john's mom works

please forgive me for putting your underwear on the web, son. they're just so cute and little i couldn't resist. this is really a tale of two children ... living in the same body.  one is a chipper little fellow, who came home from school yesterday in the same big boy undies he went to school wearing . that's right, it was an accident free, pee- and poo-in-the-potty sort of day! he was so proud, i was so proud, we called grammie to discuss what a big boy he is -- in short, it was awesome. hoping to keep up the trend, when we got home i said, "hey, john, let's go pee pee in the potty real quick, babe." enter the other child, a screaming little banshee who proceeded to yell, scream, hit, fall out, storm out, stomp, slam doors, and sulk for an hour. i tried it all. i tried speaking gently and nicely and talking to him. i tried yelling. i tried spanking. i tried bribing. i tried time out. i tried sending him to his room. he cooperated with all o...

it's hard to tell from this pic, but john found a big stick that he was using to "paddle" his "boat. is this our canoeing kid, or what? we're finally getting back to normal. last wednesday, john woke up with a fever, and the doc diagnosed him with double ear infections. he was a pretty good sport, but he got worse and worse and he was pretty sick through sunday. so we didn't go out much this weekend, though we did a lot of house-arranging and storage evaluating, etc. we put up some garage shelving which is where that big box  lid above came from. john was a great sport playing in the garage while my husband and i hung from unevenly fabricated bars, hit things with mallets, and ultimately built two large shelves with no injuries and minimal cursing. i knew john was fully back to normal on the drive to school today, though. he was so quiet in the car, that i asked him what he was thinking. "what you say, mommy?" came the incredulous rep...

"so here's the thing, mom ..." i have recently begun to notice a stage of development in john that i had never considered before: the beginning of fear of abstract constructs in the world around him. like every toddler, he's been startled by a loud noise, or frightened by a dog with its nose in his face, or shaken up by a decent fall. but all of those are distinct, concrete things to fear. sunday night, our whole family was hanging out in the living room. john didn't want to sit with me, he was having an all-about-daddy moment. as he leaped from my lap to daddy's arms, he caught a glimpse of movement outside our back window. "what was that?" john asked. i hadn't seen anything, so i let my husband answer him. "it was just a shadow, john," said daddy. "but what was that?" john asked again. "i don't know, but it was just a shadow," daddy patiently explained. this was very concerning to...

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...

freshly awakened and not quite awake. last night i didn't sleep so hot. i had a hard time falling asleep, and when i did finally doze off i had one of the most intense and vivid dreams i've ever had -- and not a good one. pretty terrible, actually. right as my dream reached an apex of horribleness (it involved another person there having her palms burned off with acid), i was wakened by john crying in his room. now, john doesn't cry out in the night too much these days. and since i was already awake with my heart racing, i decided i would go check on him. i poked my head into his room, calling his name quietly. he sat up in his bed and held his arms up in the universal toddler language that says "hold me mommy." i said, "oh, john, did you have a dream?" and he said, "tell that doggie to stop taking my food! no, doggie. don't take my food." and i was struck by the sweetness of an innocent mind that is terribly up...

our ornery little valentine. yesterday i was under the weather, so i stayed home from work. i have never been so thankful for daycare as yesterday - being able to pry myself out of bed just long enough to take john to school, then come back and sleep uninterrupted most of the day was a GODSEND. i'm feeling much better today - although our little valentine was in a pretty icky mood this morning. he did cheer up before school, so that's good! he was in an icky mood yesterday morning, too, but he recovered more quickly. once he was dressed and i was almost ready to leave, he ran through the kitchen, saying to me, "i better now, mommy!" as he zoomed past. then he stopped in his tracks, pivoted, and looked back at me. "i missed something!" he cried out. "what did you miss, john?" i said, a little nervous that this was about to devolve into more tears. but instead, he broke into a beautiful grin. "i love you so much!" he ...

he looks so little ... but so grown. today i was the only member of our family that had to go to work/school. so when john woke up, i figured i'd try to keep him situated in his room so that daddy could snooze just a little bit more. so i set john up with a blanket, some chocolate milk, and his iguy, and he snuggled in to watch a kid-oriented documentary about helicopters on netflix. i know the show was about 26 minutes long. i went to get ready for work. not too much later, daddy woke up. john had been awful quiet watching his helicopters in his room, so i went to go check on him. still sitting there, nestled in his chair. "whatcha watching, love?" i asked him. "just helicopters," he said distractedly. i thought to myself, but surely the helicopters show is over. and i peered down at the iguy ... and discovered that this kid can now officially operate his ipad. "did you restart it, baby?" i asked? and he said, "it w...

take a moment and just check this image out. really soak it in. this is GOLD. so first things first: our child was the naked baby running around at thoth at magazine and bordeaux yesterday. (if you've never spent time in new orleans, especially around mardi gras, that's the name of the parade [thoth] and the intersection we stand near to watch it.) we drove down to new orleans yesterday morning to spend time with grandpa and watch the parades. where we sit, there are three parades that roll back to back (okeanos-midcity-thoth) so it's a great seat for some family friendly parade-going. john loved the first two parades -- he loves all parades, really -- and wore his tigger costume proudly as he became accustomed to riding on grandpa's shoulders or mama's shoulders to run up to the floats and, in his words, "get cool stuff." in the downtime between parades two and three, john was running around exuberantly and generally being cute. suddenly, he s...

i know, i know ... how many pictures can you bear to see of my child sleeping cutely? but i somehow never tire of them, and this morning as i snapped this one while he snoozed, then picked him up and got him ready, i had a little inspiration as to why. from the time he was in my belly, john has been moving . nonstop. sure, he'd take a little rest every now and again, but then the tapdancing and wiggling would continue. i learned (easily) to sleep while he bopped around in there - it got to where i was more taken aback when he didn't move. when he joined us in the "outside" world, he wasn't any more still. ask my mom - she's got a great video of a few-months-old john, laying on his back and kick kick kicking those feet like he for all the world believes if he does it hard enough, fast enough, he'll just pop right up and go. and when john learned to walk, he only walked for about 23 steps. ever since then he's been running ... everywhere...

he found a christmas box under the seat this morning. it was a prop the whole drive in. this morning on the way to school, john was singing "the wheels on the bus." he's gotten quite good at it, singing about the wheels, the steering wheel, the wipers, the horn, even the baby on the bus. eventually he sort of ran out of things to sing about. "what else on the bus, mama?" he asked. "how about ... a doggie?" i suggested. "they have a DOGGIE on the bus???" he asked incredulously. "well, maybe!" i said, so he sang about the doggie on the bus going bark bark bark all through the town. "what else is on the bus, john?" i asked when he'd finished. "maybe ... a kitty cat!" he said, and sang about the kitty on the bus going meow meow meow all through the town. "and what else, baby?" i asked. "um ... maybe ... a dragon!" he said gleefully. "what does th...

if you look closely, you'll see a very small, fire-engine-pj's-clad boy staring happily at "all the blue airplanes!" this past (long) weekend, our little family headed off to florida to gigi and great grandpa's house for "passover." (it's in quotes because the real passover isn't for months, but our family has always been flexible in scheduling our seder around everyone's schedules, and this year we needed to fit it in before my cousin daniel was off to australia for two years!) we got up eaaarrrllllyy on friday morning, and hustled off to the new orleans airport. (that's right - while everyone else was flooding into the city for the super bowl, we were heading out!) john had been talking about getting on a plane and going to "flordida" for days, so we were all pretty psyched. we had plenty of extra time at the airport, so john enjoyed watching all the airplanes just outside the windows at the gate. he ran around an...