Wanderlust

Vacation to do nothing in particular

It's probably obvious we've been too busy to post much lately. We've both been very focused on work and Owen. Today I took some vacation from work. Originally I was supposed to do some yard work and work on the truck. (Side story: We haven't used the truck much in the past 8 months. But recently it seems that the front end was loose. I finally lifted the truck off the ground and noticed the front right tire was very very easy to jiggle. So we took it to a mechanical to work on. The bearing was loose. Or should I say loose enough to have the wheel fall off. When the y called for the estimate, the guy asked if I drove the truck there. When I picked it up the guy said I should be proud of how bad it was. He was showing the bearing and hub to everyone and said it was the worst anyone has seen and he was surprised it hasn't fallen off before we dropped it off. So $800 later, we now have the truck back).

So today it's been cold and somewhat wet with rain every now and then. And since Owen has been sick, I decided stay home anyways to watch him while Kaz works. I've had a pretty good day. I'll been able to do some of my favorite things; read, play guitar (which I've been doing almost everyday lately), cook, and take pictures. Well I didn't really take any photos, but I went through a bunch I've taken in the past two weeks and posted them to my new flickr account. The picture on the right should lead you my photostream. I'm going to try to post alot of photos there to try to increase my skills and force myself to take and post more pictures. Unfortunately I tend to take lots of Owen pictures, but maybe that isn't a bad thing at all for some.

It's been really nice to have a day off that isn't a weekend. I didn't feel like I needed to do anything like I usually do on the weekend. I recommend to everyone to take a day off for no reason at all. And then do nothing in particular.

Letters to the O

Twenty-Eight Months

There's no doubt about it now. You are such a little boy. And it's not just because you seem to walk around half the day with your hands stuffed into your waistband. I feel somehow as if you began this month as an older version of the toddler I once knew. But each day has slipped past me, a thousand small milestones. And now you are irrevocably yourself.

You are entirely messy. Every time I looked at you this month you had smears of breakfast or stripes of dirt across your cheek. No matter how many times I washed and scrubbed, you always seemed crusty. And yet, while you are oblivious to any sense of yourself as a walking disaster area, you are acutely aware of and intolerant of anyone else's mess. After upending an open box of tapioca accidentally from the pantry, you spent nearly half an hour with a dustpan and broom, scanning the kitchen floor for the minute white pearls. A project that would surely have driven me insane in less than five seconds kept you enthralled.

You are also passionately devoted to your dump truck. You use it to haul your matchbox cars from room to room and even outside, where you stack them along the fence or under the slide and spend long hours imagining car conversation. The new nightly ritual is for you to gather all your cars in the dump truck. You drive them to your bedroom, then haul each one out, kissing it good night and calling it by name.

"Good Night, Shelby Cobra. Good Night, Monster Truck."

They are then deposited for a long, uncomfortable sleep on top of the bureau and immediately loaded back into the dump truck in the morning for another day of fun on wheels.

You have become stubbornly independent as well. And damn bossy. You recently discovered how to open the back screen door and let both yourself or the dogs outside. This has literally opened up a whole new world for you. One in which you can control whether or not you are outside. And like every kid since the dawn of time, you would prefer to spend every waking hour there, trolling around the yard. What's worse is that you demand that the dogs join you, no matter how hot or miserable they seem to be. If they dare to sneak inside against your wishes, you stomp up the stairs, swatting at them and pointing, demanding furiously that they "Get Owside!"

All of these blossomed mental and physical abilities have their pay off. I now know you are old enough to be called out on your bullshit. You speak in full sentences and actively negotiate every waking moment to manipulate what you want out of it. So trying to convince me that you didn't understand my simple directions for not throwing that toy down the stairs- kind of a long shot. But you're still at that magical age where counting works. And I don't have to have a consequence yet.
"I need you to come to the bedroom to get changed and you have until I count to ten to meet me there."
Typically by the time I get to 8, you come running. What happens when I get to 10? Dear god. Does anyone really want to find out?

You are now required to clean up on at least a daily basis, but for some reason you often refuse to pick up the plastic play balls that came with your tunnel set. Oh don't get me wrong. You love to scatter them about the room for other people to trip on and then leave. But getting all fifty of them back into the basket they came from? Such a nuisance. The other day I asked you to and you refused. I put you in a chair and told you not to get up until you were ready to clean up. You promptly got back up, turned to me and said,
"No, mama. I not clean up. You do. Mama do. You clean up. See you later."
And you ran down the hall.

Five minutes later you were picking up those damn balls. How does that work? I'll never tell. But let's just say the real secret is how I kept from bursting out laughing to begin with.

What?