Extreme Caution

When I was about 8 months pregnant with Oliver Davis and I went and spent an amazing long weekend at the Pompano Beach Club in Bermuda (I highly recommend it). We went back and forth about whether or not we should rent scooters to travel the island. Through some crazy logic we determined that renting one scooter and having me ride behind Davis would be safe - at least safer than if we each had our own scooters. We also made a promise to travel around using only "extreme caution." Since our trip we have invoked "extreme caution" on many occasions - climbing ridiculously high ladders to clean gutters, installing new electrical outlets in the house...

We have, many many many times, tried to explain to Oliver the importance of extreme caution - we don't think he's quite caught on -
Mind you, as soon as we righted the bike, he went and grabbed a chicken wing, dipped it in blue cheese, repositioned his bike (to the above position) and hoped back on.

Across the street

For over a year Oliver has been spending the days I work with Jess, our wonderful neighbor across the street. Every morning - rain, snow, hot, freezing cold... Jess comes and knocks on our door and greets us with a great big smile. With the exception of maybe one or two mornings Oliver has greeted Jess by running to either Davis or me and crying. Usually, after a moment or two, he will reluctantly put his arms out for Jess to take him. Sometimes I feel so sad ripping him off me and handing him, crying, to Jess. But then, moments later, I see the two of them headed off, via bike, stroller or car, to Starbucks - their morning ritual - and, 9 times out of 10 Oliver is smiling.

Another reason I am starting to get a lot less sad over our morning good-byes is that Oliver, who is becoming increasingly vocal, has started to regal me with stories of what he and Jess do all day. For example, this morning he told me about how he and Jess went to the beach last week, and yesterday he told me about the songs they sang last week in music class. Also, Oliver has started to want to ride his bike across the street and just sit in front of Jess' house and tell me about how he waters Jess' plants, where Jack (their cat) likes to hide, and where Lucy (their dog) likes to roll around on the grass. Given all of this, my sympathies are falling more and more to Jess, sorry little Rocket.

Here are some pictures Jess took of Oliver last week - he looks pretty happy...

Moo

Oliver has never had a problem nursing. From the moment he was born he knew what to do and was happy as a clam to snuggle with his mommy and have, what he calls, a snack. My goal was to nurse Oliver until he turned one and could begin to have milk. I remember making a big deal about his first cup of milk and anticipating that it would be love at first sip. I am not really sure what I was thinking. Oliver is strong-willed and independent. He knows what he wants and knows how to make himself the sweetest most loving child (even if just moments before he was the most devilish, hair-pulling, "I want to put a for sale sign on you" child) and get what he wants. Because of this I should not have been surprised that after he took his first sip of milk he threw the cup in the trash and asked for a snack.

Since Oliver's first birthday we've been focusing on sleep (trying to get Oliver to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time), Davis' swim training, work, life...all of this to say that weaning got pushed to the back burner. I kept thinking that he would wake up one day and decide he no longer wanted to nurse (he did this with his Ergo, the only place he would nap for close to a year). After awhile it became clear that Oliver was committed to snacking. Whereas once I loved the coziness of cuddling with my baby, I no longer felt this way. I now felt like a human pacifier. When Oliver turned 21 months old I decided it was time for snacks to go. Distraction didn't seem to work for Oliver so I had to bring out the big guns - lollipops and chocolate chips. I had to use these special treats for a couple weeks, but was soon able to put them back in the back of the pantry. Over the the course of close to a couple months we went from five snacks a day to just one (yea!). Nighttime was another story (perhaps it was because chocolate chips and lollipops were not involved). We decided to, after a year of sitting in the attic, bring out the bottle. The good news is that with the introduction of the bottle Oliver no longer nurses at night. The bad news is that he now consumes more than 27 ounces of milk a night (I have to give it to Pampers, their diapers hold a ridiculous amount of liquid). So now we have solved one problem, but have another.

Today was a milestone - today marked the first time Oliver went more than 24 hours with nursing. Hopefully tomorrow will mark 48 hours...

This, like so much of motherhood, has taught me the need to put away my preconceived notions, and recognize that I need to, like every parent, do what works best for me and my family.

Ride On

Oliver loves visitors. As mentioned many times previously, when Oliver gets up in the morning there is no time for snuggling, no time for a quiet book in bed -he is up, out of bed, and wanting to play. This gets magnified about a bazillion times when we have overnight guests, or when visitors are expected. Therefore, last weekend when Oliver was told that his great grandmother, GG, and Anna would be coming for the weekend (and that Papa and Le Le would be dropping them off), he was ready to go even before I closed my eyes to go to sleep the night before.
The weather on Saturday was the perfect day for sitting inside with tea, my Snuggy (a wonderful gift from Tim and Carolyn (although one size fits all is a bit of a stretch)), and watching movies or reading a book - ah, to dream. Let me begin again, the weather on Saturday was cold and wet - the perfect day for bike riding and puddle stomping. GG was a wonderful sport and splashed along with us. She did her best to try and keep Oliver dry and clean, and he did his very best to get wet and very muddy. Despite her best efforts, Oliver won out.
Of course the day was not all wet and muddy. There was some time dry time spent reading stories
Some time snuggling with Anna,
And some wet, but clean, time spent with the infamous fire boat.
We hope GG will visit us again soon - and we promise to at least attempt some warmer and cleaner activities.

A Boatload (literally) of Crap

This past weekend Oliver was given a fantastic boat by his great grandmother. The boat is a fire boat that has a tank you can fill with water and a hose that squirts the water (a surprising far distance). Oliver adores this boat. Since getting the boat he has been (at least for for the several minutes following his bath or shower) very clean. Every night he eats dinner and begs to go upstairs and take a bath with his boat - a bath so long that the water usually requires having warm water added. Oliver has also been taking marathon morning showers as well. (Several of my friends bring toys and books into the bathroom and their children read and play while they take showers - I tried this a couple times with Oliver - ah no. He unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper and papered the bathroom, put anything and everything he could find in the toilet, scaled the dresser in the bathroom...all of this in the two seconds it took to wash my hair. If Davis isn't around Oliver now showers with me, or I don't shower.) Since getting the boat he has been getting in the shower when Davis gets in, staying in while I am in there, and then staying in while I get ready (don't worry - I get ready in the bathroom). The entire time he's in there he is filling the boat's tank with water and spraying down the shower with the hose. This morning, as I was drying my hair, I was thinking how much I love the boat - how I can get a few extra minutes to get ready (I don't have to do an all out sprint to get ready - a race to be ready before Oliver declares he's done with the shower). Just as I am thinking this Oliver starts yelling "poop!" over and over again. I quickly grab him from the shower and observe one little poop on the shower floor. Awesome. I clean him up, get him dressed and send him over to Jessica's for the day. I then return to the scene of the crime. I went expecting to scoop up the one little poop and then clean the shower. Right. You know what my little monster did? He stuffed the tank of his boat, full (as in FULL) of poop. Double awesome. A plastic knife, bleach, and several minutes later and the boat was back to its pre-poop state.

Happy Thursday! Hope your day is crap-free.

Mrs. Mallard

Mrs. Mallard, of Make Way for Ducklings claim, was loving, thoughtful, protective and, perhaps, a bit crazy. She had all the qualities (including the crazy quality) of an amazing mother. In fact, I would even go so far as to say Mrs. Mallard was a supermom - I have enough trouble keeping track of one little "duck" in Boston, I can't imagine keeping track of eight!

One learns never to get between a mom and her baby/babies (I'm talking mama bear and her cubs, mama lion and her cubs...). When I became a mom this took on a new meaning - I immediately understood the need/desire to "protect" my little one, to make him happy, and to make sure he was well care for. I also no longer saw Mrs. Mallard as a crazy duck traipsing through the city with babies. Instead I saw her as a wonderful, independent mom, trying to find a better place for her babies (I still do question Mr. Mallard's commitment - off exploring?!)

I bring all of this up because we, fittingly, spent Mother's Day with my mom and grandmother at the Make Way for Ducklings Parade in Boston. The "parade" is actually all the little ones dressed in full duck regalia (or in Oliver's case, a duck hat) following the Harvard Marching Band along the path Mrs. Mallard took - through Beacon Hill to the Public Garden.

Oliver fell asleep on the way to the parade, but woke up (or was woken up by his Aunt Elizabeth (still not clear)) just as the parade was about to begin.
Still fuzzy from sleep he was plopped on Papa's shoulders and given a quacker. Amazingly the quacker stayed in his mouth most of the parade.

The parade ended in the Public Garden. Oliver spent a bit of time feeding the ducks, but then it was up onto Uncle Jon' shoulders. Oliver is big into riding things and pretending they are horses. He tends to hold on very tightly and yell "Neigh, Neigh, Neigh." In top form Oliver not only yanked Jon's hair with full force, but also would kick Jon to make him go faster every time Jon slowed down. Perhaps we have a budding jockey on our hands?

Bulldozer

I have been remiss in introducing the newest member of our family - Bulldozer.

Lucky

This past Friday I left my boys and headed to the Cape to spend the night celebrating Sarah's upcoming marriage. Spending the evening with several if my closest girlfriends (who I do not see often enough) was wonderful. We spent the evening reminiscing, remembering fun times together, and remember other times that we wish we had left forgotten. We also enjoyed looking ahead - getting a tour of the place Sarah is getting married (breathtaking), talking about our kids, work, and about nothing at all. On my drive home I was flooded with more and more memories - from college, from our times together in Boston, our vacations... I also started to think about where we have all been since we met and what we've all done - we've gone to graduate school, gotten new jobs, gotten engaged, gotten married, had children, moved (some have even gone so far as to move to Canada)... even with all of these big events we are still in touch, we still try to squeeze in visits with each other here and there, and every time we do it seems as though we just pick up where we left off. I know I am lucky to have such amazingly wonderful friends - I look forward to all of our future adventure together.

I am also lucky because I have two wonderful boys, Davis and Oliver. As you Oliver is not a wonderful sleeper and he tends to be an even worse sleeper when I am not around. So, although I know Davis and Oliver have lots of fun together when I am not there, I know that the nights are rough. While I know they didn't get much sleep Friday night, I know Davis and Oliver had a fantastic time together. I know this not only because of the stories I heard once I got home, but also because of the pictures I received while I was gone.

Enjoying the beautiful weather.


I am not a big fan of lamb, so the boys decided to take advantage of my absence and have it for dinner. I am not sure where Oliver's fork is, but it appears that he was a big fan of the dinner Davis made (these pictures are actually pretty gross, but Oliver does look very happy).

Splashing in the bath.