Toddler Paradise

I know, I know, it's been a long time. You thought I was gone for good again, didn't you?? Nope. Just very sick. The kinda sick that just won't go away. And, fun fact: prescription medicine doesn't do jack for me. Yes, I understand the irony of my mom being a pharmacist and my husband being a doctor, but I kinda think the whole pharmaceutical world is a crock. Vicodin, percocet, cough pearls, cough syrup with codeine... crap crap crap crap. They do nothing for me. Good or bad. I just feel nothing. Anyway, After weeks of coughing, congestion and even an episode of laryngitis, I think I'm finally on the upswing of things. Certainly not 100%, but I (think) I see the light at the end of the tunnel! Whew!

Anyway, it occurred to me today that I must live in toddler paradise. At least Solomon paradise. Seeing low-flying airplanes, trains and buses on a daily basis are the main reasons he gets out of bed in the morning. Well, and bananas of course. I think we would all combust if he didn't get to see all of those favorites on any given day. So, it makes me wonder, if I was raising Solomon in a different area where we didn't get to see trains, planes and automobiles (errr, buses) all the time, would he be miserable? Or would he accept that as his life and look forward to something else suburban kids see daily?

One good thing about living in an urban area is the plethora of toddler activities I can do on any given day, should I actually have the time. In less than 10 minutes I could be at a number of different parks or playgrounds, the children's discovery museum, Happy Hollow (which is what I really don't know how other parents live without), libraries with story time, numerous indoor play gyms, etc etc etc. But this isn't what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about is sometimes when the weather is bad, I need Solomon to play by himself so I can chill out, and I'm afraid the discovery museum will be too crowded, I'll take Solomon to the mall instead. He's usually happy in the stroller for a bit so I can walk around and pretend like I'm getting exercise. There's plenty of people watching, which we both enjoy, and lots of food, which we also both enjoy. We can go up and down the escalators a million times in a row (this is only for his enjoyment), and even go to their toddler play area for him to run around like a wild man.

Now, I don't go here very often, but I'm here enough to understand that some parents have an extremely loose interpretation of the word 'toddler.' Some kids there are way too old, way too rambunctious, and way too unsupervised. There were a couple kids there yesterday that got my blood boiling a little bit, but one 5-year old in particular.

There's this little slide-like thing Solomon spends most of his time on. He was climbing up it, and I'm not sure if he was checking his balance or what, but in the process touched this little 5 year old on the shoulder. Now, it was in no way a push, or causing any discomfort to this older boy. Biut apparently he took great offense to the touch. He immediately pointed both fingers as guns and starts pretending to shoot Solomon multiple times, right in front of his face. He turns to his friend and starts laughing and complaining how the baby touched him, meanwhile I'm simultaneously stunned, watching incredulously at the boy's 4 family members sitting silently not 5 feet away, and moving over to intercept. I wasn't 10 feet away, but by the time I got there he was shooting Solomon again, with sound effects. Now, I'm pretty laissez-faire, 'kids-will be kids' about a lot of things. But pretending to shoot my baby in the face with finger guns is not one of them. And letting your kid shoot a baby in the face with finger guns is not one of them either. I let all of them have a piece of my mind. The boy looked stunned. The parents just shrugged. I was kinda half-expecting some movie-scene moment where the other parents started clapping for me, or speaking up one way or the other, or... something. But no one seemed to care one way or the other. Sigh.

Anyway, last weekend we drove down to LA because Gerard had had his first weekend off (yes two full days in a row off!!) for the first time in maybe 6 months. So that was reason enough for us to go to LA. Maybe I'll post more about that trip later, but in an effort to keep with the theme of toddler paradise, I'll say that we found the. coolest. park. ever!!!! I had just downloaded Mom Maps on my Ipad, and this was one of the closest playgrounds to our hotel, and had a good review, so we tried it out. Woooowwweeeeee! Awesome, large play structures. Just really cool and interesting things to do, a huge sand area to play in, large animals to climb on top of, some huge rocks to climb on, a grass slide, rock abacus... it was just awesome. If we ever move to LA I insist we will be within walking distance of this park. It's as cool as any thing you'd pay to bring your toddler to. Solomon managed to turn my camera into this crazy setting, but luckily I finally figured out how to turn it off.

Random Musings...

.. because that's what I'm supposed to do on this blog

*I realize this might be an 'uh..duh' revelation for most of you, but how amazing are frozen vegetables??? I waste way too much money on vegetables that go bad before I get the chance to cook and eat them. And I waste way too much time chopping up and preparing vegetables. Why? Whyyyyy??? I've been getting some vegetables frozen for while, but recently made this great discovery of sliced mixed peppers, diced onions, etc etc in little frozen bags. I don't know if I didn't know these vegetables came frozen, since I typically picture frozen peas and corn, or if I just wasn't thinking in those lines or what, but I consider this revelation life changing. Just as healthy, less money, less waste, less time. I'm sold.

*Solomon's in one of those spurts when he's saying new words every day. One of his new words today is 'tickle' (or tih-toe, because he assimilates all of his words). He'll run up to you and say tih-toe, then laugh and laugh until he says stop! then he'll run away and regroup for a couple seconds before coming right back for more. Repeat x100.

*A less fun new word is move. Always accompanied by pushing. Rough translation: Get out of my damn way, woman!

*It really breaks my heart when we're on a walk or something, and Solomon waves to people and they don't wave back. I have to assume they didn't see him, because he is completely irresistible and who can ignore an irresistible baby waving at them? No one. That's the definition of irresistible. But he doesn't understand that yet. Which is why he also tries to say bye-bye to people after we close the door leaving wherever we were. So it just makes me sad that Solomon's charming efforts are going unnoticed, and the last thing I want if for him to give up and stop trying to say hi to people.

*Solomon loves dip. Whether it's ketchup, hummus, spinach artichoke, salsa.. whatever we'll let him have, he'll eat what we're willing to offer him. This is how I got him to start loving chili, also. He won't eat it with a spoon. But offer it with a tortilla chip and he'll go to town. What's awesome is that he'll rarely actually eat whatever he is using to dip, though. He'll just take the pita, chip, veggie or whatever and dip, suck off the dip, then dip again. Until it crumbles from sogginess or accidentally dissolves in his mouth. Jerry and George would have a field day with him.

*Less cute is his random tantrums around clothes changing. It's been constant recently. He refuses to the umpth degree to get his diaper changed or clothes changed. I see him do it with relatively little protest for Leila (daycare lady), but with me you'd think I had needles in his eyes and bees stinging his toes. Yes yes I know what you're thinking: distract him with a toy! Make a song out of it! Blow on his belly! If you're thinking anything so ridiculous in your head you are obviously not grasping the degree of this problem. We are talking well past what a toy can save. We're talking holding him by the legs so he's not head-first off the changing table. And physically restraining him on the floor so he doesn't run away. If you unzip his pj's in the morning he'll grab desperately at the zipper trying to pull it back up, or put the dirty diaper back on his penis that will help. Oh maybe he's cold, you say. Hah! Again, you don't understand. Putting on clothes is no better. Once you pop a shirt of his giganto-head, you'd think the worst of it was over, but he'll pull it right back over his head before you can get an arm through the sleeve. Pants are really epic battles, because he can get one foot out of the pant leg before you can get the second foot in. So usually he's in his pjs on the weekends until after his nap, and then just in a diaper and shirt the rest of the afternoon. It's awesome.

Solomon's *real* dad

Every pregnant woman dreams of the child they will soon have. When we found out I was expecting boy, I dreamed of a sweet baby boy, followed by an active little boy, eventually growing up to be a man. I've realized now, however, that I don't actually have a baby boy, or even a little boy. I have a monkey. It's unclear whether he recently turned into a monkey, or if he was always a monkey masquerading as a human baby (early evidence strongly supports this theory), but it is evident now that he is indeed, complete monkey.

Why, you ask, do you think Solomon is a monkey? It's apparent based on multiple observations:

-The kid literally wants to eat 5 bananas a day. I try to only let him have 2 or 3, but I'm convinced if I only offered him bananas for the rest of his life, he would be content. Banana was one of his first words (top 5). As a random side note, anyone in his life knows he has a very particular way he insists on eating his bananas. You must take it completely out of the peel, break it in half, and give him both halves, one in each hand. This is the only acceptable way. If you leave the little stump in the peel of the banana, for the love of God don't let him see it. He will insist you take it out. You should just put it directly in his mouth. If you put it in front of him, he will spend maybe 30 seconds trying to pick it up without dropping either of his banana halves. Then he will just lean forward and try to eat it right off the table with his mouth, pie eating contest style. Moving on...

-The monkey sound (oo-oo-oo-ah-ah-ah) was his first animal impersonation

-He is an active climber. I know that toddler boys are supposed to be, but I think he takes it to a new level. If I'm sitting he climbs on my back and head. If the fridge is open he tries to climb up the shelves. If the dryer or dishwasher is open he tries to climb inside.

-Up up up! Or bounce bounce bounce are his favorite words.

-He is also obsessed with swinging. He loves to swing. There are 4 swings at our favorite playground and he insists on trying out each and every one of them, right in succession.

-At a little gym class we went to last weekend there was one of those swings you have from your arms with. Oh the tantrum we threw ending that...

-He has no fear of heights, or climbing or swinging. No sense of caution whatsoever

-He is super curious. Wants to get into everything.

-He is incredibly mischievous, and loves to do things he knows he's not supposed to (These last two analogies are based on the monkey stereotypes researched and reported on by H.A and Margret Rey)

I'm sure there's more, but you'll just have to take my word for it. He is pure monkey... Now how do I break the news to Gerard??

Alahyuuu

Solly just said Alayyuuu to Gerard and I!!! Happiest mama, right here.