There comes a time in every mother's life when she has to make an agonizing decision: update her blog or watch more episodes of Teen Mom season one? It's a tough choice! But someone's got to make it. For the children, I'm sure.
But just because I'm writing this, don't think that I didn't watch myself any Teen Mom. I did, after all, watch season one of 16 and Pregnant, so it only makes sense that I would want to continue to follow Farrah, Amber, Catelynn, and Kaci. I watched an episode while Gavin was taking his nap -- a three hour nap! (not to be confused with a "three hour tour") -- and when he woke up he started to cry as he sometimes does. I've learned not to go to him at these times because sometimes he's crying because he doesn't want to be awake and is pissed off about it and soon goes back to sleep. Soon after he started crying, Laura poked her head into the living room and said, "He's probably waking from a night terror in which one of those girls is his mom."
Do I watch Teen Mom because it makes me feel good about the job I'm doing as a mom? Yes. Obviously my skills should always be measured by comparing myself to teenagers performing badly something they shouldn't be doing in the first place and are far too immature to handle. By using these standards I am very excellent at many things, especially being a mom.
I took Gavin to Romp and Stomp today at the Kulick Community Center. We went on Tuesday, too. He had so much fun. Watching him in the bounce house was one of the best things ever. At first he was in it by himself, but then two other kids, ages 3ish and 4, climbed in and started jumping. As you can imagine, Gavin went flying and fell on his butt and had a hell of a time staying upright. I braced myself for the tears and was fully prepared to say to the older kids, "All right you guys, please stop jumping for a minute so I can get him out." But Gavin LOVED it, gravity problems and all. He was literally squealing with joy. I'm totally buying Gavin a bounce house for Christmas and renting a 3 and 4-year old to jump in it with him.
Today we played in the Kids Korner, which is across the hall from Romp and Stomp (I noticed today that Kulick Kids Korner has a most unfortunate acronym). He got all of the trucks off of the shelves and pushed them around. By far his favorite toy was the vacuum, which I knew he would love. He loves our vacuum. Sure enough, he spent an inordinate amount of time vacuuming the corner of the room where the chalk easel is. Granted, the only chalk dust he actually picked up was with his socks and pants, but I assure you that corner had less chalk dust in it after Gavin left. I'm totally planning on buying him a toy vacuum for Christmas. He's going to love it. And the one I'm looking at really picks stuff up. Mind you, it's not going to replace our grown-up vacuum, but every little bit helps.
Gavin's hair is so curly. He's got some ringlet-style curls on the back of his head and the longer his hair gets the curlier it gets. It's crazy adorable. For so long he had no hair. Just fuzz, really. Now his little curls stick out from behind on either side of his head. Today his hair was all Kewpie doll style, with a big wave of curl on top his head. I took some pictures, but I just don't think I captured it right. You had to be there. Luckily I was. :)
When we're at home one of Gavin's favorite things to do is to read books. Specifically to have us read books to him. It's something I love because he sits on my lap which means I get to snuggle with him. I only wish his tastes in books was a little more varied, if not advanced. Last year for Christmas (or it could have been Gavin's birthday, I don't remember), my dad gave him this little set of board books. He wasn't that into them at first but now he's in love with them and it's all he wants to read. Each page has a photo of an object and the word for that object. That's it. It's perfect for babies, but a little mind-numbing for grownups, especially those of us who like narrative. But Gavin loves them beyond all reason and I have read each one to him maybe 100 times now. Except for one particular title: Food, a paragon of children's literature. That one I've read maybe 1,000 times. I can practically recite the text by heart: "Apple, orange, banana, strawberry, watermelon, gingerbread man, jam tart, corn, orange juice, bread, cookies, soup, pasta, donut, cheese, milk, tomato, candy." Obviously not a primer for a low-carb diet. I totally understand why he loves these books, and though Stacy encouraged me to "change it up" when I read them to him, and though I do often include the color of the food, doubling the book's instructive dollar, I like to be pretty consistent. I'm hoping that one day he'll be walking around the house and just spontaneously say, "Jam tart, corn, orange juice."
Stacy always reads these and all other books to Gavin in Spanish. So he's got quite the vocabulary, just that the bulk of it is in understanding rather than saying. He's not big on words right now, and while I guess that might worry some parents, I think he's fine. I mean, he did, after all, say word in the past. Dog, glasses, and diaper, for example. But now he's working on other things, I guess. And since he has such a wide vocabulary of understanding, in Spanish and English, no less, I'm not worried. I'm amazed by him every day. Eventually he'll be smarter than I am. It's just a matter of months.
No comments:
Post a Comment