MommyBlog

Though it’s hard to complain to be back, as it’s a quintessential early fall day here on our little creek off the Chesapeake Bay… 68 degrees, sunny and breezy, flocks of birds flying overhead and the occasional renegade fishing boat heading out under the bridge.

Our week in the Outer Banks was wonderful, and it flew by!   Kenny loved every moment of ultra-attention from both sets of grandparents, and Casey and I loved that we could go for a long walk on the beach alone.   We all managed a little end-of-summer tan.   We drank fine wine, ate wonderful dinners (we took turns cooking, each trying to outdo the last) and with the brisk day here, I fell content to look forward to autumn ahead.

It’s funny, we’ve spent the last two years in Arizona over the winter (a fun quirk in Casey’s job), and we have decided not to go this year.   Waking up to a 52 degree thermometer this morning reminded me that I may actually have to wear a winter coat this year…

Another funny… now that Kenny has turned two, I am realizing that my former ecstatic baby-record blogging has slowed down a little.   The milestones are, for the most part, done.   Oh, he started talking with proper pronouns this week… “I don’t like potatoes!” and “You go sit over there, Mommy.   I want to play here.”   and “Where you been, Mama?”   But at Kenny’s two-year-old physical this morning, our pediatrician pretty much outlined the rest of his development in years, rather than months.   And I guess it’s time to refer to his age in years rather than months, too.  

So I am faced with a blogging-dilemma… I can no longer rely merely on Kenny’s achievements and antics to fill the posts on this blog, and  I am going to have to start filling it out with more of our lives in general as a family.   It’s strange, thinking that where it was once easy to fill my thoughts with All Kenny, All the Time, I am now forced to add in more than relay of charming information.   In my week off from writing (and reading Mommy blogs), I was suddenly struck with the reality that I want to write about more and different things.   So I have a hunch that this blog is going to begin evolving a little.

I guess that’s natural, right?   My little blog is growing up…

I didn’t take as many as I thought at Kenny’s birthday party, but here are a few, as promised…

“Mama, why do my balloons keep flying away?”

“Kaitie and Kristin’s present ROCKS!”

“Let them eat cake!   I want the cookies all to myself…”

Though I am here in the most idyllic setting possible for endless writing (both sets of grandparents to dote on Kenny, picturesque sunsets and melodic ocean soundtracks), I am finding that I have been hit with a THUMP of writers block.   Not only that, but in sacking away two novels in three days, I’m finding that even reading blogs is dull and tedious  compared to the sudden freedom and time I have to read for hours at a stretch (imagine naptimes with no laundry or vacuuming to steal away my moments! and getting a suntan to boot!).     I don’t need to read in soundbites, I can read an entire biography in a day!   Not to mention the fine wines that my dad, an unofficial yet passionate sommelier, has brought for our tasting pleasure, which mellows me out to the point of languishing on the couch with my paperbacks rather than sitting in a tidy posture at the laptop.

So rather than fight it (this is vacation, after all!), I  have resolved  to go on brief hiatus, and to return with full force after our vacation ends next week.   (And to  return to reading all of my blogging friends and catching up on all the news soon!)

So please check back next Monday, when MommyBlog returns to the blogosphere!  

(And if you’re looking for a good read, try  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.   Awesome.)

My sweet baby is TWO!  

I can hardly believe that two years have passed since the night  I first met this little human that is the exterior beat of my heart.   His serious expression when he’s stacking blocks melts me as much as his charming “can I have a  cookie?” smile.   His earnest appeals for one more book, one more story, or one more song at bedtime are hard to resist.   His rapt attention when he sees a plate full of turkey and hummus and cheese set before him at lunchtime, solemnly clasping his hands so we can pray (fast!) and he can dig in make me swallow my giggles and clasp my own hands in reverence.   His new favorite question, “Mama, Where you been?” (even if I’ve only been in the bathroom for 16 seconds)  and new favorite statement, “I don’t like that, Mama” (mostly referring to vegetables that he once ate with gusto, and now spurn in favor of bread and butter) are so funny it takes all my composure to answer then with the same seriousness he proffers them.

He is no longer a baby, that’s for sure.   He’s 100% BOY.

I have a slew of pictures to post from his birthday party as well as our family on his actual birthday, but I forgot to bring my usb cord with us on vacation (where we are presently for the next week), and I will have to post them upon our return.   Stay tuned!

… had an unfortunate incident as we were packing up the car to go on our much-awaited vacation to the Outer Banks.   We noticed an oozing from his most recent bandage, and so we took him to an emergency vet en route to North Carolina.   And wouldn’t you know it… his second set of stitches broke.

This was no fault of ours (we kept the cone on the whole time and kept him still) or his (he couldn’t have licked it if he tried, which he did, and often).   They simply broke.   Ugg.

Now a big part of the reason that we go to the Outer Banks one week off season is because you can have dogs off leash on the beach all day.   And this champion wave runner was now going to be allowed no where near the ocean.   Or the sand.

The emergency vet removed his split stitches and bandaged him, advising that we find a vet at our destination for another surgery.   The vet we found was awesome, and removed the scar tissue and re-sewed him for a (fairly) reasonable fee.   And he didn’t bandage him.   Turns out, according to this doc, the bandages themselves may very well have been the problem, as they were constantly rubbing his ankle and irritating the stitches.   So he is now stitched and it looks so much better.   He seems much happier too, as I think the bandage was itching him to death.   But still no sand, no surf, no wild runs in the crashing ocean.   He knows what he’s missing, too, because he smells the air here.   My poor, sweet Duds…

This is how Kenny now calls to me when he wakes up from his nap.   It used to be a series of “Mama?” calls, which became “Mama, out!” and have now morphed into the much more charming calls of, “Mama, What-ya doin’?” and “Mama, Come upstairs!”

He has become like a little scholar, asking questions (and  sometimes answering himself)  from the time he wakes up  until  the time we turn out the lights at night.   Driving in the car: “Where’s all the cars goin’?   Goin’ to the grocery store, Mama?”   and “Where’s the crickets sleepin’?” and “Where’s the moon?   He’s hidin’ in the trees.”   Eating breakfast, looking out the window: “Where’s the heron?   He must be at sum-buddy’s elses house today.”   Looking at Dudley: “Dudley’s hat off now?” (Kenny feels for his furry companion swathed in his plastic cone.)   And playing with his train set, his imagination takes flight: “Where’s Thomas goin’?   He’s in the traffic jam!   He gonna be late!” and “Look, Mama!   All the trains sleepin’!   Nap time trains in their pajamas, night-time music on!”

Yesterday he took a warming pan lid out of the oven warming drawer (one with a handle) and declared to me that it was his “suitcase” and he was “Going to work!   Going to see Daddy in’s office in the city.   See all Daddy’s friends!”

And now, aha!   I hear my angel waking up.   He is calling to me… “Mama?   Baby teddy fell out-da bed!   Wake up!   … Mama?   You wakin’ up?”

I am not accustomed these days to getting “hit on.”   There was a time, back in my prime… no, but seriously, something about the fact that I don’t get a chance to brush my hair everyday, or always match my clothes, seems to prevent guys from giving me that eye.   Ok, that and I have a tall, handsome husband and a knock-out wedding ring, so the two obvious clues that I’m married  probably has something to do with it, too.   Not that I want men to flirt with me, not at all, I’m just trying to  express that …well, it’s been a while.

Anyway, when we were at the O’s game last week, Casey and Kenny went to scout a table for us to eat before we went back to our seats, and I took our enormous platter piled with beef and beans to the  fixin’s station.   As I was pumping a little extra sauce on my carnivorous mess, a slightly nerdy guy in a short-sleeved dress shirt caught my eye.   “Wow,” he said, “You have great arms.   Do you lift?”   (did I mention that the platter was really heavy?)

“I have a two year old son.   I lift him all day.” I answered, not trying to be sassy, but trying to balance the side of beef I was carrying.

“Oh, where’s your son tonight?” he asked, in that tone that suggests that his next question is going to be something naughty.

I nodded my head at Casey and Kenny across the way.   He shrugged and raised his beer to me, then walked away.  

Geeky, yes, but it cracked me up.   It cracked Casey up too, probably because the guy was a fairly non-threatening math-y type.   Anyway, it’s good to know that these Mommy biceps are can still swag a head or two…

Ok, Dudley is not exactly a man, but he is encased in a plastic mask.   That is to say, today, on the day that his stitches were to be removed (ten days following his surgery for a benign tumor removal), he managed to chew the bandage just right and rip out the stitches and the skin surrounding it.   Today at the vet, I was told that he had to “start over from day one” and they put my sweet baby under again and re-stitched him, with another ten day time frame of recovery.

Waaaa.

It’s our fault entirely.   The plastic cone he’s supposed to wear on his head wigs him out, so we “compromised” by keeping him on a leash 24/7 (including through the night) and he was doing fairly well.   Until last night when I thought Casey had him and he thought I had him, and I finished Kenny’s bath to discover that Dudley had ripped his bandage off from the inside out.   Now he had chewed on his bandage a few times before, and every-time we returned to the vet for a new one, and though he was a little behind on his recovery, the prognosis was good.  

But now he is sitting at my feet, head encased in a plastic cone, and 100% miserable.   He is not allowed to go up the stairs (so guess where Casey and I are sleeping tonight… the downstairs bedroom), not allowed outside at all without a leash, no walks, no playing, cone off only to eat.

Waaaa, again.

If all this weren’t bad enough, we are leaving for our vacation on Sunday to the Outer Banks, chosen off-season primarily for the reason that we can bring dogs on the beach then, and Dudley loves the ocean.   Oh woe, my furry gray friend.

Kenny and I went to visit Casey in his office today, and kidnapped him to go early to tonight’s Oriole’s game.   We arrived in time for batting practice, had some Boog’s barbeque in homerun court, then left at the top of the second inning.   (Hey, leaving before Kenny gets cranky is key, and this was his first night game, so we were only expecting to last through the first pitch!)   Here are a few highlights…

This weekend was a whirlwind for Casey and I, as we had some friends in from out of town for the weekend.   Friday night was a dinner cruise on a small private yacht that we chartered  with lots of laughs and wine.   Saturday we had a dinner party at our house with three other couples, and Sunday  the four of us  traipsed out to see the Kenny Chesney “Flip Flop Summer Tour” from the THIRD ROW CENTER.   (I have never done anything like that before, and it rocked.   We could see every bead of sweat, even almost hear him apart from the sound system.   It was amazing.)   Excited as I was about Kenny Chesney, though, I was jumping up and down like a teenager and squealing for Sugarland, who opened the show.   I am crazy about Jennifer Nettles, and that girl knows how to rock the stage.   She makes you have so much fun watching her, you start to believe that you could be a rock-star, too.

But there were two huge anomalies about the weekend: 1) We went to bed past midnight three nights in a row.   We are usually in bed by 10; and 2) Most of the festivities were sans our own little rock-star, who is usually the center of my daily universe.   Kenny was present for the first hour of our dinner party, but both Friday night and Sunday night, he was in the loving and expert care of my parents.   Half way through Kenny Chesney’s performance, I actually started going through withdrawl for my own little Kenny and it was all I could do not to call home to check on him.   Of course, at that point it was ten at night, and my parents were probably glad I didn’t ring their bell, not to mention that from the middle of the concert, neither of us would have heard anything, anyway.

For  two weekends in a row now, Casey and I have had non-stop fun, dates, concerts, dinners, and time with both each other and friends.   Long-over-due and much needed, don’t get me wrong, but I couldn’t help pining a bit for my sweet little guy.    Casey and I  did realize, though, that we need to just plan nights out and stick to them, because our time together is so precious, and the reality is that Kenny does just fine without us every once in a while.

The other thing I realized over the course of this weekend, through all the entertaining conversations we shared and cool friends we hung out with, was that I need to  be deliberate  about pursuing other facets of my brain.   The truth is, Kenny is almost two, not a little baby anymore, and I finally do have some time and some brain cells to start a hobby, or at least to read more, or practice a skill again.     He keeps me busy, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a different busy from when he was a baby.   And I don’t know when I’m having another one.   After two losses this year, and the roller-coaster hormones and emotions, I need to stretch myself and spend those precious nap hours doing more that vacuuming and laundry.   Even if only to dance a blue streak around my living room…