Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da ….BATMAN!

We have entered the stage of super heros.  Batman is my son’s newest obsession.  He still loves Thomas & Buzz Lightyear, but Batman has quickly become a 3^rd favorite.  We introduced him to the 1960’s Batman TV show with Adam West and he is in love with it!  His favorite part is during the fight scenes when the big words come flying across the screen….. “BAM!”….“KAPOW!”….”BONK!”.  He just laughs and laughs.

Since everything is batman, guess what A wants to be for Halloween?  Yup, you guessed it.  I thought for sure he would have picked Buzz Lightyear but he’s been adamant for weeks now that he wants this one:

He’s also started his Christmas list early.  He is writing his letter to Santa asking for these:

I can’t wait to see how cute he looks in his batman costume.  He had also asked told me that I should be batgirl or catwoman for Halloween….so I might just have to throw some cat ears on for trick or treating.

Batman to the rescue!!!

Jamaican Me Crazy

My husband and I just got back from a very relaxing week in Jamaica…..alone.  It was our first vacation by ourselves since our honeymoon 5 years ago and while we missed our son, we enjoyed every single second of our alone time.  No whining, crying, potty breaks, etc.  Just uninterrupted quiet and (dare I say it) sleep!!  We went down there for a close friend’s wedding for which we both were part of the bridal party (my H was the best man).  We flew down on Sunday, the wedding was Tuesday and then we stayed the rest of the week and flew back on Saturday.  The resort was just beautiful.  We didn’t do anything except lay by the pool, the beach and sit at the swim up bar drinking yummy rum drinks.  Ahhhh!!  Going back to work today was very difficult and sad.  Although being in meetings back to back all day very quickly made Jamaica start to fade away...

While we were on vacation my mom and my in-laws watched A and he was extremely well behaved for both of them.  This was the first time we had ever left him for more than a weekend so we were nervous how he would do with a longer length of time away from us. We decided not to tell him far in advance about us going away since we knew he would be worried about us leaving and the less time he had to think about it the better off we thought he would be.   When I dropped him off at my mom’s the day before we left he seemed perfectly happy to spend some time with Grandma.  When we picked him up however, he seemed different…almost as if he was mad at us.  When we got him home he immediately started throwing temper tantrums like we’d never seen before and driving us crazy.  I guess being away from us and his normal routine took a toll on him.  About 5 time outs and a 2 days later, he’s slowly getting back into the swing of things.  LOL  I just hope we get him back to pre-vacation A soon because he’s driving us crazy!

Remembering this September

A decade has passed since that fateful September morning, and it feels like it just happened yesterday.  Most years I can’t watch the TV coverage, but this particular year I am a documentary junkie - watching a lot of the ones that have been broadcast on the History and Smithsonian channels. 

Like so many others I will never forget where I was that day and the weeks that followed.  I was living in Queens at the time and was working an auditing job at Seton Hall University.  I just happened to not be in Manhattan that day.  I had been listening to the radio on my drive to Seton Hall that morning and in the time between when I parked the car and walked into the building the first plane had hit.  I walked into the office and was immediately greeted by a co-worker with “did you hear what just happened?”  No work was to happen that day.  We all rushed upstairs to a student lounge and sat in front of the TV to watch the news.  Family & friends who thought I was in Manhattan tried frantically to get in touch with me but with the phone lines jammed it took quite a while for me to get through to people.  My husband and I were on a dating ‘break’ at the time, but he was still one of the first people I called when I got service back. After the towers fell we all decided it was time to try and make our way home.  The drive up the Turnpike is one I will never forget.  The sight and smell of lower Manhattan was just unbelievable.  It seemed like a dream - an awful dream.  All of the bridges and tunnels were closed so getting back to my apartment was out of the question.  I spent the next week at my mom’s until I could get home again.  As with our parents and their attachment to “where were you when Kennedy was shot?” my generation sadly has their own attachment to “where were you when the towers fell”.

I think about how when my son grows up all he will ever know is life post 9/11.  Everything I lived through he will read about in history books and see in pictures.  He’ll never know what life was like before terror alerts and homeland security.  It will all be normal to him.  In a way I sort of envy him for that.  Ignorance can be bliss.  He doesn’t know what life was like before 9/11 so he can’t miss it. 

Today we honor those who lost their lives on that Tuesday morning in September ten years ago and those who have helped fight for our country in the years since that day to help keep the rest of us safe.

Sleepy Time

I’ve been making good progress on changing around A’s room.  This past weekend the mattress arrived for his big huge boy bed.  I was a bit apprehensive about how he would take to this new bed considering when we switched him to the toddler bed his sleeping habits did a 180.  There was no way to slowly transition to this one, we kind of had to go cold turkey.  The mattress was arriving very early on Saturday, so Friday night we did the conversion of his toddler bed to the full size frame and allowed him to sleep in our room for the night (a treat!). 

Let me say, these convertible cribs are not very easy to convert.  Going from the crib to the toddler bed was easy…just remove the front of the crib and viola, toddler bed.  But going to the full size frame was a much harder feat.  After a couple hours and a lot of frustration we finally had it.

Add the mattress + bedding and we were ready for the reveal.  A was thrilled to say the least!  There was lots of bouncing on the bed in celebration and the Buzz Lightyear pillow became an instant BFF.

When bedtime came I wasn’t sure what to expect.  As much as A loved his new bed when we introduced him to it I was pretty sure that would all change when the lights went out….and I was right.  He was scared that the rails we put up on the sides would fall down and that he would fall out of the bed and was also scared of being alone.  Who could blame him?!  It was a huge new big bed, high off of the ground and pretty intimidating.   Considering it all though, he did really well his first few nights.  The first night I spent a few extra minutes sitting with him after we read books and he only woke up a couple times during the night.  By night #3 he only woke up once…a huge improvement from a couple weeks ago.  The only drawback so far, is that while he’s sleeping more soundly through the night he’s regressed to his 5:30 wake up time....

We’ll have to work on that part ;)



Offline Fun

 

This week’s Working Mommy Wednesday prompt has an interesting question - what would you do for fun if you had to give up TV and internet?   While I do love my trash TV, I could survive without it and find other things to do.  However, giving up the internet would be a LOT harder.

But I would find enough to do. 

I’d read more books….

Swim in the pool more….

Play board games….

and build block cities.

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?!

Annual Family Vacation

Every year my side of the family gets together for our “annual family vacation”.  Since my siblings live all over the country (my brother on the west coast, my sister down south) each year we choose a destination and get everyone together with my mom for a week of family umm…. togetherness.  This year’s destination was Williamsburg, Virginia.   My husband didn’t have enough vacation time left to go with us, so he drew the lucky stick and stayed at home while A and I made the 6.5 hr drive down south.

All in all, we had a nice week filled with amusement parks, water parks, playgrounds, mini golf and lots and lots of swimming.  We even managed to squeeze in lunch with Elmo and his friends :)  It’s always wonderful to spend time with my siblings and to see my niece and nephews.  Now that A is older he had so much fun playing and interacting with his cousins.  Of course there were some hard moments since I had to deal with A on my own (he was being clingy for a lot of the week) but overall it was fun….and it beat being at work all week! 

How quickly vacation time fades, though.  I was back at work not even a day and it felt like I had never left :(  I already feel like I need another vacation.  Good thing we have another one lined up for next month – and this time hubby and I are going alone!!!  Wohooo!

Here are a few pictures from our week.

Wordless Wednesday - Take Me Out To The Ballgame