The Face of Triumph

July 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

Thanks to Plum Organics for sponsoring my post about fun kid photos and the stories behind them. Enter Plum’s “Babies for Yum Caption Contest” on Facebook and you could win a $100 gift card or Plum goodies.

For Jack’s fifth birthday, I wanted to do something different.  I didn’t want to add even more toys to his already bulging pile (I am pretty sick of stepping on Legos) and he’s been very adamant lately that he wants to spend time with me (usually instead of going to daycare), so I thought a shared experience would be a great alternative.

David and I discussed a trip to Disneyland but, after looking at the insanely high cost a trip like that would be and taking into account that Jack has fun playing with things like cardboard boxes, we thought something close to home would be just as good.  It didn’t take long to decide on Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo – they have a TON of rides that are tailored to younger children and, since I wasn’t sure how Jack would react to the rides, there are many animal exhibits as an added benefit.  I figured we couldn’t go wrong.

I was right!  Jack absolutely loved the theme park (EXCEPT for the roller coaster, which he “kinda hated”).  One of the coolest things about the theme park was the selection of carnival games.  I know what you’re thinking – carnival games are typically quite scammy; however, there was a balloon game with a little sign that said something like “children play until they win.”  I was beside myself with the AWESOME (especially after recently experiencing a fundraiser carnival where Jack tried several times to win and had no luck, which led to a meltdown).  I forked over $5 for a couple of darts and on his 4th try Jack managed to pop TWO balloons with one dart, shocking all of us!  Rather than go for one big prize, he decided on two smaller stuffed dolphins, one of which he gave to his 2 year old cousin Sabrina.  He named the blue one that he kept Splash.

Here is a picture of him posing triumphantly with his winnings (doesn’t he look so blasé?):

 

And the gold medal goes to Jack!

Jack was super happy to have won and Sabrina was delighted with her dolphin.  Neither child let their new toys out of their site for the rest of the day.

Let me tell you – that was the BEST $5 I have ever spent!

I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Adventures, Photos Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Luck, Leprechauns, and Little White Lies

March 17, 2011 By 3 Comments

Leprechaun with rainbow

Image via Wikipedia

Jack didn’t want to leave the house to go to daycare today.  He was whining and moaning about how much he HATES getting dressed and how it’s “stubborn” that he has to go to daycare.  I then came up with the brilliant plan of telling him it’s a SPECIAL! DAY!  He perked up and asked what I was talking about.  I explained that it’s St. Patrick’s Day and some people believe that it’s a good day to catch leprechauns.  He had no idea what the heck a leprechaun is, of course.  I explained that they are little people from Ireland who hide a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I showed him pictures on the internet, which he loved.  He asked me if leprechauns were for real life and I said I didn’t know and there are definitely some people who do not believe they are real.

I figured he would like this whole idea but I underestimated his enthusiasm.  He wanted to hear all about it so I let him know he should wear green today so he could be extra lucky and maybe catch a “tricky leprechaun.”  They hide and you have to be on the look out, you know!  In fact, I’ve never even see one because they are so sneaky!  Well, he filled in the rest.  These little suckers apparently wear green as camouflage so that it’s difficult to see them when they hide in bushes and trees.  And “no one knows if they are going to be on top of the tree or behind the tree!”

Jack picked out a green monster shirt to wear.  His theory: “Maybe I can scare the leprechaun with this monster shirt and he will run away and leave his gold for me to take!”  Very clever, I thought.  He also came up with the idea of putting traps at the end of the rainbow.  “Well, mom, you just don’t know which end of the rainbow he’ll be at!”

It was so hard not to crack up while he was telling me all kinds of new things about leprechauns even though he hadn’t heard of them before today.  We saw a neighbor’s nanny as we were walking to the car and Jack told her all about the special day and how he was going to catch one of those leprechauns!  He made sure his friends at daycare were wearing green.  I suggested he work together with his little friends and maybe they could find a leprechaun.

I then told him good luck and left for work.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Adventures, Holidays, Working Mamahood Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’d like to call this red Lego Friday

November 26, 2010 By 2 Comments

I woke up at 8am this morning and Jack informed me he had a Lego lodged in his nose.  I was not able to determine WHY he had stuck a Lego up his nose until later, but I could see that it was a small, one-unit round Lego.  I grabbed a pair of tweezers to try to get it out but could not get a handle on the friggin’ thing.  Oh, and Jack doesn’t know how to blow his nose.  I know, weird.  I woke David up to see if he had any ideas.  He also tried with the tweezers but then sent me to the store for a nasal aspirator.  I stopped for some coffee, as well.  Hey, I needed something warm to hang onto!

Back home and the nasal aspirator didn’t do a damned thing.  Then we tried to get Jack to sneeze with pepper and feathers.  No go!  I started to get more desperate.  I tucked his right nostril closed, had Jack close his mouth, and tried to suck that puppy out of the left nostril with my mouth.  Yeah, ewwwww.  Also, salty!  I tried a couple times and it just wasn’t working.  ARG!

So at 9:30am we trotted down to Kaiser’s emergency room.  An ER nurse advised me to try reverse-CPR by pinching the unaffected nostril closed while blowing in Jack’s mouth.  Jack thought this was hilarious.  I tried several times and again, no luck!

In comes the doctor.  She had me try once again with the reverse CPR and saw that the Lego didn’t move.  She then got a few tools (longer tweezer type things with no sharp edges and an alligator clamp) and the nurses held Jack down, instructing him to only say “stop” if he felt pain.  Jack pretended he was a dragon and told them “the dragon is scared.”  Telling them about the dragon distracted him enough and the doctor was able to use the tweezers to get the Lego out.  Jack was as good as new!

We got a nice souvenir out of that $100 trip – the doc put the Lego in a specimen cup and gave Jack an Iron Man sticker.  It was then that Jack told me the little red Lego was dragon fire…he had wanted to breathe fire out of his nose.  Now that he has the Lego in the specimen cup, it is venom.  Awesome.

Happy black Friday!  And remember – the ER does not participate in post-Thanksgiving sales.

Filed Under: Adventures, Illness Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Trip to the SF Zoo

September 1, 2010 By 1 Comment

Sunday Jack and I went to the San Francisco Zoo.  A trip to the zoo was on my list of 110 Goals for 2010 and when I happened to look on the website Saturday I found out kids were free in August.  Off we went for some more mom/son time.  We rented a little push Jeep thingy because Jack “doesn’t like to walk.”  He did like to stand in it, though, and stick his legs out.  Kid likes to give me heart attacks!  At least I got exercise pushing my 40 lb kid around for a couple hours.

The zoo was bigger than I expected and we didn’t get to see everything in our 2.5 hours there but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We took pictures together in a photo booth and Jack posed by this begging giraffe.  Probably only in San Francisco can a kid wear sweat pants and a long sleeved shirt in summer.

Strangely, Jack would not let the photographer at the entrance of the zoo take his picture so there are no pictures of the two of us.  He hid his face between his knees.  I could tell the photographer was getting a little upset that he couldn’t get Jack to cooperate so we had to make a break for it with my muttered apology.  Poor photographer probably wasn’t ready to be tested by Jack’s stubborn willpower.  :P

It was really nice to get two adventures in with Jack over the weekend.  I was a little alarmed when at one point Jack said to me, “Mom, you shouldn’t be a mom.”  I had to gather myself a bit before asking for more information about that statement, and I was relieved when he said, “You are fun and I like you and you should be a dad.”  Hm, okay then.  At least he likes me!

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: 110 in 2010, Adventures, Photos Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Family Alien Day

August 30, 2010 By 2 Comments

David was out of town for his bachelor party this weekend, so Jack and I hung out together solo.  It struck me on Friday that this weekend was a fabulous opportunity for the two of us to have quality mom/son time before I go out of the country for 9 days.  I ignored all my other responsibilities and focused on Jack – it was fabulous!

I happily found out that Habitot in Berkeley was having a Family Alien Day (even better – we got half off the tickets because we are members of the Bay Area Discovery Museum).  I saved the news until Saturday morning because I knew Jack would freak out with excitement.  He nearly had a breakdown when he realized he didn’t have any green alien gear and tried to insist that we go to the store to get him a proper outfit. Instead I convinced him that his Superman (pajama) costume was perfect.  After all, Superman is like THE most famous alien ever!

Prior to Saturday we had never been to Habitot.  I had no idea what Jack was missing out on.  As soon as we walked in there was a big mock space shuttle complete with keyboards, buttons, joysticks for steering…Jack spent the majority of his time in that thing.  He had so much fun pretending to dodge asteroids and steer the ship out of craters.  (I spent much of the time imagining how I could get David to build a space shuttle bed for Jack.  Wouldn’t that be SO COOL?)  There was a control station with buttons that made shooting noises outside of the shuttle and Jack thought it was great.  I was amused watching the kids negotiate with one another and I could barely contain my laughter when a child dressed as Batman tried to start the good old Batman vs. Superman debate.  Jack just walked away from the kid.

We did some face painting, enjoyed crater cookies and space punch, and experimented with space goo.  Jack wore himself out running around.  We headed home and both took 3 hour naps.  It was a perfect day.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Adventures Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Jack is back (and toys, toys, toys)

June 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I had a pretty fabulous weekend with Jack.  I am *so* glad he is back from Texas.  The nightmares were really getting to me and I just don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t have someone to take care of!  I get bored.

Friday we went to our first company picnic with David’s employer.  The picnic was held at Coyote Point and it was certainly a beautiful day for it.  Jack was all over the jungle gym and completely wore himself out.  He and I left early (for naptime) while David stayed to participate in volleyball and other team sports.

Saturday Jack and I got out the door early and went to Ross to spend my store credit.  I found a good deal on an 8-pack of games (Go Fish, Bingo, Dominoes, etc. – it’s an inexpensive past time, after all) that are decked out with the Toy Story 3 characters.  Jack got totally excited when he spotted an Iron Man toy (how he knew what it was, I don’t know!) so I just had to get it for him (I get indulgent around birthdays…).  We also nabbed a Transformers blanket.

When we got home I was put to work assembling Iron Man; I nearly broke my fingers trying to assemble it!  No wonder it was so cheap…  Jack loves it, though, and it is now included in the group of toys he takes to bed.  We also played our first game of Go Fish.  Jack didn’t quite get it so…I won.  :P

Speaking of bed, he cleared the blankets off his bed to put the new Transformers blanket down for naptime.  The kid is serious about this blanket, folks.  I’ve had to go into his room numerous times to straighten it out after he tosses and turns and it gets “bunched.”  He simply *must* have the blanket flat and smooth so he can see all the details (even in the dark).  The upside is that if I tell him he has to lay really still so as not to mess it up, he falls asleep pretty quickly.  ;)

Sunday was our big adventure to the movie theater to see Toy Story 3 in 3D.  I had never seen a movie in 3D before and I was absolutely dazzled.  We all loved the movie (and there were definitely some tears near the end).  It was the perfect ending to the series and will definitely become part of our collection once it’s on DVD.  The theater sound system was a little loud for Jack and he got scared, but he was totally fine once he crawled into my lap.  It was nice to snuggle with him while watching the movie and afterward he would not acknowledge that the movie was scary at all.  He has not stopped talking about it since.

When I arrived to pick Jack up at daycare today, he was singing the ABCs to a newborn baby.  He proceeded to tell me he wants a little brother AND a little sister.  I told him to give me more weekends like this one and we’ll see what happens!

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: 110 in 2010, Adventures Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Missing my baby

June 22, 2010 By 3 Comments

Jack has been in Texas with his dad since last week.  I miss him a TON.  They get back to town on Thursday, and Friday we’ll be spending the day with David at his company’s picnic.  I’m so glad we get to hang out with each other that day so I can hug him a million times and smoosh his face.  Some time over the weekend we are going to see Toy Story 3 – we’ve been talking about it for months and I am SO EXCITED to take Jack to the movies.

I’ve been keeping myself busy so as not to focus on the fact that my kiddo is halfway across the country and it’s been a week and a half since I’ve seen him…we scrubbed the house from top to bottom this past weekend.  When Jack is around it’s hard to get motivated because within an hour there will be another toy-strewn path of destruction in the living room.  I’m sure it will all go to hell again once the little monster gets home.

I’m getting the arrangements set for Jack’s birthday party.  Can you believe he is turning FOUR?  I’m seriously missing my baby!  (It’s possible that sometime in my life I might want to repeat the whole baby experience – although I haven’t gotten over the part where I smack myself every time that thought enters my head.  My face is getting sore, though…)

FOUR YEARS OLD.  Oh my goodness.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Filed Under: Adventures, Growing Up Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Piece of Quiet

February 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

We are in Tahoe this weekend.  We so need this weekend away from the city and our responsibilities.  It’s beautiful up here blanketed in snow, icicles hanging from the eaves.  It’s crisp but sunny outside and the panoramic views in the cabin make for a wonderfully relaxing environment.

Despite going to bed after midnight (Jack was bizarrely hyper) and the back and forth coughing between Jack and me, we all slept fairly well.  Jack laid quietly on top of his Cars sleeping bag until I awoke this morning.  Can’t ask for better than that!  I got up and our gracious host had a latte waiting for me.  Ahhh, bliss.  Jack and I spent a good hour and a half building robots with legos.  Whenever we go on vacation I’m reminded how fabulous it is to sit and play with my son without the billions of chores that would be calling my name at home.  Not only do I get to focus more on Jack, but my lego building prowess is steadily improving.

It's a roboty day.

We don’t have a lot of plans for the weekend but sledding is among them.  I bought some ultra cute polar bear snow boots on mega sale at Land’s End and I can’t wait to see Jack all bundled up.  He was so excited about our trip last night that he couldn’t stop giggling, which of course had me cracking up.  We need more vacation in our lives, methinks.

Filed Under: Adventures, Photos Tagged With: , , , , ,

One mom’s successful day

January 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Saturday was one of those days when everything clicked into place.  At the end of the day I felt like superwoman!  It’s not that I accomplished anything amazing, though, just that I managed to do everything I set out to do.  It was a successful parenting day as well as a fulfilling personal day.

We had a break in the crazy rain storm that’s been pounding San Francisco for the last week, so we took  advantage and headed to Ocean Beach.  The beach is just sheltered enough to make you forget you’re in the city, which was so needed after being trapped by the rain for days on end.  The sun was out just long enough to keep us from freezing, while the wind blew just enough to keep the waves crashing onto the shore.  We did some walking, built sand castles, and drew pictures of suns, rainbows, and hearts in the sand.

After getting our fill of the salty air, we sat down in a restaurant to eat dim sum.  Jack was well behaved and even ate little bits of a dumpling along with rice and a donut (lunch of champions – good thing I fed him earlier).  Upon arriving home we read books and took naps (well…apparently I took the longest nap).  Ahhh, relaxation.

Our evening was filled with games.  Jack and I played the board games Hi Ho Cherry-O and Five Little Monkeys, then David and I played Trivial Pursuit.  I gave Jack a bath and clipped his nails, then off to bed he went!  He went down easily and David and I stayed up late playing more Trivial Pursuit (I lost all games but didn’t completely bomb).

Somewhere in there, I got a shower and did some dishes.  I also made sure to pat myself on the back for a job well done and refused to think about the days that do not go so smoothly.

Filed Under: Adventures, Family, Getting my groove back Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Christmas on the east coast

December 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We had a wonderful Christmas.  I’m still trying to get back into the swing of things after being on the east coast for a week and we still have some celebrating to do with family and friends that we haven’t yet seen.  Our holiday has been quite spread out!

We flew to Maryland on the 16th to stay with my sister and her family.  Jack traveled wonderfully, which was a real blessing considering that our flight was moved 2 hours later and we nearly missed our connection.  Our entire day was full of travel!  Even so, we got lucky flying in when we did because the second night we were there, Maryland got a record-breaking 21″ of snow.  (Of course we had packed absolutely no snow gear.)

Before the snow hit, though, we got a fantastic visit in at the Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.  David gets all the credit for this idea and man, did Jack love it!  He was having a horrible day but as soon as we set foot in the museum his face lit up and he was bursting with excitement.  He got to see command modules, satellites, and astronaut gear.  I think David and I both felt so much joy to be able to fulfill that dream for Jack.

We had a nice white Christmas when we opened presents and stockings on Saturday.  The big hit this year for Jack was a combination of a cape, mask, and blaster cuffs from SuperFlyKidz on Etsy with The Incredibles movie.  Jack spent a lot of time as Mr. Incredible over the past week.  My 11 month old niece Sabrina was absolutely delighted with the stacking cups we got for her.  Between the two kids and David’s happiness with the MASH shirt I found for him, I felt like a Master Gifter this year!

On Sunday we drove down to Virginia.  We stopped in Quantico for a quick visit with my longtime friend Daniella and her family.  I briefly got to hold her new baby, who is an absolute DOLL.  (Being around my niece and Daniella’s little guy didn’t help my recently found baby fever at all…)  Thanks to the traffic from drivers struggling to get through the snow-laden highways, we were only able to visit for a brief time.  Daniella fed us and we got to have a nice chat, which was both fun and relaxing after the craziness of the road.

After our visit to Quantico, we made our way down to David’s parents house in Williamsburg.  This was Jack’s and my first time meeting our new in-laws.  We all got along right off the bat and I immediately felt like Jack and I were part of the family.  Spending the holiday together seemed to make our little step-family even more official, as well.  Jack and I are so blessed!

The trip home was long but went fairly smoothly.  There was a marked difference in how Jack traveled this year as compared to last year – there was not a gigantic meltdown at the end of our trip (although there were many little ones throughout the week) and Jack followed directions pretty well while we went through the airport.  I’m counting that as my gift from him this year.  :)

Filed Under: Adventures, Family, Holidays Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts