’m so grateful that we figured this out now, as I’m sure it will make a difference when he enters the preschool era.  Being an introvert myself, I can completely relate to his reserve during class, but I’m also so proud of him for sticking with it and taking what he saw and heard and did and making it into something fun at home.  The teacher allowed us to take pictures during the last class, so here are a couple of pictures and explanations of what we were doing.  (P.S. Taking pictures of a music class is really hard!)

At the beginning of every class, our teacher Mrs. C would sing this chorus to each child by name after letting him or her choose which motion he or she wanted to do.  Little B's favorites were pounding his fists together, rolling his fists in circles, or brushing his hands together, as he was kind of doing in this picture. "Let's brush hello to Little B, let's brush hello to Little B, let's brush hello to Little B, it's good to be here together!"

Said/sung in a four beat rhythm, with increasing pitch and volume: 

"Tap, tap, tap, tap, 

tap, tap, tap, tap, 

tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, 

tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle!"

"There's a worm at the bottom of my garden and his name is wiggly woo!"  The kids were supposed to roll around on the floor like worms for this song, Little B wasn't feeling very wiggly this night.

Hula hoops were one of his favorite activities.  They did almost everything you can do with a hula hoop except roll it around their waists.  He enjoyed playing with the hoop on his own, crawling through the class-wide circle was a little more of a challenge.

At the end of class every week each child received a stamp on their hand with a picture that related to one of the songs we'd sung that night.  Little B would proudly show us his stamp for as long as it lasted (and sometimes longer).  I thought it was very sweet that the teacher ended the class with a heart.  You can tell that she really loves what she does and loves the children she works with.  Thankfully this week was not goodbye, as we'll be back in class with her in the fall.  I'm looking forward to seeing how Little B's love and enjoyment of music continues to grow and am so grateful he had this great introduction to music!