Beautiful Boy...

Slide!!!

Your first experience with a water slide....you loved it and I loved watching you love it!
XOXO,
Mommy

The Big Cheese

The first meeting of Mack and Mickey. Of course we just wandered into the house and left Radley outside to eat a bottle so it was just the two of us....and awesome.

Randomness...

The following is a collection of snapshots that really don't have a home in terms of a full blog post. Just little bits of life around the Travinski house on any given day...

1. Maverick loves this ballpit. He always has...

He also likes to dump all the balls out of it. Needless to say that mommy doesn't like this game much...

2. Maverick has taken to dancing and singing quite a bit lately...he has some interesting moves...if you catch us at just the right time we are having quite the party around here...

3. Maverick and Radley are interacting more and more each day. I love it! I love watching how you two are with each other. Usually Mack's ulterior motive is to take possession of Radley's pacifier...

4. Do you like green beans? Maverick does....

He likes them a lot....and to futher document my wonderfully quirky kid...

He likes his green beans RAW....

5. One day we were headed out to the car. Mack had picked up a passenger along the way...

It did not seem to phase him at all...hung up (no pun intended) in a tangle in his yes-I-know-I-need-to-cut-it-sometime-soon hair...

6. Oh how I love this little punk...he doesn't have any hair...

Maverick vs Radley - Jumper 4 months

Maverick - 4 months (needed 2 game boxes under you even on the lowest setting so your feet could touch)
Radley - 4 months (so tall...no boxes needed)

Then & Now - Rainforest Jumper edition...

Then 2008....3-4 months oldNow 2009....21 months old

Then 2008....3-4 months old

Now 2009....21 months old

Dear Mack - Month 21

Dear Maverick,

I hereby declare Month 21 of your life to be "The Month of No." or "Don't." or "Stop." It's not exactly that you learned to say no for the first time this month. But it seems you have suddenly grasped that no is a word you can use in your interactions with the world and to reiterate your strong personal opinion on whatever subject is at hand. According to the child development books you are a bit overdue on this and for that, I thank you. But I was not so foolish as to think that it would never happen. These books declare that this grasp of the word "no" helps you to defend and strengthen your sense of self by opposing others.

Ha. Hahahahaha. Ha. They are not even kidding. Obviously, I knew the day would come when you would learn this word, but the most surprising thing to me about it is how many different ways you say it depending on the situation and how emphatically you can let me know your opposition at the most inopportune moments. There's the cut tiny shake of the head business-like no, which you use when I ask you if you want more water. No, definitely not more water. Next question. There is your funny no, which you use when I ask if you will give me a kiss or do some other thing that you actually like to do. You always smile after you say no in that context, to show that you are teasing. Then there's faker-faker whiny moaning "no", which you use when I'm making you do something you really hate, such as have your diaper changed, your face wiped, or get out of the car seat, all of which are activities you are strenuously opposing these days. "Noooooo! Nooooo!".

And finally we have DEFCON "NO"...usually blended with "Stop" and "Don't" at very high decibels and with tears for good measure. This is for when you are really really ticked off at whatever it is you either need to do or stop doing or want to continue doing when I need you to stop. Usually this one kicks in when you are really, really tired. But not always. You like to keep me guessing.

This means that as a mom, I am working on what I believe is a fun game called Picking My Battles. I am proud to say that you now allow your teeth to be brushed without being restrained or making me afraid that I will lose a finger. This sounds like a small thing, but Maverick, this has been a four month battle. Four. Months. And it was worth it, because your teeth are important and I don't want them to fall out of your head. But I do not have months of my life to spend waiting you out on things that don't really matter, so the rest of our time together I am learning a giant lesson in Letting It Go. This is a big stretch for me, to say the least.

This "Letting Go" thing is HUGE for me. I'm learning through being your parent this month that parenting is a lot about letting go. I'm sure the parents of young adults would tell me I don't know the first thing about real letting go, but I'm trying to start small in the hopes that one day when you're a grownup I'll have some practice in standing back and letting you be who you are. I am learning that if it isn't hurting you, or inconveniencing others it isn't worth fighting over. However, for the record, when mommy says "no", mommy means "no". I am just making sure that I take a moment and be sure that I really mean "no" before I head down that path and all it entails. The following was a moment I just "let it go"...but not before taking pictures...

However, "Letting Go" is a much harder attitude for me to have when we're talking about something that does inconvenience me or is inconsiderate of others, like an upheaval in your sleep patterns or refusal to get out of the car when we arrive at our destination or defiance when we are out in the world. It isn't that I don't do the work I know it takes to get you back to normal when you go through a rough patch with sleep or discipline issues. I do. It's just that I'm learning that it's going to be a lot easier on everyone if I can let go of how much I want everything to be predictable and simple and fixed once and for all.

When I succeed in doing that, I am able to notice each day how much fun it is to be your mom instead of just dwelling on what can be hard about it. I know the fun is what I'm going to remember most about this time when you're all grown up anyway. And at the rate you're growing up now, I know it's all going to seem like yesterday.

You know where your eyes, nose, feet, toes, tummy, bottom, mouth, ears, fingers, hand and hair are now. I am not sure where you learned this as it was never something we worked on actively, but somewhere along the line you picked it up. More out of curiosity after reading yet more on child development and that you should know a couple of these body parts I gave you a pop quiz a couple of nights ago. It surprised me how much you knew! Clearly you have been paying attention...well done little man!

We have ditched the pacifier except for naps and night night which I am very happy about. As a result, your vocabulary is really improving and every few days it seems you have new words to share and still a good bit of gibberish that I cannot quite connect to something, but when I ask you again, you repeat exactly what you said before and are so animated that I know you have something really important you are saying. I am just trying to figure out what it is.

Sometimes I wish I had a Toddler Mack to English dictionary because I am truly interested in everything you have to say and as animated as you are it sounds like something really really interesting. You have a couple of two-word sentences, but I am not convinced that you dont just think they are one word. The one you seem to match up with other words regularly is "bye-bye.." followed by whatever has gone bye-bye. You definitely have a grasp on the following and what they mean:

Ball Bath Apple Bubble Bye-bye Bird Ice
Wow Whoa! Uh-oh What's that?
Trick or Treat (sort of - see previous post)
Cheese Agua Dos Go Duck Box Bite Book
Oh, wow! Radley (sounds like raw-eee) Hi No
Stop Don't Shoe Hola
Ta-da!!! - (cutest thing ever!!!)
Balloon (more like boon)
I do! (which you say over and over and over)
Rock,rock (as in rocking chair or horse)
All done/all gone (sound very much alike)
Up and down (usually used together)
Battery (strange I know)
Stuck (which you frequently get)

I think you are on the front end of the language explosion I keep hearing about but I dont think it has kicked in just yet. I read another fact stating that a 20 month old (or in your case 21 months) can be learning up to 10 words per day. How so very exciting. I can hardly wait to hear what you have to say...

I love you so much,

Mommy

And one more thing we could never forget....Happy Birthday Bailey!

A Boy and His Tractor...

Love Love Loved THIS!!!! Could barely drag him away...

or would that be a MACK-tor?!?!?!?

Awesome/Not Awesome Toddler + Infant Travel Edition

As I have mentioned, we have returned from a trip to Texas to visit with Aunt Jen and to check out our new hunting ranch. I must admit for the past few weeks I have had travel with a toddler AND an infant on my mind, in a post-traumatic stress kind of way. Don't get me wrong, Radley was great and slept for most of it and Maverick was pretty good for the most part. But there's really just no way to take two kids their ages on a plane and not have a few moments that make you want to get out on the wing. I went it solo this time and in an attempt to help myself not suffer the amnesia that clearly sets in between plane trips with people under 3' tall, I'm blogging Awesome/Not Awesome, the Toddler Travel Edition. This will be a list of the good and bad things about traveling with my boys, so that I can maybe not be so shocked by the bad and can remember the good makes this worth doing. So here we go:

Awesome: When you wake Mack up at the crack of dawn to get on a plane, he is actually sort of excited, because he seems to sense that we're going to do something special. He chatters all the way to the airport. It is crazy cute.

Not Awesome: When you wake Mack up at the crack of dawn to get on a plane, by the time it's 4:00 in the afternoon and he has not stopped moving on the plane much less sleep, he is so epic-ly cranky by the time you touch down and has been conscious for nearly 9 hours that you think you might just get sanctioned by the FAA for bringing him on a plane to begin with.

Awesome: Airports generally offer lots to look at and plenty of new ladies for Maverick to flirt with. The first couple of airport hours and exploring options are like the Disneyland of people for him.

Not Awesome: On the other hand, when your airline suddenly announces its time to board after you've schlepped your two kids, your stroller, and all your worldly belongings across LAX and the airport starts to feel like the Amazing Race, and not in a good way, because you're definitely losing. And the nanny and Maverick will disappear from the gate area just as they call to begin boarding everyone thanks to the not-so-new-but-still-annoying- non-existent Southwest family boarding policy. You panic as you watch your prime boarding position evaporate while you frantically look for them while wearing your heavy 97th percentile height/weight baby and get incredibly frustrated because they have completely disappeared and because you cannot imagine boarding with both of them and 40 pounds of baby gear while 100 other passengers breathe down your neck waiting to get by you and you absolutely HAVE TO HAVE three seats together if you have any hope of maintaining your sanity for the flight only to see them waaaaay at the far end of the terminal returning nearly 10 gates at a pace best described as Sleepy Turtle. Upon arriving Maverick will choose that exact moment to develop a strong objection to riding in the stroller, and therefore you will pin him in the stroller whilst screaming (him, not me) and quckly dash down the jetway cutting off other passengers cursing your perfect nanny for leaving the boarding area and cursing your perfect "plan" that up until now had you sort of in an ok zen sort of place with this process. There is no more zen...just sweat, screaming and tears...(him and me)

Awesome: The Apple i-Touch is the greatest invention in modern history because you can put videos on it. Maverick has his own i-touch. Don't judge me. Whatever it takes. Maverick, at only 21 months old and after one week of ownership, has figured out how to slide the lock release button, where the videos are, and how to hold the little ear bud up to his ear so he can hear the music while he watches family movies, Nemo, Mickey Mouse and any other videos or games that may strike his fancy, though he is not sure how to play the games...he does love touching different things on the screen and gets so excited when he makes something happen. This makes you look like a terrible mother, but it is really useful at times.

Not Awesome: Since Maverick has his own i-Pod that he pretty regularly needs assistance with and the big baby is sitting on your lap, your entertainment options for yourself will be to stare out the window, do a people watching study of all passengers within 3 rows of you as they stare back at the circus you have become, change diapers for both as needed, wrestle baby and toddler when toddler tries to climb under the seats or over them to the row behind, or wrestle screaming exhausted toddler while trying not to injure baby you are holding when you hit turbulence and he does not want to put on his seat belt. None of this very entertaining.

Awesome: Radley gets confused by the time zone and sleeps through the night until a relatively decent hour in the morning during the first part of the trip.

Not Awesome: Maverick gets confused by the time zone and wakes up a full two hours EARLIER than usual for the last 2 days and carries that over to our first morning back home. Rarin' to go. At 5:15. Cue up Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Awesome: Coming home again.

Not Awesome: Coming home again. We miss these people we fly such a long way to see. This trip it was especially fun to see Maverick and Radley have fun together with their Barziza cousins. We can't wait to see them soon!

I can't believe I am going to be doing this again in another 20 days or so...
Coming soon...Travel with Two - Thanksgiving Edition
Fasten your seatbelts...