Muffins with Mom

Each year on the Friday before Mother's Day, Riley's school sets out muffins, juices and coffee for the moms to enjoy with their children on the way to drop the kids off in the morning. Due to Riley's love of sleep, we are almost always the last to arrive, and typically all of the other moms and children have finished on gone on their way by the time we arrive. This year was no exception. Truth be told, I like it that way. Gives me a chance to spend a little quality time with Riley. As previous posts from this week may have indicated, I have not been terribly stellar on the mommy front this week. The awesome thing about Riley is that he either quickly forgives or doesn't seem to notice my shortcomings to begin with. Our breakfast together made this abundantly clear. He insisted on picking out my muffin, putting it on a plate and then bringing my plate to the table for me. He then did the same for himself. There were two chairs at our table, but he insisted that we sit together and share one. As if that wasn't sweet enough, about halfway through our muffins, he looked at me and said, "This is your special day." Yes, my sweet boy, it most definitely is.

Who knew?

All this time, I have wrongly assumed that Riley really didn't get the concept of my pregnancy, or at least didn't really care. However, this morning, when getting ready to leave the house for school, he looked at me and said, "I have a baby brother. My baby brother is right here (pointing to my belly)." The sweetest thing happened next. He said, "I like my baby brother" and immediately gave my great big belly a great big hug...

Mysterious Condition

This morning I noticed that Riley seemed to have red bumps all over his arms and legs. Let me start out by saying that I had been at a meeting last night, and was not there during bath time. I'm sad to admit, the first thing that popped into my head was that Casey had used the wrong bath soap. Seemed like a plausible explanation. So my first phone call was to Casey. Nope, he was able to describe in perfect detail the bottle of soap that he used (which is amazing in itself and almost suspect). Being the stellar mom that I am, it never crossed my mind to call the doctor. Mommy failure #1 of the day. We headed straight to school. After all, it didn't seem to be bothering him any. However, when I dropped him off, I noticed that the red areas seemed to have gotten larger and more violent-looking than they had seemed at home. Still, I was convinced that it was an allergic reaction of some sort. (Who knows what goes on when I'm not around, right?) Mommy failure #2. By the time I got to work (a 5-minute drive from his school), I was convinced that the explanation was the result of one of the following scenarios: 1. When hitting "laser shows" in the backyard last night, he must've gotten into some poison ivy. Very likely given the overgrown state of our backyard. 2. It was some sort of strange infection he got after slicing his finger open on my razor on Sunday night (I know, I know, who leaves their razor out in a bathroom also used by a 3-year-old? I swear I usually make a concerted effort to put it away after use, but I had been in a hurry that morning.) 3. The injury to his eye from over a week ago was wreaking havoc on his little body - probably from all the germs on that stupid playgroud that had undoubtedly seeped into the large cut on his eye socket (did I even mention this ordeal?). 4. An infection from the large bloody scrape to his knee that he got after falling off the curb at the baseball game when trying to use the curb as a balance beam (woo hoo, though, for the first time ever, I was a good, well-prepared mom and actually had band-aids in my purse when this incident occurred). (Is it at all clear that we are going through an injury stage? I swear I have seen more blood in the past two weeks that I have in my whole life combined. I wonder if this is a stage that all almost-three-year-olds go through of if this is a sign of my life to come as the mom to not one, but two, boys. But I digress.) I decided that a good mom would call the doctor's office. After asking me a number of questions, the triage nurse asked me if Riley's rash was getting any worse. How would I know? He's at school. Pause. "Well, ma'am, I can't do any sort of triage if he's not there with you." Oh. Mommy failure #3 (at least). Well, ok, I thought, I'll just run to his school, take a look at him, call the nurse back while I'm in his presence, answer her questions and be back to work shortly. Mommy failure #4. Decided instead to compile a day's worth of work to bring home with me, pick him up from school, and spend the rest of the day with my little man to make sure that he was ok. Phone call #2 to the triage nurse. Go through her list of questions again. All seemed to be going well until she was wrapping up. Then came, "Ma'am, is there any possibility you could be pregnant?" Uh, yeah, I think there's actually a pretty good possibility of that. "Oh. Well, we're absolutely going to need to see Riley today then." Thinking it was the impending arrival of his brother that was causing him to break out in hives, I immediately determined this was all my fault. Fortunately she followed up by saying that they wanted him to be seen in case it was something contagious (like rubella - didn't we get him vaccinated for that???) that could pose a threat to me or the baby. Oh, ok. As I got my wits about me again, and tried to listen to an answer the rest of the nurse's questions, I realized that Wrigley was acting strangely. Turns out she was acting strangely because she was throwing up all over the rug in Riley's room. Awesome. Still on the phone with the nurse, I tell Riley not to play in Wrigley's vomit (the things that come out of my mouth some days...) and head downstairs to find some paper towels. Which, of course, are all gone. Luckily I remember that Casey was kind enough to run out late the other night to pick some up and locate them in the linen closet. Back upstairs to where Winston is happily trying to eat what Wrigley had thrown up. Super. Nurse tells me she'll have someone from the pediatrician's office call me back to set up an appointment. Good, off the phone now and able to get Winston out of the room, Wrigley outside to keep throwing up, and Riley properly supervised. Of course, he is extremely interested in Wrigley's illness (see post on "Why"), proceeds to tell me how icky it is and that he doesn't like it (really, because that is helping me so much right now as I'm seven months pregnant, quesy, barely able to bend over and trying to clean it up), and then starts unraveling the roll of paper towels so that he can "help". This is really shaping up to be a great day. Fast forward ten minutes. Appointment for Riley scheduled for an hour later. Wrigley no longer throwing up and is back inside. Things are under control. Get lunch made, call Casey with an update, bribe Riley into eating half of his sandwich, head out the door for Riley's appointment. Semi-calm by the time we get to doctor's office. May have even been able to pull off looking relaxed as we waited to be called and watching "Nemo" and "Jonah" swimming in their tank (the only two fish names he knows). Appointment with doctor was relatively uneventful. Riley could not have been better - he was so brave and it really didn't even seem to bother him to get poked and prodded. I think after all of the fake calls we've made to Dr. Anderson when trying to get Riley to laugh off his minor injuries ("Dr. Anderson, Riley skinned his knee, what should we do? Oh, yes, sure, we'll tell him that the only cure is to take a nap."), he is fascinated by doctors. In fact, he was so good and brave while he was being examined that the doctor even thanked him for being such a good boy (proud mommy). The only thing he would not cooperate with was opening his mouth really wide and saying "Ahhh" really loudly (guess the "inside voice" discussions we've had are paying off). I finally convinced him that it was ok and he grinned really wide before he opened his mouth really wide and yelled. Funny kid. Turns out that the rash is the tail end of some sort of throat virus that's going around. We hadn't even noticed that he'd been sick. Mommy failure #100 of the week. We were sent on our way. Back home to take a nap and then have some quality time together since I'd pulled him from school for the day. Got some work done while Riley napped and was feeling pretty good about things until Riley woke up and I stepped in another pile of vomit on my way to get him out of bed. In my bare feet. Great, will come back to clean that up in a minute. Get Riley out of bed and send him to the bathroom so that I can clean up that mess. Not 2 seconds later, as Riley enters the bathroom, I hear him say, "Uh oh." Big sigh. This can only mean one thing -- he didn't make it to the bathroom in time. Wrong again. Wrigley has thrown up all over (and I really do mean ALL OVER) the bathroom floor. Again instruct Riley not to play in the vomit while I retrieve the cleaning supplies. Two rolls of paper towels later, I have cleaned up both of these incidents. Time to call Wrigley's doctor. Take the dogs and Riley out to the car in the pouring rain, load everyone in, and climb into the driver's seat, only to find that there is at least a half an inch of standing water on the driver's side floor. Seriously??? No time to deal with that now. Head to the vet's office. An IV and a $400 vet bill later, we were sent home with all sorts of instructions. If this is what a day "off" feels like, now I understand why I'm not a stay at home mom.

Why?

Well, we have officially hit the "Why" stage. Truly, I had no idea I would find this to be such a challenge. After all, I could just say, "I don't know." Or make something up. Plenty of options. Instead, I find myself trying to actually answer his questions. For example, on our drive home from school today Riley said, "I'm a husband." No idea where that one came from, but I quickly told him that he is, in fact, not a husband. To which he replied, "Why?" Me: "Well, in order to be a husband you have to be married." Guess what his response was? "Why?" My next answer, "Well, only grown ups get married." Riley: "Why?" Ugh. Reaching for straws, "Only grown ups are emotionally capable of loving each other that much." This clearly did not satisfy him (and may actually be incorrect, who knows). Desperate, I found this coming out of my mouth, "Only adults have the legal capacity to enter into a binding commitment like that." Mercifully, he accepted that answer. I just hope he doesn't tell me that he's a daddy.

Chick Magnet?

This morning when I dropped Riley off at school, he almost immediately walked up to one of his friends and asked her if she wanted to see his boo boo. She answered, "Yes, I do want to see it." His teacher looked at me and we both had a quick laugh about how cute the conversation was. As Riley explained how he got his boo boo at the baseball game, his teacher explained to me how he is "all boy." She then proceeded to tell me that I better watch out when he is a teenager. Thinking she was talking about him being obsessed with sports, I agreed. However, she then went on to explain that she thinks the girls are going to flock to him. She said, "Not only is he so handsome, but he's also clearly going to be an athlete. But the best thing of all is that he's sweet too." Of course, I couldn't agree more, but it made my heart swell with pride to hear his teacher acknowledge the special qualities that make him him. But now, after having all day to reflect on her comments, I am struck by two thoughts: uh oh (we really will be in trouble when he is a teenager) and oh no (someday some other girl will steal his heart and replace me as the most important woman in his life). I am prepared for neither...

Sunday Busy Sunday

Like most weekend days, today was a busy one. Can't complain. We try to devote as much of our weekend to fun time for Riley as possible since we don't spend nearly as much time with him during the week as we'd like. The day started out with our normal trip to the bagel place (Riley insists on a "special toast bagel" (large bagel coated in mass quantities of cinnamon and sugar) in his own bag). Sadly, we are such regulars at The Bagel Station on the weekends that they know his order before he even places it. Then we drive across the street to Starbucks for some coffee and to eat our bagels. We pass by a used book store on the way (one which only bought about 5 of our two laundry baskets full of books). Riley must have a vivid memory of Casey getting mad that they didn't buy more because each time we pass the book store he asks, "Daddy, are you still mad at them?" After finishing our bagels, we walked with the dogs over to the park, played soccer on the "soccer field" (otherwise know as the bocce courts), used the lacrosse stick to throw the ball for Wrigley, hit "laser shows" on the "baseball field" (a different bocce court), spent some time on the big boy swing (no more baby swing for this kid), played in the boat (slide/play area designed to sort of resemble a boat) and then walked back to our car. We arrived home at 10:40 and had to divide and conquer in order to get ready for his friend Grace's birthday party at 11:00 (incidentally, the way to Riley's heart is to send him some mail - he was so excited to get the party invitation in the mail that he actually gasped before grinning from ear to ear and clapping). We spent the rest of the morning at Grace's wonderfully non-overdone and very relaxed, fun birthday party where, I should note, Riley was the only little boy invited (except for the baby brother of one of Grace's friends). Apparently Grace kept asking her parents if she could invite Riley and they finally gave in (I should note here that Riley before, in spite of knowing her first and last name very well, has referred to her as Gracie Otis - uh oh). Anyway, he had a blast and was worn out by the time we left. We came home for nap time which consisted of Casey running around town trying to pick out suitable tile for our bathroom floors and me trying to go through the insane amounts of baby clothes to semi prepare the guest room for its transition to the nursery. Three hours later, Casey had returned with the tile and had treated the yard with something that will hopefully get the weeds in our front yard under control, while I managed to get at least a decent start on the nursery preparations. Time to wake Riley up from his nap so that we could leave in time to make it to the Western Carolina vs Elon college baseball game which our former neighbor, Connor, was playing in. In spite of the 45 minute drive to get to the game, Riley was super excited, randomly shouting, "Let's go Connor" from the back seat. When we arrived at the game and started walking towards the stadium he kept repeating, "I'm excited!!!" Guess the trip to the game was a good decision. After we paid, he cried when I told him he had to use the potty before we could watch the game. After using the bathroom, he practically ran to the stands where he promptly sat down in the first seat we encountered. He stared intently for quite awhile until Connor's family came to talk to us between innings. From that point forward, Riley became Connor's 8-year-old brother's shadow. He thinks Whit is the coolest kid ever. Fortunately Whit is an active little guy too and was perfectly content to play catch (if you can call it that) with Riley for the next hour or two. Eventually Connor and Whit's other brother (Ty) joined in too and pitched for Riley so he could hit some laser shows. I do not think he could have enjoyed himself more. He talked all the way home about being a baseball player and playing with the big boys. By the time we got home, it was almost 9:30 (a full two hours after bedtime) and we were all exhausted. Just a typical Sunday...

Singing

One thing I love about Riley is that he's not afraid to sing. Sometimes it's a song I know, sometimes it's one that he's making up on the fly. Typically you know the song is over because he either tells you to clap or sings without missing a beat and without any sort of transition, "the end of the song...". Sometimes you really have to be paying attention. Today, as I was in my closet picking out something to wear, he spotted Casey's old guitar and started strumming it and singing, "I love my mommy... and my daddy... and Winnie... and Wrigley." which of course made me stop and smile. Before I knew it, he was ordering me to sit down. Casey then came into the bedroom to see what was taking so long and Riley commanded him to sit down next to Mommy. Before we knew it, we were being treated to a concert, us sitting on the steps in my closet, him standing on the floor below. First the "I love my mommy and my daddy" song. Then "Itsy Bitsy Spider." I could've sat there all day. He may be off tune, and he may not be Jimi Hendrix, but with that killer smile, those goofy dance moves and his crazy "just got out of bed" hair, he gives one heck of a concert.