It’s not all snuggles and giggles

It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that parenthood isn’t always bliss. It’s not always full of snuggles and giggles. I’m left to believe that even the most laid-back of babes can’t be an angel all the time. For the first year plus some months I thought I had one of those angel children. Now that we’ve entered the Toddler Zone, I know we’ve entered real life. This toddler stuff is what parenting kids is really about. Parenting a toddler is an exercise in patience and perseverance. It’s about making it out alive, with most of your hair. {Disclosure: I understand I’ve got more experiences coming that I can’t even fathom.}

I don’t mean to sound like I don’t have a super toddler. He really is more awesome than a mess of a little person. I just believe in being real about the experience. For example, yesterday morning I went in to get my favorite little guy. He was already awake so I was excited to see how he was going to start the day. {You can’t ever predict!} As I walked into his room he was standing at the corner of his crib holding his blanket. He looked up at me and his face crumbled. It literally fell. Tears and sobs immediately followed. I said good morning to him and turned on his light. He fell to the crib bottom and put his head on his blanket, continuing to sob. As I pulled out his clothes, he looked up at me. I tried talking to him again. He lifted his hands in question and said, “ere’s dada?” {Where’s dada?} I smiled at him and said, “you want daddy?” He perked right up and started standing while enthusiastically saying, “yah.” He let me pick him up and snuggled in for a hug. I can only assume it was to thank me for taking him to his daddy. Or maybe part of it was because he was secretly happy to see me. I just wasn’t part of his morning plan that day.

Instead of being heartbroken, I was thankful that Bryan was still home. He took over and got Maximus dressed. When they came back into the kitchen Maximus seemed happy to see me. I grabbed his favorite cereal bar and tried to take him. He wasn’t ready to part with his daddy so Bryan had to continue with the breakfast routine. Unfortunately, Bryan also had to sneak out of the house a few minutes later. As he was walking out the door he said, “I wish I could say good-bye to him. I hate sneaking out.” I guess it’s hard on both of us, not just the one who he cries at when he sees.

Every day, every hour, every minute is a new experience when you’re dealing with a toddler. Some mornings {most lately} are full of tears and stiff bodies. Other mornings are full of fun “conversations” and snuggles. While I’d still consider him a great toddler who has far more happy days than sad, he’s giving us a run for the money and trying our patience and strength on a daily basis.

Parenthood, man!

New toddler developments

It’s been really nice here lately. So nice that Maximus has spent a lot of mornings and afternoons outside at daycare. We don’t have many complaints about this, except when we have to convince him that he wants to get in the car seat instead of playing outside. Trying convincing a toddler that going home is a good idea. Yah, right! We’ve had our share of tantrums over the past month because we have to go inside, get in the car, or Mother Nature decides to throw in a couple of normal spring days. We’ve gotten into a good routine with outside {aka, side} and have learned not to use the word outside in any sentences unless we really are going outside.

Fun outside activities include:

• Sidewalk chalk
• Going for walks
• Pulling weeds {very poor helper despite his love of throwing things away}
• Watching daddy play softball
• Watching daddy mow
• Playing on the deck

It didn’t take Maximus long before he figured out how to close the sliding screen door to our deck. Bryan was going in and out of the house while grilling. Since the weather is unseasonably warm, there weren’t any bugs during the first warm snap. Maximus is a worker. He likes to have jobs and “help.” As soon as he realized that Bryan wasn’t shutting the door behind him, he took off across the deck as fast as his little feet would take him. With his head down in concentration, I thought he was going inside the house. He quickly stopped along the open door. With both palms pressed against the screen, he pushed and pushed and pushed until the door closed.

He turned around, clapped both hands, and grinned at me. Job well done, baby dude. This went on for about 10 minutes before Wrigley got stuck in a door closing job and was the only one in the house. Maximus let out a little sigh of surprise and pried his chubby fingers between the screen and the wall. I watched in surprise as he figured out how to open the door! {So much for taking things slowly!} What happened next is one of the funniest things I’ve seen him do. He had only opened the screen enough to let his body in, because that’s the wingspans of his arms when opening the door. He reached in with one hand and grabbed Wrigley’s collar. INSTEAD OF GETTING OUT OF THE WAY!

*Since this original development a month ago, Maximus has had a lot of practice opening and closing the screen door. He’s very good at opening and closing it. The glass door was too heavy for a while, but he’s since figured out how to close it. Thankfully he can’t open it yet. Locking it isn’t a question because he’s been unlocking it for months.

Little bodies fill my heart with happiness

Little feet shuffle past as he quickly runs to his next activity. Everything is an activity. Changing his diaper, throwing something in the garbage, getting his blanket, letting the dog out of the kennel. Every activity requires top level running skills. He’s worked hard to master those skills. Arms swishing back and forth in opposite directions of his feet. Cheeks jiggling ever so gently. Eyes cast downward in concentration. Run is hard work. It is very serious business.

On the off chance that he isn’t running somewhere, he walks quickly. With intent in his eyes. His right thumb in his mouth, unconsciously sucking away. His left thumb and forefinger are clutching the tag on the inside seam of his shirt. No more onsies for this toddler. He needs to feel the silky material of the tag beneath his fingers. He needs to touch it ever so gently when he’s moving or standing still thinking.

He takes a break from all the busy work to snuggle with his momma. He stops suddenly, slowly backs up until his feet touch her legs. Without glancing back, he plops down with ease and carelessness. The kind that only toddlers and children have for their parents. He knows no harm and hasn’t learned to trust carefully. The weight of his body falls into her lap. He leans his head back, sticks his right thumb in his mouth, and gently caresses his shirt tag with his left.

Our happiness level is soaring

I’m on my third week back at work. We’ve all gotten back into the routine of working parents. Maximus still favors Bryan, but spends a lot more time asking me to hold him. I realized last night that I am not contributing to the mornings. I’m getting up as late as possible and only getting myself ready. What’s life without a little room for improvement, right?! I suppose it’s a good thing that Bryan has become so used to taking care of me, Maximus, and the dog. Our new working schedule doesn’t throw him off his game too much. Some mornings he’s a little more frazzled than the rest of us, but I’m sure if I started helping that would change. {I failed at the get-up-when-the-alarm-goes-off thing this morning.}

Nights are much better now that I’m moving around. I suppose the 70 degree weather could also play a small part in my happiness level. We’re all enjoying some playtime after work and easily making supper {so far Bryan, not me!}. Some nights are a little touch and go with the crying, especially when you tell Maximus he can’t go outside. Toddler man LOVES the outside! It was probably created for him.

Something that has been helping our nights is the early bedtime. Maximus has been consistently going to bed by 7:30 for a week now. Like requesting it. I thought he was going through a growth spurt or something since he was eating ALL.THE.FOOD last week. Now I’m not so sure. He might just be wore out! Maybe he’s not getting enough restful sleep during his naps. Or maybe he’s like his mama and has decided he would like a little extra sleep. {Why can’t I figure out that I should consistently go to bed EARLIER?}

Basically, life is just really nice right now. We’re spending a lot of time together as a family and watching Maximus grow and learn every day. At least once a day we comment about something amazing he’s done. The words he says or the actions he makes, it’s so awesome to watch him grow into a little person.

Currently obsessed with "kets" {Blankets}

Getting back into it

I’ve noticed that my foot is improving my leaps and bounds lately. I’ve been wearing tennis shoes for the past few weeks, regardless of my outfit. Now that it’s nice out I’ve been itching to participate in flip flop season, but haven’t been able to handle the lack of support. I’m happy to report that yesterday I walked around outside barefoot and put on a pair of supportive-ish flip flops while I pushed Maximus up and down the street in his stroller. I’ve also been doing strength training exercises to boost up the support in my ankle in hops of running some day soon. I think the thing that really helped kickstart major improvements was a yoga class. I pushed the limits and really stretched my ankle out. After that I started noticing improvements in my limp and rangeability.

My goal for the work week is to wear shoes that aren’t tennis shoes. This basically means flats because I’m a little nervous about putting my foot into a skinny heel. It seems so scary and not wide enough to support a foot. {My how my views have changed! Ha!}

Tonight I rode {is that what I call it if it’s stationary?} my bike for 5.5 miles. We’ll see how my foot feels in the morning, but so far I haven’t noticed anything. There didn’t seem to be any difference while I was on the bike. I could tell my ankles didn’t move at the same rate, but no pain!

I might be able to run sooner than I think! Then again, if I’m going to play softball in 8 weeks I better get going!

{Hopefully} Final Update on my Foot

I am lame. And busy. Below is a status update on my foot, in the form of an email note to my staff and co-workers.

My doctor cleared me this afternoon!

He’s satisfied with my progress and doesn’t recommend physical therapy. It will take 6 months to a year to gain full mobility, but I can do all the stretching and strength building at home. I mentioned my fear about softball this summer and he told me I need to “train” for it. I need to build up the strength in my legs, ankle, and foot before starting up. He didn’t think I’d need to wear a brace or do anything special to it. Hopefully that will also help me move along in full recovery. He pulled all restrictions for shoe wear, but did tell me to continue wearing tight fitting shoes until my swelling goes down completely. He mentioned that my foot was more swollen than is typical from this injury so he believes I probably injured tendons and other parts of my foot. I’m also supposed to work hard on eliminating my limp. He thinks most of it is subconscious but some is probably from “teaching” my foot to not be completely weight-bearing.

All good news and I’m happy to put it all behind me!

Another post about my foot

Recovery. I got sick of talking about my foot. We all know I spent way too many blog posts whining about it. But, I couldn’t have those words in my head anymore. They had to come out, so thank you for suffering a long with me!

When I got my cast off and released back to work, I had a whirlwind of a weekend. I had all these hopes and dreams of WALKING! SHOWERING! DEEP CLEANING! CARRYING MAXIMUS! Instead, I got a full walking boot and quickly realized I was going to not be using the walking aspect of it. I couldn’t put any weight on it. It was like an electric shock sent through my foot. I limped out of the doctor’s office with my crutches carrying me. It was nice to take a shower, but it was anything but easy. Crutches as close as you can get to the shower, then crawl into the shower while being 100% in love with the bench that you have before despised.

After a week I was using the crutches to help me walk on both feet. I didn’t think I was making much progress, but at least I was putting my foot down. Then something happened and I realized that I needed to figure out how to walk without the crutches and boot. So, one Sunday morning I decided I wasn’t going to use the crutches when I got out of bed. I unsteadily walked into the living room with just my boot. I quickly realized that if I tried to walk normal, I didn’t have electric currents running through my foot. Babying my foot actually made it hurt more. So, that was the end of the crutches {Bryan still made me take a pair to work}. I spent a lot of that week not leaving my desk more than I had to.

This weekend was another one of those turning points. I needed to be able to drive and resume a normal life. I started by not wearing the boot at night. My foot was extra sensitive and hurt a lot on the tile floor, but I realized it wasn’t unbearable. Yesterday I wore tennis shoes for the first time! And I drove to pick up Maximus! I don’t have 100% range of motion back, but I’ve got more than enough to be able to drive safely and pain-free. I wore my tennis shoes for the second half of my work day today and only had a few mouth clenching moments. At the end of the day my foot wasn’t unreasonably swollen and I walked around the house without shoes. I even ventured out on the deck and went back and forth on the tile floor.

I like to push myself to the edge. I even thought I could handle a toddler sized walk! {It was that or continue to listen to him cry because he wanted to go outside.} While on our walk, Maximus started walking up someone’s driveway. I was nervous because of the slope, his speed, and the fact that their garage door was open. {Plus, I wondered if they were watching us!} I tried to quickly walk after him. I have no idea what I was thinking! Up until this point I had been steadily walking along, maybe even losing the limp. I basically slammed my previously broken foot down into the pavement and pushed off. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the walk home with a noticeable limp!

Now I’m sitting in the recliner trying to get the swelling to go down. It’s funny, I haven’t seen much of my ankle bone since I broke my foot, now I see a whole lot of it! I’ll do it all again tomorrow, but try to skip the high impact stuff!

Giant ankle is not normal

The post where I come back to the Internet…kind of…

Have you ever experienced a mind-boggling, earth-shattering thing? Throughout my life, I’ve experienced a few of those. Issues with friends, drama with family, etc. Well, I just went through one of those experiences that made me feel like I was trying to walk on water. Every step I took was wobbly and I wasn’t sure how far I was going to make it. Here’s something you might not know about me, I didn’t show it. I’m one of those people who keep it bottled up. My stance on life is that other people don’t need to deal with my issues. They don’t need to hear me complain about my life and how “bad” it is. So, I keep it to myself and trudge through.

I’m going to call myself a “hobby” blogger. What I mean is that I choose what aspects of my life come to the Internet. I choose to be cryptic and vague about my life-rocking experiences. I choose to tell you that I’m doing better. Every day is different and none can be predicted. I’m going to have my ups and downs, but that’s how life is. I’ll get through this and past this and the world will keep going. I choose to not give my whole self to the Internet. Especially at this time, when it’s all so HERE. I even choose not to share this experience with many close friends. Lately, I’ve learned that time makes the biggest problems seem more manageable. I can handle a little bit of breathing room before I decide if I need to talk my problems outs. Again, I’ve realized that I don’t need to bring others down with my sad stories.

I sit here on my deck in a t-shirt, jeans, and TENNIS SHOES on a sunny afternoon in the middle of March. I listen to the birds chirping and shush my dog so the walkers can enjoy their peaceful stroll around the pond. I don’t have it all together, in fact a few hours ago I had none of it together. A good conversation with my husband and some vitamin D are helping my perspective immensely.

I’m still “around” the Internet, slowly catching up on my Google Reader, checking in on Twitter at least once a day, and forgetting about my Words With Friends games for days. I’m not accomplishing great things in my non-Internet life, but I’m making it through. I’ll come back. I promise. It just might take me a while to get through this cloudy mess in front of me. I can’t ever promise that I’ll ever tell you what the cryptic tweets and blog posts are about, but every little sentence helps me in a tiny way.

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about writing. It was the reason I wanted to start a blog, but it feels like creative writing is the only thing I haven’t touched on. I don’t know that anything will change; the Internet can be a scary, mean world of people hiding behind computer screens. Maybe I’ll try my hand at something related to the seven weeks I spent on bed rest with a broken foot.

I have so many lofty goals for this life. How do you distinguish between the lofty and the attainable? Take more pictures, write more consistently, read more books, take better care of the house, decorate the house, do some kind of landscaping, make more homemade food, stop eating processed food, go to bed earlier, get more involved in the community, get in shape. This list is endless. How do I do it all or do enough to be happy with my accomplishments?

Stylin’ Cyclone

My life lately is full of this crazy character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who uses macaroni and cheese as hair gel.

Count by numbers

• 23 movies
• 2.5 seasons of Dexter
• 1 season of Mad Men
• 2 seasons of Entourage
• Countless DVR episodes
• 6 books {Hunger Games series and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series}
• 588 hours on the couch {estimate based on 12 hrs per day}
• 3 diaper changes {for Maximus}
• 10 times outside of the house {4 in the same week}
• 7 weeks on bed rest
• 20 frozen meals from friends
• 5 lunch dates with friends
• 0 cooked meals by my husband {thanks to our friends!}
• 5 internet purchases
• Hundreds of hours on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest
• 588 hours that the tv was on {estimate based on 12 hrs per day}
• 1 time driving using my left foot

Seven weeks of bed rest meant I had A LOT of time on my hands. Amazingly, it went relatively quickly, especially when I spent my days watching a tv series.