Month: September 2013

We spent a lovely Sunday afternoon visiting the Prospect Park Carrousel. Since Theo loves the S (Shuttle) Train, he was excited to take it the two short stops to the SE end of the park where the carrousel is located. We had a bunch of tickets that my Dad bought when he was here back in July that we had yet to use. It was a nice family trip. Theo went on the carrousel three times. Once with Daddy, one time with Mama and once with all three of us. We watched Daddy go by himself the first time around as Theo was warming up to the idea. He used to love it, and then recently he decided the music was too loud. He got his bravery anyhow and decided he could ride it while covering his ears. He thought it was pretty funny and awesome. We grabbed an iced tea and I bought him one of those pinwheel toys that blow in the wind. A nice way to wind down our weekend.

Theo has brought home a new song for us from pre-school.

He will “work” on the computer and say, “I’m working here. I’m working hard for my family”. Even filling ice trays the other day he claimed was his “job”. This guy really wants to be put to work!

“You make the best peanut butter toast with honey.”

When he’s pooping, often he’ll say, “This hurts my feelings.” 🙁

Every time we eat a meal he asks, “Is it hot?”, “Do you think it’s warm?”. He’s awaiting that perfect food temperature so he can dig in.

When Jay took him for a haircut last weekend he told the barber, “Just a little trim”. He meant business.

He loves to say, “Ladies and gentlemen!”

“Where is the freakin’ bus?” And, also… “shit”. I’m really sorry. Somebody help me clean up my potty mouth. And the “f” word. I promise, promise, promise to be better. I gave him the business about my big mistake saying these inappropriate words. “What will happen if I say it?”, he says to me. I just list pretty much everything he enjoys. No TV when I’m cooking dinner, no juice and no going to the skeeball game or the crane game. That seemed to work for the time being.

Theo had his three year well check-up today. He is still excited about visiting the doctor, which is nice. It was a big visit. At three, in addition to the usual height and weight measurements, you get to have your blood pressure taken, your hearing checked AND your vision tested. Theo passed the hearing and sat quietly when she said no moving or talking. The vision test was my absolute favorite. It was about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Theo stood flat against the wall, and covered each eye on his own during the test. They have a chart with shapes and images, as opposed to letters. As she pointed to the images, Theo shouted… “heart! boat! star! coffee! (it was an image of a mug) moon! and my personal favorite, zero! (it was a circle not colored in)”. Anyhow, he passed that with flying colors.

Theo’s height: 40.5″ (off the chart!)

Theo’s weight: 33 lbs (64%)
He gained 2 lbs in the past six months and stayed in the exact same percentile

He also had his final round of his Hep B vaccine that we have been catching up on. He saw it coming a mile away and took it like a champ. He did NOT want any stinkin’ band aid, but he did say that it hurt and gave his best pouty face. And talked about it later. He got a cherry lollipop, of course. He was so sweet with his doctor and so sweet with the ladies at the front desk. “Hi, I’m so glad you could be here today.” A little charmer.

Tonight he kept talking about his doctor. Saying her name, making sure he had it right… “Dr. THO-lany, is that her name? I love her sooo much!”

So far 3 is a major handful (read: I’m exhausted) and it’s also spectacular and amazing.

We found an apartment and signed a lease today. I’m nervous and excited and can’t wait to move in and decorate. Mostly I’m just glad we found something. The rental process here is painstaking and can be extremely frustrating. Pair that with busy people with a three year old who don’t have a car or the time to run around town looking at apartments that end up being crappy when you see them anyways. After losing a place a couple weeks ago that I really loved to a couple who got their application in quicker, I came prepared today with everything we needed. Needless to say, we did it. We move in October 1st. We will have access sooner so it will be nice to get some painting done and some early moving of some of our stuff. It’s way on the other side of Prospect Park. The southwest side, near Theo’s preschool. A whole new world to be explored.

Now on to packing! Hooray!!

We celebrated Theo’s third birthday on Saturday. He chose Coney Island for his birthday this year, not surprisingly. It’s the first year he can really make the decision for himself and he really loves it there. We invited all of his closest pals, and a few of our closest non-parent friends. He was so excited. We had absolutely perfect weather.

He woke up to the “Happy Birthday Theo” pennant banner I made for his party last year and a pile of presents in the living room. He walked out of the bedroom and said, “wow, this is amazing!”. Before that though I woke up to him laying in bed saying, “is it my birthday now?”. When I said, yes, he said, “I’m three today!”. I said “happy birthday” and he said “thank you”. It is exciting to see him now fully comprehend the birthday and age concept. We spent the morning opening gifts and playing with new toys. He chose Penny House for bagel sandwiches for breakfast and we enjoyed a leisurely time there. We had a nice neighborhood walk to pick up some last minute party needs and wound up back at home to bake the cake and nap. Theo helped me with the cake batter, and with using the hand mixer for the icing. He requested strawberry cake with vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles. It was really the rainbow sprinkles that were adamantly insisted upon for months. It was a triple decker cake and turned out beautifully.

Jay put together great party favor bags for the ten kiddos that were to be there and we stopped off for the requested orange balloons on our way to the train.

We set up camp on the beach and met our friends. Theo ran around on the beach with his big cousins until more people arrived. Kids had goldfish and juice boxes we brought and many people bought hot dogs and french fries from Nathan’s. Jay gave each kid a 5 ride card and everyone went off to enjoy the rides. I held down the fort with a couple other Mama’s and let Jay take Theo on rides with everyone else. They mostly stuck with his two friends, Ayla and Emma, and their parents and I’m glad Jay got to spend time with all of them since it’s usually me.

Jay went on a ride with just the girls after Theo chickened out and hung back with Shia. I will post more photos once I have collected them from Shia, our resident photographer Mom friend, who had her amazing camera there to snap photos.

Around 6pm, everyone met back up and we relocated to some tables (thankfully) that saved us from the insane wind/sandstorm and from the fact that the sun was now low and it was quite chilly on the beach.

We all gathered around, sang “Happy Birthday” to Theo and ate cake. Theo was so tickled and happy. Cake was delicious and the kids were able to run around this little enclosed area safely. Theo wanted to let the balloons go at this point so we all watched the kids enjoy this activity.

Most people left and we got Theo on the Wonder Wheel for his first big ride! He was a bit scared as it started out but we reassured him we were all riding together. I also then realized all of the lights were on and how amazing it was going to look from the top of the wheel. I pointed this out to Theo and he was thrilled to see all the lights of Coney Island and the ocean. He asked, “is it going to go down slowly?”. Thankfully, although the stationary cars do go up pretty high, it is very slow and you only go around twice. It was a hit and a great family ride for all. Happy 3rd Birthday Theo!!! We love you to bits and pieces and hope your birthday was a memorable one.

Theo: You have boobs.

Me: Yes, I do.

Theo: Why do you have boobs?

Me: Well, all women have boobs. They are for feeding milk to your babies.

Theo: What do men have?

Me: Men have penises.

Theo: (long pause) Men have muscles. (obviously he was only thinking of the chest region since we have had the penis/vagina conversation at great lengths)

Me: Weeelll, true, men do have muscles where women have boobs but women have muscles, too (showing him my very muscular biceps). Men typically have more defined muscles. I assure you though you will see women who have big muscles sometimes, as well.

Theo: Do all women have boobs? Yes, all women have boobs but all women don’t choose to have babies to feed them with so they won’t make milk.

Me: Make sense?

Theo: No.

Theo loves the song, “Five monkeys jumping on the bed”. On Friday afternoon we were watching a bunch of different video versions of the song when we stumbled across this gem. He was laughing hysterically, as was I.

This morning Theo had a “playdate” at his new pre-school. It was an hour and a half scheduled orientation of sorts to get the kiddos acclimated to the space, the teachers and the other classmates. This morning he started to show signs that he was a bit anxious. Totally expected and normal, of course. We validated his feelings and focused mostly on our exciting bus ride to get there and how he was going to take a ride to the park in the wagon with his teachers. He said he wanted to sleep, which of course he would never really say he wanted to do at 9am. I told him to pick some of his favorite books for the bus and that he could snooze on me on the way if he wanted. As soon as we got comfy in our seats on the bus, he lied down on me.

We just stayed quiet for awhile and I stroked his hair. Every so often he would ask, “is this our stop?”. As we got a bit closer he seemed to perk up and was excited again. Once we got off and hopped in the stroller, he was rearing to go. “Where’s my school? Is that it?”, as he pointed to random houses. Once we got there he remembered the little house that we visited many months ago. We were a bit early so we chatted with a couple other parents and kids as they arrvied. The teacher came down at 10:00 and said hello and let us in. Theo quickly hugged her legs and bolted for the stairs. He took off his shoes right away, as we had discussed previously, and began exploring the space. He came over to me a few times asking me to watch him play, which I could do a couple times until I was busy with the other teacher getting the whole low down with the other parents. The head teacher was fantastic about getting him distracted and stimulated by an activity as I was of course looking and listening with one eye and ear. Theo asked to pee and I showed him the bathroom and told him after that I would be giving him a big hug and kiss and would be back in an hour to pick him up. Parents were to spend about 15 minutes before saying goodbye. I wandered to a coffee shop for a quiet half hour or so before returning to see how it was for my big boy. Once again I chatted with several other parents as we waited on the porch for the class to return from their walk. We saw them coming down the street in their colorful wagon and my heart just exploded with happiness.

(Theo is pulling up the rear!)

As they got closer and Theo saw me he shouted, “hi Mama!”, with the happiest smile on his face. Once they parked, I went over to get him out and he said, “I had a really fun day!” (it had only been 1 1/2, but still). He was happy. We hung out on the patio for awhile longer, chatting to other parents and kids, and then we strolled to a cafe with two other Mom’s and their sons. All of the kids got sparkly star cookies and I got some lunch for us to eat on our way back home.

Our bus ride back was great and most of the day he talked about things he liked at school. In bed tonight he said, “I just love my teacher sooo much”. He has a lot of love to give, that Theo. We will see how our first real pre-school mornings go next week.

Here’s to new beginnings!

As there continues to be gorgeous days, we will continue to enjoy the many local activities that we love to frequent. However, according to the cycle of things, Labor Day officially marked the end of summer and the start of a new cycle. I’ve always marked this as the end of summer, too, as our school schedule growing up always began the week following Labor Day. I still can’t wrap my head around those that start much sooner, and I’m thankful we live somewhere that follows that same mentality. How can one begin school when it is still August?

Anyhow, last Friday we took a bus down to one of our favorite places: Brooklyn Bridge Park. We visited Pier 6, where the awesome Water Lab is, several times this summer. We realized, though, that we hadn’t gone to the Pop-up Pool at Pier 1 the whole summer. We visited a few other city pools, but not that one. I planned with my two mom friends, Shia and Maddy, and we met there that afternoon after a much needed early nap. We got wristbands, swam our session and then headed over to the Water Lab for more fun in the sun. It was such a great afternoon and really pleasing to see Theo with his two friends, Ayla and Emma, who he has spent time with since he was born. How great is that? They all turn three within 2 weeks of one another. Amazing how time flies.

Theo and Ayla

Theo playing in the sand after our swim

At the Water Lab

Tickling Devin, Shia’s new(ish) baby

And tough Mama Maddy with Ayla, Emma, Theo and her new baby, Corinne, strapped to her

Here is to another great summer in Brooklyn. We all look forward to the changes that lie ahead. I think this summer had particular meaning for me, for all of us. Next year, next summer we will be a family of four. This special time with Theo is so wonderful and our bond is strong. I know we can make room for a little lady who will show us how to love just that much more.