Annual Cool Zoo

Today, I overslept big time. I had the worst time sleeping last night so I spent the morning rushing around getting Ham and I ready to work on my classroom. We had stopped by McDonalds so that I could grab another coffee when I got a call from my cousin wanting us to go to the cool zoo.

I know there is still so much to do for school, but I couldn't miss our annual summer trip to the cool zoo. I told her we could be ready in thirty minutes.

In my previous post, I mentioned how difficult Ham is for me at zoos, bug museums, etc. There is an exception to that general rule and that is when we go with my Uncle and cousins.

There were no temper tantrums, no exaggerated crying, No I want, I need, I do it, mine, me, my. Instead there was laughter and playing. We roamed around the zoo, checked out the animals and ate snowballs in a tree house. It was the perfect way to wrap up our summer. Here's some pictures from today.

Bugs

Have you ever navigated the zoo, the Aquarium or what not with a 2 year old? Did you lose your sanity?

I think those places are designed for that.

Today we navigated the Bug Zoo with not one, but two 2 year olds. I'm not sure how but I somehow managed to talk both my brother (and his kid) and Mr. Yardbird into that today.

It wasn't all that bad.

The drive there was easy with the kids watching a movie in the back seat. Parking was a synch and we were able to pick up coffee on the way. We strolled along insisting our kids hold our hands to which they adamantly refused.

And when we finally got there and our coffee was starting to taste really good, we stepped into a long line behind the medal detectors. You know, the old school kind you used to find in airports. Nothing high-tech. And I'm wondering what sort of security issues they have going on in a bug museum, but the thought flees my mind and I sip on my coffee. The coffee that I know is going to get me through the approaching chaos.

"You can't take that in here", says the cop to my brother and I watch my brother begrudgingly toss his hardly sipped on coffee in the trash and Mr. Yardbird and I follow suit. I thought the coffee might give us the energy to manage our kids, but now that's out of the window.

And we meander around the bug museum staring quizzically at all the tiny bugs, some that swim and some that might kill you if they bit you.  We ponder their existence in quiet solitude and offer tidbits of knowledge to our kids' thirsty little minds.

Did I say meander? ponder? in quiet solitude?

I mean we chased our kids in circles, fumbled over people who were taking pictures (let's face it there is plenty of that going on) and darted through crowds only to just miss the shirt sleeve of our crazy two year olds. Sure we saw bugs. We said, " Look at this bug right here", and when we turned our kids were sprinting on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.


Sometimes, we remarkably found each other in the middle of the museum and traded off kids to chase around. "You got that one, I've got this one." and as we ran around we made sure our kids soaked up the endless knowledge of a bug's life by pointing out everything that was rushing past them. That's a skill only for the parent of a two year old.

And finally we sat down to eat a healthy meal of nachos, cookies, french-fries and pizza. And I'm sure the bug zoo is plotting against us as it offers the most sugary junk food assortment. My brother's kid, L, insists on  only eating the chips with no cheese and Ham insists on licking the cheese and not eating the chip. They make the best two year old picky eating companions.

We finish up and watch a 4-D movie, stroll through the butterfly exhibit and as we open the exit door we are pushed out into the gift shop with all its brightly colored toys. My brother, Mr. Y and I beeline to the door, before one of them could mutter an "I want...."

All and all it was a pleasant mildly stressful day with the bugs.

Blue-Pink

Ham and I have been working on colors and counting this summer. I know there are baby Einsteins out there that have their colors and shapes memorized and can count to two thousand and twenty but that's not really what we're striving for over here.

Mostly, I save our lessons in counting for when I'm angry. It usually starts off with " Ham, I'm going to count ten and you better.....___________" And then I fill in the blank with whatever is necessary at the time, such as drop that permanent marker you are using to draw circles on our couch, smearing your yogurt into your hair, the chair, and the kitchen table, and my favorite stop trying to drill a hole into our cat's back with your play drill.

And over time Ham caught on and when I counted he started to finished with the ending numbers.

Eventually he counted for everything -  jumping into the pool, to himself when we were driving and down the steps at his Maw Maw's house. But, it wasn't always fluid. Sometimes it would sound something like 1, 7, 3, 10.

This happened so often that I started doing the same thing - in public.

For example, in my haste to try on clothes in the changing room I told the store worker I had 6 clothes to try on. "See," I said, as I flipped through the outfits, "1, 2, 7, 6."  The woman looked at me like I was nuts for a minute. And the only thing I thought to say was "That's how my toddler does it." She burst into the laughter and said her toddler does the same thing. "1, 3, 2, 9!" she said laughing, as I walked back to the changing room a little mortified.

And as for colors, every now and then, when he feels like it, he will tell you the right color for whatever it is you point to. However, some how or another, he has decided to create a new color called "blue-pink".

He's sees this color everywhere. "That's blue-pink!" he'll say and point into the air. And I look all around for it, but I don't know which one it is. And when he asks for a popsicle, he asks for the "blue-pink" one. This is always a dilemma because I don't have either blue or pink, so I hand him a purple one. He doesn't ever correct me though, which I think is pretty thoughtful since he seems to know exactly what it looks like.

Father's Day

We spent Father's Day with Ham's favorite person in the world. Together they went swimming in the backyard pool, chased each other through the house on their car and trains and spent Sunday morning watching cartoons.

Ham (I) made a special mug for Dad that came with a spoon to mix his coffee.

 

Then Ham and I took a road trip to the country to visit with his grandparents. We spent our days picnicing by the pool, swimming and riding on the four wheeler. Ham had a pretty good dose of the country life.



By the end of the week, we were back at home and getting into our summer routine. We spent Friday morning coloring the sidewalk while I sipped on coffee or as Ham says, "Mommy's foffee".

I drew flowers while Ham scribbled and drew circles. I asked him if he wanted me to draw him and he said, "K.". So I drew a stick version of him. As I drew, I told him that he had two arms, two legs, and two feet.

I turned back to my flower for a minute before Ham tapped me on the shoulder to show me what he had drawn.

"Yook Momma, Poo Poo."

 

The stick version of Ham had gone number 2. The ready-to-potty-train mom in me wanted to draw a toilet next to it. But I held back, because I figured we'll save potty training for next week.

Choo Choo Train

Living near a train can be irritating if you trying to get across town and get caught by it or if you live so close to it you hear the horn blowing each and every time it passes.

Fortunately, it's not loud enough to be annoying for us. It is loud enough though to send Ham into a complete frenzy in which he grabs my hand and tries to yank me out the door every time he hears it.

It can be mid-conversation, in the middle of dinner, while reading a story, or in the middle of bath time. It hardly matters. Ham stops what we are doing and we listen to the train with astonishment.

And of course the frenzy begins where Ham attempts to peel us away from the task at hand and launch us into a full-fledge train chase down the street.

It's not happenin'.

Not when he's bathing, not when I'm cooking, not when it's a 100 degrees hot outside.

The one time, we chased the train down and watched the last cart go by, I carried a kicking, screaming Ham home because he wanted to continue to follow the train.

So to keep him happy, I tell him to go see if he can see it through the window.

It feels cruel because I know there is no way he could ever see it from there, but that's the only thing I can come up with for now.

He says, "K!" and takes off for the living room, scales the sofa and smashes his face into the window while he waits in anticipation. Sometimes I wait there with him while it passes and I pretend to be as excited about trains as he is. We sit by the window wondering when it will show up. When it doesn't Ham looks at me and says "All gone choo choo".

When it gets cold outside or I start running marathons, we'll chase that train down I promise.

Wuff you

I planned on organizing my classroom this morning, I even asked my mom if she could watch Ham in the morning so that I could do so in peace. The last time he came with me, he was - at times -  very helpful. But mostly, he was very bored.

Later in the night, I thought better of it and I called my mom to ask her if she would keep him while he napped so that I could spend the whole morning with him. I could always run to school while he slept at her house.

So this morning I woke him early, made a huge breakfast for us, watered the plants and headed to the Children's Museum.

It had been a long while since our last visit.

We shopped in the kiddie supermarket, Ham cooked me brunch in the café, and he made a Father's Day gift for his dad. When we left, he showed little defiance and we headed to the car without any sign of the two year old total meltdown. It was nice.

We talked about all the buses we saw as we strolled down the street. And when one giant truck blocked the sidewalk, Ham yelled at it to "Mof truck!" as if he had some say in where it should be.

It was nice to walk down the same street with Ham that I use to when I worked down there years ago. I remember catching my reflection in the gallery windows as I hurried to grab lunch and staring at my very pregnant belly in those last few weeks of pregnancy.

I hoisted Ham into his seat and started to buckle his straps. While I positioned him in his seat, I told him how proud I was that he didn't cry or scream when we left and that he did a really good job. I told him to give me a kiss before I closed the door. He reached over and planted a kiss on my face and, without hesitation, said, "I wuff you."

"You love me?" I said shocked. He's never said it before.

"I wuff you." He said nodding.

Even though it took him so long to say it and other new words and phrases have come and gone, I'm glad he picked right then to say it the most unsolicited, spur of the moment way, because I knew he meant it.

Frostop

Today, I scheduled two dreaded doctor/dentist appointments for Ham and a trip to the grocery store all in the same day. I figured that all of these situations would be rough because they involved shots, teeth cleaning and a really long grocery list. So I jam packed them all in the same day to get it over with.

Expecting a two year old to behave through all of this is a lot to ask, but I was pretty surprised.

It's only been a recent thing, where Ham shrieks when he doesn't get his way and it doesn't matter where we are. You would think that being the somewhat shy kid that he is, he would avoid making such a statement in public, but on the contrary he's blissfully unaware of everyone who stops what they are doing to stare.

I always act busy like I have no idea that my son's volume has reached an ear drum splitting volume. I calmly scan the shelves like I'm thinking hard about whether we should get organic canned tomatoes or the regular stuff, but I can feel the piercing eyes of those who want me, for the love of Pete, to do something about it. But truth be told, toddlers know they have you hostage when your cart is full and they know there is no real place for time out in a grocery store. It's a hostage situation that can only be remedied with cookie bribery.

Today, when he tried to heave his body out of the cart, I'm ashamed to say I told him that I saw a dog running around the store and we had better go see if we could find it. He sat back in his seat and started looking down the isles. This kept him entertained for quite a while.

The things you do.

But today there were no screams, just lots of bribery and of course the dog search.

The doctor/dentist visits went smoothly too.

At one point as the dentist cleaned his teeth, she remarked at how good and well-behaved he was. "Whatever you are doing, it works," she said.

"Lots of discipline," I said smiling and thinking of the cookies I gave him a few hours before.

We ended the last doctor visit with a shot that Ham barely flinched for.  The doctor led him down the hall for his sticker. She gave him a Thomas the Train sticker and as soon as she handed it to him, he asked for "Another one choo choo". He placed one on each side of his shirt.

On our way home we made a quick stop at Frostop for French fries and Rootbeer float which made Ham so hyped up on sugar that he walked around dancing to the 50's music that was playing with a big grin on his face.

It was the perfect end to a busy day.