Learning the lessons we teach

I’m glad I waited one more day to write this because last night led to a pretty funny event.  For the past few weeks Connor has been either napping or sleeping over at Abuelita’s house.  It started out as just napping after pre-school which wasn’t really that hard.  He plays so hard that he comes home pretty exhausted.  Then one evening after a dinner at mom’s house and some pretty hardy play in the park behind her house, he asked if he could sleep over.  We got him all PJed up and just as we were walking out the door he reneged. By the way, for those of you keeping score at home, Abuelita is my mother and Nita’s mother is Grandmother.  Not Gramma, Grammy, meemaw, it is GRAND Mother, and one must annunciate the “D” and the “R.” 

Back to the story.  So recently we’ve started a Wednesday evening swim class at the Spicewood club.  Connor goes at 5 and Josie at 5:30.  To help us, mom offered to cook dinner for us since the logistics would push back meal times, bath and bed times.  She is also less than a mile from the pool, so it makes perfect sense.  Not to mention she is a great cook.  As a quick aside (more later), we had a few folks over this weekend and when I mentioned that my mother made a dish one friend said, “If Marco’s mom made it, I’m eating it.”

So Connor has been asking to sleep over and we were more than happy to accommodate.   Josie is not as excited about this.  She just wants to get fed, get home, PJ up, and her little pink elephant (of course it’s an elephant) is in her arms.  As soon as mommy or daddy starts singing her night night song, it’s all rainbows and unicorns for the next 10 hours.  Connor however knows that we don’t let him have sweets after dinner because if you remember from a few months back when he gets too much sugar he turns into a homeless guy on bath salts.  (Seriously? Too soon?)  Anyway, he doesn’t eat anyone’s face off, but he does get pretty silly and is harder to get to sleep on time. 

Abuelita has special rules.  You see, I have been asking abuelita to please honor our wishes around discipline and treats.  Most of the time she is great, but she has also invoked what she calls “Abuelita’s privilege.”  I think it is just south of covering up a gun running operation by the Whitehouse, but I digress.  Abuelita’s privilege as I understand it is that when mommies or daddies are watching, we follow those rules, but when they aren’t looking anything goes.  She said that she can give treats because she is his grandmother and if they grow up only remembering that she always gave them treats that she could live with that.  It’s kind of hard to argue, but we’ll see how this turns out.

Last night was swim class and Connor was really proud of his five second underwater training.  He’s not quite ready for SEAL training, but give him a break, he’s 3.  Anyway, we got to Abuelita’s house and ate and he’d asked if he could spend the night.  We said yes.  Of course we were prepared for this and brought all his gear. Now last time he spent the night he insisted on sleeping with Abuelita in the bed.  He even woke her up at one point and said, “Abuelita, STOP making that noise.”  So this time mom was prepared.  She’d made up her spare room to be everything a toddler could want, including a little water sippy on the night stand.  He had his lovie, PJs, and even had some new videos mom had bought. 

Here’s where it gets funny.  Connor requested that he sleep with Abuelita.  Abuelita said “no.”  She was insistant that he sleep in his own bed.  He refused.  She urged, he defied.  She reiterated, he held fast.  You see she had trained him that when mommy and daddy are gone, whatever that sweet little red head wanted was edict.  There would be no argument.  So let it be written, so let it be done. 

Well after a Mexican stand-off (pun intended) we got the call to come pick Connor up.  Nita and I LAUGHED and Connor was happy to be home.  I was kind of happy too that I got to give him one more hug and kiss before bed.  Oh the lessons we teach sure do sink in.

I should end it there but I do want to give a quick shout out to my wife and Buddies (and their wives and kids) for a pretty awesome father’s day weekend.  We had a little cookout at the house, our kids played; we watched the U.S. Open and a good time was had by all.  There is a neighbor of ours that has a custom cookie business.  Nita ordered each of the dads a dozen of a new creation called the “big Daddy.”  The big daddy has pretzels, toffee, macadamia nuts, and bacon.  Yes BACON!  See if I’d have started at bacon you would have quit reading. 

I’m sure Connor will eventually sleep in the spare room at Abuelita’s house, but I sure am curious to see how next week will turn out.  I wonder who will cave first.  Any gamblers out there?

Big steps with little feet

It’s been a pretty exciting couple of weeks around the house.  Connor and Josie have both started swimming lessons.  They have loved going to the pool for a while but until recently had been pretty content with the baby pool.  Occasionally Connor would want to play on the steps of the big pool, but would quickly return to the smaller pool where he can jump, stand, sit, kneel, etc.  Josie just loves playing in the baby pool where she can reach for things in the bottom and stand up.  So we started the classes and Josie’s class is hands on with the parent while Connor’s is instructor only.  Connor sees it more like a Montessori type class and well it isn’t.  So he’s getting better but he’s wasn’t exactly sure why people were giving him so many tasks when all he wanted to do was just play at the pool.  Josie on the other hand is following directions from mommy and daddy pretty well, but occasionally just wants to hold on and be in the water, we call it the “koala grip.”  All in all it’s going well, the kids are learning how to be more comfortable in the pool and how to safely enjoy the water…which is good because Connor made a milestone move.

Friday for lunch we took Connor to the club to play in the pool.  Josie was a little under the weather so it was just us and Connor.  Plus I was finally able to walk with a shoe on and wanted to see if I could hit a golf ball (more on that later). It was at this time while playing with his new pool toys that Connor made his big discovery.  He can touch the bottom at the shallow end.  Previously he would venture to the last step and go no further, this time he found that he could do the tip toe hop in the shallow end and keep his entire chin above the water line.  He may never go back.  This is bad because…okay so it’s not bad, but it has created more work.  Previously we could manage to watch both of them in the baby pool and it was a one man job.  Now it has become a two person job again.  Unless we bring Josie into the big pool, we’ve temporarily lost those moments of taking breaks while the “other” one watches the kids. 

This weekend was our MGA championship golf weekend.  Speaking of feet, I started the week with a gout attack, my first (hopefully last) ever.  If you’ve ever had it you know, if you haven’t, well imagine trying to decide whether or not it’d be easier and less painful if you went ahead and did a home amputation of your big toe.  And you weren’t sold on the “you need it to balance” argument initially.  In any case, yes it hurts that bad.  So after a couple of doctor visits, some medication, and lots of prayer, it relented and I was able to play.  It must have been providence because one of my playing partners for both days was a podiatrist who really made things a lot better for me.  Good clean living I guess.  Anyway on the last day as I was about to tee off on number 13 Nita, her mother, and the kids came driving by the tee box.  As we all teed off, I went over to greet them and Connor really wanted to join us.  He said, “Daddy, can I play in the tournament with you?”  How sweet.  So I pulled him out of the car seat and of course I always carry his little 7 iron with me now, so he got to hit a few shots from the tee box.  I then took him back to the car and he was as happy as he could be.

They had just come back from a butterfly farm where Connor and Josie had played with, held, and observed some butterflies and caterpillars.  Connor was even given a snail to take home.  It was pretty big and we let him/her go on a tree outside.  The snail seemed pretty excited to be out of the cup and back in nature.  The butterfly whisperer strikes again.

Oh, and Josie is starting to show her little mischievous side.  As I mentioned earlier she caught a little bug (virus) and was a little fussy earlier in the week.  As she started to get better we still didn’t want her to pass it on to Connor.  So we were very cognizant of keeping food and beverage containers separate.  So imagine my surprise when I told Josie not to drink from Connor’s cup and she looked at me and gave me a wry little smile and a devious giggle and raised it and chugged.  Dude!! Really?!  Already?!  She is also really expanding her little vocabulary and using it properly.  I used to think she just used words she knew regardless of the context, but now she’s actually using sentences and using them correctly including verb tense.  My big girl.  And she’s discovered another speed.  She used to waddle around the house in an attempt to “chase” Connor but now she can flat out run.  Now it isn’t a long stride sprinter’s run, but it’s definitely faster than a walk.  And she’s walking down the sunken living room steps with no hands.  She used to sit down and ease her way down, not any more.  No time, we got shows to watch, toys to play with!  Come on daddy, keep up!

And she’s no longer content with just watching whatever Connor is interested in watching.  She’s got favorites and knows what she wants to watch.  Now we have to balance what we view.  We’ve started letting each one choose first in alternating turns.  It’s worked all times but once.  Now as some of you know, I have some pretty obnoxiously sized T.Vs.  So when we couldn’t get the kids to agree on one show and it really wasn’t worth dropping the hammer and saying that they’d watch nothing (it was 100 degrees outside and close to nap time).  Anyway, it ended up with Josie in the family room watching a Baby Einstein, Connor in mancave watching Fantasia, and me in my office watching the Rangers get slaughtered.  I can’t wait until the kids are excited about watching baseball with me. 

Last night after dinner, we went for a little nature tour.  Connor had to bring his little “western ranger” rifle with sound effects.  So we went driving around the spicewood golf course and of course we saw some deer.  Connor with a little prompting started shooting the deer (it is a toy gun with sound effects, no projectiles).  So on our way back there was a little fawn probably just months old.  Just a cute little spotted white tail.  Connor didn’t shoot it, he looked at us and said, “Look at the baby, I hope he finds his mommy.”  Good boy.

It’s funny how it has reminded me of how far we’ve come.  Connor can work the iphone and ipad and routinely asks if he can watch something on my computer.  What did we do before all this technology?  I have a Wii, but I haven’t broken it out for the kids yet.  I’m kind of waiting on that one.  The kids still very much love outside play and I don’t really want to give another reason to choose otherwise.  I do have a big buck hunter game with the light guns, but…maaaaaaybe not quite yet.  In any case, I’m just amazed at how quickly these kids are leaping through the milestones.  It is just happening so quickly.  I can’t believe that next November the kids will be 4 and 2.  Time is screaming by.