flowers

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A 1/2 day in the life of us

by Jill
written by Jill

I realize my blog isn’t your typical baby/mommy blog. I’m terrible about documenting significant and even the small, day to day things on here. I’m more likely to be inspired to blog when something embarrassing/hilarious happens, or when I’m really passionate about a topic… or after I’ve had a drink or two. I read blogs like Becoming Sarah, and I’m envious of the beautiful story it tells through all the small, simple details, the big picture it paints.

Not that I’m going to go switching up my blogging approach, but I figured I’d do a little day in the life post for you all while Kendall naps today, give you a little peek into our day to day life, which is, unfortunately, pretty mundane, but we always seem to find the humor even in the mundane around here. This house is full of laughter (also full of screams and NOs and dogs barking… we are a very loud family, I think we scare some people).

We signed up for 24 Hour Fitness yesterday after nearly 2 years without a gym membership. The biggest selling feature for me was not the hundreds of cardio machines, complete with Ipod compatible TV screens, nor the classes or the indoor and outdoor pools. No. I was 100% sold on the 2 hours of childcare a day. Sure, I have to stay at the gym, but I don’t have to actually work out. I can drop my kid off and go sit in the jacuzzi or lounge by the pool for 2 hours if I want! I can’t even being to explain what this will do for the level of my sanity the weeks Scott is travelling for work.

My sister said, “I have a feeling you’re going to be REALLY in shape because of this.” That, or I’m going to have a killer tan sunburn. And I’m not the only one benefiting. I know for a fact Kendall would much rather hang out in the Kids Club with it’s giant tunnel slides and buckets of crayons, then hanging with me for those 2 hours.

We got up and dressed this morning, excited to head over for our first visit, only for me to realize as we  headed to the door that I left my wallet/ID/gym pass in Scott’s car yesterday. Ugh. Isn’t that just the way it always freaking is?

While I called Scott and waited for him to confirm that he, indeed, was in possession of my wallet and I hadn’t left it in a grocery cart for the 20th time, Kendall occupied himself with his nifty chalkboard cabinet in the kitchen. I keep meaning to show this off to you all. Not that it’s super inventive, or anything. I just took down the cabinet doors one day, taped off the insides and painted a few coats of magnetic primer and chalkboard paint on top. The magnetic primer was SO not worth the money and effort. I think I painted 4 coats of it, and it still barely holds a thin magnet. The chalkboard part is awesome, though. That and the contents of his very own cabinet keep him entertained at least a good 10 or 15 minutes a day.

It’s also really helpful on rainy and cold days when he wants to play with his “cock ass”, which translates to “chalk outside”.

Seeing as how we were already dressed, me in my running clothes, and it’s a damn near Spring-like day here today, I figured we’d run up to the park. Nothing like a trip with a ballsy toddler to a giant, metal structure with several open landings  3-5 feet off the ground, all spaced at equally awkward and hard to get to angles to get your blood pumping. I spent most of my time internally conflicted as to what was the safest thing for me to do – stand on the ground and run around the play structure like a Labrador anticipating a flying tennis ball, or follow his every move and possibly get stuck in a narrow tunnel. Despite my very valiant attempts to keep him from hurting himself, and calmly and repeatedly asking him to go “feet first” down the slides, he still left the playground looking like this.

Boy, n.:  A noise with dirt on it.

Since we were already both covered in mud, I figured we’d go ahead and plant the “wowers” we got at Lowes yesterday. I only bought these things because they came with instructions, everything but water and a guarantee.

Except they didn’t say that the bulb was actually hidden in the big bag of dirt and that it would look EXACTLY like a giant clump of dirt. I was thisclose to packing the whole thing up and telling the folks at Lowes they sold me an incomplete kit. Really, pictures could have helped. Also, the above picture doesn’t really show off just how black my thumb is.

Per the instructions, which I followed to a tee, we put all the dirt and the bulb back in the provided pot. Kendall enjoyed helping with that part, but I could tell he was really confused by how none of this looked like a “wower” yet.

Then, following the instructions precisely again, we “watered well”. It was at this point I was beginning to think we put too much dirt back in, but the instructions didn’t say to leave any out! I’m taking this whole “guarantee” pretty seriously.

A mid-day bath was a necessity today, and a nice, unexpected treat for Kendall. We followed that up with some yummy black bean quesadillas for lunch, an episode of Dora, 4 books, a battle of the wills, and, finally, a nap in the “big boy” bed, which obviously doesn’t contain him or keep him from tearing down his changing pad or bringing his piggy bank to bed after I close the door.

2 changes of clothes and 1/2 of the day down.

Kendall is 22 months and .5 days old

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StuffThe StoryToddlers

“WOWERS!”

by Jill
written by Jill

It was one of his first words. He’s long since had a deep, passionate love for flowers. He played with them for hours at my mom’s house, amongst the cows and the horses. He climbed over me at each wedding we went to this month to get to the centerpieces for a long, dramatic sniff, which caused him to crinkle his nose, squint his eyes, and pucker his little mouth.

Last month he noticed a little girl at the mall play area. She was not much older than a year and still finding her feet. Upon her head, a headband with a flower the size of Texas perched on one side. As she toddled along, concentrating on every step, Kendall barrelled toward her yelling, “WOWER!! WOWWWWWERRRR!” I chased after him and, in slow motion, her mother scooped down to pick her up just moments before Kendall made what was sure to be an NFL-worthy tackle.

Today he spent nearly 45 minutes running up and down the sidewalk along our street, an eagle eye scanning both sides for dandelions. I always knew he found one before he even reached down to pick it because he “roared”, you know, like a lion.  Poor thing. Flowers are so hard to come by right now. He kept running up to the neighbor’s flower beds, then turned away disappointed.

“You know what? Let’s go to the store and get you some flowers,” I said when he got up from his nap. We needed something to kill time before dinner, and I wanted to get the stuff to put together this sensory tub project from NoTimeForFlashcards.com anyway. When we got to Walmart I headed toward the gardening area, thinking maybe I’d find a little pot of flowers that might live long enough for us to plant outside in a month or two.

I asked the guy near the lawnmowers where I might find plants with flowers on them. He looked at me like I had three heads. “Well, hon. It’s a bit too early for any a dem, but I gots some nice cauliflower plants o’er dere,” he said in his TX accent. “Oh well. No, that’s okay…. I’m not a big plant person, but my son is obsessed with flowers so…yeah… thought I’d try to get him some,” I said, realizing that my black thumb was probably magnified x 10 at that point.

After gathering everything we needed, I swung by the flower arrangement area. Kendall began shouting, “Wowers!”  There were a couple decent looking, multi colored bouquets that consisted of roses and lilies and big daisies, but they were $10. Then I saw a few sad bunches of tiny, partly-wilted pink…weeds?? I held them up to check out the price, and Kendall reached for them like they were a puppy. I read $5 on the tag just as he snatched them from my grasp, “WOWERS!! Mah wowers!” It looked like we were taking the weeds home with us.

I had to take them away from him to scan them, which, of course, led to a mini meltdown that involved lots of frantic breathing and repeated, “wowers, MAH wowers, wowers, no, no, NO, mah wowers”. When they were at last reunited Kendall hugged the bunch like he’d just won Miss America.

I wound up letting him hold them  the whole way home and was treated to a toddler monologue that sounded something like this:

“Mah bah mah wowers. No, mah WOWERS! La blah wowers la. WOWERS, MAMA! WOWERS!!”

He punctuated that last part by holding the flowers over his head and the top of the car seat, in an effort to show them off to me.

When we got home we dug out a plastic yogurt container from his special cabinet of things I wish he’d play with instead of the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I filled it halfway with water and the little packet of flower food they came with. Then we sat at the table as I cut the stems and haphazardly arranged them.

“What are we going to do with them?  Would you like to put them in your bedroom?” I asked in that sing-song voice that all parents of toddlers would recognize.

His eyes lit up and he very confidently replied, “YEAH!” He climbed off his chair and quickly ran to his room where he helped me place them on top of his book shelf.

We had to hold the flowers as we read bedtime stories tonight. And as I laid him in his crib, covered him, and pat his back, he kept looking over his bumper and through the slats of his crib. “Wowers,” he repeatedly whispered with a big smile. I’m fairly confident the first thing I’ll hear over the baby monitor tomorrow morning is, “WOWERS!”

Kendall is nearly 21 months old, and if he wants “wowers” around here, he better pray he didn’t inherit my knack for unintentionally killing all plants.

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