A Winter Saturday

It is freezing cold here at the moment and therefore I have had very little to report. A cold snap arrived this week bringing the highs down into the 20's, which kept Colin and I firmly indoors. The house does not even feel warm and I have spent a lot of time bundled up in my fluffy slipper boots and two sweaters. With the boring week behind us, Colin and I were very excited to get out this morning for his good friend Gabby's 3rd birthday party! This year's shindig was at Paradise Pond, one of Colin's all-time favorite places to go. The party was a blast and Colin had so much fun playing that he even skipped cupcakes! That is a pretty major deal. He had a lot of fun, but displayed some of his familiar fears with a large crowd. The food was served in two rooms that were packed with the kiddos and their parents and Colin got very upset when I tried to get him to go in as well. If there is one thing that Colin does not do well with, it is a large crowd in a somewhat confined space. Despite not wanting to join snack time, he had the best time and we were thrilled to celebrate another birthday with Miss Gabby. I only managed a couple of pictures at the party and got zero with Gabby, which is unfortunate because she was too adorable for words in a giant multi-colored tutu and personalized shirt. I got these of Colin playing with the trucks:

After the party, I decided on a whim to take Colin to MY all-time favorite place, La Madeleine. I have been eating there forever and there is nothing that I love to eat more than their chicken caesar salad and tomato basil soup. It is my weakness and also a place that I rarely get to visit since leaving work. There is one in Grapevine very close to my old office, so I ate there weekly. Sadly, there is not one right around our house and since Jer does NOT love it, we hardly ever go. Since we were in Grapevine, I informed Colin that we were going on a date and he was taking me there! It ended up being one of the best times that we have had together! He walked through the line with me and picked out his own fruit cup. He was so good and stayed with me in line and through the whole process of getting our drinks, silverware, bread and jelly. He picked out our table and carried his own booster seat over. He loved the fact that they have a fireplace! I showed him how to dip bread into the soup and he absolutely adored it and ended up eating more of it than I did. We laughed and talked together (he was very impressed with their selection of jelly) and I snuck out the camera to take a picture of us. It was such a sweet moment together and I was very proud of him. He was so well behaved and the whole experience hints of what is to come with him. He is moving into a time that will be so much fun...a time of sharing more fun together now that he is older. I just love being with him!

Here he is enjoying his soup...or what is left of it!

My handsome (albeit messy) date!

I love him SO!

Random Tuesday Updates

The following are exciting tidbits from our world. I use "exciting" in the loosest, most un-exciting sense of the word.

*I managed to get Colin in actual clothes before 8:00am this morning. I have a new tactic. I have his clothes ready to put on for his original diaper change when he wakes up. This is the one time he is not fighting me, so it is the perfect time to trick him into getting dressed. Normally, he could have breakfast in pj's, but this new way works much better. Granted, he is dressed for the day long before his mother is, but whatever. :-)

*I purchased a fluffy mattress topper for Colin's super firm and not very comfortable bed. I put it on with his new sheets and it is AWESOME. His bed is now more comfortable than mine. Jer does not like to sleep on anything super soft, so he would never go for such a big fluffy mattress. I tried a featherbed when we first got married and Jer hated it. Once we got our king sized bed, the featherbed was history. This morning I tried to get Colin to stay in bed with me so that I could snuggle in his new cloud bed. He said no.

*We went to the library today and Colin was his normal revved up self. He ran in the door and rocketed right up to the girls at the front desk and yelled as loud as he could, "We have to be QUIET at the library!!!". Everyone was cracking up. He went over to pick out a new movie and went through almost every single one, giving me commentary on his choices. "No, not the Thomas movie. I don't want to watch Percy" and "What's that movie? Garfield? No, I don't think so". As we were leaving, the girl checking us out complemented his dimples. His response was to launch into his loudest rendition of the Bob the Builder theme song.

*The Bachelor season premiere was last night and I had a wonderful evening watching with my friends. Kimberly's mom hosted at her house and it was totally kid-free. WONDERFUL. We ate and drank and laughed so hard that we nearly passed out. I heard absolutely none of the show, with the exception of our commentary on how each girl was horribly disfigured or a complete halfwit. It was hysterical. I love my friends. :-)


*Jer requested some "Mediterranean" style food, so we are having tuna nicoise bread salad for dinner. One of the main ingredients is grape tomatoes, which Colin is currently eating while watching Olivia. It looks like there will be four tomatoes (maybe) in the whole meal.


*Lastly, I leave you with the member of our family getting the most enjoyment out of Colin's new bedding. Ferris Mewler has been sitting in that spot for the last 9 hours. (that is his happy face)

The Essence of the Nap

I think I could write an entire novel solely based upon the sleep patterns and cycles of Colin. I am sitting here laughing at the crazy road that sleep has been for our little family. I was prompted to write because we have had yet another change in the past couple of weeks.

Colin's nap has been up in the air for months and I would say that he averages around 4 naps a week. He long ago began refusing his bed for naps and I forged ahead with my first trick...watching tv in my bed. Colin and I would snuggle up around nap time to "watch shows" and he would fall asleep while there. That has been our only ticket to naps for several months, so I have held on for all it is worth. On the days that we are not successful, Colin always tries to fall asleep on the couch at around 5pm, which is the worst thing that can happen in toddler land. That basically means you are looking at an 11pm bedtime, but still a 7:15am wake-up call. Regardless of the time Colin goes to bed, he wakes up at 7:15am. ALWAYS. Anyway, slowly but surely, he is rejecting getting in my bed for the TV watching trick. It started out working everyday, then it narrowed to almost everyday and now it is trickling down to not working at all. Which brings me to the latest change...naps on the couch. Now that he does not retreat to my room, he stays in the living room around nap time and I watch him slowly winding down. He will start out sitting on the couch and as he gets sleepy, he will get a blanket and cover up with it. If you ask him if he wants to take a nap, he will protest to high heaven....all the while getting quieter and quieter on the couch. The next thing you know, he is sound asleep. This has been going on more and more often and now he has done it the last three days in a row. It looks like naps have taken on yet another reinvention. It makes me laugh because if you could be a fly on the wall during naps, you would have a blast laughing at me. When Colin took normal naps in his crib/bed, I would hole up in my room. Then he moved to my room and I started to hide out in the living room or office. Now I find myself sitting back here in the office being as quiet as humanly possible, since the precious nap is taking place in the middle of the open house. Sleep is so elusive with Colin and he wakes up so easily that my house must be the picture of silence. Therefore, I have always gotten next to nothing accomplished during naps (oh how I would LOVE to be able to cook dinner!) and now with him in the living room...well, next to nothing is now absolutely nothing. Oh, well. :-) A nap IS a nap, and I am not complaining. But it really is funny to look back on the progression!

In other completely unimportant news, I found the PERFECT sheet set for Colin today! We actually never bought sheets for his big boy bed and have been using old queen sized sheets. I did not want to buy just any old sheets...I needed something awesome to match his cabin/lodge themed room. You would be surprised how hard that is to find! I am so glad that I held out because I finally stumbled on some today! AT TARGET! They are covered in bear paws, tents, camp fires, grizzly bears, cabins and compasses! I am probably a little too excited about this, but it's the little things! ;-)