watching the sunrise from the swing

For the past couple of weeks, my son has enjoyed watching the sunrise from his back porch swing. He wakes me up at about 5:00 am, and we head out to the backyard. It's monsoon season where we live, so we've gotten to see some beautiful sunrises.

It's been a fun, special time for us to spend together. He swings, and I push him, and we talk about important stuff like garbage trucks, what the neighbors say when the garbage truck comes down their street, bunnies we see in the backyard, and what our favorite breakfast foods are.

i love this book: Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash!

My son requested Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! (Barbara Odanaka) after seeing it on the back of another book we read recently. I requested it from the library and brought it home the other day. 

I might have mentioned before that he is into trains. Well, he is also into garbage trucks. This book is a blast to read. The prose is simple, fun, and rhyming. And the pictures are beautiful! I've never seen such colorful (in a good way) garbage. As you can tell from the cover above, the colors are gorgeous.

This hungry garbage truck devours everything in sight, as two garbage men fill it up with rotten eggs and stinky diapers (my son thinks this is hilarious), and a trio of dogs watch.

Suggested age range: 4-8 years per Amazon (my son is 3 and it's perfect for him)

Author's Note: The opinions in this book review are solely my own. I received no incentive or compensation for writing this review.


                                

motherhood is a workout

As I was lying in bed at 5 am the other morning, taking a few more moments before joining my son in the living room to play with Legos, I thought about the fact that I don't exercise. At all. I don't go to the gym, or run, or ride my bike. I don't do yoga or swim laps. I certainly don't do sit-ups. What do I do all day, anyway? And why am I so tired at 8 pm?? That's when I realized that motherhood is, in itself, a workout. My days are full of exercise.   Here are some of my typical physical activities during a day at home.  

Exercise	What It Really Means	Calories Burned1,2	Notes
Dead lift 30 lbs, 25 reps	Lift child up to look through window at Jiffy Lube, onto changing table, in and out of car and shopping cart, etc.	177/hr	Proper technique with this lift involves not bonking child’s head on roof of car while putting them into carseat. [Oops…]
Hand/wrist strength training, 30 min	Push child in swing	177/hr	Am I the only one who feels the burn? Seriously.
Walking, brisk pace, 20 min	Walk through grocery store as fast as you can while pushing ginormous cart that looks like a racecar, which you picked to keep your child happy for as long as possible while you frantically grab whatever groceries you can while he/she is still behaving, which is not going to be that much longer, I’ve got a ticking time bomb in my cart, so get out of my way, lady in a scooter!!	354/hr	For extra calories burned and an arm workout, carry your child while pushing the ginormous cart. Of course, you’d have to be crazy to try this. At this point, I’d just call it a day and pay for whatever I’d accumulated by that point.
Lift and carry 30 lbs, 3 reps	Unload groceries	177/hr
Walking, slow pace, 30 min	Walk down street while child rides bike	118/hr
Walking, moderate pace, carrying 16-24 lbs, 10 min	Carry child’s bike back to your house	354/hr	If you like pain, carry the bike AND your child. If you don’t like pain but your child has refused to walk, just know that you are getting good aerobic conditioning. (Ha! Tell that to my burning arms.)
Aerobics, 30 min	Wild dancing in the living room	413/hr
Full-body circuit, 30 min	Cook meal / wash dishes	236/hr
Wrestling, 15 min	Carry a screaming, kicking, 30-lb child to bed and put on their pajamas	354/hr	I know this one is a stretch. Just go with it.

1. Calories burned were liberally interpreted from http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm.
2. I am not a medical professional, sports expert, or any other person who might actually know anything about exercise and calories. I am simply a mom trying to justify not exercising.

Based on the table above, I estimate I burn approximately 800,000,000 calories (I rounded up) every day just for normal mothering activities. I think I’ll have an extra serving of dessert tonight.

what would the ducky say?

Right now, two things we really love to do around here are swinging and interacting with toy animals. We had the opportunity to combine the two last Saturday, when Ducky decided he wanted to swing in the backyard.

Daddy and son made sure Ducky was securely strapped into the swing.

Safety first, you know.

 

Then my son pushed the duck. "What does the Ducky say?" he would ask us, and we would answer, with dismal lack of creativity, with things like "Whee!" 

 

Apparently Ducky got bored with simply swinging, so my son twisted the swing to give Ducky a real thrill. "What does the Ducky say?" "This should be fun!"

 

Except during the twisting process, this happened. "What does the Ducky say?" "Aaaaah! Oof."



And then the swing untwisted itself, pulling my son with it. "What would the Ducky say?" "Watch out - that deranged mutant killer monster swing is after you!"

solitude: what happens when you're alone with your thoughts?

Before we were married, Mr. Wonderful and I took a 400-mile bike ride through Alberta and Montana. We were together the whole time, but the reality was that we rode single-file for the majority of each day. There were snack breaks, scenery to admire, and terrifying descents, but there was also a lot of time for nothing but being alone. I don't think I had ever had that much time with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me. It was interesting. It wasn't always pretty, or comfortable. Sometimes I was worried or anxious. Sometimes I came up with coping strategies, ways to ignore my thoughts. Sometimes I composed articles for our local biking magazine in my head as I rode. Sometimes I just gave in to my thoughts and rode the waves. Sometimes I cracked myself up.

 

I find that I rarely just sit with my thoughts. So much of the time, I reach for something to occupy me when I'm alone: a book, tv, my phone. When my son was a newborn, he would only nap when we were holding him, and sometimes I wouldn't think to grab the tv remote, my phone, or a book before he fell asleep, and then I wouldn't want to disturb him by moving (at all). So I would sit on the couch, for hours sometimes, with nothing to do but stare out the window, watch the clouds move across the sky and the leaves rustle in the wind. I termed this the "Zen of Parenting." It was frustrating at times, but it also felt calming to spend my time this way. I could think about things, instead of cramming more things into my head or zoning out watching tv.

It seems to me that there is something good about making time for idle thoughts. For creating space to let our minds wander. I don't know why, exactly; it's just a feeling I have. In my life, moments like this are scarce. Even during the shortest time periods between activities, I feel the need to be entertained or get something accomplished. Why? Are my chores really that important? Is boredom really so awful? Is being alone with my thoughts really so uncomfortable?

Your turn: Do you allow yourself time to be alone with your thoughts?

up into the sky

Tonight was Mama and Son night. We love Mama and Son night.

Over dinner (open-faced sandwich with ham, cheese, and banana - his idea), my son announced that he wanted to go to the "High Swings Park". The weather was beautiful, so I agreed that we should.

In the car, he told me that he wanted to swing "way up high into the sky." In the parking lot at "High Swings Park," he told me that, when he had been born, he had swung way up into the sky. I told him that I didn't remember that, but he was firm: it had happened. Not on his birthday, but when he was born. I had pushed him in the swing, way up into the sky. I wasn't even sure that this was possible.

There are three black swings and one orange swing at this park. The orange one is his favorite. I helped him into it and pushed him a little...

 

...some more...

 

...a little more...

 

...until he was getting pretty high, and then I pushed some more...

 

...and a little more, and then this happened:

 Way up into the sky. Just like he said.

the newest addition to our family



Meet the new addition to our family! Yep, it's Diesel 10.

 

Diesel 10 came into our lives on Friday. He is the result of an incentive [ok, bribe] to get our son to use the potty.

 

For those of you who haven't watched "Day of the Diesels" 10,000 times, Diesel 10 is one of several diesel engines on the Thomas the Train series. The diesel engines are dirty, mysterious, and generally frightening to steam engines such as Thomas and Percy, and also to young viewers such as my son. Diesel 10 is equipped with a sinister-looking claw for grabbing things, making him the scariest diesel of all.

 

But apparently that does not make him unlovable. My son talks about him with a mix of fear and admiration. Soon after we told him about the bribe, er, incentive, he decided that he was going to get Diesel 10. Still, I thought that once we got to the store and saw Thomas, Percy, and the other steamies, he'd change his mind.

 

At the store, my son carefully deliberated between several engines, including Thomas, and then confidently selected Diesel 10 as his reward for beginning his potty training.  "Maybe we can get Thomas next time," he told me. And he hasn't looked back.

 



 

 

 

 

 



Diesel 10 came with a photo list of all the other engines that are available for purchase, which has provided us with hours of study, not so much "I want that and that and that" (although there is some, of course), but mostly just learning the names of every Thomas character known to man.

If Thomas the Train can potty train my son, I'm fine with reading the names of all the engines for the 100th time.

 



birthday celebration

Our son turned three on Saturday. I can't believe it! Here is a recap of some of our birthday activities.

We started out the day with swinging in the backyard. (Notice how the sun has not yet come up over the mountains...we like to make the most of birthdays around here.)

After breakfast, we headed out for a ride on his new balance bike. He's already a pro at popping wheelies.

His most exciting present was a trip to the mall, complete with three quarters for the candy machines and a [homemade] ticket to ride the train.

We got there early, so there was a lot of time for the anticipation to build. We rode the elevator a few times and watched the train conductor clean the train engine with Windex.

Finally, it was time for us to board. [He was a little confused about why the conductor didn't take his "ticket". I told him not to worry, that the conductor had seen that he had it.] He and I rode in the caboose, while Daddy rode in the next car. His eyes were this huge the whole time.

I was pretty excited about it too...

We rode through the mall, swerving back and forth and turning in circles. He was pretty serious, but each time I asked him if he was having fun, he smiled really big.

After the train ride, he spent quite a lot of time making "bagel sandwiches" for me to eat using these hair things from H&M.

And then, we indulged our birthday king with a hamburger and fries for lunch, followed by some play time on the machines behind.

 



swimming

It's been so hot where we live lately. We got an inflatable pool for our backyard, which makes it possible to be outside in the afternoon. Our son has never been that interested in swimming, so I'm also hoping to get him more comfortable in the water this year. He's been having lots of fun driving his trucks around in the pool!