Eric went upstairs and grabbed a pair of brightly striped Zutano pants for him, as they are light weight and 18-24 month. When they got back downstairs Ollie threw a fit. You see, he wanted to wear the pants. So we changed him into them. Then he explained to us, by pointing at them and making siren noises, that he wanted to wear them because the stripes remind him of the flashing lights on emergency vehicles. Then he wanted to wear his hat. At this point he was wearing rainbow striped pants, a white t-shirt that says "I heart London" and a red hat with primary colored critters all over it.

I guess if you're starting your first day of school in the new classroom you should do it in style.

It has also been fun watching Ollie make friends. A lot of our friends have noted how their kids are suddenly interested in other people and in developing relationships as well. Ollie has made very good friends with his classmates at school. He spends a great deal of time talking about Coco, Finley, and Lola, who are all about his age and who play together. He talks some about Scout and Josie and the other smaller babes, but it is the ones his age he really likes (along with Dre and Toni his teachers. I think Crystal, who is there in the mornings sometimes is too difficult to say). The other day as we were leaving Lola was sitting by the door and he said "Lola" and waved goodbye to her and she smiled happily and waved back. 

What is interesting to me is that Ollie seems to be a lot like his parents in some respects. One of which is social. He is far more comfortable in familiar spaces where he knows the other people well. We went to a surprise baby shower for our friend Paige on Saturday. The hosts thoughtfully threw the party at Gymboree so all the kids could come and have a blast. While Ollie knew a lot of the kids, he doesn't routinely spend time with them lately. And though Ollie loves singing and dancing, he was unwilling to participate when the leader asked them to do hand motions or sing along (though he did them for Eric days later on his own). Instead he gets overstimulated and freaked out when a new kid tries to make friends with him (poor Sabrina) or stares thoughtfully when the teacher asks him to do a dance or sing. It takes him awhile to warm up to situations or people. If we went to Gymboree all the time, I'm sure he'd have no issue with it. He just wants to acclimate himself to places carefully. He hangs back, or sticks close to me when he's not sure what's going on.   

Last nights was when we were snuggling him to sleep. I was singing "Feed the Birds," from Mary Poppins, to him. I was singing along, him snuggled against my chest, and when I got to the chorus I sang, "Feed the birds..." only to hear my small boy chime in singing, "bawk, bawk, bawk."

On the other hand, he is talking like crazy. He knows all kinds of words now and uses them all the time. He snuggles up sweetly against your shoulder and makes mmms of contentment. When I was gone this weekend he wandered into all the rooms forlornly saying, "Mama?" He does sentences and knows whole books by heart and sings songs with us and does choreography. It is amazing all he knows now. It's amazing how he changes.

This weekend I went away to a lovely lake house with my departing friends. There was swimming, wine, board games of various kinds, lounging and magazine reading. It was all nice. It was also weird, in that I was the only person with a kid there, and many of the people there are the childfree sort, who like children when they are quiet and when they can go away. They ask me about Ollie, which I appreciate, and I try to tell them the more entertaining new things he's doing (like Butt, Butt, Butt, Baby Butt, or the monkey noises Susanne taught him).

The thing is, the new things he's doing seem so small when you're telling people who have never witnessed the transformation of nothing into a baby into a person and don't know how amazing these changes are. I find it easier to joke about motherhood than I do to express the profound and overwhelming adoration I have for my baby and the great joy I experience seeing him for the first time every morning, the delight I take in seeing him explore the world and come into himself, and the way it feels when your child snuggles up to you and curls an arm around your neck. It seems corny and overly earnest, and I guess on some level I feel like it is something you can't understand unless you've experienced it. But when I joke about motherhood with these friends, without them seeing the truth of the situation, which is my mad all encompassing devotion to my child and the ways that my brain has rewired itself to put him in the middle I feel guilty, like I am betraying him by telling only the difficult or humorous bits. or by downplaying what he means to me. How do you explain when someone asks you if you are going to have separation issues that one night that you ALWAYS have separation issues every minute you are not with your child? That even if you are enjoying yourself, or working hard, it feels wrong, mentally and physically to be apart from your baby. That even if you're exhausted and you need a break, it would be preferable to take it somewhere with him nearby so you can see him again the second you want? The impulse at night to go in and pick him up and snuggle him some more that you have to resist?

Eric describes it as the first flush of a romance, when you want to be with somebody all the time and you can't think of anything else, except permanently. And it's true. And it's not witty, or clever, or new. It's trite, but it's the most honest thing about me. I'm just another parent who thinks the world revolves around their child.

It is funny to think about how this will slowly fade away as he gets older. It has already done so, some, and will continue to. There will be a time where he and I will think it inappropriate or weird to snuggle up to me as he does (especially since right now he is fond of snaking one hand into my bra). And there will be a time where he will no longer have sweet baby skin to caress on his back or tummy and I will not be able to give him all the kisses I want, while he giggles for more.  

First some important news, after the echocardiogram the other day, we now know for certain that the hole in Ollie's heart has closed up. This means that every injured organ is now healed. Ollie also had a big growth spurt. He was 23.3 pounds, which is 25%, and is 31 inches tall, which is 10%. We can no longer say he is a tiny toddler. I thought he felt heavy.

The original title of this is based upon our trip to Disney World. We took Ollie there to celebrate Eric's and my 7th Wedding anniversary (and 10th anniversary of being together). We had a terrific day. Ollie LOVED the rides, especially It's a Small World and the Carousel. We rode the carousel 3 times. He loved everything so much he refused to nap except for 2 short 30 minute pass outs in the stroller. He stayed awake and fairly cheerful through most of the Main Street Electrical Parade (or whatever it's called these days) and then we saw the fireworks on the ferry on the way to the car. Where he passed out. We had a lot of fun. At one point there was a big thunderstorm and after it cleared Ollie had fun splashing in the puddles and trying to figure out his shadow. He would race away from it and up to it, and couldn't figure out how to evade it. I went on the upgraded Haunted Mansion by myself during one of his brief naps, and they did a really nice job.

We also had a good time swimming in my dad's college roommate's pool. They made us an awesome dinner with homemade french fries and we had a great time. Ollie had fun jumping from the side of the pool into people's arms.

We went to the beach a couple of times. We took Ollie's new red wagon his grandma bought him to the local beach and he insisted on sitting in it while we labored to pull him over the sand. We went to a different beach that is on the ocean, not the gulf, and played in the waves for a long time. Then we sat at a tiki bar and we had coronas while Ollie had water.

Other than that there was some fun with Grandma, taking her to a spa, going to see Sex and the City, going to a really nice dinner in Tampa. She had a good birthday, which was the point, so I'm happy about that.

Since that we've been back to the grind, work and hanging out. We did have a bunch of friends (adult and child) over for a barbeque Sunday. We had kids ranging from four months through 6 or 7 I think running around the backyard. We put up several umbrellas to provide more shade and set up the tent, which was a big hit. That, along with the water table, the sand box, the bubbles, and the sidewalk chalk made the back yard a blur of activity. At the end of the evening we served ice cream floats. Ollie had his own dish of ice cream and was feeding it to himself. He loves ice cream a lot, which is why he seldom has it. So he was wolfing it down as fast as he could. At one point he all of a sudden started wailing as if in extreme pain. We figured out he had freezy headache. So I picked him up, calmed him down, and he wanted to eat more. So I told him to go slower. Did this work? Heh. So we did the whole wail, calm down, eat, wail thing a few more times. Then I took away the ice cream, which of course caused more wailing. Basically he was just very, very tired at that point.

In another week or so we are going on vacation again! Which shouldn't help his current sleeping issues. He's gone back to waking up quite a bit and needing to be shushed or briefly snuggled before he'll go back to sleep. When we get home we'll be home for a long long while, which should help calm down the sleep problems, I hope. It also seems like his molars are still giving him trouble, as they slowly creep into his mouth.

So that's the news in Ollie world.

2) Lest you think I am a total heathen, I have also taught Ollie how to say please.

They are sitting on my desk keeping me company right now.

Yesterday he carried a bag of tortilla chips from the car to the kitchen for me, setting them down to crawl up the step to the porch. He also carried a box of Veat from the laundry room (I retrieved it from the freezer in the garage) to Eric in the kitchen. And, last night he helped me bake chocolate cake. He wanted me to hold him while I did it, but he was too heavy, so I pulled a chair up to the counter from the dining room table and then I would hand him the measuring spoons and he would dump the ingredients into the bowl and then whisk for me.

He is a very helpful and sweet boy. 

Sometimes it's overwhelming to me how well-loved my baby boy is, and then by extension me and Eric.

I am so grateful for you all.