Swamp City!

What a weekend! It was hot, rainy and flood like all around us. In a word it was swampy this weekend! We took Matthew to the Zoo Friday morning. The ride to Indy seemed longer because Matthew has taken up selective hearing which is not really a recent development, just a development that is becoming more annoying with each passing day of this pregnancy. I even pulled for the 1st time ever: "If you do not listen to me, I will make your Dad turn this car around right now and we are going home!" Oh the pride & joy of parenting!

The zoo was nice but very hot & humid. I waddled about feeling sort of sorry for myself because I could do virtually nothing for or with Matthew. Kevin & Matthew had a great time (and really seriously that is what counts!) Mostly I was just hot and my favorite part of the trip was eating lunch in the air conditioning and going in to see the Hissing cockroaches. It was also air conditioned!! Matthew's favorite things were the playground and the rickety old bridge which is just a swaying bridge to the rhinos (and no, he did not care about the rhinos, just the bridge.) Of course when we (I) finally decided to leave Matthew wanted to see everything. I will upload the few photos I managed to take this evening and post for tomorrow.

Matthew started a Level 1 swim class Saturday morning and he totally rocked it. We were nervous because when I called to check they said Matthew would be going in on his own. We have not done swim classes since it was Parent/baby and we got in with him. And his only exposure to a pool really has been the blow up turtle pool in our yard and the beach last summer. They basically had two instructors to five little boys. The instructors were great. They came and greeted Matthew who was clinging to me like I was the last great hope to get him out of it even thought he was SO SO excited for swim class the entire week and we signed up for swim classes only because he asked me about doing them 10 billion times for several weeks before.

We think the only reason he let go of me had to do with Jacob the little boy sitting next to us. Ironically Matthew climbed right in and Jacob sat on the side most of the class. The class was great! They worked on blowing bubbles, jumping in, kicking, and floating. Matthew loved it!! He would look over at us and smile or wave. And when he came out of the locker room he had a crabby face. I asked him 'why?' and he said because he wanted to go back into the pool so I will take that as a rousing success! By far he was the youngest in the class so I was pretty proud of him for rolling with it all and I hope it continues to be a success!

I tried to spend time outside this weekend but the high temps/humidity are just killing me. The round ligament pain and sciatic nerve thing make doing most anything very difficult and painful. I am trying to ignore the pain and just live life but some days are more difficult then others. We ran a lot of errands. I bought the Ergo carrier! I also finally used some Best Buy gift cards I had from the holidays. I bought Matthew a Thomas DVD since it is near impossible to find the show on TV these days and two CDs for myself (Bob Marley and Van Morrison - old school music that I LOVE!) I bought Kevin one of his Father's Days gifts. We hit Sam's Club & Kohl's. Both of which we totally bought stuff we did not need - as much as we try to just buy what we need we never seem to be able to!

Our friends came over for a morning of running, jumping, and swimming in the pool Sunday. Oh BTW that was the kid's activities, not ours - we sat and watched! The whole not listening combined with the whole not sharing thing was fun to explore with Matthew. He even threw a bucket of water in our friend's daughter's face. Ummm, yeah. That is my kid. Sweeet. I know he will learn and I know if we keep talking about it and working on it this will get better and eventually he will learn but GAH does it suck right NOW.

We spent some time gardening Sunday in the sweltering heat which may have been wicked funny to watch as an observer because I looked like a 90 year old arthritic person bending over trying to prune the rose bush and dead head flowers. SO not pretty. I also need to cut my finger nails. They are dang hooks right now. OH and I did my toe nails. Again from an observational stand point, umm funny. Do not look to closely at those toes, they look like shit! Finally, we watched National Treasure II. I liked it, of course, I am a sucker for a mystery type thriller movie and cannot wait to finally see the new Indiana Jones when it comes out on DVD.

Matthew has taken to saying "as well..." which is something I say often. As in: "Mommy, may I have some watermelon as well?" It cracks me up. He actually is doing a fairly good job with his manners despite the issues with sharing and listening. It is nice to hear him say please and thank you every now and again without our prompting him to do so. It is like a teeny tiny victory that we pat ourselves on the back for.

AND for real finally, I have decided to stop reading all parenting/pregnancy magazines because Fit Pregnancy for June/July had me in a bloody panic last night over the stupidest things. I kept asking Kevin "do you think the baby is okay?" and I was worrying over foods I was eating and how much weight I have gained AND OMG BURN THE MAGAZINE NOW!!! SO no more magazines (or pregnancy books) for me, for now!

Some whine with that cheese?

Matthew has taken to whining. It is charming and lovely to suddenly hear his sweet darling little voice pitch into a whiny fervor over the amount of mashed potatoes I gave him or "Matthew go outside for feather" even though we should have left five minutes ago for daycare and holy shit we are going to be late for work! I hardly noticed that he started whining until recently. It dawned on me when I heard Kevin say "you need to stop using that voice because I cannot understand you when you talk like that." I was all in the dark about the whining thing. Like 'OMG my son whines' (scoff...)

As if this was not ever going to happen - just like the nine million other things I always said pre-child that MY child would not do! Ha, we are SO naive before having a baby, aren't we?!

All kids whine really - I mean all kids do things you hope they do not do like throw temper tantrums in public (yeah, because we have had an resurgence in this: Kroger last evening and Wonderlab on Wednesday.) I am laughing as I type this for two reasons. One: The looks people give you when your little darlin' is screaming bloody murder because you would not let him play with the bottles of wine on the bottom shelf of the alcohol isle. Two: Because when we went to Touch a Truck, this little girl was throwing a wicked good temper tantrum which everyone turned to watch. Matthew & I and another mom & her son were sitting under the shade of a tree having a drink and the mom turned to me and said "we all know they have them and know how it feels but aren't you glad that is not us right now?!" I nodded and truly agreed with her at that point.

I have to say that of all the things that could possibly annoy a person - you know, nails on the chalkboard, temper tantrums, a whiny child - miraculously my short tempered, impatient self does not get annoyed with whining. Perhaps I have been listening to myself my whole life so I am just used to it... What ever the case may be, I am oddly and uncharacteristically calm when it comes to the whine that my son emits.

We are not really making a big deal out of the whine. We are just using common sense to deal with it but it is a new "stage"!

On a separate but related note, why is when our children were babies we were all into the stages of development and excitedly wanted to tell everyone about how brillant our babies were but as toddlers, the stages all involve some new and painful lesson in Parenting 101:
How to deal with whining.
How to deal with temper tantrums.
How to get your child to go to the potty.
How to get your child to sleep in a big kid bed.
How to run away screaming because I am having information overload and my child is getting to all the stages I don't want and not getting to the stages I do want!

So I ask you would you like some whinnnnne with that cheese? Bring it on, baby, bring it on!