Nice weather brings us outside

The weather is finally starting to change for the better. We are getting multiple beautiful days in a row and we have been able to go outside and enjoy it. There have been almost daily walks to one park or another and a ton of time outside in the back yard. With the chaos of April behind us, Tim and I were finally able to get out to cut the grass and clean up the back patio for summer fun. Noah's playhouse has been up for a couple of weeks, but with the mess that it was back there, we hadn't gotten around to playing.

Needless to say, Noah was very happy to see his outdoor toys back from the depths of their winter basement hibernation! He figured out very quickly all of his favorite spots and opened up the gas station so his police cruiser wouldn't run out of fuel on any of those high speed chases through the yard.

It was as if he picked up where he left off from last summer. He made faces at us from all of the different windows.

He continued his favorite backyard game of strolling behind each chair and poking the occupant through the spaces and then laughing hysterically when they yell "Hey! Whatchu doing back there?"


Its a fun game, it doesn't get old (for him at least!)!!

Wow, I wish I had known

I know there has been a great deal of debate back and forth lately between pediatricians and parents and between parents and other parents about how long to leave children rear-facing in a car seat. This video gives a whole other dimension to the argument though. I honestly have to say that not long after Noah turned a year old, I was excited to turn that seat around. I wanted to be able to chat with him and for him to see the world from my perspective, so we could talk about the same things. What I didn't realize is that out of interest for our conversations, I could have been putting him at risk. I don't want to get preachy and start judging other people, but I watched this video and got very emotional envisioning the crash test baby as my own little man and it scared me...a lot. Its a fairly moot point now given that Noah is quickly approaching the rear-facing weight limit of 35 pounds in his "moo cow" Britax, but it will certainly color the way I approach things the next time around. That forward-facing milestone won't be quite so important for me next time. I can't imagine how I would feel if something had happened, if there had been an accident, and I had found this out afterwards. I am thankful that isn't the case, but also mindful that I certainly don't have this parenting thing totally figured out and there will be things I change next time around.

The teeth and their arch enemy...the toothbrush

Noah's thoughts every night minutes before some lovely stories...

Honestly, is there anything as insulting in life as a toothbrush coming after your teeth??? I mean really, who honestly wants clean teeth anyway? What's the point, they are just going to get dirty again in the near future.

Mommy's perspective, aka the view of those of us with emotion regulation abilities and personal hygiene standards...

I can't understand it. I don't remember when I started routinely brushing my own teeth, it was so long ago that I don't remember learning the process. I certainly don't remember ever loving the whole thing, but it was not worth the battle every day that's for sure.

Yet, for Noah, we wage the battle every.single.day. You'd think it would be less of a fight as the weeks and months wear on. You'd think he would eventually realize that this is a necessary part of the bedtime routine and just get it over with as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Noah has chosen a different path...he has gone for a "fight to the death" approach to this form of oral care. It now takes Tim and I together to get the job done. Tim sits and holds Noah on his lap, occasionally intervening when extremities start to fly in various directions. I get the distinct honor of wielding the weapons of torture (i.e., the toothbrush and toothpaste), which means I spend 10 minutes pleading with the little dude to open his mouth, to stop spitting toothpaste foam in my face, etc., etc.,. Its not a fun game and I know it would be even better if we could get the job twice a day, but with the work and sleep schedules, its just not possible to have the both of us around at the same time in the morning to brush teeth then as well. For now, we have begged Nana Lou to attempt some semblance of teeth brushing after breakfast in the morning. Perhaps with a well-behaved Dante as a "role model" we'll make some progress on this front. But for now, we'll just keep at it and hope that its a very long phase that is about to snuff itself out any second?!?!

Gobble, Gobble???

After a busy day out on the town on Saturday, we were just pulling back onto Main Street. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some traffic at a dead stand still up ahead. With no good reason for the backup, it did seem kind of suspicious, no street to make a left turn onto, no cross walk nearby. Tim mentioned that he saw a turkey in the road!?!?! I don't think so...we are in metro Boston, quite close to the city limits, there are no wild turkeys here. I knew there were a few rogue ones near the golf course up in Newton, but that was a far cry from the densely packed area we are in. Not to be distrusted, we grabbed the camera and went for a walk up the street to try to prove that he hadn't seen things. Wouldn't you know, in a backyard behind us a couple houses up, we found the very lost wild turkey roaming around looking very confused. Don't know where he came from, don't know where he was going, but given the stories I had heard from those with previous interactions with these creatures, I wasn't very interested in getting to know him well! Not only was it kind of disturbing that there was a rogue turkey in our neighborhood, but a few minutes later when I went outside to paint another coat of chalkboard paint in Noah's playhouse, I heard a couple of kids screaming from the street behind us! Being chased by the rogue turkey that was taking over? Perhaps!!

What's going on lately?

We've been busy dealing with the terrible twos around here lately. Most of the time life is fun, lots of toddler-type conversations about trucks and whatever else is occupying his mind. There is also the sass, the "NOOOOOO Mommy, DON'T DO DAT!" Its the defiance that gets, he will go from a sweet, even-tempered helper to a defiant little Tasmanian devil in no time flat.

Thankfully when we look back at pictures of these last few months, we don't have any of him red-faced and screaming in the time out chair, though what a picture that would make!

Instead, we have sweet pictures of the happy little helper boy putting away all of the silverware in the right spots.


And pictures of a sweet little dude going for a walk up the street with Daddy...


Running errands for Mommy and excitedly telling me what he brought home for me!


Thankfully, instead of sassy memories, we have couch forts


and hide-and-go seek in the laundry basket


and "help" folding the laundry


Even when there is sass and two-year old attitudes, behind the scowl there really is a sweet little man who is trying very hard, and hoping to make us happy.


So, we'll let him be two. We'll pick our battles carefully, fight the fights that need fighting and let the rest go by. I find myself on some days singing a song that we hear in Finding Nemo..."Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."