I’m Walkin!

Everywhere! Or at least he wants to. Brady has decided that his stroller is SO uncool and that he wants to walk to all of our destinations. He likes to push his little stroller which is nice because it usually keeps him walking. It’s really cute and fun for about half a block and then it just becomes really…really frustrating.

I don’t know if it’s worse because we’re in the city, maybe if I didn’t have to worry about all of the people who want to walk past us down the sidewalk or all of the open store and restaurant basements or all of the construction sites or the dog poop piles or the rushing traffic it would be easier to walk down the block with him. But as it is I have about seven heart attacks a block.

He refuses to hold hands and when I do grab it to cross the street he screams “no Mommy’s hand, no Mommy’s hand, I’m walking, I’m walking!” to which I reply, “you have to hold Mommy’s hand, it’s not safe to go by yourself. Even if I’m holding your hand, you are still walking.”

I’ve yet to come up with a peaceful solution. For now we start out walking side by side and walk along until I’ve had my maximum level of panic attacks at which point I put him in the  stroller where he screams, “no strollo, no strollo, no strollo!” until he calms  down.

We’re going to have to work on hand-holding or I may lose my mind.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We’ve been busy here lately. We took a trip to Pittsburgh to see my family and now we’re getting ready for my sister-in-law’s upcoming wedding in Italy, after which we’ll be spending 5 days in Paris with my husband’s parents.

There are just an infinite number of things to prepare for overseas travel with a toddler – just figuring out how to get all the stuff we may not find there  for him onto the plane is mind boggling.

Then there’s the wedding itself – all three of us are in the wedding so we all need wedding clothes and shoes and we have to figure out who’ll be watching my wild child during the ceremony and how we’ll handle his being out so late for the reception. There are just so many things to think about. It’s a little overwhelming.

I’m sure we’ll figure it all out, but right now it’s occupying my thoughts about 99.9% of the time.

Anybody have tips for intercontinental travel with 23-month-old boys?

Pool vacations are nice...but my next stop is Europe!

The New Ancient Playground

Sometime just after Brady was born, the Ancient Playground at 5th Ave and 84th St, right across from the Met, closed for renovations. A little over 2 weeks ago it finally, finally opened again. Local web sites and articles have been talking up the redesigned space for months and local parents have long-awaited a new place to play.

So the day after it opened I hustled Brady over there to play…and it was a NIGHTMARE!!!! The playground is amazing, there are tunnels, and climbing walls, and bumpy hills, and tire swings – all things that lead to heart attacks for the parents of toddlers.

Ah, those chains are perfect for running away from Mommy!

Each section of the playground is separated by pillars connected by chains. Brady would just swoop right under the chains and take off as I was left clambering over them to chase after him. There is a really cool tunnel – with THREE entrances. So Brady would go in and I had the option of either crawling after him or trying to guess which side he would come out. When I guessed wrong I was left panicking until I found him again.

There are climbing walls all over the place! And I quickly learned that Brady has the skills to climb them. One of the “pyramid” tops can only be reached by climbing wall and on the top you have the option of either coming down the slide or climbing a ladder down into the aforementioned tunnel. So Brady would climb up and I would plead desperately with him to come down the slide and to stay away from the ladder of death into the tunnel of the lost children.

He can climb!

One end of the playground is a padded space with rolling hills built in. Brady loved running up and down the hills. Unfortunately, this is where they decided to put the giant tire swings. So Brady continually ran in front of them as I ran after him with visions of concussions in my head!

The only thing I really liked was the water area. The water ran from a cool little waterfall down an elevated walkway and then off another waterfall into an area where you could push a button to turn on overhead sprinklers. I liked it because I could follow Brady and cool off in the ankle-high water as he played.

So my review of the new Ancient Playground is a huge toddler thumbs-down!!!! What a cool place, but I think we’ll go back when he’s five.

But the waterfall IS cool...

The terrible…ones???

My little Brady-Bean has not been the sweetest of little boys lately. Rather, he has been more like a holy terror. Aside from the aforementioned biting  incident and the fact that he has decided to wake up at 5:15 every morning, he has been throwing knock-down, drag-out fits and using the words “no” and “mine” as if they were about to disappear from the language.

My lovely little angel has been demanding that I play Thomas computer games with him, allow him to watch unlimited amounts of television, eat as many popsicles as he wants, and that I sit where he wants me to sit when he wants to me sit. And if I don’t comply, I’m sure to be met with screaming, throwing, stomping, and more screaming.

This is exhausting. Ignoring his fits has been pretty effective in diffusing them, but he throws so many a day that it’s getting to be overwhelming. That and he also likes to do things like empty the cat’s water onto the kitchen floor while I’m in the bathroom or squash blueberries into the floor while I’m getting dressed.

And he counters this awful behavior by being the smartest, cutest, most polite thing on Earth the rest of the time (thank goodness). He now knows all of his colors and likes to point them out to me and uses (semi) full sentences a lot of the time (“Mommy, wow, a big train!”, “Mommy, read it, the book, please.”) It’s like living with a little bi-polar maniac!

I’m praying that this is just an early manifestation of the terrible twos, because if it gets more terrible than this I’m going to need a vacation.

This was an "I want popsicles for lunch" fit

See? I told you...

Big (bad?) B&N

I’ve been meaning to write about the new Barnes and Noble in our neighborhood for awhile now. We used to have 2 B&N stores – the big one on 86th between 2nd and 3rd and a little one on  Lex bewteen 86th and 87th. I know it’s weird to have 2 so close together but it worked for years. The big one was right around the corner from us and a favorite playtime spot for rainy or cold days.

Both of those stores closed recently to make room  for the new GIGANTIC Barnes and Noble right at 86th and Lex. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Barnes and Noble. The husband worked there for awhile when he lost his job in the dotcom bust and I have several friends who worked/work there. I even know 2 (now married) couples who met while working there. They treat their employees fairly well – benefits, vacation days, etc.

I also know that B&N is NOT a playground. But for us here in the city it certainly doubles as one, and believe me I pay for it in the form of multitudes of books, puzzles, and Thomas the Tank Engine toys.

Anyway, what I’m getting to is that there are pluses and minuses to the new store and it was definitely not set up to be inviting to families. I don’t think this was intentional, it just is.

First of all, the whole store, which is gorgeous by the way, is underground. Only the entrance in on street level. To get to the kids section you have to take one elevator down, walk across the entire store, take another elevator down and then walk across the entire store once again. There is no cell service down there. These are all minor annoyances, but annoying none the less.

"Homas ta-rain!!!!!"

My major  problems with the new B&N are the Thomas the Tank Engine play setups. They have 2 Thomas sets with tracks and sheds and water towers and tunnels and bridges. They are awesome. They have plenty of trains and trucks and cars. Brady ADORES playing with them. All the kids adore playing with them. So much so that it incites violence among them.

Kids of all ages from about 10 months up to about 6 or 7 love to play with the trains. Unfortunately, 4 and 5 year olds don’t play so well with 1 and 2 year olds. All the kids want a train of their own and some kids want a train with lots of cars, even all the cars. And when one kid makes a train with all the cars, all the other kids get angry.

And of course not all kids are nice or well behaved or have good manners and not all parents/sitters are watching them as they play. Aside from having to rip Brady away from the tables by force each time we go there, I also have to contend with his interactions with the other kids. For some reason, these tables seem to bring out the worst in kids. This doesn’t happen in the sandbox, why does it happen here?

Maybe it’s just one incident that has turned me off to the Thomas tables, but it was a biggee in my eyes. A little boy (who repeatedly reminded everyone that he was 4 and half years old and in my mind too old for this behavior) got angry at Brady for taking one of his (many, many, many) cars and proceeded to hit Brady in the face with two trains. Brady dropped his trains and sort of slapped back at the boy. I broke them up, told them both that hitting is never allowed, and didn’t let Brady near the boy again. This boy’s mother looked up for 2 seconds to give a half-hearted “don’t do that.”

Other parents/sitters also had to intervene with this boy and he ended up playing alone while all the other kids played together. Brady talked about this for weeks “the boy, the boy, the boy, the trains, and kooka (head hit) the Brady and ouch.” It was really pretty sad.

I understand that this is part of parenting, part of life. We all have to deal with people who are less than our favorites on a daily basis. I think it’s a bit tougher as a parent because you’re watching this happen to your child and because you’re trying to teach your child good behavior while they watch bad behavior. Gee, I can’t wait for the school years.

So my final word on the new B&N is – amazing store, beautiful, has everything, awesome space to read and work, helpful staff – but avoid those Thomas tables, I’m telling you, it’s not worth it.

Sharing a wonderful post

I just wanted to highlight a post on the blog of one of my friends from college. Although we haven’t seen each other in a long time we reconnected via the internet when we were both getting married and then again when we were both pregnant. We gave birth to baby boys just 8 days apart.

I love her blog and she recently wrote a beautiful post about motherhood that I had to share. I think her words here are so true and reflect some of the things that I’ve been feeling so articulately that I wanted to have her words over here on my site.

One of the difficult things about motherhood is the shift of focus from yourself to the child and finding a way to be yourself again. I think too many people take for granted the changes that occur when you become a mother and I wanted to thank Jenn for highlighting that here.

http://idroolblackandgold.blogspot.com/2009/07/mommy-accomplishments.html

A trip to the burgh

Brady and I try to go to Pittsburgh to visit my mom and sister at least every few months. This past weekend we got to bring Daddy along with us. It was a short trip, but a fun one. We got to celebrate Grandma and Aunt Von’s birthday on the 2nd and then went to one of the most fun places ever…Kennywood!

Hello Kennywood cowboy

Kennywood is an amusement park near Pittsburgh. Nearly everyone ends up working for them at some point in high school. I worked at their water park down the road, Sandcastle. My sister worked there. One of my best friends met her husband working there. It just rules!

Brady had a blast there and I got to ride 2 rollercoasters. Something I hadn’t done in years. After going to Kennywood at least once a summer, every summer, my whole life it had been 9 years since I had gone. And watching my little boy’s delight as he rode the kiddie turtles was worth every second I had been away.  It was amazing!

On the 4th we cooked out at my aunt’s house and then on Sunday we headed home again. It was really tough to say goodbye to my mom and sister. Brady was so in love with them while we visited and really remembered them this time.

Each time I go home to visit I’m stuck with conflicting emotions. I think of how nice it would be to be able to just drive over to my mom’s and have dinner with her. I think how nice it would be to have a yard, and a car, and more than 2 rooms, to be able to go to the community pool. But I also think of how much I love hanging out in Central Park and walking everywhere and being able to get anything I want or need at any time of the day or night.

Most of all I miss my family and having Brady makes that feeling even more acute because he has to miss them too.

The Most!

I’ve always said to Brady, “how much does Mommy love you?…the most!” The other day I said this to him and he answered me “the most!” It was one of the most heart warming moments of my life! So cute.

Now he’ll answer “how much does Mommy/Daddy love you?” with “the most” every time. And when I ask him who loves him the most he’ll answer either Mommy, Daddy, or kitty. I have to beg to differ with him on that one. Out of everyone in our family, I’d have to say that kitty loves him the least. In fact, if he’s lucky, she’s indifferent. But he loves her very much, so I see where the confusion comes from.

I love Daddy the most if he does this!

Contemplation

I’ve been feeling very contemplative lately and have been trying to stop myself from writing a post entitled “why can’t I get my shit together?” So instead I’m going to write a mushy mommy entry.

As I was lying on the couch holding my sleeping little boy about 20 minutes ago – an activity that I have complained about countless times – I had a sudden and stark realization. It occured to me in the heart-stopping, breath-sucking way that it occurs to you that you will one day die. One day Brady will be separate from me. We will not go on being the two-headed monster that we are today forever.

There will be a day when he won’t ever sleep lying on my chest. When I will no longer be able to kiss his lips and smell his skin and cradle him against my heart the way I do now. One day he will be his own person living his own life. One day he will have secrets from me, things I will never know. There will be days when I have no idea what he’s doing.  One day he will let some girl know more than I will ever know about him and share his life with her instead of me and he won’t ever remember the way we used to live our days together.

Of course he will always be mine and I will do my very very best to make sure that we always have a good relationship – the way I do with my mother. But regardless of that he will absolutely still be apart from me in the future. And I’ll want it that way. But it’s difficult to fathom right now.

So I think I’ll enjoy his sleeping today.

precious

Poked and Prodded and Catheterized…OH MY!

I’m sure Brady will appreciate the fact that I’ve put this up on the web for all to see when he’s oh say 12…

My poor, poor baby is sickly. Actually, he’s feeling much better now, but yesterday he was pretty sickly. He had a fever that kept going up and down and was getting pretty high at times, diarrehea, and general ickyness. I wasn’t very worried until I saw blood in his diaper. Then I called and we got into the pediatrician stat.

Of course we got the doctor that we have gotten every…single…time I have taken Brady in for anything other than a checkup. I swear to you she thinks I’m nutty. But this time I was justified. She wasn’t very concerned and thought the blood was just from the poor bubba’s bum problems. She figured it was a virus, but ran a blood count to be sure. Unfortunately, his white cell count was a little off so she ran some more tests to see if it could be bacterial.

This is where the fun begins. Thank GOD the husband was able to leave work early and come and meet me before this. They had to catheterize my poor baby to get a urine sample. And while this went on, I had to lie across him to keep him still as he screamed “No Mommy, no mommy, no peepee, no peepee!” Once that awful bit was over, I got to lie across him again as they stuck a needle in his arm to get blood. He made it through that fine and was actually coloring with me afterward. Not treating me like I had betrayed our wonderful loving relationship.

Then the worst came…the antibiotic shot. Apparently it hurt…a lot! He is normally pretty ok with shots and cries for a minute or two and then goes back to playing. But for this I had to lie across my screaming son once again while he cried in absolute pain. And he kept crying too. Poor poor angel.

I carried him all the way home (I still can’t believe he wanted me to touch him after I had been a co-conspirator in his torture.) Then he  passed out.

He was in good spirits in the evening and went to bed fine. But at 1am he was up and would not go back to sleep. If we left him in his room he screamed “the bed, the bed, the door, the door, Brady, Brady.” Meaning “Brady wants to be in your bed so come open this door!” When he was in our bed, he was twitching and moving and pinching and kicking to keep himself awake. After about 3 hours of this, he finally, finally fell asleep lying across me. Not a fun night by any stretch.

Today he is feeling much, much better. We are off to the doctor again this afternoon for another blood count and results of the urinalysis. Will update and add photo later.

UPDATE

White cell count is great and Brady is feeling much better! Yay! Antibiotic course to follow.

Sick baby eating Cheerios yesterday

Feeling better and striking a pose!