Secret Identity

Rafal has been away doing some training for the Air Force...Tavish is really noticing his absence now and so Rafal sent us this picture of him so Tavish could see daddy in uniform (doesn't he look serious!)...

I show the picture to Tavish and he says..."daddy's a pirate!"

Hmmm...I didn't know there were pirates in Texas...

Where is...

Spring???

momma ain't happy...

This weekend was a soldier weekend...
Once a month we have soldier weekends at our house where Rafal goes off to be a soldier for the military and I soldier on at home with a crazy two year old. These weekends are usually a little trying, this one was exceptional...not in a good way! It started Friday night...Rafal surprised me by arranging for our friends to watch Tavish for a couple of hours so we could have a date before we took him to the airport. They claimed to have fed him a turkey sandwich for dinner...all I know is he was wide awake at 12:40 at night and stayed that way until about 3:30 in the morning. I think they spiked his food with something so that we would never ask them to babysit again...anyhoo, of course then I couldn't fall asleep until 5:30 and of course Tavish woke up promptly at 8:00. The first thing he did was knock over my favorite lamp and break it. Then because I was too tired to take him out anywhere, we put together the new wagon we got him (consequently there are some washers misplaced and it kind of rattles, but two hours of sleep and a two year old helping) and went for a walk. He was very excited about "my wagon!" until we got about half way around the block, then he wanted to get out and be carried. He is over 33 pounds, I am not carrying him around the block, that's what the wagon is for...so lots of screaming on both our parts (well, mostly him) and we made it home and went straight down for a nap. I needed to run to the store in the evening because we were down to the last two rolls of toilet paper and I still have flashbacks to my childhood of there never being enough toilet paper and not discovering that until you already needed it. So off to the store we go...they have these nice shopping carts with a little car on the front for Tavish to sit in. We only needed a couple things and I was trying to hurry because the nap didn't really improve either one of our temperaments...and I hear a kid running down the aisle behind me shouting "mom!" and I'm cranky and thinking who is letting their kid run around in the store? Then I look over and it's my kid! So now I'm freaked out that he climbed out of the cart without me noticing and mad at the same time. More screaming on his part as we check out because he doesn't want to be in the top part of the cart now and I most certainly do want him there so I can have a visual on him at all times. He's better once we get home, but I think he has a radar that lets him know when I'm ready to lose it because just when I'm at that point then he starts to behave better. Off to bed early, but not really early enough, and I got to enjoy cleaning the whole house for the rest of the night. Sunday's another day but they are always just awful anyways with church smack in the middle of lunch and naptime, thank goodness for nursery. And thank goodness Rafal is home and soldier weekend is over...


This is at the start of our walk...happy boy sitting nicely in his new wagon



This is our post-walk photo...no shoes, climbing out like he's been sitting on hot pokers and I know you can't really tell but there is a certain glint in his eye and it's not a good one...

SeaWorld

Rafal was invited to go to a conference that just happened to be right at SeaWorld in Orlando, so Tavish and I tagged along so we could thaw out a little from our seemingly endless winter here in Virginia.


Tavish's favorite things about the hotel:
1) the elevators...the hotel had glass elevators so you could see everything in the central atrium where there was a waterfall and aquarium
2) the mirrored closet doors...he discovered he has nipples :)
3) the pool...all the way there he kept talking about the pool even though I had only mentioned it to him once



The best thing about SeaWorld...flying dolphins! They really should call it Dolphin World. Forget Shamu, I've seen more entertaining orcas in the Bering Sea, but these dolphins were amazing. At this pool you could get right up to the edge and lean over and touch them as they were swimming and playing. Poor Tavish reached as far as he could and would say "c'mere dolphin!" but his little arms weren't quite long enough. Of course he wanted to get in the water too so I had to hang on to him for dear life.




We saw lots of fish and in this aquarium for some reason after he looked at these fish he would run around asking "where's the wions?"




So we went and saw some wions...sea wions that were just waiting to be fed.




We got to pet stingrays (a little on the slimy side)...




...and watch some flamingos practice yoga...look this one is in tree pose.




Tavish got to ride his first carousel...how cool are these fish? And when he saw the big roller coaster way up high he said "I wanna go on dat!"





We had a lot of fun moments and not-so-fun moments (screaming at the top of his lungs all the way across the park because he didn't want to be in the stroller-he would try to slide out the bottom and say "right back"). But this is the moment I want to remember...

a glimmer of hope...

Unbelievable as Rafal put it...
A first really...
This was the first time getting off a plane with Tavish where I haven't had to fight the urge to start binge drinking...
The first time Rafal didn't declare "we're not having anymore kids!"...
It was actually...ok!
Maybe we timed it better, maybe it was because he had his own seat for the first time, maybe all the planets were in perfect alignment, who knows but maybe we will actually want to take him somewhere again!



This is Tavish's present for being a good flyer, he even calls it his present and had to sleep with it the first night we got back.

naughty monster...

He has been very busy at our house. Apparently taking the binky was just the first of many things he has been up to...just ask Tavish. Any untoward event in our house is immediately attributed to the monster, he even came on vacation with us and stayed in our hotel room! Where do you get monster repellent? I'm not willing to go the dog route as Adelia suggested...who wants monsters and a dog??? And Tavish isn't afraid of the monster, he actually seems to be enjoying him a little too much!

monsters...(with a little lisp)

Tavish is still on the binky (I'm over it however) and this morning I couldn't find it only a short while after I had given it to him. So I'm looking all over the house, which is not that big so where could it be really...when out of frustration I ask Tavish where his binky is...his reply (he didn't even have to think about it)..."monsters took it". Great, now we have monsters in the house...