Saturday, July 23, 2011: First name basis

Gavin called me "D'Anne" today instead of Mama D (which he, of course, pronounced "Dirt"). He was in the bath tub swimming (yes, swimming. After a bath now he likes to flop onto his tummy in the tub and kick his feet and swim, occasionally putting his face in the water -- usually just his chin and mouth) and when I walked into the bathroom he looked at me and said, "D'Anne" (pronounced more or less like "Dan"). I said, "What? D'Anne?" and he said it again and then he pointed at Stacy and said, "Mommy." I was genuinely surprised and something along the lines of hurt. "You mean "Mama D?" I asked him. He nodded. "Say Mama D," I instructed. He said "Dan" again. So basically I'm his step-dad now. I'm kidding. I knew he would one day stop calling me "Dirt" (which hasn't actually happened yet. After his bath he told Stacy he wanted to "say hi Dirt"). But being called "Mama D" is just more endearing than being called "D'Anne." By my son, I mean. Everyone else just stick with "D'Anne," please.

I just got off the phone with Lisa and she informed me that her son, Brenden (who is 6 weeks older than Gavin), has 87 pairs of shorts. This does not include his 13 swim trunks. That's 100 short sleeved pants. And these are all pants that currently fit him, not pants that he's outgrown or that are too big yet. Mind you, Lisa loves clothes, but this is kind of insane. For comparison, Gavin has 10 pairs of shorts and 3 swim trunks. Considering how quickly kids get clothes dirty, this actually feels kind of like a bare minimum to me. Between food and dirt and markers and whatever else he manages to get into we are constantly washing his clothes. It's also perhaps an important distinction that Lisa lives in California where the shorts-wearing season is much, much longer than in Michigan. Still. Even Lisa admits she kind of went overboard in the shorts department.

Brenden also has a copious supply of underwear. He's only 6 weeks older than Gavin but he's already potty trained. This is really impressive in my opinion. We still haven't had any more potty usage over here. Gavin is very much still in diapers (totally normal, mind you). Lisa said he has about 40 pairs of underwear. She literally bought them in this quantity thinking that they would be essentially disposable. Well, some of them, anyway. "Because I had anticipated accidents," she said. Specifically poo accidents. "If we're out and about I'm just going to cut them off of him and throw them away. Once he was out of diapers, I put a pair of scissors in the diaper bag and three or four extra pair of underwear." For the record, Brenden's never had a poo accident and he's only had 6 accidents since he traded diapers for underwear at Easter. I'm really curious to see what will happen when we go to Mexico (we're going to Cancun with Lisa and Brenden) and Gavin sees Brenden being all Mr. Cool Potty. Maybe he will be inspired to try it himself. Not that I exactly want to be potty training Gavin while we are on vacation. Whatever happens, we'll roll with it.

While Brenden is advanced in the potty area, Gavin talks more than he does. So clearly the boys have different priorities when it comes to expending their energy.

Gavin's birthday was the 20th. I was really stressed out about it, but it went off rather well if you don't count him falling backwards and landing on his head on a tile floor. And then shortly after that a younger guest in a high chair doing essentially the same thing after his sister tried to climb the back of his high chair. No major head injuries were sustained, however. It's ironic that both of these incidents happened while we were eating since we held the party at Pump It Up in Auburn Hills. The first hour and a half was spent running and jumping and bouncing and sliding and aside from some painful slide burns (sustained mainly by the adults), no one got hurt until we sat down to have snacks and cake. Gavin fell off the picnic style bench when he tipped his head back to drink water from a cup. The sound of his head hitting the linoleum was one of the worst things I have ever heard (if only he had been wearing the inflatable Pump It Up crown he was given!). I was on the other side of the room when it happened. Stacy was behind him but it happened very fast. It was difficult not to be mad at her and not to be mad at myself as if I would have been able to stop it had I been sitting by him. In any case, he cried very hard, ice was applied to his head, and then he ate cupcakes and was happy. He had so much fun playing beforehand. He's a really brave little dude. He climbed up to the slide himself and went down by himself. He scaled the little climbing wall thing like a champion spider monkey. He got a boost the first time from our friends Megan and Jim, but after that he was all about doing it himself.

We went to a Pump It Up party around Christmas last year and Gavin loved it, which is why we decided to do his party there. For one thing, last year it was really hot and rainy on Gavin's birthday and I didn't want a repeat of last year (a planned outdoor party turned into an indoor party in our very small house) especially since our kitchen still is not done. I did definitely notice the wear and tear that has been inflicted on the inflatables since then. But the kids didn't notice or care. They all had a lot of fun. The next morning Gavin said, "Go Pump Up again." He mentioned nothing about the head bump.

We also raised about $100 for ReGAP, Retired Greyhounds As Pets, the organization Laura adopted Emma from nearly 14 years ago. If anyone still wants to donate to them in honor of Gavin and in memory of Emma, it's never too late.

Monday, July 18, 2011: Birthday countdown

In an effort to maintain my sanity, I let Gavin watch a DVD about trucks. In said DVD, two unaccompanied children, a boy and a girl, wander around a truck stop and befriend a random trucker they do not know. The boy mistakes the trucker for his father who runs the place (yeah, sure, little boy. Your dad is The Boss). Then they're in the cab of a truck with this guy. The girl keeps saying things like, "Look how big it is!" Soon they're talking on the CB to a trucker named Big Rig Betty. "But she's a woman!" the girl says and the boy is like, "Duh!" So it's got that going for it. But when they get in the sleeping cab with this guy I'm like, "Yikes. Gavin and I are going to have to have the "Don't get into a sleeper cab with strangers" talk soon.

While watching the show, Gavin looked over and me and said, "Gavin. Watch. TV. Trucks." Lord help me.

Thankfully Gavin's attention span is not long enough for him to be a couch potato. Soon after the kids make it out of the sleeper cab alive (spoiler alert) he lost interest and wanted to use the new little gardening rake I bought him at WalMart (shame) to rake the couch. Go for it, dude. Rake the couch.

I am a little stressed out right now. Gavin's birthday is in two days and I have nothing ready for his party. Our kitchen is not done yet, so that puts a wrinkle in my plan to make amazing cupcakes to impress the other parents and thus prove my own self worth. My mom would no doubt let me make them at her house. I just don't know when I can make them. Time is not on my side.

My biggest problem right now is Henri. Poor Henri has always had a screw loose, but ever since Emma passed he has been beside himself. Crying or barking pretty much constantly. Stacy refuses to be alone in the house with him because he will not stop barking. I can't really blame her. But that means I can't leave to go anywhere unless I take him with me and since it's been like 90+ degrees there's no way I can leave him in the car and obviously most places of business aren't thrilled with the idea of having a dog there. Unless I want to buy all of my cupcake making goods at Pet Supplies Plus. Which I don't. Unless it comes to that.

Thursday, July 14, 2011: That's a big ass baby

Okay, okay, okay. So a woman in Texas (of course) gave birth to a 16 pound baby boy. It's all over the news. Or it was all over the news, I'm a couple of days behind. People are freaking out about the baby's size, but what interests me is the baby's name ("I don't care about a big baby" -- one of three choices in the NY Daily News readers' poll): JaMichael. His parents, Janet and Michael, apparently love their names so much they couldn't think of a third one. It's a little unfair that Janet only gets "Ja" while Michael gets his whole name in there. But that's the patriarchy for you. And the baby is, after all, a boy. Their girl name was no doubt MaJanet.

Had Stacy and I (a.k.a. D'Anne) decided to combine our names our son would be named St'An.

I also love the NY Daily News headline: "Massive, 16-pound baby ... smashes newborn records." It brings to mind a mega King Kong sized baby pounding his fists into giant filing cabinets. "Me no like papers!"

In reality JaMichael isn't smashing anything. He's a newborn. He's crying and eating and filling his diaper. He's just as helpless as any other newborn, it's just that this bundle of helplessness comes in a package twice as large. Good luck, Janet and Michael. And remember, lift with your legs!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011: Everything is broken

AirTran broke our stroller. We gate checked it in Orlando and when we got it back in Detroit it only had three wheels. Well, to be fair, all four wheels were there, it's just that one of them was snapped off and sitting on top of the folded stroller. The journey from Florida to Michigan was long, so while this wasn't the end of the world, it came at a pretty crappy time. Gavin was very wily on the plane. He would not sit still for anything. He was pretty quiet all things considered, but trying to keep a toddler still for two hours is next to impossible unless he's asleep. And Gavin definitely wasn't. He'd slept the hour and a half ride to the airport so by the time we were on the plane he was in prime GO mode. Stacy and I were both tired out from the trip and I had cramps to boot (thanks, uterus!) so by the time the plane landed, we were all very ready to get off the plane ("Off airplane," Gavin said repeatedly). We even arrived a couple of minutes early! Unfortunately the plane at our gate was running behind and had a mechanical problem to boot so we had to sit on the jetway. After about 20 minutes the captain said that lo and behold there was another gate we could go to so everybody get back in your seats here we go. Alas, when we got to the other gate some part of the big hallway arm that attaches to the plane from the airport wasn't working and we ended up sitting there for another 20 minutes or so. And then the broken stroller.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Once the plane landed and they said we could safely use our cellphones I called Laura as she was picking us up. She was there, ready to get us. Then she asked me, "You guys have a car seat, right?" This question confused me as there is a car seat in Stacy's van and in my car and she was presumably in one of those vehicles. I say something like, "No, we don't. Why?" and Laura says, "Well, there's no car seat in here and I assumed you had brought one." WTF? Why would the van be sans car seat? I relay this info to Stacy and she, too, is confused. Stacy's brother was the last person to use our van so Laura says that maybe he took it out. "Why would he take it out?" Laura does not know. Stacy also does not know. In fact, she acts very perplexed. Laura is very unhappy about this situation and says something like, "Well, all I know is that there's no car seat here" and I tell her that we absolutely need one and that not having one isn't an option ("It's illegal," Stacy interjects). Well, I'm not going back to get one," Laura says. And no one was happy and she hung up.

When I ask Stacy why the hell would her brother would take the car seat out of the van she says, "I don't know. Let's call him." And so I do. And he says that yes, he did take the car seat out of the van and it was in the house. When I ask why he did that he says that Stacy told him he could because he was taking a bunch of guys to a bachelor party or something. I turn to Stacy. You told him he could take the seat out? And she says, "Yes. He was taking a bunch of guys to some bachelor party or something." Okay, I say to Dave, "Thanks for the information" or something like that. I am crabby at this point. And I am very confused about my wife's confusion about the car seat scenario. I am trying not to be mad at her. I want to get the hell off of this plane. Gavin is being a very good boy, as patient as he can manage.

To make a long story longer, Jamie, further cementing herself as a superhero in Gavin's estimation, drives to our house, gets the car seat, and takes it up to Laura. Then they wait for us, which takes forever because not only do we have to go to the Official TransAir Office of Baggage Sadness (we go down to the office and a sign on the window says, "Go to the ticket counter." We go to the ticket counter, they say, "You have to go downstairs." It's an awesome time. They are going to fix or replace our stroller. We left it there. My money is on never seeing it again), but by this point we are so tired and delirious that we can't find Laura. But then we do and Gavin gives Laura a hug and is super glad to see both of them (did I mention that we're carting around all of our luggage and a toddler without a stroller? I highly recommend doing the airport without a stroller. Everything is better done at the walking pace of a two year old). We make it home at nearly 9 p.m. Gavin takes a bath. He goes to sleep. All is right in the world.

Well, not really. I should make clear that Laura is usually a lot less "to hell with you." We must cut her a lot of slack. While we were gone in Florida her dog, and our dear friend, Emma passed away. She was almost 16 years old. I wish we'd been there to say goodbye and to help Laura. We'll all miss her very much. Even though she left wet nose prints on everything and everybody hated it (even Gavin who, when she'd touch her nose against his arm, would say, "Emma. Nose," in a very unhappy way). Here's a photo of her and Gavin back in January. I'm pretty sure that's the most recent photo we have of the two of them. It's hard to get a dog and a toddler to pose for a photo by themselves, let alone together. In any case, Emma will very much be missed by all of us. Especially Laura. I wish the whole car seat thing hadn't happened because I hate that we added to her stress. But she said Gavin's hug made up for it. He also gave her a Chick-O-Stick. Her favorite. Send her some.

Sunday, July 10, 2011: Reunited and it feels so good

Well, Gavin's still incredible. This isn't a surprise, but after being away from him for a couple of days coming back to him heightens that fact. When Amanda brought me back to my mother in law's house Gavin had just finished getting his diaper changed. When he saw me he said, "Dirt." And then when he saw Amanda he said, "Man." And then he ran around like a giggling maniac with Stacy chasing him. And then I picked him up and twirled him around and Stacy and Amanda chided me because of my back. Which is feeling pretty good today. Not having to pick up a 30+ Lb. kid for a couple of days did me good, I think.

Gavin told me that he and Paul fixed his horse (it needed batteries). He fed carrots to real horses. He went to a couple of parks. He got to ride in the golf car. His dance card was very full. After Amanda left I got in the pool with him. Marilyn and Stacy, too. Paul just dipped his feet in despite Gavin's requests for him to make a "big plash." Stacy, on the other hand, was game. Gavin and I counted to three in Spanish and Stacy did a canon ball into the pool. I wish I had photo of Gavin's face. His mouth was agape and his eyes wide. He couldn't have had a more perfect expression if he were a cartoon character. Stacy totally blew his mind. He knew that Paul could make big splashes. But his mommy could, too? Holy shit. Mind. Blown.

While at Amanda's I watched a lot of crime TV. Murder shows, we call them. I watched a couple of episodes of FBI Criminal Pursuit on ID Discovery. Both episodes featured a child as the victim. In one of them a 2-year-old's body is found in a plastic tub and it turns out the little girl's mother and step-father beat her to death over the period of an entire day. They even stopped to give her baby aspirin at one point. I still feel sick about that story. It made me want to get back to Gavin so I could hug him and kiss him. Which maybe sounds corny, but is the truth. What the fuck is wrong with people? Sometimes it's hard to have much faith in humanity at all.

But then there's Gavin. I have faith in at least 30 lbs. of humanity going for me. Being away from him was good for me -- for my back and for my sanity. I got to do things like read a book and sleep in. Amanda Carver is good for me, no doubt. But I hate missing things in his life. I wish I could have seen him feed a carrot to the horse. But Stacy told me she took plenty of photos and videos. Someday I'll upload them. I'm about a month behind in Gavin photos. It takes a lot of time and energy to chronicle the life of the most adorable little boy in the world.

Saturday, July 9, 2011: Pretty little girl

Well, it's happened three times now. Three different people have mistaken Gavin for a girl. This is probably our signal that it's time for a haircut. But I'm not willing to let go of his curly goldilocks yet. The most recent gender confusion happened the day before yesterday at the airport when the TSA agent asked, "Do you have a boarding pass for her?" Without even thinking I said, "Him." It was totally reflexive. It's not like it really mattered, but I was lightning fast in my correction. The other two "little girl" mix-ups happened when Gavin was with Stacy.Maybe some parents would be rushing out to their nearest Super Cuts to get their son a manly buzz cut or something, but not us. For one thing, any place that charges less than $10 for a
haircut can't be trusted with cutting your hair (Gavin will be having his first haircut at The Chop Shop, thank you very much.Here's a picture of him in the barber's chair there on a recent visit to watch his Aunt Laura get her hair cut). We're pretty much in love with his curls, so it's going to be hard when we finally have to let go. And it's not like we're gender fascists or something. I mean, I did, after all, buy him pink gardening gloves with the Disney princess logo on the back. And he does have pink broom and mop toys that he loves. It's true, I don't dress him in girlie clothes. I personally think that little girl clothes are often lame and ugly. Let's face it, if I had a girl instead of a boy, she'd be dressed in gender neutral clothes most of the time. Like Rosemary's daughter, Ella, who wore a lot of hand me downs from her cousin Will when she was a toddler.

As I mentioned, we were at the airport the other day. We're currently in Florida. Stacy and Gavin are at Granny Marilyn and Grandpa Paul's house. I'm at Amanda Carver's house, a couple of hours away. It's sad to be away from Gavin, but also nice. For the next couple of days I won't have to lift a 30+ Lb. toddler and hurt my back. But I also know he is having fun without me. Stacy better be taking a lot of pictures.

All week Gavin would talk about how he's going "on airplane" to "Paul's house." He really digs Paul. Gavin is majorly into dudes right now. Another thing that clashes with the Baby X story from my Women's Studies class in college.

Gavin was so good on the plane. He probably did bump the chair in front of him too often (in that chair was a man in a yellow shirt, and I explained to Gavin that the man was trying to sleep so we couldn't take the tray table down and put it up over and over and over again because that bumped his chair). Gavin rode on our laps because he's not quite 2. He wanted to sit next to us, not on our laps, though, which tells me he'll like having his own seat when we go to Cancun in August. Or at least I hope he will. That's a much longer flight than from Detroit to Orlando. But he's flown to California before, and that we a long flight, too. But he was a lot younger then. Just learning to walk. I can't believe how big he is now. Like a real boy. More than "like" a real boy. He is a little boy now. I still refer to him as a baby every now and then out of habit and because he is still my baby. He is not at the stage where that causes him mortifying indignation. Yet.

Thursday, July 7, 2011: On a jet plane

"G, Gavin. G, Gavin." Right now he's playing with a big foam block with the letter G on it and that's what he's saying. I held it up yesterday and said, "G is for Gavin." So clearly he's a genius.

Gavin and Stacy are off to Spanish class this morning at Bright Loritos. I'm staying home. My grand plan is to pay our bills and pack for Florida. Because we're leaving to go to the land of swamps and alligators this evening (and for the record, my sister lives here as does a big burly dude with a baseball bat, so don't get any ideas). I get to see Amanda Carver (not to be confused with Amanda my sister), which I am very excited about. Gavin is excited about this trip, too. When you ask him where we're going to day he says, "In airplane" and then "Paul's house." It is technically Granny Marilyn's and Paul's house, but Gavin is looking forward to sorting Paul's tools again like he did at Christmas when we visited last.

Another reason to sit out Spanish class is that I am injured. I sprained my thumb and I hurt my back. These injuries are not related. I was hoping this whole back pain thing would go away like it did last time, but it just got worse and worse over the 4th of July weekend and finally I asked Laura to take me to urgent care (with Amanda Carver's prompting, mind you. It had never occurred to me to go before she mentioned it). But, yeah, I was in pain and nothing was helping. The doctor there gave me some muscle relaxers and a prescription for Motrin (which I didn't fill because I already have Motrin at home, thank you). Then he had the nurse give me a shot of Toradol in my hip which hurt like a motherfucker. A little warning would have been nice. When she put the needle in I thought, "Okay, this isn't my favorite, but I can handle this." When she started injecting the Toradol I thought, "Okay, this burns and is really uncomfortable, but it's all going to be fine." And then when she finished the shot and the full dose of Toradol was in my ass I thought, "Holy shit, I am going to die." Like, seriously, I think being shot with a gun would possibly have hurt less. I immediately felt like I was going to puke and started to sweat like I'd been working out at the gym for hours. My clothes were soaked. The doctor advised me to sit down and he had his hands on my arms propping me up, I think, so I wouldn't fall down. At some point I fainted, but the doctor had already gotten me into the chair at that point. Then I kind of lunged forward in the chair which woke me up and the doctor said, "That's right, the pain'll bring you back." I said i felt like I was going to be sick and so the nurse was holding a big pink puke basin in front of me, and that's when I saw Laura poke her head into the room. She looked pretty freaked. It turns out the nurse had said to her, "You might want to go in there for moral support. She's not doing very well." That, to me, is the kind of thing you say when someone's dying, so Laura was kind of freaked out. Anyway, I didn't pass out. I didn't puke. I made it through the rain, as Barry Manilow would say. But I'm still in pain. I've got my little physical therapy exercises that the doctor printed out for me from the Internet. And I've been warned against trying to lift Gavin, which is what the doctor thinks triggered this whole thing. I'm not so sure about it, but I admit it probably didn't help.

Stacy and Gavin had gone off to Grandpa Gary's house for the weekend with Uncle Dave, Stacy's brother. So Gavin got some good dude time in. I swear he came back walking with a little machismo swagger. He's very into dudes right now (see: "Paul's house" above).

I hope this trip is painless (aside from my back and thumb). This will be Gavin's last time on an airplane without his own seat. He's not quite 2 yet, so we're taking advantage of that. He's a pretty good little dude at restaurants, so I hope that will somehow translate to airplanes, too. I'm hoping he'll fall asleep since it's an evening flight. Wish us luck.

Saturday, July 1, 2011: Lansing world tour

"Laura in kitchen." That's how Gavin greeted Laura this morning. She was, indeed, in the kitchen. Barefoot, even, which is against the rules. We're getting our kitchen redone and so Gavin is not allowed in there without shoes. So far he's been really good about this, though this morning he opted for a pair of Stacy's shoes, black flats with a colorful floral print. They were a little gaudy, though I think that was due in large part to their size. He also insisted on wearing his pink gardening gloves. I've been searching all summer for kids' gardening gloves and I finally found some at CVS. Pink gloves with a "Princess" Disney logo on the back were the only options. They go well with Gavin's pink toy broom, mop, and dustpan that his Grandpa Kathy bought for him at Target. God forbid we make household chore toys gender neutral. What a shame it would be for kids of both genders to learn how to keep a house clean. A heterosexual dude might actually pick up his own socks off the floor or mop the kitchen. And we can't have that. Otherwise, what would straight women have left to bitch about?

Speaking of domestic duties, I sprained my thumb today putting on the couch slipcover. I know, I'm wild. I was tucking the fabric around the cushion and put my full weight into it. Lo and behold my thumb was trapped in a fold of fabric that held it like a sling while the rest of my hand plunged into the couch. I heard a terrible crunch sound and an immediate wave of pain that made me feel like I was going to puke. Basically my thumb folded over backwards at the joint where it meets my hand. I've had an ice pack on it for hours, but it still hurts if I bend my thumb or try to use it for anything thumbs are used for (picking things up, for example). I also hurt my back, though I'm not sure what triggered it today. But a few weeks ago I hurt my back opening a window. Today it hurts like that again, but I didn't do anything so daring and risky. I think I'm just getting old.

I spent the past couple of nights in a hotel room in Lansing with Stacy and Gavin. Stacy had a work-related conference to attend and I figured it would be fun to go with her. Kind of a dry run for Gavin since we'll be spending a week in a hotel in Mexico. Gavin was a trooper. He slept and napped really well in the Pack and Play the hotel provided. This bodes well for Mexico. On Thursday while Stacy was at the conference Gavin and I went to the Potter Park Zoo where we saw spider monkeys, peacocks, a wolf, a lion, and some bald eagles. We also saw a tiger and a snow leopard super up close. The enclosures are much closer to the people at the Potter Park Zoo than at the Detroit Zoo and both the tiger and snow leopard came right up to the front while we were there. You can't, like, touch them or anything. Well, I mean, I guess you could, but you'd have to go over the little railing and then reach through the enclosure fence. We refrained. We did, however, touch goats in the petting zoo portion of the park. The only animals there to be petted were goats. There was a little vending machine -- you know, the kind you usually see in the lobby of an old credit union or VFW hall filled with Skittles and/or shelled peanuts -- that you could put a quarter in and get food pellets to feed them. I didn't have any change so Gavin almost missed out on that experience but a nice little girl (she was, like, 10 maybe) handed him a couple of pellets that had fallen on the ground under the machine. While it was against the rules to feed the goats inside of the enclosure, we did it anyway because that's where we were. Gavin fed two goats and then dropped the third pellet. To my horror he recovered it and tried feeding it to a very disinterested goat. Disinterested, I suppose, because Gavin was offering him goat poo, not food. And then before I could use the proffered hand sanitizer dispenser, Gavin stuck his thumb in his mouth. So far we have yet to have cause to tell the story of how Gavin got rotavirus at the zoo.

By Friday morning Gavin had enough of Lansing. When I asked him if he wanted to go to the science museum he responded, "Go home." Sadly for him, that was not an option as we still had a morning to kill before his nap time. So I took him to the Impression 5 Science Center in downtown Lansing. It's an interesting place. They have a room called First Impressions that's for babies and toddlers but that room had a class going on when we first got there so we checked out the rest of the museum first. The museum is in an old building with work and creaky wood floors and, from what I could tell, no air conditioning. This was especially evident in the room with giant bubble wands and stuff, including a platform you could stand on and pull a rope so that you were standing inside a huge bubble tube. There's something similar at the Ann Arbor hands on museum, though I don't recall the platform being covered in bubble solution before. In any case, it meant a lot of bubble solution tracked onto the floor. It would have been a slippery mess had they not put down rugs. Unfortunately, the combination of humid weather and bubble soaked rugs made the bubble room smell pretty terrible. I redirected Gavin's attention as soon as possible. Things that had been touted in a Michigan for kids' guidebook I have weren't all that in real life. The giant heart model, for example, didn't hold my or Gavin's attention. The place were you throw stuff was difficult to navigate and did not have clear instructions. But the First Impressions room made up for all of that. It was one of the nicest, cleanest, most kid-friendly play place I've ever brought Gavin to. Totally worth the price of admission if you have a wee one. Gavin had a blast there and he didn't even make it over to the water table section, which is one of the room's highlights. There's a big wooden play structure with two slides, a kid-sized toy house with a kitchen and other domesticities, plenty of toys and games and blocks and dolls. Like many places where babies and toddlers climb and play, it's a shoe-free zone, which I totally understand but since it was summer almost everyone, including me, was barefoot. If only I always kept an extra pair of socks for me stashed in his diaper bag. So far no sign of any disgusting foot diseases.

Probably the best part of the day was eating lunch with Gavin outside of the science museum. I'd pilfered bread, jelly, and peanut butter from the morning's continental breakfast and assembled some sandwiches for us. I packed some dried apple snack for Gavin ("apple chips" he calls them. We both do). We ate on the yellow bench next to a model of the sun in the museum's huge scale model of the solar system. Gavin sat in front of me and leaned back, happy to take a breather from the whirlwind of the past two days. But it was the sweetest lunch I've eaten in a long time.

I feel lucky that Gavin is affectionate. He woke me up this morning with a hug and a kiss. Such a sweet boy.