The Small Family     

Ah yes, the weekend of our first overnight away from Theo! But before I get to that, what a week we’ve had…

Monday was rainy and icky, so Theo’s float lesson was canceled. So instead, we went to Little Gym. Theo had a great time in class, as always, but the funniest part was after class. I’ve mentioned on here a few times Theo’s lady love, Miss Ally Beasley. She was a fellow Wallypog (a.k.a. float student…now a graduate) and was in Theo’s Little Gym class last fall. The two of them would occasionally engage in some toddler flirting, which was quite cute. Well, on Monday, Ally arrived for her class just as we were leaving. I said, “Hi Ally!” and she just kind of started at me for a minute, then went up to Theo and threw her arms around him and gave him a big hug. Theo looked rather bashful and then fluttered his eyelashes at her and smiled, and when I took him out to the car, I said, “Ally, huh? You like her?” and he made kissing noises at me. SUCH a Casanova! Good heavens, my son is a ladies’ man at age two….

After Little Gym, we met Janeane, Emma, and Jamie at the mall for a stroll and some kiddo playtime. So Theo got to see another lady friend as well, and he was quite pleased about that. :-)

Alas, his suaveness with the ladies only goes so far. At float class on Thursday, Miss Monica was trying to distract him, as he was NOT overly thrilled about “jumping” into the pool from the step. So she pointed out a pair of twin girls (who happen to be just three days older than Theo) who were getting dressed from the pool. Their mom was putting them in little sundresses, and Monica said, “Theo, look at the girls! Don’t they look cute in their dresses?” Theo looked at them and said politely but pointedly, “No.” So Monica said, “NO? Are you sure? What about you? Are YOU cute?” and Theo just said, “Hmmm,” and smiled, as if to say, “Of COURSE I am, you crazy woman!” Perhaps young Theo was just playing hard to get with the twins…

We also had fun with baking this week. Theo is afraid of my electric hand mixer. I’m not sure why, but every time I use it, he screams and cries. (I think maybe it’s the sound, but who knows?) So I decided that maybe if I included him in the baking, the mixer would be demystified and not so scary. And what fun we had! I was making chocolate chip banana bread, so I gave Theo a bowl with flour, a spoon, a whisk, and a chunk of mashed banana to play with. Oh, and a few chocolate chips, which he promptly ate and then asked repeatedly for more! The kitchen was pretty much covered in flour by the time we finished, as was Luna (he threw some flour “to” her while baking--which of course landed “on” her instead), but he had a grand time…AND didn’t cry when I used the mixer. He also helped pour the vanilla and lemon juice in as I was mixing ingredients. And afterward, he kept running to the counter for bites of the banana bread. He always likes the banana bread when I make it, but he doesn’t ask for bites. This time, he kept running over and asking for it. I think he knew he made it and was very proud of himself!

I have been very proud of him this week, too. Two out of three days, he did great at floating class--very little fussing and some good floating from the boy! He even earned stickers for his troubles on the two days he did so well. (And the other day…well, we all have bad days now and then.) And we had one potty success as well, so he got a sticker for that, too. Potty training is a slow process, but I’m still pleased with his progress. He only goes potty maybe one time out of every fifteen or so that he sits…but at least he will sit on the potty contentedly for up to half an hour at a time, just listening to books. (This blows my mind, because this is the kid who will not stop moving usually. Yet somehow, put him on the potty, and he’s content to listen to stories. He doesn’t do anything on there, but he’s content. And having heard horror stories of kids who wouldn’t even go anywhere near a potty without shrieking, I’m just really happy that he doesn’t seem to mind sitting on it. Besides, it’s kind of relaxing to just sit and read books.)

The little devil surprised me again this week, too. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that he suddenly learned all his letters and numbers up to 13. Well, evidently, he not only learned the capital letters, but also lowercase. We went to the park one evening this week, and there’s a sign with all manner of rules and regulations on it. Theo is very interested in this sign and is forever pointing to the letters on it and babbling to me about them. So I started asking him to point out letters, just because I was curious whether he could identify any lowercase ones (a lot of the sign is in lowercase). And indeed he can! This doesn’t surprise me with the lowercase letters that resemble their uppercase counterparts, but it did surprise me with lowercase letters that look nothing like the uppercase ones. Son, you never cease to amaze your mama…

My Mom has often told me that she thinks the neatest time with a child is before they go to school. She always liked watching us learn things on our own, before we went to school and had the outside influences of teachers and other children teaching us various things. And now that I have a child, I definitely see what she means. Theo’s development is a constant source of fascination for me. I don’t have any schooling in child development or early childhood education--all I have is knowledge I’ve heard from fellow parents or things I’ve gleaned from books and other sources. So really, this is all new to me…and it’s so neat! I just really love watching where Theo’s mind takes him. Like almost all kids, he’s inquisitive by nature, so it’s fascinating to just sit back and watch what catches his interest and then see how that develops. Lately, it’s letters and numbers and colors.

Oh, and apparently he knows his shapes, too. This, too, was news to us. He has some shape books and of course blocks and such, and we play with him and read to him, so he’s had some exposure to shapes. But we certainly haven’t drilled him on them, so we were quite surprised Friday morning when he correctly identified all but one of the shapes I pointed out in a new book we got him. (The one he missed was a heart, and he identified it as a V...which I actually thought was rather fitting, since a heart does kind of look like a bubbly V.)

That’s the beauty of it to me--Chris and I are very much on the same page when it comes to children learning. We both believe very strongly that at a young age, kids should be kids and should be allowed to play and explore. We’re not the type to put our child into a highly academic preschool, for example, or to push learning specific things at a young age. We figure there’s plenty of time for structured learning when he gets older, and for now, we want him to be a kid and explore where his interests take him. So when you have that sort of desire for your kid, it allows you to just sit back and watch it all unfold, and it’s really just so, so cool. The toddler brain is truly amazing!

But enough on toddler brains…let’s move on to tawdry gambling towns. Well, sort of. Reno isn’t tawdry in the style of Vegas, but it’s sort of a poor cousin. Nevertheless, Chris and I have a slight soft spot for this poor cousin of Sin City, given that I lived there for six months in the early part of our relationship, so it was fun to go back for a night.

Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom arrived around noon on Saturday, and after a short visit and debriefing, we took off for Reno. (I don’t think Theo even cared that we left, so busy was he with his reading with Grandma Kathy.) Normally, to get to Reno, you just stay on the interstate and head northeast for two hours. But since we were on no time schedule, we took a slight detour and drove along the north shore of Lake Tahoe--beautiful! This also meant we drove over Mount Rose into the southern part of the Reno area, which is a much more scenic drive than the usual I-80 jaunt.

Our first stop was at a large outdoor shopping plaza. It was early afternoon--too early for dinner, and we didn’t feel like going gambling. But one luxury we don’t often get to do is shop. Neither of us is a huge shopper, but it’s something we rarely ever do now that we have Theo, since Theo hates shopping with a passion. So Chris was in sore need of some new T-shirts and I was on the hunt for a pair of summer shoes to replace my shabby ones from last year. And what relaxing bliss--we wandered slowly around the shopping center for two hours with no one wailing at us to leave. Chris found seven new T-shirts (he is so nicely outfitted now!), and I had success in the shoe department as well, finding a nice pair of brown summer shoes. We even stopped for an iced tea and a cookie midway through and just sat and enjoyed being able to relax!

After that, we headed to Café de Thai for an early dinner. We used to go there when I lived in Reno, and it was probably our favorite place in the city. And oh, it did not disappoint! We split lobster and crab spring rolls and a cup of blue crab soup for an appetizer, then split seafood fried rice and short ribs in peanut curry sauce for dinner. The seafood fried rice is usually our favorite thing there. They use a lot of really fresh seafood, and it’s just delicious. But this time the short ribs trumped it, and I am now inspired to try to make short ribs some night. They were absolutely delicious--I think I could’ve licked the plate clean if I was more uncouth!!

After dinner, we headed over to the one of the casinos that has a small comedy show we always enjoyed going to. And it, too, did not disappoint. The first comedienne was relatively funny, but the headliner was laugh-out-loud hysterical!

Then it was time for a bit of gambling. Neither of us is a huge gambler, but it is fun to play the machines for a bit. So we split $20 between the two of us and played for about an hour. We left with $5 of our original $20, so not a bad loss. (Neither of us has much luck gambling, so we’re always prepared to lose whatever we bring! The next morning, though, we put that last $5 into a dollar machine, and I won $15. So we ended up only $5 behind for the weekend--yay!)

After our brief stint at the machines, we headed to the Chocolate Bar--another favorite Reno haunt from my days living there. It’s a rather upscale, hip bar, so Chris and I felt rather dowdy and out of place, but the truth is that they have delicious drinks and desserts, so we haul our frumpy, old selves there whenever we have the chance! I was planning to get my usual chocolate martini, but then we spotted a plain old chocolate milkshake on the menu, and I decided to try that instead. And oooooh, yum...was it ever good! Chris had a mojito (also tasty), and we split a piece of chocolate croissant bread pudding (absolute heaven!). Then it was back to the hotel for sleep for Chris and tossing and turning for me (insomnia has been awful lately…ugh).

Sunday morning we slept in until 8:30 (definitely can’t do that with Theo!) and then headed over to the Dish Café, which we saw featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives a couple months ago. They’re supposed to have delicious breakfasts made with lots of locally grown, organic produce, so we were pretty excited to try it. Alas, it turns out they’re only open Monday through Friday.

We have a sort of informal rule that if we get to eat out without Theo, we’ll go somewhere that we can’t go with him…which pretty much means most sit-down restaurants. (Like most toddlers, he gets very antsy at restaurants, so we really just don’t even try them much with him. Sometimes we try them for lunch, but never dinner. It just ends in chaos….) So, I said, “Well, I’m not just going to Starbucks for breakfast--we can go there any day with Theo! Let’s find something else.” So I pulled out the trusty iPhone and typed in “best breakfasts Reno.” Lo and behold, every site seemed to return “Peg’s Glorified Ham & Eggs” as a must-eat spot for Reno, so we headed to Peg’s. And oooh, it was tasty. We both had bacon and eggs with toast and hash browns--which you can get anywhere, really, but it was indeed done very well at Peg’s. I’m a big fan of crispy bacon, and they did not disappoint. Plus, the eggs were cooked just like my dad used to make them, which pleased me. :-)

And after breakfast, we headed home to our boy, who by this point we were quite eager to see.  He got a great report from Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom--a couple mini-tantrums, but no hitting or spitting, and nothing to warrant a time-out. Yay, Theo! They apparently had a lot of fun taking him out in the backyard and for a walk around the neighborhood, as well as on a trip to Lowe’s to get Chris a birthday present (a gift card to Lowe’s). And Theo enjoyed sharing Grandma Kathy’s chicken for dinner Saturday night, as well as having her read countless books. We had wondered a bit about separation anxiety, since Theo has never been away from us for more than three or four hours at a time, but he did just fine.

One last funny bit before I sign off: On Saturday morning, I kept telling Chris, "It's so easy to pack for just the two of us! Throw a spare shirt and stuff in a bag, and we're good to go!" We're so used to packing for a toddler that it just seemed ridiculously easy to pack for just ourselves. Yep...too easy. Saturday night, Chris realized he had forgotten to pack a pair of socks. And Sunday morning, I realized I had forgotten to pack underwear. Sigh...parent-induced amnesia strikes again. I can remember to pack half the house for a toddler, but I can't remember to pack a pair of underwear for myself! Pathetic...  

All in all, though, a great weekend. I think Theo and his grandparents had a good time, and Chris and I certainly did too! Hope you are all enjoying May as well!