The Boy is 2!

My sweet love, the light of my life, my pride and joy turns two today.

He loves piggy back rides, grapes and Peter Rabbit(Peta Bunny). He says "Mama helps you," when he needs help and "The Boy helps you," when he can do something himself.
He likes reading his books himself because he knows what happens by now, but sometimes he lets Hubs or I read to him. He loves cars and trucks and all things that move but seems less impressed with bugs and other boy things. His best buddy is his kitty and his favorite thing to say is, "Hey kitty, whatcha doing?"

I could write forever about the wonderfullness that is my son. I am so grateful to have him in my life and cannot believe it's already been two years since he came into it.

Happy birthday my love!

The Grass Is Always Greener

We live in the super hot desert to the east of Los Angeles. During the summertime The Boy and I get out and about in the evening and early morning, remaining mostly housebound between 10am and 5-6pm.

Two years ago, swollen, heavily pregnant and incredibly cranky I noticed very little of the outside world.

One year ago I observed a reealllly pregnant woman using the relative cool of the mornings and evenings to walk a toddler - a year, maybe a year and a half older than The Boy - and a baby/toddler - approximately the same age as The Boy. She was huge, much bigger than I was when pregnant with The Boy, and struggling with maneuvering a trike and a stroller beyond the bulge of her massive belly.

She's now a svelte, gorgeous thing who I look on with massive amounts of envy instead of the pity I felt last year. Here I am, my gimpy self wanting another baby but barely able to manage the daily tyranny of The Boy whilst this gorgeous creature manages 3 kids under 4 with such aplomb. Grrr...

Anyhoo, this morning The Boy and I were out for our daily coffee with Grandpa. They had gone off for their walk/daily meet-n-greet when I saw my super-fertile, super-capable neighbor pull into the parking lot of the neighboring supermarket. She loaded up the two youngest into a stroller while the oldest, who's still pretty young, held onto her hand.

They ran into the store and re-emerged a few minutes later with a case of diapers and a tiny shopping bag. She strapped the kids into their respective car seats then turned to her stroller and diapers. Just then a guy was passing by in front of me and I saw him look around as if something concerned him. I then heard what was concerning him; a baby crying. Maybe even the cacophony of several baby's crying. He moved along then my thin, pretty, supermom neighbor looked up at me. At first I thought she was trying to place my face from afar but then, as her head lowered kind of dejectedly, I realized the look on her face was something else. Was she envying me ? Was me sitting there enjoying my cup of coffee in peace while my dad walked my only son enviable? It just might have been.

So now here I am, hiding from the heat with my one and only Boy, appreciating all that I have and harboring a new found respect for our neighbor.

Happy belated Father's Day!

To the best dad in the world

The previous holder of the title

And to hoping The Boy takes after his dad and grandpa

Thinking about toys

Before I move along to a post about the time we spent in London, I have to get some stuff out of my head about toys.

I've been thinking a lot about toys lately; wondering what to get The Boy for his 2nd birthday, thinking about what kind of outside toys would work on our little patch of concrete out back, debating the next level of educational toys to move to. That was all stuff I was thinking about before we went to the UK. Now I'm just wondering if we're depriving The Boy. I've never liked the idea of raising an over-indulged brat with a bedroom/playroom/house bulging at the seams with the latest and greatest of toys available. I've been thinking that he's got just enough, but not too much to be spoiled.

That was until we visited The Boy's cousins in England. Talk about toys galore! Toys all over the place. Outside toys, inside toys, kitchen toys, cleaning toys, train sets, tea sets, dollies, motorcycles, keyboards, pretend towns, blocks... I could go on. The Boy was in Heaven, and I was feeling like a miserly grump who only gives her kid lumps of coal to play with. And the kids we were visiting don't belong to particularly indulgent parents. Oof!

So does that mean I'm more of miser than a cool minimalist? Who knew toys could be such a cause for neurosis?

An Awfully Big Adventure, Part 1

My half-English son has, after 22 months, finally been to England. It was a short trip - a scant 12 days - but we made a triangle route around the country. We traveled to the West Country to Derbyshire to York and to Canterbury in our trusty VW rental before heading into London.

The Boy played in his grandparents' garden with his cousins, ran around his great-grandmother's house - taking great care to test her antique keyboard with his chubby fingers, he then played with more cousins before stomping around Canterbury and trying to wake Chaucer from the dead.

So here's The Boy in his grandparents' garden

And still in the garden, working with his auntie and cousins

Here's The Boy terrorizing his great grandmother

And taking his first turn on a scooter

And eating at Wagamama in Canterbury with his namesake

And enjoying a post-dinner walk by Canterbury Cathedral with his dad

That last one's kind of artsy, no?

Next up, London!

It's been a while since I've posted...

It's been even longer since I've posted piccies. In fact, the dearth of pics I have available to me make me realize how woefully slack I've been in taking pictures of my sweet boy. Boo. I must improve!

That said, here are 2 recent pictures taken of The Boy in all his beauteous splendor.

This first one is of The Boy, his mama and my mama. It's a rare pic of me in my gimp chariot, but as it was taken after our completion of the MS Walk I will allow such a pic to go out into the world. After all, how else am I to be expected to get through 5 kilometers without a car.

My mom's done the walk for a million years, but this is only the second year we've tagged along. Last year The Boy slept most of the way, but this year he was wide awake, walking with Hubs and catching rides with Grandma and I. So he earned his medal.

It was a good day, topped off by a big breakfast afterward.

Great leaps in language

Please excuse the alliteration, but I can't think of a better way to describe the last few weeks in terms of The Boy's language development. He's been mimicking like a parrot and saying two-word sentences like, er, someone who know how to form two-word sentences.

You can now have conversations with him, which is unbelievably cool. You can ask him something like, "did you enjoy meeting Grandpa this morning?" And he earnestly nods his head and says "yes!"

Then you can ask, "what did you do there." And he replies, "Bampa walk." Heartbreakingly cute.

And it's not just his everyday understanding and vocabulary that's improving. There is a cafe friend of ours who we haven't seen in nearly a month, he's called Tony. The Boy has never said this guys name and, as I said, hasn't seen him in like a quarter of his lifetime.

Well, today as my dad led The Boy off on their walk my son said, "Bye Mama! Bye Tony!" And went on his way.

I am so proud.