A few recent shots

Wearing Pop's T-shirt, showing off his jawline ;-)


A reaction to a particularly riveting scene from "Finding Nemo"


Reading after bathtime with Papa


Pickmeup! Pickmeup!


You there!

This week: Nemo trumps Elmo

A couple of pix from last weekend's trip to the local sprayground. Our boy is getting big! And I'm happy to report the HyperBaby stage only lasted a few days ... for now. As for what's new in Wilder's world ... this week, he fell in love with Nemo. He will almost sit still through the entire movie, he loves it that much. Will try to post a few more photos here soon.

Oh. My. God.

Well, Wilder and I just returned from our first Toddler Time session at the local library. I signed up for it on a whim last week. I'm not a "joiner" -- never have been. But something about parenthood makes you temporarily insane -- a condition that leads you to believe you and your kiddo must hang out with those in both your peer groups. You know, complete strangers. Let the fun begin!

Yeah. Right.

In a room of complete strangers, you do not want to have the child who behaves like a crack baby. I have no idea what came over him. I mean, he's a very exuberant kid. He runs full-speed at life, and I love and admire that about him. But today we walked in that room, and it was like he snuck eight cups of coffee and perhaps an illegal narcotic or two somewhere between home and the library.

To make matters worse, all but one other mom and dad in there had a sweet, dress-clad, well-behaved little girl who sat quietly at her mother or father's side or in their lap. It's like they couldn't see the toys around the room that my son clearly COULD NOT WAIT TO GET HIS HANDS ON. OK, there was one other boy, but he wasn't smokin' from the same pipe my kid had, apparently.

Wilder had fun, no doubt. He was positively vibrating with excitement. I ran around after him trying to do what the lady in charge of the class told me to do. She said I should talk to him all day. "When you're at the grocery store," she encouraged, "pick up a can of green beans and say, 'These are green beans,' and continue to do that around the clock, until you're sick of hearing yourself talk." This lady clearly does not know me. I am not what you'd call the "perky" or "chatty" type. Still, I tried. And I imagine it was easy for the other moms, whose daughters were delicately picking through the toys while their mommies looked at me as if to say, "Do you keep him in a cage or what?!" But when your son is moving at 80 mph, it's difficult to verbally keep up with him. He'd pick up a puffball. "That's soft, isn't it kiddo?" I'd inquire. A red puffball. "Look hon," I'd continue. "It's re ...." And OFF he'd fly, to kick a ball or pick up a book or run to the door or shake a tambourine or rock the 2-month-old in his carrier or climb a chair or or or or ... My poor tired mother-of-a-runaway-train-boychild brain could not keep up.

I was the only mom who broke a sweat. Not joking.

I don't know if we'll go back. We probably will, at least once, just to see if there's a repeat performance, and because he clearly had such a fine time. I just don't know that I can take many more weeks of those women looking at me like I feed my son sugar cubes and keep him locked in the house.

Sigh. I'm exhausted. Thanks, blog peeps, for letting me vent.

Mother's Day 2007

It's not noon yet, but my Mother's Day has been awesome so far. Jerry made me breakfast in bed and he and Wilder joined me. I got the perfect card (below) and a book I can't wait to read. But the best present? After they'd surprised me, I leaned over and gave Wilder a squeeze and kiss on the cheek, and then gave Jer a kiss on the lips. Wilder then turned around, planted two big "mwah!" kisses on my mouth and flung his body across mine for a big hug. Wow.

And, because I can't let the day go by without saying it ... Happy Mother's Day Mama. Wherever you are in the universe, know you are terribly missed and that I think about you all the time. You were, beyond a doubt, one of the world's best. Love you.


Wilder and I enjoy breakfast in bed

I had to include this pic because kiddo looks so cute in it.

Great job on breakfast Jer! (He even took my desire to lose 20 lbs. before Kauai into account!)

Best. Mother's Day. Card. EVER.

Saturday! Saturday!

A few pics from our afternoon at the Dallas Arboretum:

A "vintage" yard chair?

Would have been a decent family portrait if it weren't for the little chipmunk's mouth full of raisins.

Doesn't he look like he's in on the joke?

Weeeeeee!

Oh man do I LOVE this pic of Jerry!

Those are some kickin' curls kiddo!

Wilder and Mama, ready to head west.

A good weekend so far ...

We had a really nice couple of days here. The weather's been amazing. Below are a few pics from our Friday. This morning we went out to breakfast at our favorite neighborhood haunt, The Garden Cafe. They've got this great patio out back surrounded by an enourmous organic garden, the products of which they use in their kitchen. All the garden beds have paths between them, so the kids can go crazy and the whole shebang is fenced in, so it gives us parents a nice break. If you go before 10 a.m. or so, there are always tons of families with kids. We met an exceptionally nice family -- father, two daughters and grandparents -- whom we talked to for quite some time waiting for our food. They had both Tennessee and Colorado experiences in their past, so plenty to talk about.

Wilder is a very friendly kid these days. When we walk in the afternoons, he waves and says "hi!" to everyone we pass. Today he went and stood in the middle of our tables, turning cirlces and waving "hi" to everyone. One older guy chuckled and asked if he was running for office (today happens to be election day in Dallas -- we have an 11-candidate mayor's race going on).

One more little story. After breakfast we went over to a neighborhood park, Lindsley Park. It's one of the better near our house. Great equipment, huge open areas to run in, good climbing trees, etc. A Hispanic family was preparing for a birthday celebration at the pavillion, and a nice old guy gave Wilder a green balloon. He threw it around for about 15 minutes. Throw, chase, pick up, hug, throw, repeat on endless loop. At one point he went to pick it up and pretty much fell on it and it popped. He spun around about eight times with this look of crazy bewilderment on his face. You could just tell he was thinking: "Balloon? Balloon????? Where'd you GO?!" It was kind of sad even though Jerry and I couldn't stop laughing. Anyway, Jer quickly hoisted the kid up on his shoulders and all was well. No crying or come-aparts.

Enjoy the pics, k.

2007-05-12

Bye bye Pampers?

No, no ... we're not fully potty-trained yet. I actually have a confession. I'm a horrible person because I use disposable diapers. I didn't want to. I wanted to try cloth and make it work, but I just knew it wasn't going to be practical for us. I can barely remember to launder my own britches. Seriously.

Anyway, enough unloading of guilt. There are a few fellow mommies who read this blog so from time to time I try to write about things that make our mommy-lives easier or are just plain good ideas. And I think I've stumbled upon something really cool that I'm at least going to try.

It's called gDiapers. The website totes them as "a new, earth-friendly hybrid" diaper that's "not cloth, not disposable." The idea seems ingenius. And they're really cute to boot. I'm already picturing Wilder in the red Hawaiian print for our September trip to Kauai. My little surfer boy!

Anyway, I think I'm going to order some and see how they work for Wilder. Might be hard to transition at this point, but we're going to give it a try.

I'll write a review on this blog once I get a good feel for how gDiapers hold up against good 'ol Pampers.

Son of a Brisket!

I realized in a flash last night that my momhood is now complete.

I was cooking brisket (nope, that's not it ... wait for it ...) and some of the sauce splashed out onto my arm. It hurt. Now, in the past, any number of colorful expletives would have come out of my mouth. I have a legendary pottymouth. One of my old nannies use to joke that my kid's first words would rhyme with "brother-chucker." However, when the sauce hit my arm, Wilder was nearby. So what did I say?

"Ouchy. Ouchy."

[Hangs head in shame.]

Oh dear ...