30

So my birthday was yesterday.  I'm 30 now.  I thought I was going to have a lot to say about that.  But I don't.  Maybe some thoughts will come to me later.

A cold day in July

The weather is just beautiful here today.  Not even into the 80's yet according to our window thermometer.  Emmett and I went to the park this morning.  Unfortunately the first two parks we tried had something going on preventing us from being able to play.  So when we finally reached the third park, we only had about 45 minutes to play, bummer.  But we made the most of it.  There was another mom there with an 8 year old girl and a 3 year old boy.  Emmett loved the other kids, especially the boy.  He definitely wanted to do whatever he was doing.  Which prompted him to get up the courage to go down the big slide.  And when I say "the big slide", I mean this slide is taller than I can reach.  When he started up the steps I got a bit nervous because the steps are too steep for him to go up alone.  Also, he's not very good at stopping and catching himself with his feet at the bottom of the slide.  And I couldn't be at the top and the bottom at the same time.  Finally I got him to sit down at the top and I said, "Wait."  He sat there and waited very nicely.  I climbed down and stood beside the slide to catch him about halfway and slow him down so he wouldn't slide off the end.  But then he just sat up there and wouldn't slide down.  I told him to push off and slide down and it was like he couldn't figure out how to get started.  Finally he pushed off and slid down.  His shoes actually slowed him down a lot and he probably would have been fine without any help.  I was really proud of him for getting up the courage to do that.  He went down the big slide a few more times today.  The hardest part for me was the few seconds that I had to leave him sitting up there at the top while I ran down to the bottom.  Once he tried to stand back up at the top and I just about freaked because he could fall so easily.  I told him to sit back down and he did.  He doesn't always listen because he's 19 months old.  But he seems to know when the situation is serious and he usually does what I tell him in those situations.  Maybe its something in my voice, in my face, I don't know.  I want to get some pictures of him at the playground sometime, but I find it hard to take pictures when I'm trying to keep up with him.  I guess we'll have to do it on the weekend sometime when Chris is there.  I don't have nearly enough pictures of us out doing things for that very reason.  I'm tired of all my pictures of Emmett being in our living room.

My driver's license expires on Tuesday.  Happy Birthday to me, get to go to the DMV.  I'm planning to go Monday after work.  Let's hope it doesn't take 2 hours.  I just don't want to have to drag poor Emmett along.  I'm sure that would be a peach.  Would it kill them to have any weekend hours?

Sunday is our anniversary.  To this day I don't care for the date.  No matter how hard we try, our anniversary and my birthday seem to become one event.  But in the summer of 2004, that was literally the only day we could get married.  But tomorrow night Chris's parents are going to watch him for us so that we can go out.  We were going to see a movie, but there's actually nothing playing we both want to see.  We will at least go to dinner at Johnny Carinos.

Forcing myself to blog

Its been forever since I last posted.  I know.  I won't make any excuses about how I've been busy.  That's not really true.  What I will say is that lately, when I have these few moments when Emmett is sleeping, this just isn't how I feel like spending that time.  But he's napping now, been asleep almost 2 hours, so I'm going to use this time.

In my last post I mentioned that Emmett's favorite word is truck.  Well since then it has blown up into an obsession with vehicles of all kinds.  My boys boy loves cars, trucks, and trains, both the toys and the real things.  His favorite toys are his Chuck Trucks.  He has a big one and a bunch of the little ones.  He runs them along the floor, along the couch, along the furniture, etc.  He lines them up to make trains.  He has a wooden train with blocks that can be rearranged and he loves that too.  We need to see about getting him some more trains.  I shudder at the thought of starting the Thomas The Tank Engine collection.  He plays with them at Barnes and Noble and loves them, but I just don't want to get to the point where we have to have every single train piece.  I do want to find him some kind of track to run his cars through.  We are probably going to get him a summer present since his birthday doesn't come around until November.  Poor kid has his birthday and Christmas within a month of each other.  And there really aren't any good holidays between now and Christmas.  So we've been shopping around for just the right summer gift.  Plus with the heat lately we are stuck inside a lot and he gets bored.  We try to get out of the house and do things in air-conditioned places as much as possible.  Which brings me to this morning's excursion.

I just started going back to the library because I ran out of new books of my own that I needed to read.  I finished the last one I got just this morning so I wanted to get a new one.  When I looked up the hours for the library I found that they were having kids story time this morning.  So I decided to see how Emmett would do.  When we got there they had music playing and the kids were dancing.  Emmett immediately joined in and had a ball.  So then it was time to start the story.  When the rest of the kids sat down, Emmett was still standing so I sat down on the floor and he came over and sat down on my lap.  The lady passed out bags with colored squares cut out of foam board.  She started by reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear and the kids were supposed to hold up the right color square for the color of the animal on each page.  Well playing with the little squares entertained him for a few minutes, and then he was done sitting.  He started walking around all the other kids and then he walked right up to the book the lady was holding up and reading from and got right in the way.  I had to go get him and try to get him to sit down with me again.  He was starting to get frustrated when she finished the book and turned the music back on.  She passed out maracas to all the kids.  Emmett danced and shook his maracas and had a good time.  But then he wanted to run around and get into things he shouldn't, like the CD player.  He tried to take a maraca away from a little girl.  I called his name and said, "No no," and surprisingly he left her alone.  A rare moment where he listened.  After the song the lady started reading another book.  He then tried to get into something else he shouldn't, and when I told him no he didn't listen and I had to physically pull him away.  Well he lost it and I had to carry him out screaming.  We got in the car and went home and I didn't get a new book to read.  I felt so bad taking him out because he was really having such a good time.  But I couldn't let him misbehave like he was doing and I wasn't going to let him ruin story time for everyone else while he screamed.  Another lady had a little girl about Emmett's age and she said that she just pulls her out during the story and takes her back in for the songs because that's really all she can handle.  I don't know if we'll try again next week or not.  He did almost fall asleep in the car on the way home.  I think he was awake a little earlier than usual this morning and even though he has given up his morning nap, he still gets just a little sleepy an cranky around 11:00 some days.  Story time started at 10:30 and when we got back in the car it was only 10:55.  So I am on the fence about whether or not we will try again next week.  To be honest, I was a little embarassed today.  I don't want my child to be "that kid" who acts up and ruins story time.  But I do want him to have a chance to be around other kids.  Otherwise how will he learn?  He gets to be around other kids his age on Sundays when we go to church.  But that's only once a week, and we don't even go every Sunday.  So I'm always looking for opportunities for social interaction with other kids his age.  We'll see when next Wednesday rolls around.

Next Tuesday is coming.  Less than a week now.  Most of the time I almost forget.  But if I think about it too much and open that door, I get a little freaked out.  Sucks that its on a Tuesday and I have to be at work.  But I have no way to justify taking the day off.  We're not going out to celebrate until the 23rd anyway.  I'm going to need a few stiff drinks.  At least.