Gametes In Love

S2 starts daycare tomorrow.

I’ll be honest, I feel a little conflicted about it. I’m both excited and sad. Packing his stuff to take to daycare felt like one of the saddest things ever. It was a mix between “time is going by too fast” and “I feel like I’m cheating”. Let me explain that last part.

While S2 starts daycare tomorrow, I won’t be returning to work until mid-March. THAT makes me excited as hell. I have some personal projects that I’ve been putting off for the last year that I can finally focus on. I’ll go and use the facial/massage gift certificates that have been piling up over the last few holidays. I’ll be able to pull G out of daycare and spend some much needed 1:1 time with him and do some adventure outings. On my list are the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum and whatever else strikes my fancy. S2 on the other hand will get to start daycare before stranger anxiety kicks in, which will hopefully make these first few weeks easier on us all.

Yet, I’m also sad, and… well… guilty. I feel that if I’m staying home, he should be too, since I’m staying home because of him. Also, G was 4 months old when he started daycare. S2 should have the same time with me too.

So yeah, tomorrow will be interesting. I’ve told myself though, that when I start missing my monkey too much I’ll go bring him home.

Meanwhile, I’ve been prepping G too. I told him that his little brother will be going to school with him tomorrow. I told him which room he’ll be in and the teachers he’ll be with. S later asked him if he would check up on his brother. G’s response was “No! S2 in baby room” But he did promise to be a good big brother to him.

So… wanna take bets if I’ll be crying tomorrow on my drive home all alone?

A few weeks ago I camera stalked G as he was playing in the living room. I’m trying to understand how to work my Speedlight better (I still prefer natural light photography by, say a factor of 1000, but I want to be comfortable with the flash for the times when I need it: crappy indoor light, mid-day high-sun, etc.). Anyway, camera geek-ness aside, I got to observe G in one of his favorite past-times: making the biggest mess he possibly can by evacuating every put-away toy onto our living room floor. He enjoys it with immense pleasure (as witnessed here).

And takes his job very seriously (as witnessed here)

Of course, he pays strict attention to detail, by not only relieving the small toy bins out of the toy chest, but also opening each small bin and dumping it’s contents out.

Mid-way through, my floor resembles something like this:

And once the toys were fully freed of their containment, he celebrated a job well done.

Now, here is where things got interesting…

G proceeded to line up his blocks against the wall of the toy chest

lining them up two by two. He would get irritated when only one would be left, and exit to get more blocks

Now, we have two sets of wooden blocks: a Melissa & Doug set he got for his first birthday, and a couple of blocks from when S was a kid. The S cubes are a little bigger and darker. Whenever an old block was in the mix, G insisted it had to be matched with another old block. New blocks could only be paired with another new block. If he found a new block after he had started using the old blocks, he would shift the old blocks out of the way, so that all the new ones were stacked together. It was really bizzare to watch. And scary. He would also get agitated if there wasn’t another block around so that his rows would both have an equal count of blocks.

So yeah, between S and my weirdness, I’d say we’ve managed to successfully pass our OCD onto him. Sigh.

01.20.2011: G’s airplane. It’s flashy!

01.25.2011: S. Is for Snake

G has a new TV show obsession: Dinosaur Train. Long gone are the days he’s asked for George (Curious George) or Cat (Cat in the Hat). Now the only thing he ever wants to watch is Dinosaur Train. (As a side note, his favorite episode is the shark episode and he watches it every day. It’s kind of cute to hear him pronounce “Cretoxyrhina”)

PBS online has a kid’s portion of the site. It’s a “supplemental” to a lot of their shows, so occasionally G asks to watch DT on my computer, which really means he wants to play the DT games. His favorite is “All Aboard”. You play the conductor by seating various dinosaurs on benches, feeding them from the food cart and giving them the boot at their respective era stop.

The food part gives you the option of feeding them either a leaf or a fish based on the dinosaur’s diet being a herbivore, carnivore or either. So yesterday at the Velociraptor, we have the following exchange:

Me: Alright, Bud. What should we give him? The leaf or the fish?

G: That one (poking with his finger on the leaf). [Yeah, kid, this ain’t yo’ daddy’s iPad. You actually have to use a mouse to do something here. Old school, I know!]

Game: Velociraptor is a carnivore. He only eats meat.

Me: This dinosaur eats meat, Buddy [I call him Buddy, a lot. Don’t know why.] The leaf is a plant, and the fish is meat. What should we give him?

G: That one (poking with his finger, again, on the leaf).

Me: No, kiddo. This is a plant. The dinosaur only eats meat. Should we give him the fish?

G: No! PASTA!

Huh. Clearly the Velociraptor would prefer Durham flour byproducts over flesh. Ok, I’ll take that. It does change the Jurassic Park book/movie storyline one heck of a lot though.

When Kelly took photos of G when he was about 8 weeks old, she took a great picture of him over S’ arm. We had it printed on canvas. Because it was such a cool photo, we wanted to do it again with S2. So today I did. We put S2 facing the other direction on a white background vs. the black. My Canvas-On-Demand order should be arriving in a few weeks. I can’t wait to hang them together.

My two boys: butt to butt.

PS. Although S2 is a little older than G, gestationally they are about the same age when these pics was taken.

Have you ever asked yourself how much money would make you happy and set you up for life? I have. And I’ve settled on 2M. Post tax, that is (so fine, call it 4M pre-tax).

Here’s what I’m thinking:

• With the first million we can pay off our house and I can also buy a home for my parents, and S’ parents. In reality, I wouldn’t really pay it off the bat. I’d set-up accounts to automatically pay every month, so that you could still get the tax break.
• I’d take 1/4 of the remaining million and invest it for college education funds for the boys.
• The other $750K I would invest for our own retirement.

I would still work, but work for non-profits or charitable organizations, that can make a difference. Then I wouldn’t feel like I have to be earning a specific figure to take care of the house over heads & college tuition bit. I’d travel more. Visit family more often. Take the boys to South America, Asia, wherever and learn about history up-close.

That’s not impossible to ask for, right?

So… who wants to give me the money?

G curled up in my lap while I was nursing S2. It was the sweetest moment.

Brotherly love

S2 cuteness. I love that his eyes just sparkle. No matter where he is, what light he’s in, they just sparkle.

Yummy pizza

Tall tower

G got this CD player for his first birthday. He loves it to this day and I caught him singing with the songs too.

G has picked up some new phrases that make me marvel and both their crisp delivery and associated ‘tude. They are:

1. “No way!”

2. “Whaaaat?”

3. “I see Mamma’s butt!”

For this last one, I was bending over cleaning up his toys in the living room. G and S, meanwhile were in the dining room having breakfast. G had a clear view of me. S didn’t, so I guess G decided to describe the scenery.

Where does he get this stuff?

A week ago, S2 did the most remarkable thing. He slept for a 10.5 hour stretch. He went down at 7 and got up at 5:30ish. Then the next night, he did it again!!! I was stoked. I knew this wasn’t going to be a full-time trend, but it was promising of things to come. Sleep to come.

In my rested mommy joy, I made a mistake. I made a mistake of telling a friend about S2’s feat. And sure enough; I jinxed myself. Since that time not only has he NOT repeated this miracle again, but has reverted to waking up 2-4 a night.

So, if (hopefully WHEN) he sleeps that way again, I will be keeping mum.