Growing pains

When Garrett was born I wrote monthly updates of his life, milestones, and growth. I really tried to hit the highlights of what he was doing each month. My blog was his baby book. I’m so thankful to have all those moments written down now because my blog is also serving as my memory for a lot of those earlier days. I just don’t remember some parts of the newborn stage. I’m astonished by the holes in my memory over the past few years. Lack of sleep will do that to a person.

Recently I have steered this blog down a one-lane path about home design peppered with a few gardening posts. In turn, my readership has grown, but my Garrett updates have gone completely silent. I am worried that I will regret not updating more about these preschool years. They are an amazing time. I wonder sometimes if I should start a new blog specifically for family updates, like Objectivity Rach has done with her B-sides blog. But then I don’t want to have another blog to update. I’ve considered compartmentalizing my blog into home/garden/life a la Pioneer Woman but let’s face it… my blog ain’t all that special. Plus I’m way too lazy for the upkeep on something like that. So I have given up on those ideas and decided to just keep my updates here under one roof. It is my blog, after all. I can do whatever I want, right? 🙂

The preschool years are too precious to not remember. I need to write all this down before I forget about it. I’m sure all you mamas out there understand.

As my brain seems to be shrinking, his is exploding with knowledge. It’s a fine trade off. He is talking in long logical paragraphs and negotiating with me about everything. He still loves playing on my cell phone. My parents both have iPads so he gets to play with them on occasion. Yesterday he found an old black clipboard in my dad’s office. He flipped it over a few times, then he took it over to my dad’s desk and said “Granddaddy, can you turn on this iPad for me?” I haven’t heard my dad laugh so hard in a long time. This kid will never know a world without smart phones.

He loves Super World Adventures which is a direct knockoff of the original Super Mario Brothers that we all played on the very first Nintendo. Other favorites include Doodle Grub, Angry Birds and Coin Dozer but his absolute favorite is the talking Tomcat app. That cat drives me up the WALL but Garrett loves it so much I can’t bring myself to delete it. I think he considers that cat a true friend.

Speaking of imaginary friends, we have welcomed quite a few into our house recently. First there was Camel, who is not exactly imaginary since he’s actually my tan colored chenille throw. Garrett has to sleep with Camel every night, and sometimes he likes to put Pullups on him. I tell him that Camel has excellent bladder control so he doesn’t need diapers. G has designated our bedroom carpeting and “the desert” and camel lives there sometimes. The living room is “the jungle” where we have to watch out for wild creatures. The end of our bed is the cliff over the ocean where he goes “SPLOOSH!” into the big laundry pile that is the ocean. It’s a very adventurous place here in UBville. There are a host of other imaginary friends that come and go. Every night he asks me to pray for apple peel, banana peel, orange peel, coconut peel and the whole team. I’m not sure who this team is or where they came from but they sound really healthy.

The newest imaginary friends are named Sneaky, Snakey and Wormy. Apparently they are worms who follow us around and come out to play sometimes. I don’t question these friends, I just play along and invite them over to eat dinner with us.

Recently he’s learned how to take photos and videos of himself with my phone. There are days I flip through my photo album to find 65 photos that look very similar to this one:

School is starting back in less than a week. My baby who started in this preschool at 6 months old is now entering the 3k class. At the end of last school year he had already learned so much. He was tracing his letters and numbers and learning to write his name. He was connecting the dots and drawing circles and kinda sorta coloring inside the lines.

He had a big first this summer– First trip to the dentist!

He did SO good! He got his teeth cleaned and learned how to brush and floss and even got X-rays done to check out how his big teeth were progressing below the surface. Looks like they are coming along just fine!

Look, Ma! No cavities!

This summer he attended swim lessons at the YMCA. I was so impressed at how far he advanced in just a week of lessons. By the end of the week he was no longer wearing his floats at all. One day during a rainstorm they taught the kids safety information instead of swimming. G learned how to dial 9-1-1 on the special phone that asks “What’s your emergency?” He had to tell them his name, where he was located and what emergency was happening. We talk about it sometimes to keep him refreshed on it, but hopefully we will never have to actually utilize that knowledge.

As a reward for finishing the class he got to go down the big water slide.

COWABUNGA! He loved it so much that I might have to build a water slide into our swimming pool one day.

Like last summer, we’ve spent a lot of time outside exploring the yard and all the critters that we have in these woods. We also have spent a lot of time indoors enjoying the air conditioning since it’s been hot out there. We just replaced our old air conditioners in our house with a new system. While J and I are hot natured, poor little G has been saying “I FREEZING!” all summer. So J bought him his very own Snuggie to wrap up in while we are sweating it out. His cold little bones are happier. Now if someone could just flip to MTV and teach him how to Dougie he’d be all set.

One day driving home I spied a box turtle crawling across the road. I stopped and picked him up and showed him to Garrett. We took him home and played with him for a little while.

He was disappointed that he could get him to come out of his shell. I think he thought all turtles are like Franklin.

First he tried to SQUEEEEEEZE him to get him to come out.

Then he was worried that he would come out of his shell and bite him.

So we set the turtle free in the front yard and he wandered into the woods eventually. Garrett was looking at that last picture one night on my phone and he decided to re-enact the event using his favorite Franklin book as the impromptu turtle stand-in. Check out the look in his eyes when he saw how he made me laugh. Imagination, this kid’s got it.

Bubble blowing is another summertime must-do activity. We’ve graduated to the giant bubble wands which are a huge hit. And like my friend Natalie— it seems like every summertime event turns into a photography session around here. Thank goodness for that, though or else this whole post would be nothing but blurry cell phone pics.

Pretty bubbles!

And of course, no summer would be complete without some sprinkler action. Our pool pump is broken right now so there hasn’t been any swimming for a few weeks. The sprinklers make a good substitute. In the late afternoons the sunlight filters through the trees and casts some crazy lights on the sprinklers. I told Garrett to go stand inside the light and captured some magical photos that have become my favorites.

I loved this quote that I found. It seemed like the perfect description to a very fun summer.

After all the playing and swimming and sprinklering is over he is one tired little dude. Bedtime routine is still the same- bathtime, read 2 books, prayers and lights out. One night I checked on him to find that he had fallen asleep with the booklight that came free with his Snuggie. He loves these Dad and Piggy books.

Other nights he doesn’t even make it upstairs before he passes out asleep. Some nights he falls asleep during the commute home from work and doesn’t wake up until the next morning. One time he crawled into my lap and asked me to scratch his back. As I sat there rocking and scratching his back I realized he had passed out asleep on my chest.

Sweetest moment ever.

I love being this kid’s mama. We were meant to be.