On Sunday, after the annual neighborhood bike ride, a bunch of riders and friends came over for a barbecue. The last time we hosted this event, two years ago, I was just over eight months pregnant with Tau. He was born a week later.

Though we decided to dodge a formal birthday party this year, I did make carrot-cake cupcakes, frosted in different colors and arranged as a bunch of balloons. And we sang Happy Birthday, which Tau was prepared for because he’s been singing it to himself for over a month!

Because our place is small, it’s always hectic having so many people over, and this time it felt even smaller with toys littering the living room carpet. That said, I think everyone had a good time — I know we did!

My friend Declan had just bought a new camera lens, and so he brought his camera over to try out the lens on the birthday boy. A set of some of my favorites is here on Flickr.

First three photos by Declan; last photo by Sue

“When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments;
tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.”
Louis Pasteur

Dear Tau,

There were times when I carried you in my body that I stopped to wonder what kind of child you would be. I thought you’d be active because you never stopped moving. I thought you’d never be content in one spot because you were constantly pressing against the confines of my body. And of course I imagined you’d grow to exhibit some of your dad’s traits and some of my own because that’s just the way genetics work. Guesses on my part and, turns out, I was right on all counts.

But I also wondered how you would look and behave. I imagined a carefree little scruff, running around in board shorts and flip-flops as boys do in our neighborhood. A boy with shaggy, sun-streaked hair not unlike mine and a mischievous personality not unlike his dad’s. To be sure I imagined you as a boy at nine or ten who would breeze through the kitchen and out the back door with his skateboard, shouting behind him, “I’m just going to Ethan’s and then we’re going to the beach and maybe I’ll stay …” Gone before I could call you back to explain or tell you to phone home if you wanted to sleep over.

Our first year with you was one of learning to meet your basic needs. And trust me, it took your middle-aged, self-involved parents a whole year to learn to do just that with any sense of confidence. But this year, these past twelve months, have been all about getting to know who you are. About your wonderful little body and your growing abilities and your lovely character.

(more…)

I recently told you about winning a pair of Ryka running shoes, and later about Ryka’s Good for Your Sole contest.

Guess what? I won another pair of shoes in that contest - a pair of their MC2 walking shoes! Aren’t they gorgeous?

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

Tau and toddler teacher Ms. Jen

Today was Tau’s last day in the toddler room at daycare. Next week, after his second birthday, he’ll move in with the “big kids” in the two-year-old classroom.

He has been visiting there this past week and when we go to pick him up, he drags us around by the arm, giving us the tour.

The two-year-old classroom has a BIG room (with way cool books and lifelike “dino-nors”) and a BIG playground (with BIKES! and a BIG slide! and a BIG climbing structure! and a wood-chip SAND BOX! with a new-to-him PLAYHOUSE! on it). Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point!

Wonder of all wonders, the two-year-old class also has a BIG potty (regular-sized toilet with a step stool) and a chart on the door with all the kids’ names and green stars for potty attempts and blue stars for potty successes. And we’re all for anything that makes potty training easier at home!

Best of all, the two-year-old classroom has a working water fountain and when you press it — you guessed it — a BIG arc of water shoots through the air and you can catch it in your MOUTH! I don’t think the daycare center realizes how much their water bill is about to skyrocket!

All said, though, we are sad to be leaving Ms. Jen. Things have been up and down in the toddler room over the past couple months and Ms. Jen came in and provided much needed stability and genuine, mommy warmth. His new lead teacher Ms. Dani assures us that he will hold his own due to his size but it is always hard to see your kid move into a class where he is the youngest. And it will be a while before the new teachers learn all his little foibles.

The birthday will be low key. We figure this is the last year we can dodge having a kid’s party. As it happens, on Sunday we’re having a bunch of friends over after the annual community bike ride in our neighborhood, so we will have a BBQ and beer and cake. But not too much fuss.

Today, instead of taking in cupcakes for Tau’s birthday (you are only allowed to take in the store-bought kind and I couldn’t find any that weren’t loaded with sugary frosting), I took in a bottle of blowing bubbles for each of Tau’s toddler friends. Oh to have been a fly on the wall at that bubble frenzy!

And like all good blogging mommies, I will do a birthday post. Because really, not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could capture it in detail before it’s over, that I don’t wish I could just automatically download all of the astounding moments we have with this child directly into the computer, without missing a thing. So that one day he will have some sense of how much we have enjoyed raising him.

Today I wanted two photographs printed. ASAP. Within reason.

So I went online at lunch time and logged into my Shutterfly account. I ordered the two prints I wanted, grumbling all the while that I was going to have to pay the base shipping rate for TWO measly prints.

Why? Because I am too lazy to burn them to a disc (keep meaning to get one of those mini-USB thingies) then drive to a photo finisher, drop them off and then have to go back tomorrow to get them.

When I clicked Check Out, Shutterfly asked whether I wanted the pictures shipped or whether I’d like to pick them up in an hour at the Target store closest to me.

Uh, the one right across the road from daycare? Where I need to drive to pick up my kid this afternoon anyway?

Yes, that one.

Um, yes please.

And sorry Internet. Love you. Really I do.

Sunday night, after our lovely week away on vacation (more on that to follow), we were getting Tau ready for bed. After pouring his milk as he played on the living room floor, I turned to reach for a lid for his cup. And in that time, Tau clambered up and started jumping like a monkey on the cream armchair. The one he knows he’s not allowed to jump on. As I went to drag him off, he dove sideways off the chair to get away and cracked his head on the media center.

Long story short, we spent an hour at the local emergency room where “man” (the nurse) cleaned the wound above his eye and “yady” (the ER doctor) used some super-special surgical superglue to fuse the three-quarter-inch gash closed.

That’s one tough little kid we’ve got. After the initial shock of cracking his head — screaming out of sheer toddler fury, followed by puking half his dinner due to being worked up by the crying — he was little Mr. Charming. Chatted and sang songs all the way through ER admission and treatment. “Yady? Yady doing? …. Man going!?” And showing off the bulldozers on his shirt to the nurse.

When the doctor brought him the handmade stuffie you see in the picture above, he took one look at its slanty eyes and informed us, “Baby crying!” And when Dave asked him what the baby’s name was, he pronounced, “Taco.”

So, Taco it is. The superglue apparently flakes off after a week or so, once the wound has healed.

By the time we got home at 9:45 p.m., he was overtired and cranky. As Dave did the dinner dishes, I lay next to Tau on our bed and soothed him, ran through the story again:

“You were jumping on the chair, and then you fell and got an owie on your head. And so we went to the hospital, and the nurse washed your owie and the doctor fixed your owie and gave you Taco. No jumping on the chair, Tau. No jumping on the chair, OK?”

“Fan?”

Fan? The ceiling fan above our heads.

I have a feeling that more visits to the ER are in our future.*

* Case in point, see the little bit of dried blood in his nostril in the top picture? Just before I took this picture, he was jumping on the couch and bumped his nose. Sigh.