The Small Family     

Well, this week started out with a holiday for Chris--Memorial Day! And we had a fun day of it. I took most of the day off as well, so we both went to Theo’s Little Gym “Show Day,” which is essentially sort of a “graduation” to the next term. Chris hadn’t been to a Little Gym class in months, and he was really happy to see how sociable Theo has gotten and how much he enjoys the class. In fact, he’s a bit of the class clown these days. He loves running in the circle with us during warmup, and then he’ll stop and do an impromptu dance for everyone. He also loves to hang on the parallel bars, and he’s pretty good at the balance beam, too. But his favorite things are balls (he frequently stages break-ins of the ball closet before it’s ball time), bubbles, and stamps. For the longest time, he was terrified of the stamps the kids get at the end of each class, but now he’s a stamp hound, and he’s first in line for his stamps after every class, and then he proudly displays them all day.

“Show Day” also means parents are allowed to bring in cameras and take all the pictures they want, so we did just that. Chris was the head cameraman, while I played with Theo and helped him with the activities. So when you look at this week’s album, you’ll get to see a day in the life of Little Gym’s “Beasts” class. (Theo will move on to being a “Super Beast” when he’s 2 1/2…though some days I would argue that he’s already a super beast! Kidding, of course, but he does have his moments….)

We also made great progress at floating this week. For the past two weeks, Theo has been fighting Miss Monica every step of the way. When he stops fighting her, he floats. But when he fights, he inevitably splashes water in his face and starts to sink. And all I keep thinking is, “Child! Stop sabotaging yourself!” Because the minute he settles down, he floats like a cork. He’s just letting his feisty little temperament get in the way. But on Wednesday, Theo suddenly decided that he liked Miss Monica again, and he was very cooperative on Wednesday and Thursday, earning much praise and many stickers from me and Miss Monica. Alas, now we have a two-week break due to our trip to Oregon, so hopefully we won’t be back to Square One on our return.

So what made the difference? Well, it may be that Miss Monica finally found something interesting to talk to him about. She always talks to the kids as she works with them, to try to relax them. But lately, Theo hasn’t been at all amused by anything she talks about. Until Wednesday, when I mentioned that we had been to a hotel the previous weekend... Theo has been obsessed with the hotel ever since, so when Monica brought it up, he suddenly relaxed and started talking to her again…and hence, floating.

So what is it about the hotel? Well, one of Theo’s favorite books lately is Big Dog, Little Dog, by P.D. Eastman.  And in Big Dog, Little Dog, Fred and Ted (the titular dogs) stay at a hotel (aptly named “The Small Hotel”--ha!). And Theo has thus decided that any building two stories or taller is a hotel, and Fred and Ted must be staying there. Now, we have a lot of two-story and taller buildings in Roseville, so imagine this: Every time I drive anywhere with Theo, we pass multiple buildings. And each time, he yells from the back seat: “Dog dog dog!” And he repeats this until I acknowledge, “That’s right! A hotel for dogs!” Then he loudly announces, “Ish! Ish! ISH!”, which is his way of telling me that in a hotel, there’s an elevator button that you can push (“ish!”). And this goes on until I acknowledge, “Yes, honey, there’s an elevator button that you can push.” And then he proclaims, “Phone! Phone! PHONE!” until I acknowledge that yes, hotels have phones in them (that he loves to play with--thank goodness they are easily unplugged!). And then he bellows, “Show! Show! SHOW!” until I acknowledge that yes, he watched a show last time we were at a hotel. (America’s Most Wanted. That wasn’t intentional. I put on the Disney Channel, and he pushed the button and changed the channel. I didn’t notice because the volume wasn’t on very high, but Chris came out of the bathroom and said, “Why is he watching America’s Most Wanted??” Ack...not exactly toddler-friendly programming!) And somewhere along the way, he will usually throw in, “Fred! Ted! Fred! Ted!” to let us know that Fred and Ted stayed in a hotel.

I find this all very cute and sweet, actually, but I have to admit that I have literally had to acknowledge these same phrases at least thirty times over the past week. I feel like a broken record! But, I do think it’s very cool that Theo is now speaking enough to actually tell us a progression of events--a little story, if you will--even though it would take Chris or me to translate: “Dog dog! Ish! Ish! ISH! Phone! Phone! Show! Show! Fred! Ted! Fred! Ted!” into something meaningful for anyone else.

In the world of words, Theo now seems to have about five verbs that he uses consistently: fly, eat, cook, work, and play. I’m loving this, as he can now put short phrases together instead of just throwing random nouns at me. And it may be no coincidence that Mr. Chatty has been a much, much more cheerful boy of late. We’ve had very few tantrums and timeouts this past week, and it has been wonderful! I’m hoping the ability to communicate has made a major positive difference in Theo’s mood. If nothing else, it’s been a nice break from some days  of many tantrums that occurred not so long ago.

But that’s the only respite I’m getting. Lately, I’ve had terrible insomnia. I always have insomnia to some extent--in 20+ years, I could count on both hands the number of nights I’ve slept through until morning without waking. No joke. But sometimes it’s worse than others, and lately it has been really, really bad. So most nights, I retreat downstairs to the couch, because I find I sleep better down there, by myself, in dead silence. Well, it should be dead silence…except when one of Theo’s toys suddenly comes to life for no explicable reason.

One night this week, I was snoozing away on the couch, when suddenly I heard a loud voice proclaim, “LET’S GO DIG UP SOME LETTER BISCUITS! WOOF WOOF!” I nearly jumped out of my skin, until I realized it was one of Theo’s beloved LeapFrog toys. Yes, the same toys that taught our boy the alphabet. I love these toys because Theo loves them so dearly…but I was ready to throw Scout and his damn letter biscuits out the window at 4:00 A.M.!!!!! Just what an insomniac needs--to be woken out of a sound sleep by a freakishly cheerful dog wanting to look for letter biscuits. Sigh….

I actually think the corner is haunted, anyway. Back when Theo was an infant sleeping in his Pack-n-Play in the living room, and we were camped out on the living room floor, one night I awoke to find a fire blazing in our gas fireplace. I woke Chris up and asked if he had turned it on. He hadn’t…nor had I. At least, neither of us had consciously turned it on. It’s possible that one of us was sleepwalking and did it, but Chris has never sleep-walked, as far as he knows, and I rarely do it. And to do it, I would’ve had to get up, walk over Chris without stepping on his head (nearly impossible, given the tiny size of our living room), maneuver around the couch and end table, and flip the switch. Given that we never use the fireplace anyway, I think that scenario is highly unlikely. So the corner must be haunted; that’s all there is to it.

Our week ended on a good note, as well. We had a pretty relaxing weekend. On Saturday, we went to downtown Sacramento, to beautiful Land Park, for the 2010 Doggie Dash. This is a free event sponsored by the SPCA. If you want to participate in the 5K run/walk, there’s an entrance fee, with a portion of the proceeds going to the SPCA. But if you just go for the rest of the festivities, as we did, there’s no admission fee. And it’s a really fun event. They have, among other things, many dog contests (best dog trick, ugliest dog, agility contests, and the ever-popular pug races). Naturally, whenever possible, I try to attend the pug races! This year they had something like six or seven heats, but we only watched two. (It was rather hot out.) Still, it was fun to see. We haven’t entered Luna because it requires two adults, and then there would be no one to keep an eye on Theo. So instead, the three of us just go and watch the other pugs race. It’s really quite amusing to see the owners attempt to get their pugs to run in semi-straight line. You’ll see in one of the album photos this week that one pug didn’t quite get the concept…. Besides the pug races, we enjoyed walking around the park (much of which is shaded) and seeing all the dogs. There were a ton of pugs there, but also lots of Boston terriers (another favorite breed of mine), lots of doxies, lots of Chihuahuas, and  a surprising number of Great Danes. We even saw an Old English sheepdog and an Irish wolfhound!

Afterward, we had some tasty Greek food for lunch, and later in the afternoon, we started Operation Green Lawn. For the past two years, our yard has been somewhat neglected. We’ve kept mowing the lawn whenever it needs it and doing some basic pruning and weeding, but with Theo it has just been too hard to get much of anything done. This year, however, Theo is a very willing helper out in the backyard, so we’re able to spend a lot more time out there. And thus, we are getting our yard back into shape. We’ve both done some major pruning and weeding. Chris has spread new tanbark (mulch, for you East Coast folks!). I’ve put in a couple new plants. And the latest endeavor is Operation Green Lawn--an effort to get our lawn back to the lush, green oasis it was pre-Theo. It has gotten rather patchy the last two years. Some parts are nice, soft, green grass, and other parts are dry and yellow-y and quite thin. So, we raked out all the dead grass we could, and we plan to spread grass seed on Tuesday evening, before we leave for Oregon. That way, it has an entire week to start to take hold before Mr. Theo is back home and tromping all over it again. We’ll see whether this works. I’d prefer to avoid fertilizer if we can, since Theo spends so much time playing out there. I don’t like putting chemically things down when I can avoid it.

Sunday, we decided some more free outdoor time was in order, so we headed over to the UC Davis Arboretum. On a spring Sunday, it was nearly deserted, and Theo had a great time running around after the ducks and exploring. We stopped at Crepeville for lunch, and Theo was delighted to eat pretty much all the black olives off of my salad, as well as several pieces of bell pepper and a bunch of tomato pieces. Oddly, he preferred my salad to the delicious Crepeville home fries (which are a lot like French fries). That was a bit of a surprise, but hey…if he prefers the veggies to the fried potatoes, who am I to complain?!

The other thing I did this weekend is make our reservations for our late-summer trip back east. As I mentioned a week or two ago, all that extra work we did means we met our travel budget goal, so we’re off and running! Buffalonians, here’s the scoop: Mom and I are flying out with Theo on Tuesday, August 31. Chris flies in to meet us on Friday night. And the four of us will be leaving on Monday morning (Labor Day--whatever day that is--Sept 6??). So, Mom, Theo, and I have five full days in town this year! (Chris only gets a couple, which he’s kind of bummed about, but he has an accounting class Thursday nights, thus his flight out Friday morning.)

I’m not sure whether any of the Philly folks read our blog, but if you do…we’re planning to arrive in Philly Monday night and stay until Thursday morning. I told Chris to check in with the Philly folks to see whether any of you will be around during that week--we’re hoping we'll get to see you!

And Thursday morning, we drive out to western Virginia, to visit my Aunt Sally and Uncle David for several days. Theo may drive Uncle David crazy by asking him “Wha’ dat?” about every single plant and shrub at Kendal (where they live). Ha! They're supposed to have a neat safari (drive-in zoo) near them, complete with lemurs, so I'm really looking forward to that. And they don't live far from Natural Bridge, which is a great place for a walk (and supposedly has graffiti from one George Washington carved into the "natural bridge"). I really liked it when I visited some years back, and I'm looking forward to having Chris, Theo, and Mom see it, too. I think they'll enjoy it. 

And Monday the 13th, we fly back out of Charlotte, NC. I’m pretty excited to get to see a wee bit of NC, actually. I have a goal to visit all 50 states in my lifetime, so the fact that the best/least expensive flights were out of Charlotte was actually a real plus. But anyway, more “back East” trip details later….

So as I mentioned, we’re off to Oregon this week (bright and early Wednesday morning). The forecast is looking rather dismal, but hey…it’s Oregon. What can you expect? Wednesday we’re driving to Medford (southern Oregon), where they have not one but two children’s museums! One is a science center that gets great reviews and looks to have an excellent tot discovery area, so we hope to hit that on Wednesday afternoon (we should arrive around lunchtime). We’ll spend one night there, then head to Bend (almost dead center of the state), with a stop at Crater Lake on the way. I’m crossing my fingers for some sun at Crater Lake, so Chris can see how beautiful it is with the blue sky reflected in the water. After one night in Bend (which has a great high desert museum that I think Theo will really enjoy…assuming we don’t get rained out), we’ll head almost due west to Newport, where we’ll spend three nights at the beach with Auntie Lisa, Uncle Chris, and Ava (their golden retriever). The house we rented is literally right on the beach, so our backyard will be the Pacific Ocean. Can’t beat that! I’m hoping for some decent weather so we can take Theo to play on the beach, but you never know in coastal Oregon. If nothing else, Newport is supposed to have a wonderful aquarium, and I’m sure we’ll make a stop there.

We drive toward home Monday, with another night in Medford (and hopefully a visit to the second children’s museum). And then we’re home on Tuesday. So, there will be no blog next week…but the following week, expect many, many pictures and stories from our grand adventure! Until then…happy June!

Addendum: After posting this week's blog, I got some cute iPhone video of Theo attempting to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" on his own...and relating a little bit about the infamous hotel for dogs. Check out the newest video on our Videos page!