Boomerangs and One Year Anniversary

I found the USB cable...in the small air vent built into the computer. I also found a pacifier and two business cards. :-) Anyway, here are a couple of the pictures from Boomerangs yesterday. My mission in life is to find places for Colin to play during these cold winter months and Boomerangs is probably my favorite so far. He is still too small to play in most of the bounce houses, but it is huge with a very long carpeted hallway between all the bounces that Colin must have run up and down 50 times. There was NOBODY there but us, so Colin was able to literally run until he passed out. They have a toddler sized bounce house and a toddler area with lots of things for him to throw, which is his favorite pastime. He laughed and had a blast, so I thought it was $5 well spent for sure! It is about 25 minutes or so from the house, which is not bad. We will be going back without a doubt. Here is the little man leaving me in the dust.

I also just passed an important milestone...one year at home with Colin. My last day at work was 1/11/08. I can't believe it has already been a year!! I can say without a doubt that I made the right decision for me and I would not change anything. It has been such a busy year...far more chaotic than I could have ever imagined and far more rewarding as well. I was so focused on my career for so many years that I would NEVER have imagined that I would get so much joy out of leaving it behind, but I do. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to rack up these days with Colin and I know that looking back on them will be precious to me for the rest of my life. Today, we had lunch together at Chick-Fil-A and then got new shoes at Stride Rite (7.5 wide! His feet are killing me!). When we got home, we spent at least 30 solid minutes playing hide and seek around his crib. Those are the little things that I want to remember...the afternoons spent playing with his trucks and running around Boomerangs with just the two of us. This has been the best year of my life.

But I am really tired. Did I mention that? I think that should be mentioned. :-)

The Black Hole

I would love to download the pictures off my camera. We went to Boomerangs today and Colin had the best time ever. I got a ton of cute pictures and video. Tons. I would really enjoy showing you, but the USB cable for the camera is lost. Why, you ask? Because Colin got his hands on it for about 2 seconds earlier this morning. I have torn the house apart. This means it is in the same place as the magnets for the child locks, 300 pacifiers, and 3,948 other items that I can't find. THE BLACK TODDLER HOLE. Do you think he has a floor board pulled up somewhere with a beating heart inside? (Poe reference just for my mom!) ;-)

Adorable and Tired!

How cute is my little man?! I had to snap these pictures this afternoon...I put his snack crackers on his table so that he could help himself and he pulled his chair out and sat down! I absolutely melt every single time he does this and I am so glad I managed to get a picture this time. He seems like such a big boy when he sits at that table! I also have a new development to report. Enzo (the worst behaved dog ever) constantly runs outside and starts barking at another dog through the fence. When I go to get him, I always chant, "NO NO NO, ENZO!". Well, today Enzo runs outside to bark as per usual and before I could get up, Colin ran to the window and said, "NO NO NO!". I fell to the floor with praise for him and he loved that, so he continued it all afternoon. He is obviously a genius. ;-)

There seems to be so much going on in our world and so little time for me to blog about it. Colin's sleep is still utterly out of whack and I am trying my best to get it back under control. I am having little success, but I am keeping the faith. He woke up this morning at 4:45, which is actually better than the day before. UGH. I think it has to do with his cold, his Daddy being suddenly gone, teething and growing pains. I have a trip to Tyler planned for later this week, as well as a trip to Austin to see Shannon, so I sure hope he gets better in the next few days. Traveling with a toddler is hard enough without being sleep deprived and getting up all night and then before dawn. We had our first major meltdown yesterday...oh MAN, it was bad! I needed some groceries, so we headed to Wal-Mart. On the way there, Colin started to fuss in his seat, which is rare. He normally loves the car unless it has been a long time stuck inside. We pulled into the parking space and I got a cart that was sitting right there and tried to put Colin in the front seat like always. He lost his mind. He arched his back, kicked his legs out and started screaming. I am talking serious screaming...like, "This woman is BEATING me, someone call the police!" screaming. It was horrible. He has never done anything close to that before, so I was totally blown away and floundering. I tried to calm him, but it just got worse. He was kicking so hard that I almost dropped him! I tried to put him back in the car, which meant strapping him back in the car seat, obviously. Yeah. Not good. He was totally losing his mind. If I had been a stranger seeing this, I would have thought Colin was being kidnapped. I finally got him strapped in and he screamed the whole way home. The poor guy is so exhausted and I felt so badly for him. And me, for that matter! Needless to say, I did not get groceries. Luckily he was in better spirits today after getting a morning nap, so I managed to get to Wal-Mart. You should have seen me...I was chanting under my breath, "Please please please let me get the cat litter before the tantrum!". HA! Everything turned out okay. Remember when we did not have kids and used to stare at women whose kids were freaking out and thought, "That will never be me". Uh huh. ;-)

We still miss you, Daddy! :-)

Just Me, Myself and I

Well, this SUCKS. Jer left on Friday morning...we dropped him off at the airport at 9:00am. So here we are...Sunday morning and I am miserable. I have been sad for about a week now, but the night before he left I could feel a real funk starting to set in. I cried my eyeballs out when I dropped him off. He is a PILOT for heavens sake...it is not like I am new to him being away from home. Obviously he has never been gone for so long at once, but still! I am truly surprised at the intense reaction I have had to him leaving...5 weeks sounds like a relatively small amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like sadness has settled around me like a fog that I can't get out of. Knowing that he won't be walking in the door in the evening, or any evening any time soon for that matter, is hurting my heart and making the days extremely long. I am so lucky to be married to Jeremy...to call him my best friend is putting it too lightly. The void that I feel right now is proof that he is my soul mate. This ache that I feel goes far beyond just missing someone to help me with Colin and the house. I really feel like part of me is missing. I will try not to spend the next month writing sappy odes to him, but since this is my diary, there may be a few. :-)

As soon as Colin is over this cold, I am going to start taking him out to the playgroups that I have been missing and try to get as active as possible. We need to keep busy! The hardest part about being alone is getting all of the little stuff done. I find it hard to get ready to go out (as in looking presentable at a playgroup with actual adult interaction) unless I do it before Colin gets up. He is waking up well before dawn with his cold going on, so that has been next to impossible. Last night I mopped the kitchen floor, did laundry, cleaned up the living room chaos and Colin's messy bath area after Colin went to sleep. That is going to be the name of the game for the next few weeks. It will be easy to get very behind on household stuff without my extra pair of hands, so I am going to be very strict about doing a few things each night so that I don't end up in a wrecked house. I felt much better last night after seeing a relatively clean living room and not having my socks stick to the kitchen floor. I tucked myself into bed and ordered "Made of Honor" from On Demand. It was just what I needed...a short, ridiculous, frothy girly movie full of McDreamy and no substance. Jer would have HATED it, so I very much enjoyed my little girls night with my Hershey Kisses. That actually made me smile. :-)