Best buddies

Kat and Luca moved back to New York today.  Leo and I are really sad to see them go.  

I met Kat the first time I went to the prenatal yoga class where I ended up meeting most of my mom friends.  She was almost full term and as we were chatting Luca kicked out towards me through her belly - I'll never forget that. 

After Luca was born (a couple of months before Leo), Kat and her husband came back to the yoga class to share their incredible home birth story.  I was so inspired by her story, it was one of the standout birth stories from that class that inspired me to work towards having my own natural birth, which I was lucky enough to achieve.

We ran into each other a few times over the course of the next several months and exchanged numbers; when I got food poisoning when Leo was four or five months old, she brought me soda crackers and sprite and pretty much saved my life.  Right after that, they moved to an apartment up the street, we started meeting almost nightly at our neighborhood park, and the rest of the story wrote itself.  We've been through a lot together - baby sickness, teething, lack of sleep, husbands working/traveling, lots of wine, lots of mascara reviews, sometimes feeling like we were going insane trying to balance our old selves, our new selves and our new growing families.

When we started spending time together, our boys were not yet crawling.  They grew to love each other and became best buddies.  They are a couple of months apart in age, and they have learned so many important lessons from one another, not having any siblings or cousins nearby.  Recently I was watching them play after spending an entire afternoon, dinner, and evening together and I realized that I had not seen them fight or even get mad at each other.  They'd learned to play and get along by being together.  What an incredible thing for two boys who live so far from extended family. 

It's not often that you meet a friend who becomes like family.  I've been lucky to meet more than one on this mama journey, but Kat is the only one who not only doesn't tease me for wearing mascara to the gym, but she could usually be found on the elliptical right next to mine not only wearing mascara but probably involved in some heated discussion about it (with me).

We will miss you, but we can't wait to come and visit you on the East Coast!

We Are Family

Play on, Playa

Leo has invented a game. 


Leo prefers to play this game with Papa but if Papa is not around, Mama will suffice. He tells us he wants to play it by grunting "Eh! Mm! Eh! Mm!" loudly, staccato,  insistently, over and over until we play.

To play the game, upon hearing the grunting, the Parent must drop to all fours and crawl around the living room until Leo picks up his volleyball and throws it onto the Parent's back.  The Parent must immediately drop onto his/her belly as if s/he has been wounded.

If the Mama is playing, Leo then laughs hysterically and crawls onto her back.  Many variations including wrestling or piggyback rides follow, but when Leo says "Eh! Mm!" again, the game starts over.

If the Papa is playing, after dropping onto his belly, Papa immediately pretends to be asleep, and Leo puts on a face of exaggerated mock concern, punctuated with an "Uh oh!" or an "Oh doh" ("oh no").  Sometimes he will pretend to cry or even say "cry."  Then he will squat down next to Papa and gently stroke his back.  After a moment, Papa suddenly makes a robot noise, goes back up to all fours and starts crawling again.  Leo laughs hysterically and prepares to attack again.

The game is super cute.  I love how there are rules, and how it differs for different parents.  I love that there is an act that goes along with it.  I love that he made it up himself; I love his imagination.  And I love that he even has a code grunt that means it's time to play.  So clever.

----

Some new-ish cute words and phrases that I want to remember:

"Papa day!" - not sure what it means exactly, but maybe "Papa's home" or "Papa's here" or "Papa's home today" or something, although I think I say it now more than Leo does

"Deess!" - cheese, which he asks for every time we walk by the cheese sample station at Whole Foods

The other day, when we got on Skype with my parents, he immediately pointed up to the sky and said "Ah-pane" because Grandma always reminds him that he's coming on an airplane to visit her in a few weeks :)

Love how he says different people's names in different tones - Ah Why (Uncle Ryan), Nana, Granddaddy, Grandma, and my personal favorite, Grandpa - "Gap-paaaa!"

He says "no" fervently and insistently - it's still cute (for now)

Sometimes he sneaks into the bathroom and steals one of my makeup brushes out of the drawer, then runs around the house stroking his face with it.  The other day he stole my eyelash curler and held it up to his eye.  Ummm, whoopsie.

He knows so many of his body parts, I can't believe it.  Eye, nose, ear, mouth, lips, teeth, tongue, head, hair, tummy, belly button, back, butt, leg, foot, toes...

Qwee

Apologies for the runny nose in this one...we just kicked a whopper of a cold.

A B K L

a great day!

Today was a great day.

We had a rough night with lots of waking.  L had a cold a few weeks back and he has a cough that just won't quit, and it wakes him up and requires a lot of rocking with Mama and cuddling.  So I was really, really tired this morning, and we got up late, around 740, and we were supposed to be at the gym for kids' club at 8.  So I didn't think we were going to make it.  But then I got an email from a friend describing her awesome day and how she feels like she's just having a great day and kicking butt and it just kicked me into gear.  We had a quick breakfast and ran to the gym late.  I did a hard 30 minutes on the elliptical while Leo played at kids' club.  He was happy when I picked him up and then we met some friends at a fun park, then came home for lunch and a looooong nap for each of us, then a really fun afternoon with several friends at this really fun little saltwater water park down the street - Seaside Lagoon!  It was SO awesome - we LOVE the beach but the water here is usually too cold and the waves/currents are too powerful for wee ones to swim, and this place has an awesome, shallow saltwater wading pool - Leo had an awesome time walking in the water, grabbing handfuls of sand beneath the water, and even catching himself when he'd fall forward - I had a fantastic time, so much fun.  I want to go back every day until the local schools get out for summer and it gets too packed.

When we got home Leo was in the best mood - he ate a great dinner and then had a fun bath and played until bed.  He fell asleep smiling.  I felt like such a CHAMPION!

Then, thanks to this awesome thing we are doing called The Fresh 20 I made an awesome dinner and left a plate in the fridge for Matt when he gets home from his shift late, late tonight. 

I'm feeling really, really happy.  Being a parent - SAH or working - is incredibly hard work, and it usually seems like the harder you work, the higher an energy level you FORCE yourself to operate on, the better the outcome.  It's hard to rise to the job.  I can't do it every day.  Some days I feel like I'm treading water just to keep my head up.  Some days, like today, are awesome in spite of the piles of laundry lying around the house.  I can kick butt on laundry tomorrow.  Today, I did a great job at helping my toddler learn, explore, and play; cooking; and working out.  That's enough for today!

Good night :)

things I want to remember about right now

words:
Deetdee - kitty
Dee - keys
Dee - please (with sign)
Dee - cheese
Deet - teeth
Deh-deh - byebye (with sign)
Deh-deh - bellybutton (both of the "deh-deh's" are mimicking the pitches)
Ehw - ear
Ell-kaw - helicopter
Kaw - car
Dut - truck
Ow dye - outside
Muh - more (with sign)
Bah - ball
Bah bah - volleyball (um, we live by the beach)
Ga-gone - all gone (with sign)
Mum mum - mum mum
Da na na na na na na - banana


people:
Mama
Papa
Baba/Baba (Grandma/Grandpa)
Ca - Luca (his best buddy!)

others:
deet deet deet - the sound of the buttons on our door alarm
ar ar ar ar! - a puppy barking
aye dee - ABC
signs "Thank you" frequently
also signs "milk," "eat," "drink"
points to his ear when he hears a helicopter or airplane or any loud and exciting noise, "I hear a plane!"
"tickles" people that we are skyping with - especially Nana and Granddaddy
Blinks very slowly, dramatically and purposefully