on being invited over... with a toddler.

So recently we were invited over by two different families, both have children who are older with their youngest being in middle school, both have known my family and I for a very long time and both invited us over for dinner... toddler and all. In both situations I was dreading the event.

 You see there is a difference between bringing a baby over to someone's home and bringing a toddler. A baby just sits there and can be passed from person to person and is fairly content with whomever is holding them as long as they are being rocked. A baby is fairly containable, you just have to be quick about catching the spit up before it hits the couch and mom is carrying dinner so they are happy.

A toddler is different. A toddler want to run, wants to explore, a toddler knows the difference between their parents and a, albiet well meaning, relative who wants to hold them. Toddlers also get unnerved fairly easily,  for no particular reason and it can take them a while to warm up to new situations and people.  A toddler is fairly impossible to contain and the glass and valueables in the home are in jeopordy of being toppled in the whirlwind that is your child until you leave. It's no longer about being quick enough to catch the spit up but anticipating the launching of every item that you place before them to eat. And speaking of eating they now eat real food, and since toddlers now have an independance that causes them to decide firmly what they will and will not eat and even though they ate a whole plate of pasta last night no amount of prodding or begging will get them to open their mouths today, you cannot possible bring 50 different options of dinner for them to pick and choose from, so you must hope that they will eat something that is provided. Along those same lines is the question of where they will sit and "eat" their dinner. You can't bring a highchair with you, so you imagine trying to balance a child on your lap who is only content when you let him play with the food on your plate while attempting to shove food into a moving target that may or may not be rejected and therefore thrown across the room. Oh and try eating yourself in the midst of all of that.

Like I said... I was not looking forward to it.

At the first dinner, it went pretty much exactly as I had dreaded. There was no place for my little guy to sit so he was perched on my lap as described above, the food was not toddler friendly and he was completely thrown off by a room full of people that he did not know well and who wanted him to hug them. There was nothing for him to play with and so he was bored and felt out of place and therefore crabby. It was a LONG night.

The second place, I was anticipating much of the same. Between the two family's my child had seen the first more often so, in light of the previous experience, that didn't bode well for the next family. Of the two dinners I thought the first would have been much easier to bring my kid to. 

However, the second dinner was quite a different experience than I expected. When we arrives they brought us into their family room which they had completely child proofed, and they had a basket of toys for my little guy. Upon seeing the toys my little guy got very excited and practically leaped from my arms to go and play. He was 100% more comfortable and happy because he had some where that he could be and things that he could play with. He had no trouble warming up to the group. They made sure that there were things at dinner that he could eat and even had a booster seat set up for him. It was so nice.

The difference between the two experience was as simple as a little time and thought. It was as simple as realizing that they had invited a toddler and doing a little extra to accomadate their guest, and for that I was SO grateful. It didn't take much just a basket of toys and a booster seat saved from when their kids were little but it made all the difference to us, and from this experienc I have vowed to remember. Remember what it is like to have a toddler, and to worry about them wrecking someones home. I am going to put away a basket of toys and a booster seat after my kids are grown for just such occasions. So that when a family with little kids comes to my house I can make them feel welcomed too.

on being old...

My husband took me to a Taylor Swift concert last night. This is where I realized that I am old. Gone are the days when screaming at the top of my lungs for 3 hours straight sounds like fun. I was done with the noise level about 5 minutes after we arrived and by the end of the night I just wanted to scream "SHUT UP!" Also the fact that the average age in the room was probably 11. Which just makes you feel like you accidently stepped back into junior high. Although I guess I should have expected as much. My only concelation is that with 7 years seperating us my husband is older!

Another note: I am so tired today from staying out so late that my child is in the other room emptying our entire dvd collection onto the floor and I am trying to care enough to stop him.... Nope too tired, I'm old.

on decorating for spring...

So a month ago we had a girls night and I started to make my Spring blocks and I am finally finished. I had issues putting on the embellishments and I ended up ripping off two of the letters because I didn't like where I had placed them, but they are finally done.

the other side says family but don't be surprised if it takes me another month to finish it.

I also made a modge-podged a bird house to match...

on taking time away...

So I have been saying for months that I would like to go on a vacation, a vacation minus one small child so that it actually feels like a vacation. I said this before we went with my husbands family to Hawaii. I said that we would have a much more relaxing time without him and I was dreading a 5 1/2 hour flight with my EXTREMELY active toddler. My husband said that he would do fine on the flight, besides it was a family vacation and he was afraid that I would have a hard time being away from the kid for that long. So, we ended up taking the kid and having a fun but not so relaxing vacation. On the way home, as our child had an emotional meltdown for all 200 passagers on the airplane to enjoy, my husband turned to me and said those three beautiful words "you were right".

Well a few weeks ago my husband surprised me by planning a trip to Santa Barbara for a night, just the two of us. It was going to be a short trip but I was SO excited. The day came and I put my child down for a nap gave my mother a 6 page list of everything she might possibly need to know in the next 24 hours (ridiculous... yes but it was the first time I left my child overnight and I don't know, I just started writing and the next thing I knew it was 6 pages...I don't know what happened), and I got into my car eagerly anticipating my mini vacation.

However, as I drove further and further away from my baby, my heart started to ache and my throat clenched as I tried to hold back tears and not arrive to pick up my husband from his office sobbing, and I knew that HE was right. I would have never made it through Hawaii. As I drove I tried to make sense of it. I was still so excited to spend time away, I did not want to take him on the trip, and I knew that my mother would smother him with love and attention... so what was my problem.

 This is what I finally came up with. I knew I would miss him, but I could handle that because I knew that I would be back soon. What I couldn't handle was the thought that HE would miss me. That he want me and look for me and I wouldn't be there and that he wouldn't understand. He doesn't have a concept of time or an understanding of leaving and coming back. Which is shown evertime my husband tries to leave for work and our child gets SO upset. He can't quite grasp the concept that although someone leaves they will come back. And that is what was killing me. I was afraid that he would notice that I was gone and not understand why or that I would be back.

We had a great time. We ate out and didn't have to worry about what the kid would eat, we walked around a lot with out having to push a stroller or haul half our house around with us, we went shopping without an impatient child in tow. It was great!

I realized though that we are in FULL baby mode. The whole time I kept catching myself planning out things that the baby would like to do. I saw millions of parks and places that he would have loved to run around. Every time we sat down to eat we seemed to be surrounded by birds (which is one of the only things that my child will watch for hours). And at 8 at night my husband and I were exhausted but we fought the erge to just go to bed since this was a baby free vacation with no bedtimes that we had to follow. We went to bed by 10:30, I still didn't sleep through the night in fact I found myself waking up listening for a cry that would never come, and we still woke up by 8 am. We are parents what can we say.

The next morning I called my mom to see how her night went and she said that the baby had slept through the night. Then she told me a story that she thought I would find cute and funny. She said that he had trouble going to sleep, when she laid him down and he stood right up and said "ma ma". (He doesn't say "ma ma" that often, he prefers saying "da da" and has for the past 10 months.)  I barely got off the phone before I started crying. I had this perfect picture in my head of exactly how that story had played out because that was exactly what I had been worrying would happen. I knew that he had wanted me, had needed me because only that would have prompted him to ask specifically for me. And suddenly I didn't need time away from him any more. Suddenly I wanted nothing more than to go home to my little baby to hold him and have him know that I was there.