It is Someone’s Birthday Week!

Pictures of the birthday boy have to wait until I finish designing his Thank You card. But I promise you, his 2 year photo shoot was ADORABLE, if exhausting for Mama and Pop.

This is from the recent newborn shoot I did for friends’ of ours who recently welcomed their second child. I am super excited to have some baby feet who belong to a girl around here. I am surrounded by blue. It gives me hope that if the husband and I ever lose our minds and decide that we would better off as a family of four, maybe there really is a 50/50 shot we’ll get some pink in our life too.

There is always that fear though that we’ll end up with one of each at the same delivery, and a family of five just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Twins run in both our families. Three may be an only child.

ANYWAY, Three turned two on Monday. Birthdays still don’t quite register with him. But I am very excited to report that he gets the whole present thing now. We didn’t wrap his gift (yes I bought it at Walmart, the husband is not happy, but it was $30 cheaper than anywhere else, and has actually gone up in price since I bought it) from us, because I figured it was way more fun out of the box and trying to put it together while he eagerly tried to play with pieces didn’t seem like a good time. My mom though, she wrapped the gifts my parents got for him. Many, many, gifts, despite having told me that they were not going to go nuts for his birthday since we had just gone to Disney World. Grandparents, I tell ya. ANYWAY, they came over for cake and presents Monday evening. The Husband had to help Three unwrap the first one (a set of Thomas the Tank Engine books) but after that, Three was ALL over it. Ripping wrapping paper and pulling toys and tissue paper out of gift bags like a pro.

The best part of the whole thing to me was watching how excited he was over everything. He had to play with everything for a couple minutes before he could be persuaded to move on to the next present (anyone coming to his party on Sunday, be warned, the gift opening may take a while). And all of the presents were just so exciting. Even the clothes he got resulted in squeals of joy. And it makes me sad that he is not going to be this easy to please for all that much longer in the grand scheme of things. Pretty soon we’ll decide what he is getting as his gift from a list of things he wants, rather than watching what he plays with when he visits his older friends. And when he gets it, I am sure he’ll be excited, but it won’t be the same.

I am thankful that Three is a happy, healthy, normal two (although if you ask him how old he is he’ll tell you Three - so eager to grow up he is) year old. I am glad that he spent the better part of this year reflux free, although I will confess that 99% of the time when he burps I still flinch and wish I hadn’t packed away all the burp cloths. It makes me smile watching him become a little boy. I hope he always manages to have fun doing mundane things.

And Babycenter.com? Sending me an email about my “Preschooler” while he was napping on his birthday? Not cool! Mama is not ready for that!

Modern Day Sophie’s Choice

I like to go for the dramatic.

Back when Three was born, there was no discussion about the fact that I was going back to work full time. It was just what was going to happen. But, while I was on maternity leave Lehman Brother’s imploded, the economy went in the shitter and the small business that I work for fell on harder times. I got an ‘extended‘ maternity leave, and when I did come back, I came back part time.

It kinda sucked at first. I mean, we had been counting on having some extra income. Moving ended up on the back burner without the extra money for the mortgage payment. We haven’t been out of the country since our babymoon (Yes, I have first world problems and I LOVE them). You might actually find me (but not my husband, he who spent $400 on a pair of glasses a couple weeks ago. It almost makes me long for the days when he wore Wrangler jeans and earth day t-shirts. Almost.) buying clothes at Target now a days, and pretty much all of Three’s clothes are bought by his Grandmother (and let’s be fair, that would happen even if I had gone back to work).

We adapted to the new life. The two extra days at home are sometimes the only time we spend as a family with the husband’s travel schedule. I get extra time with my friends. I get to shop at BJ’s on Monday when there is NO ONE there. Doctor’s appointments are a breeze, I don’t have to worry about explaining to my boss that I have to leave early for a whatever month well baby visit. And we worked out the money thing. Heck, we even got used to it.

I would muse about how nice it would be to come back to work another day or two. How it would give us breathing room again. It would make moving something that could happen now instead of waiting.

On Monday, while I was at home putting away laundry, my boss called.

“So, do you want to come back full time?”

I gave him the whole I have to see what daycare can accommodate, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I checked with daycare. And they can take Three. No problems. Starting Monday if I wanted. Full time. 5 days a week in daycare. In the words of the director, they would ‘LOVE to have Three more!”

Oh, crap.

I was a daycare kid. Both my parents worked full time from when I was born until I graduated high school. My mom took a shorter maternity leave with my brother than she did with me because she found being home with a newborn interminably boring. I am familiar with the scenario. And I was okay with it (mostly, there was always some resentment towards my mom that work was more important that my brother and I, but that’s my mom) I had a great babysitter when I was younger and went to a fabulous daycare when I was in elementary school. I think Three is in a great daycare now. I credit his teachers for his HUGE language explosion. It amazes me what he learns in school. It would never occur to me that he is ready for half the things they do with him. Daycare is good for him.

But full time? I am not sure that’s good for ME.

In which I lock up my ‘Mother of the Year’ Nomination

We went to Disney on the 15th for a week. And then we came home, and real life resumed, which meant that aprox 48 hours after we got home, the husband got on a plane (”in da sky!”).

The husband is in Colorado this week and because of conflicting schedules I haven’t really spoken to him much. He’s working the ‘late’ shift on his show, and I have the ‘early’ shift with the toddler so we haven’t really been awake during each others free time.

Monday he was able to call before he started work. Three and I had already had a busy morning of errand running and I was in the process of putting away laundry. In to Three’s room I go, laundry in hand, husband on the phone while Three plays contentedly in the living room. I am in his bedroom for 5 minutes, tops. I walk out of the room laundry happily in its place and the door to our apartment is open. As is the outside door. And the toddler is not where I left him.

The next 60 seconds or so feel like an eternity. I tell the husband I don’t know where Three is, and I don’t really think he understands that at that moment, I didn’t know where the child was. I ran outside and he was no where to be found. I hang up on the husband. Shout to our neighbors across the way who were sitting outside and they hadn’t seen him either. And that’s when in my head I see an image of the bathroom door closed. I run back into the apartment open the bathroom door, and there is Three, giggling away.

He is so grounded.

The deadbolt in my new best friend.