Tuesday, Sept. 27: Bikes and trucker donuts

Nom nom nom.

Gavin and I walked up to the rail yard near our house to see the trucks and while we were there some truckers gave us donuts. Well, more specifically, a trucking company had a booth set up in the parking lot promoting the fact that they are hiring (imagine that, someone in Michigan is hiring!) and one of the guys from the booth called over to us, asking if we wanted a donut. It all looked pretty up-and-up and so I said to Gavin, "Do you want to get a donut from a trucker?" and Gavin said, "Yes." The guy came over with two full boxes of Tim Horton's donuts. He opened it and held it out to Gavin and said, "Which one do you want?" and Gavin simultaneously reached out and said, "This one" and grabbed a pumpkin spice donut and went to immediately devour it before I prompted him to say thank you. I don't think Gavin's mind even registered that there were different kinds of donuts to choose from in that box, I think he was more like, "Oh my a whole donut must act fast before I wake up from this dream." Before we knew it the man had given us both boxes of donuts and we were off to our neighbor Megan's house because she has four kids and goodness knows I don't need a dozen+ donuts in my house unless I want to weigh an additional 50 lbs. before the weekend.

Hard core biker.

In other news, Gavin can ride a bike. When we went over to drop off the donuts, Gavin wanted to ride this black and green bike that actually came from one of the other neighbor's trash and now belongs to Megan's kids. Or perhaps one of them in particular, but I'm not sure who. Looking at the bike it's not a big mystery why it was in the trash to begin with. The back tire is completely bald. The pedals provide forward momentum about 70% of the time. The rest of the time the bald back tire just sputters against the sidewalk with no traction. It is a bike that is seemingly designed (or, I suppose, damaged) to frustrate children learning to ride a bike. It has training wheels, so that's a big help. Gavin has been trying to ride this bike all summer but the whole "pedaling" thing eluded him. But no longer. He rode that bike all the way to the park and back this evening. Granted he'd need a very gentle push start when the back tire would stall, but that wasn't his fault. He actually has a little bike of his own that our neighbor Maurice gave to him. It's a nice little bike, and it looks brand new. But it doesn't have training wheels and the tires need air. I didn't even think he'd be able to ride it until after the winter so I hadn't even gotten him training wheels yet, but now it's imperative that I pimp his bike out pronto. And get him a helmet. Because I suspect he'll be quite the speed demon once he's using a bike that's not on its last legs.

Sunday, September 25, 2011: Smoothie operator

Gavin was using the blender all day today to make smoothies. Yes, it was the real blender, no it was not plugged in. He was helping Stacy in the kitchen and saw her use the blender. I'm not sure what she was blending, but she used the "pulse" function, so when Gavin was using it he would imitate the noise by making a series of loud grunting sounds. Ungh, ugnh, ughn! Beforehand he would advise us, "Cover ears. This loud," all no-nonsense. He has a taste for the exotic flavor combinations, at least when it comes to smoothies. He made Stacy a sausage-kiwi one and later bacon-apple for Jamie. To "cook" he uses his little plush foods we got for him at Ikea. He mixes the fruits and vegetables, some of which are very much standard or at least understandable smoothie fare (carrots, apples, cucumbers), with his breakfast foods set, which is the reason for his "gourmet" flavors.

In other news, Gavin can read now. Okay, that's not exactly true, but he can and does recognize the capital letters G and D and O on his own. He's been recognizing G for awhile, it is, after all, for Gavin. But I've been pointing out that D is for Mama D. We were reading a book this morning that featured capital Ds and Gs on the cover and though I can't remember what book, he pointed out the Gs and I pointed out the Ds. Later, after his nap, while reading Go Dogs Go with Stacy, he pointed to the G and said, "G for Gavin," and then he pointed to the D and said, "D." Stacy's mind was pretty blown.

What can I say, I have a smart kid. A big kid, too. The other day at school I ran into a co-worker who has a son in Kindergarten and she said that her son weighs as much as mine (somewhere around 32 pounds). I predict he's going to be a big'un. The other day Amanda and I were in the van after coming home from my Aunt Michaelene and Cousin Umeko's house and Gavin had taken his shoes and socks off on the way home. I saw his tiny balled up sock on the ground and I told Amanda that when I find little sweatsocks around the house I think it's adorable, but it won't be long before I'm finding sweatsocks far larger than mine on the floor and instead of, "He's so cute," I'll probably be more like, "Goddammit." But for now, I'm soaking up as much as I can while he's still incapable of such transgressions.

The other day while climbing into his booster seat at the kitchen table he said, "I'm a big boy." He also uses "maybe" a lot. Like today he heard an airplane flying overhead while we were eating dinner and he said to me, "What's that sound?" and then he answered his own question saying, "Maybe airplane flying in sky." I agreed that's what it sounded like. And then he said, clearly not done with his guesses, "Maybe airplane go down." Maybe, man, but we don't want to be anywhere near here if that does happen. Granted, he doesn't mean an airplane crash, though that's what it sounds like. When we were on our plane home from Mexico, during landing Gavin kept saying, "Airplane go down" which only sounds more and more alarming when it is said over and over.

Stacy and Gavin went to the store this afternoon to buy real recipes for real smoothies. So hopefully my household will soon have smoothies made of real fruits and veggies instead of felt slabs of butter, a plush apple half and some fake sausage.

Sunday, Sept. 4, 2011: Slam dunk

So, Gavin got baptized today. In the Catholic Church, no less. It's a long story. I'm not Catholic. Stacy's not Catholic. In fact, we aren't even Christian. Don't believe in God, in fact.

So how and why did this baptism thing happen? My dad. He believes in that stuff and it was important to him and Stacy and I were all, "Sure, why not?" If it makes my dad sleep better at night thinking that Gavin is now on some e-vite list to some future party in the sky then why not do it? My mom also believes in that sort of thing and so even though she's not Catholic, she is happy about it, too.

It's kind of a delicate situation, because I know that baptism is a big deal for some folks, surely for the priest that did Gavin's, and so I don't mean to come across like a total dick about it. To each her own and all that. I'm just saying that Gavin's baptism wasn't exactly life changing or earth shattering, but more of a way to do something that my dad feels is meaningful for his grandson. So that's that.

Gavin's response to getting baptized? "Gavin hair all wet." He thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

Like I said, I'm not religious. I did grow up going to an Episcopal church. I should really say I was forced to go to an Episcopal church and that I hated every second of it. In any case, I still know "The Lord's Prayer" by heart and was able to recite it today, no problem. As a poet, I appreciate the prayer as verse. It is quite nice, actually. When I was a kid, whenever I heard, "Our father who art in heaven," I always pictured God (a dude with a beard, naturally) with an easel in front of him holding a paintbrush just, you know, doing art. Arting (verb). Hallowed by thy name and all that.

Friday, Sept. 2, 2011: 14 years later

Yesterday was my anniversary. Stacy and I have been together 14 years. While Gavin was eating his lunch yesterday I told him, "I'm taking Mommy out to dinner because it's our anniversary. Can you say, 'Happy Anniversary'?" He said, "Happy," and then paused for a long time, a look of serious consideration on his face, and then he said, "birthday."

I took her to The Whitney because that's where she said she wanted to go and where she probably thought I would not take her. After 14 years I can still surprise my wife by exceeding her low expectations. That's a recipe for marriage success.

I also bought and wore a skirt for the occasion, as well as a sleeveless shirt to go with it. When Gavin got up from his nap I said, "Help me pick out what to wear tonight," and while Gavin and I gazed into my closet, it was readily apparent that I didn't have anything to wear. I knew Stacy would be disappointed if I looked like I was just going to work, so I told Gavin, "Get your shoes on, we have to go to Old Navy." Because Old Navy is where you go when you need an outfit to wear to The Whitney on a date with your wife after 14 years together. Obviously. (In my defense I had a strong suspicion that they would have a skirt that was not too ostentatious for my tastes -- basically if a nun wouldn't wear it I probably wouldn't either -- and I know how their clothes fit me for the most part). If you are ever looking for a last minute date outfit I highly recommend you take a two-year-old shopping with you. I'm not actually kidding. Knowing that Gavin had a limited attention span for lady-clothes shopping made for a Supermarket Sweep style shopping experience. I found a skirt and a top in less than ten minutes, tried them on in four, and purchased them and was out the door in under 20 minutes. There was no time for overthinking or hemming and hawing about things like "size" and "fit." I ended up with an XXL skirt I needed to secure around my waist with rope and an XS blouse that I needed to Ace-bandage myself Yentl-style in order to squeeze into it. I'm kidding. Both the skirt and the shirt fit and Stacy was impressed. So basically I bought myself an outfit for her anniversary present. Like I said, I'm pretty much the best wife.

Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011: Bears on the pot

Gavin has been 2 years old for an entire month now. He celebrated today by peeing in the potty. I was out shopping and Stacy decided that it would be a good idea for her and Gavin to kind of camp out in the bathroom while he sat on the potty. She plied him with juice, Spanish videos, and books and she even painted his toenails blue (the same blue as my toenails, in fact, and Stacy's. The family that pedicures together stays together, after all). After sitting there for 40 minutes (voluntarily, mind you. Stacy did not force him to sit on the pot for almost an hour, she just provided entertainment while he did), he peed. It was during the video, in fact, a Spanish-language Mickey Mouse cartoon on YouTube. According to Stacy, he didn't even look up, though he did announce a couple moments before, "Pee coming." And so it did. There was a triumphant dumping of the potty chair into the big toilet and flushing ceremony afterwards. I'm sad I missed it.

I also missed Oso pooping on the big potty. Oso is one of Gavin's stuffed bears and thankfully Stacy did a fantastic job of documenting the event:

Oso and Gavin, side by side, at a "business" meeting. (Get it? Ha. Potty humor. I apologize.) Note that Stacy has put plastic wrap on the toilet seat to support the illusion of Oso's impending defecation. Please also note that this tableau is one of the reasons I love my wife so much.

 

Oso has success. Gavin is quick to help get the toilet paper as Oso's arms clearly won't reach our brand new toilet paper holder (Gavin broke our old one off the wall about a year ago and we just put a new one up. Keep your fingers crossed for us).

Gavin gives Oso a wiping hand.

Oso, continuously stymied by his lack of opposable thumbs, not to mention his his overly eager helpmate, cannot flush the toilet himself.

As Oso is new to the world of toilet usage and cannot be trusted not to use the entire house as his personal bathroom (he is, after all, a bear), it is important that he don a diaper after his bathroom success.

 
Oso and Gavin are clearly an inspiration to us all.

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011: When nature calls

We went on a family walk this evening: me, Stacy, Gavin, and Henri. Gavin was really interested in Henri's tree sniffing and soon started imitating him. When Henri peed on a tree, Gavin squatted on the lawn and said that he, too, was peeing. He took another look at Henri and stuck his leg out to better approximate Hen's peeing posture. Gavin then wanted to stop and smell every tree, a level of tree-sniffing devotion even Henri does not have. Stacy explained to him, in Spanish, that there were a lot of trees and we didn't have time to sniff all of them. I understand Spanish well enough to have understood such a thing, but I could never say it myself, if that makes sense. Eventually Henri had to take a dump and Gavin once again squatted down on the grass and said, "Gavin poop." When Hen was done I used a baggie to clean up after him (because I am a responsible dog owner, thank you very much. Definitely a pet peeve, pun very much intended, when people don't clean up after their dogs). Gavin then wanted a bag to clean up his own poop (which, to be clear, did not exist. We aren't letting Gavin bare squat on our neighbors' lawns or anything) and carry along with him just like I was doing with Henri's. He was very proud. I, too, was proud because if you're going to shit on someone's lawn you should at least have the decency to clean it up. That's the kind of son I want to raise. We're clearly training him to be the next Bear Grylls, though vegetarian.

Last night I spent a good deal of time reading books to a naked Gavin as he said on his little toilet. He kept saying, "Poop coming." But it never did. Stacy repeated this activity this evening. He's showing more interest than ever in the place where his bodily functions and our indoor plumbing collide. Earlier today he wanted to put his poop from his diaper into the toilet, which I let him do despite my desire to say, "Oh, hell no." I figure his interest is good and this is a step in the right direction. Like I said, ever since we went to Mexico and he got to see Brenden in potty-trained action, his own interest in the process is piqued. As his parent, it's my job to foster and encourage that on one hand, while on the other hand play it cool and not be too demanding or judgmental so he doesn't end up growing up with insane poo and/or pee related fetishes or phobias. Being a parent is fun! Everything is so low stakes.

August 16, 2011: Mexico survivors

Lesson from today: having a baby in your arms will help you get out of a parking ticket. Gavin and I were making our way to our car after sharing a very romantic dinner at Pronto! when I saw a parking attendant approach our car. I knew we were cutting it close to the meter time, but you try making a 2-year-old eat a grilled cheese sandwich faster. I yelled, "Hey! Wait! We're here! We're right here!" The woman turned around and looked at me with a degree of contempt that may or (more likely) may not have been warranted and then she looked at Gavin and turned to walk away saying, "It expired five minutes ago. Next time put more money in." As if I don't know how a parking meter works. But anyway, thanks lady. I would have acted more grateful but you didn't really give me a chance.

So, yes. Mexico, specifically Cancun, more specifically Riviera Maya. The #1 vacation destination for toddlers. To go alone, obviously. But like the total drags we are, Stacy and I accompanied Gavin on his international vacation adventure. We even brought along his Aunt Amanda. At the resort we met up with Lisa and Brenden. Stacy and I got sunburns. End of fun vacation story. Thanks for asking.

We've been back for a week now. I have been very neglectful about posting here and I apologize. But as I've said before, I don't know how anyone with children has time to write about having children. And I only have a child.

Vacationing with toddlers is unlike any other kind of vacation experience, for better and worse. Brenden is only 6 weeks older than Gavin, so in real life they're the same age. Getting to see the boys play together and getting to Lisa were my number one reasons for wanting to go on this trip. That it was in Mexico was not very important to me, though it did make my life a bit more difficult since the moment he heard we were going to Cancun my father flooded my inbox with links to news stories about the drug-related violence in Mexico and has tried to convince me that we'd all end up kidnapped and/or killed. Had we chosen, say, Orlando, Florida, my guess is that he'd have cooled it on the beheading stories.

But we were not kidnapped or killed, thankfully. Well, we were held hostage once, but not in a drug-cartel-related way. In fact, we had a good time. Not at the hostage taking, mind you. And it wasn't even a hostage taking, it just took a really, really long time to check into our hotel after we'd traveled for a long, long time to get there and then once we had our keys some lady from the hotel tried to sell us on some kind of time-share breakfast under the guise of "I'm here to help you" and we were all so tired, and so sweaty and Gavin had a full load in his pants and had been an angel all day, completely amazing, but he was starting to lose his patience as were we all but we were too polite to tell her where to go, plus we were fried from a day of traveling and didn't even have the sense to say, "Look lady, shut it. You can shove your 90 minute breakfast, your "free" t-shirts and tote bags, and your purple eyeshadow."

I should mention that before we even got to our rooms more than one employee there made a comment about how we were traveling without our husbands. So did Ms. Purple Eyeshadow, though to her credit she was very cool with the news that we were married to each other. Stacy and me, I mean. Neither of us is married to Amanda. She just loves to take vacations with other people's toddlers for some reason.

Lisa and Brenden arrived later that evening and luckily sidestepped the "hard sell" arrival. Brenden and Gavin were so, so cute playing together. For some reason Brenden never called Gavin by his name, he referred to Gavin solely as "Baby," though we did coax him into saying "Gavin" near the end of the trip ("Go-bin" is how he pronounces it), though he still never called Gavin anything but "Baby."

One of their favorite things to do was hide in the closet in the room and then come flying out screaming. I'm sure our neighbors loved us.

Gavin really blossomed as a swimmer while we were there. Brenden is already fearless when it comes to the water. He swims several times a week at home. Watching Brenden helped Gavin get over his trepidation a little bit. He went from only wanting to put his feet in to "jumping" into the pool (I say "jumping" because Gavin's jumps were much more controlled than Brenden's. He would jump to someone and that someone would catch him before he really could go under the water or anything. Where Brenden just jumps in, bobs under and happily comes right back up. They boys both had life vests on whenever we were in the water, by the way).

Brenden is also potty trained, so one of the highlights of the trip for Gavin was getting to watch Brenden go to the bathroom. Brenden was just as enthusiastic about this display. It got to the point that when he would have to go he would yell, "Baby! Baby! Pee!" alerting Gavin to what he was going to miss if he didn't hurry up. Gavin also got to see him poop while sitting on the toilet. Gavin's interest in using the toilet went up quite a bit while we were on vacation. He never actually went on the potty, but he would request to sit there a lot. Since we've been home he's shown more interest, as well, though nothing has happened output-wise. Tonight, in fact, he sat on his little potty while I read him four books. He didn't do anything, though he kept saying, "Poop coming." This is how I spend my evenings, folks. Actually, I can't complain. Gavin is an awesome kid and if there was anyone I'd want to sit next to while they took a dump it's him. And only him, actually. That list is really short.

Vacationing with toddlers means you really can't stay up late because you have to go to bed early. And working out a nap schedule. This was tricky. We had adjoining rooms so when it was nap time the boys would go down in one room and we'd stay in the other. Lisa is a genius and brought her baby monitor and that really helped. The first afternoon, we tried putting the boys down at the same time in their separate cribs, but that turned into a disaster. Okay, not a disaster, since that implies whatever my dad was envisioning would happen on this trip. But the boys would not settle down. Seeing each other was too much. Brenden had a really rickety old crib and he wanted very much to stand up in it and rock it back and forth. Gavin snagged the Pack N Play which was much more sturdy, though it did have a lot of holes in the mesh. Stacy called several times about getting another Pack N Play to replace the crib, but there was never one available. In fact, she guessed that some other guest probably left the Pack N Play behind and they didn't actually have any more. Stacy's Spanish is really good (she got a lot of compliments) but there are some things she doesn't quite know what to say. Like there was a problem with our sliding door that we needed someone to look at and she didn't know how to say "sliding door" so she had to say something like "the wall that is a window that is a door." In any case, Lisa didn't want Brenden to shake rattle and roll in that crib, so she opened the door and sternly told him to knock it off and lay down. When she came back we heard the tell-tale squeaking of the crib again and then we heard Gavin say to Brenden, "No! Lay down!" Brenden didn't listen. It took a long time but eventually we were able to get them to go to sleep by putting Gavin's crib in the bathroom, which made me feel a little neglectful, even though it wasn't. But once the boys couldn't see or hear each other all was well. Gavin slept in the bathroom during the rest of the trip.

There are some perks to traveling with a kid. We breezed through customs in Mexico, for example. Mind you, we waited forever in a super long immigration line (Gavin, again, was so, so good. He even fell asleep through part of it). But once we got to customs they put us in a special family line and they didn't even screen our bags. Nothing. Stacy showed the lady our form she'd filled out and we were waved through. I suppose I could be offended. "What we look too mom-like to be worth screening?" But I'm not. We got similar treatment on the way home, too. They guy said, "Any food?" And I said, "Some snacks." And he said, "Any meat?" And I said no and added that we were vegetarians. "Any vegetables?" he asked as he was waving us through. I'm telling you, we would be the perfect drug mules. We could have had dope strapped to our butt cheeks and no one would have known. Still, I'm glad we didn't risk it.

We did wait in a long immigration line once in Detroit. Gavin was good, but on the verge of losing it as he had had no nap and was getting hungry. "Gavin pull suitcase," he kept saying, insisting on pulling one of the two red roller bags we took with us (and into which I was able to pack everything because I am a totally obsessive compulsive packer which equals AMAZING AT PACKING SUITCASES. Thank you, thank you very much). In fact, "Gavin pull suitcase" was an oft-repeated refrain during this trip. He loves to pull the suitcase and taught Brenden the joys of pulling our suitcases, which they did throughout our hotel rooms. Amanda even developed a pitch perfect imitation, which I think really says something about Gavin's place in the family now as Amanda imitates everyone and she does it quite well. Often quite scathingly. It's her thing. Packing suitcases is mine. We all roll in our own ways.

Gavin talks so much now and he's got a unique sounding little voice. His inflections are interesting and he tends to really draw out some words, especially the last word or syllable in a sentence: "Gavin pull suitCAAAAASE."He also says "right here" a lot, which sounds like "rye hee." Laura and Jamie have decided that he sounds exactly like Miss Swan from Mad TV. Because they are obviously racist. But not far off, actually.

Another perk of traveling with a kid the family restroom. Oh, how I love it. Before I had Gavin it wasn't something I'd even noticed before. But at the Detroit airport the family restrooms are generally very clean and you get to be in there all by yourself. Or all by your family, anyway.

Speaking of family, I just read this tidbit on Yahoo News: "Britney Spears’s ex-husband [Kevin Federline] has started a family with a special-education teacher." Sounds like a good move. I hope he gets all of his special needs met. It's kind of frightening to think that this guy has at least 5 kids walking around with his DNA though. For their sake I hope they really prove the biology=destiny theory wrong.