Day 37

Today was so much better than the last two weeks. I think Zak could sense it from the start. Kuba and I had some coffee together, Zak was sleeping in, so I decided to wait on breakfast for him. I think Zak does have a radar sense when it comes to me working though, I was just about to head up to my office to do a little email when he woke up (about 8). He didn't have to come searching for me in the yard. I wasn't immediately rushing him to eat breakfast so we could get to some appointment. He came out and climbed into my lap and we sat and rocked in the rocker for 30 minutes or so until he was completely awake. We read a couple of books, had some milk, then he took a bubble bath and I took a shower. We slowly made some breakfast (waffles), he helped me with the dishwasher and fold a basket of clothes (well, he played in the basket of clothes while I took things out around him).

Then we got on the bikes and went to the library. They were having story time, which he usually doesn't like, but after a few minutes he decided to join in some of the songs. One little baby, he was probably 1.5 years old, really took a liking to Zak. He came right up in his face and was just looking at him. Zak just let him look. Then the baby start touching Zak's ears, eyes, nose, etc, etc Zak just let him. He closed his eyes when he wanted to touch his eyes, said nose or ear when he touched his nose or ear. It was very sweet. On the way out, when I was lifting Zak up into his bike seat, I said "Super Baby flying up in the air". He said, "No Mommy! I'm not a baby! I'm a BOY." Sigh.


My friend Sanja came over for lunch, and straight after Zak took his pillow to bed to lay down. I laid with him for a few minutes, then got up to do the lunch dishes and another load of laundry. I was about to start making the phone calls I need to make (porch repair, deed questions, etc)...and then decided, no, I'm going to go take a nap with Zak. Such a good nap! He woke up a few minutes after I laid down and smiled. I cherish these times.
And now Zak is still sleeping (3 hours!) I think we wore him out these last couple of weeks, staying up late working on the yard.

Ahh, he's up! Now off to King's Island with Tato!

Days 33-36

Well, well. I've been rather lazy, and I'm sorry for that. Actually, It's not really lazy, we decided to take on a rather large home improvement project...we installed an automatic sprinkler/irrigation system on our own. that meant lots of digging, trenching, plumbing, electrical work, shovelling dirt back over trenches, re-seeding the yard, adding straw, etc. etc. etc. Mostly it meant lots and lots of mud and dirt tracked through the house for the past 3 weeks.

Anyway, on all my days with Zak, if we weren't doing something together, then I was out in the yard trying to do at least a little to help move the project along. Especially this last week in covering up the trenches. And it was HOT! Over 100 degrees with the heat index on many days...but I enjoyed it.

I must admit though that I didn't spend as much time as I should have with Zak on those days. I kept trying to convince him to play with his diggers and shovels and help me...but he wasn't so interested (who can blame him...he didn't even want to be outside in this heat!) I remember someone posted on facebook to me early on...be careful April, don't let one type of work slip into another type of work. So while I think it was ok for a few weeks, definitely I'm happy to have this project over so we can do more fun things again. I must admit, I struggle a bit with knowing how much I should expect us to do together that is productive (ie, cleaning up his toys, doing dishes, laundry, etc) vs fun stuff (ie King's Island, the pool, the park, the library). Yet another balance to get right :-)

Right now I DO feel like generally I've got my balance right. I'm energized for work, I'm energized at home. The only thing I still haven't managed to do is get my personal time figured out. I've got days for work, days for Zak, and days for the family...but I still only manage a couple hours a week for tennis or exercise. I'm hoping now that we've got that irrigation project done I can get back to it.

Even with the project, we did manage to have some fun! And Zak is just hilarious now. We now do time-outs on the stairs if he's doing something unacceptable. Last week he did something, I can't even remember what, and I asked, "Zak, why did you do that?" He said "Sorry Mommy, I go sit on the stairs." Ahh.

He also is very sweet to all animals...and bugs. We saw a worm the other day outside a restaurant. A long, 3 inch one. I stopped to show it to him. He said "Ahh, he's going home." And then he reached down and petted it. Then he wanted me to pet him. Ugh. He also found a lady bug in his room last week. He knows to pick them up and take them outside, but on his way, he brought it to me and said "Mommy, ladybug needs a kiss." Oh geez. So I pretended to kiss it and we put it outside.

We were coloring on Friday, a Thomas the Train book. I thought I was coloring Thomas, so I made it blue. It was mostly the front of him, so I couldn't see the clear number 1, which would have told me it was Thomas. Anyway, as I was coloring, Zak calmly told me this was Percy, but I could color him blue if I wanted. I read the story next to it, and sure enough, it was Percy. I have no idea how he can tell this stuff.

The last thing I'll share from these last two weeks, because I'm not sure how to think of it. While we were busy working in the yard one day...Zak kind of "adopted" 4 large rocks. They become his friends, and he would trike ike up and down the driveway with them. He'd pick them all up carefully, put them in the basket, get to the end of the driveway, take them each out...and talk to each of them. "Ok guys, now we're going to eat something" or "ok guys, time to go to work." It made me kind of sad, thinking of him being alone and needing to make up fake friends. I hope this is normal...I need to do some researh.

Oh! And we got some pictures made! It was really great. Since Zak and I had the day off, we scheduled the photographer to meet us down at P&G so that Kuba could come down and join us. They turned out great!
http://www.kencrites.com/People/Cielica/13012724_FdDRZ#942002712_HXKi8

Day 32

And we are better today!!! I ended up with a 4 day weekend because I have Fridays off, and our 4th of July holiday was Monday. Monday was the turning point for Zak. He only woke up once Sunday night, was in a good mood Sunday morning, and at around 12:30, he asked to take his nap. Wow! He slept in his bed for about 1.5 hours, got up to go to the bathroom, then went back to bed for another 2.5 hours! He was so smiley after that and didn't complain about his mouth at all. He went to bed at the normal time on Monday night and slept through the night. So we are in a much better place.

This weekend we started a major house project of trying to install an irrigation system...and we accidentally cut our phone line...so we were without internet for a couple days. Unfortunately, they gave us an ETA of 8:30-12:30 this morning to fix it. At least I didn't have to take off work for it (can't work from home without internet!) but still, it kept Zak and I tied to the house during the best part of the day.

We cleaned a bit this morning, he vacuumed while I cleaned the bathrooms. We also made up a new game where we sit on our rug and act like we are on a flying carpet gone crazy...so we accidentally say the word up, it jerks us up and we fall backwards. Same thing for left and right.

He's definitely reached a new level of conginition over the last couple of weeks. He's forming complete sentences with prepositions and articles, etc. He told me "I don't like Tato's pillow because it has feathers." I was impressed with the sentence construction :-) Aunt Katie came over for lunch and when she left, he said, "Aunt Katie has to go back to work." I know I'm silly, but it's cute to see him learn.

The other thing he did today is he went up to our map on the wall, and he said...A! A for April! I don't think I realized he knew my real name! He proceeded to show me T for Tato and E for Ethan. Then we learned a few new ones...L for Logan, M for Maya, etc.

Anyway, he's napping now. When he wakes up, we'll probably go to the pool or King's Island water park. I can't wait for him to wake up!

Day 31

We kept Zak home from school on Thursday for fear he might have the hand, foot and mouth disease. Kuba stayed home with him, which made it very easy on me work-wise. But poor Zak drooled through 3 shirts during the day.

The doctor said it wasn't hand, foot and mouth...but just very bad cold sores. He said that when children first get cold sores, they often get them throughout their whole mouth because they just don't have any build up to fight them. Poor Zak. He doesn't know what's going on. All his favorite foods and drinks hurt really bad.

He keeps saying he has boo boos in his mouth and wants me to kiss them. I can't help but smile at that. He absolutely hates the Orajel that I put on them...but usually feels better for a bit afterward when I manage to get it applied.

Friday I just took the approach of trying to keep him as busy as possible to keep his mind off them. Dana and Rowan helped with that. We went to the park in the morning, then met my friend Mitch for lunch. After lunch, Zak just wouldn't sleep for longer than 15 minutes unless he was in my arms, and I really wanted him to sleep. So we rocked in the rocking chair for 2 and a half hours (I had to go to the bathroom so bad at the end!) At least he got some rest.

We had planned a date night Friday night with Dana and Matt. We were going to try out this new "night time day care" in Montgomery...we thought the boys might have fun doing it together actually, but with Zak's mouth, and Rowan was actually showing signs of not feeling well either...we left the men at home with the boys and Dana and I went out for a couple hours. A friend of mine had this really cool idea to showcase 40 of her husband's best photographs (he does photography as a hobby now...but has won several contests) at our local art gallery. So the art gallery was closed except for her party and we got to see his pictures. It was really, really nice. Then we took my friend from Poland, Lukasz, to Mt. Adams and had a drink. It was a nice evening.

But Zak still couldn't sleep well last night. About every 2 hours he woke up, probably from the drool on his pillow, and complained about the boo boos in his mouth. The one I can see is definitely getting better though, so we're on the right path. Lack of sleep makes me grumpy for sure...I don't know how I did it those first few months back to work when I was still breast feeding!

Anyway, I'm grateful I had Wednesday and Friday off last week so I could take care of him.