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Dear Dexter,

Today was spring. For a day. Today was a day where we could do things we haven't done since, oh, November or so. Go to the playground. Play on your swing set all afternoon. Today was a day when I was faced, abruptly, with the fact that you are so very big. Today, when we pulled up to the stop light by the playground and you said "swimming" because that's also the stop light by the gym and the pool. Today, when we pulled in to the playground parking lot and you immediately signed "swing." Today, when we climbed on the playground equipment and you walked up and down the stairs instead of climbing. Today, when you went down the curly slide on your butt instead of your belly. Today, when you stepped over the railroad tie with no assistance needed. Today, when you saw yourself in the security camera at the grocery store for the first time and were delighted, then hid from yourself so you could jump out and scare you. Today, when you climbed up the ladder to your swing set all by yourself for the very first time. Today, when you ate an entire fillet of fish WITH YOUR FORK, and then ate about seventeen bowls of cottage cheese. Oh, today. Today you were big.

And yet, today you climbed in to my lap for a snuggle instead of just climbing over my lap to reach your cars. Today you came over to give me a big hug in your room, and offered me a kiss. Today you fell off your slide and needed me to kiss your owie to make it better. Today when I swinging next to you, you kept reaching over to me. I thought you wanted to hold my hand. No, you said. That wasn't what you wanted. And then you leaned over a bit further and kissed my arm. And right there my heart melted in to eleventy-billion pieces of strawberry jello.

I love watching you be big. I love watching you grow up. I love seeing you off playing and inventing new fun games all by yourself.

But, oh, please don't get too big. Too fast. Please don't lose that "I just need a kiss and a snuggle" attitude any time soon. You're the perfect combination of big and baby right now. I know, some day soon, you'll run out the door with nary a "bye-bye." You'll be embarrassed to give your old mom a kiss. So days like today. Today when you are so big, and yet still so small. Today is a day I need to remember. Nicely done, today.

I love you.

Mama

Outside

Oh thank heaven for temperatures of 67!

Spring has popped up for two days to tease us mercilessly, remind us what we have to look forward to. And then it shall disappear, wagging its tongue at us because, really, it's only February. I hear it disappearing right this instant, as the wind gusts at 30 mph, blowing spring back to where it came from.

But oh, how we enjoyed these two days. We spent so much time outside. We trashed some brand new hiking boots. We did a lot of laundry. We splashed. We ran. We walked. We rode. We climbed. We slid. We swung. And we. Are. TIRED.

Buddy is sleeping at my feet right now. He was so tired at lunch yesterday that he went over in the corner of the family room and took a nap, instead of taking up his usual position in the dining room, at the edge of the kitchen, waiting with baited breath for a cheerio to fall on the ground.

Dex has been napping well, and falling asleep quickly at night. Like, falling asleep within an hour. Unheard of. I'm not sure what we're going to do tomorrow to achieve such results. We might have to go swimming.

So, here's seven billion photos of our outside playing, plus a video. Be jealous, silly New Yorkers, of our nice brown grass...

Yep, THAT brown grass. Right back there.

We're not quite to tree climbing yet. But Dex thinks it's quite an accomplishment to duck under branches.

Check me out, Mama! I am under a tree!

Dexter the Dictator says "Buh-HEE, NO!" No, Buddy, you're not allowed to go in that yard...

You're supposed to stay in OUR yard, Buh-HEE

I think this is our first wagon ride since the time I unwisely took Dex down the road to see Santa in December. It was cold. It was windy. Santa never came. And we sent John running home to get the car. Yesterday's wagon ride was much more pleasant.

We ate cookies and boo baa-baas at the picnic table today for snack. Awesome.

We walked three times this week. Which I think might be more than we walked in December and January combined.

Buddy came along, ready to greet every single dog that walked down the road. Which was quite a few. Days like today we notice that hey! We DO have neighbors!

Dex falls down on purpose, hoping Buddy will come get him...

Every morning and every evening we see this - HUGE flock of some terrible invasive kind of bird, flying over our house. The flock is so big it goes from horizon to horizon. It's wild.

The boys check out the sunset. It was a good one.

Laundry. Oxi-Clean. We're friends this week.

Nice work, spring tease. Nicely done.

The yellow light deal is to keep him from running wild after dinner and before bed. It's fairly hysterical to watch.

We're gonna miss you, spring. A lot.

Red

Happy Valentine's Day!

If you're a grandma or an aunt, this cute card is coming in the mail to you. So here's a preview! We had two-year-old photos taken at Portrait Innovations on Friday, and they had a deal where you could get six free Valentine's cards with your package. So we did. And they are cute. Actually, our whole photo session was great. Dex was cheerful and comfortable with the photographer. She took 130 photos, and it was SO SO hard to just pick one pose and just stick to the ten dollar package limit I had set for myself going in. SO HARD. And the bastards don't just let you buy a CD, and they don't save the photos and post them online for grandmas to buy later (which, really, they should. They could make a KILLING off my mom). So I was having some serious buyer's regrets while driving away because there were some super cute photos that are now just POOF! Gone. Gone in to the digital landfill. Gone. Sigh...

Anyway, this was like photo number 127 out of 130. We had just about called it quits after about an hour of photo taking. Then I asked Dex if he wanted to sleep, and he dropped right down on the ground and pretended to sleep, then popped his head up and posed, no prompting required, for this adorable shot:

Yeah. I dunno what to tell you about the weird line across the picture. I just hooked up the new scanner, and this is what I came up with. I guess I'll have to read the directions... Anyway, grandmas and aunts will receive these in the mail some time soon, too. So don't go all crazy and print this crappy version off the internets.

Anyway - Valentine's Day. Today. This morning. Dex already has two balloons left from his birthday (that took a bath with him again yesterday) so I didn't want to get him another regular old balloon. So I got him a little heart balloon on a stick. It was a HUGE hit this morning. I also got him a talking card that barks like a dog. Another huge hit. So John and I got to snuggle in our nice warm comfy bed for a good 20 minutes while Dex played with his balloon and his barking card on the floor. Nice...

Dex now says "heart balloon" in addition to "car balloon" and "ball balloon."

We are apparently spoiled rotten chocolate snobs, as we both ordered and had shipped for each other a pound of Bomboy's chocolates. Even though we have a candy store less than a mile down the road from us. It just isn't the same. Bomboy's. So YUM.

And we had a bit of an impromptu playdate here today, as well. Six kids, five moms, and a small black dog. Dex rediscovered his cell phone and said he was talking to Grandma:

And we acquired a new dog. A two-headed one. Pink. Tremendously cute dog. But, unfortunately, only with us for the morning:

Dex and I are off to Giant this afternoon to pick up a couple steaks for dinner for John and I. It's a gorgeous 50 degrees out today, too, so I do believe we'll also take Buddy for a walk. Man, I can't wait for spring.

Dex says "I Love You" with a cookie. That's my boy...

As Promised

I promised you some video in yesterday's post:

This was from Dexter's swimming lesson on Tuesday, and from Longwood on Thursday.

Also, for the Grandmas who want to see all ten billion photos from this week (Dexter's birthday celebration with Nonna and Grandpa, and Longwood Gardens), here's the link:

Nonna and Grandpa Visit

I didn't do any captions, but I think everything is fairly self-explanatory...

These are just my photos. Nonna has a few billion more, but I'll let her post those herself.

Enjoy!

Daddy's Sock Hand

Yeah, yeah, Daddy. So you had surgery. So you have an owie. Read me a book, dammit.

Nonna and Grandpa came to visit, so they could watch Dexter while John had a cyst removed from his wrist. I thought maybe we'd give John some peace and quiet on Thursday morning by taking Dex and Nonna to Longwood. Turns out leaving Grandpa home didn't exactly promote the "peace and quiet" idea. But Nonna and Dex and I still had fun!

A warning to you - there's twelve billion pictures here. It's OrchidFest. I like orchids a lot. I like my kid a lot. My kid likes water a lot. Nonna and I like taking pictures a lot. You get the picture... He-he. I'm funny!

Orchid Boy. Always with the suspicious look on his face. Dear Dex - the whole world is not out to get you. I promise.

Shall I look at THIS water? Or THAT water? Why can't I touch this water, again? Maybe I can touch THAT water.

Pretty orchids. And... these purple flower thingies.

I smile as I remember Dex hauling ass down this row of flowers, naming the colors. Ow-an. Dae-dow. Ite. GO!

Mediterranean Garden. I liked it best in November when we came with Suzanne. Since then? Just kind of MEH.

Poo-poo orchid. Love the striations.

We were the only people in the Palm Garden. We took advantage by standing on opposite ends of the circular sidewalk and running the child ragged.

I also put his ass to work. Here, kid. Push this. Thanks.

Fake blue orchids. Not really fake. But not a natural color. They injected blue in to the roots before the flowers bloomed and BAM! Blue orchids.

Orchid Cascade = more water Dex can't touch.

Crackers. Water. Life is good.

Still good.

Cute yellow and pink? Purple?

I'm not sure why, but Dex liked sitting on this rock. We got some cute shots.

A little "behind the scenes" look at my photo taking.

I got a chance to jump in for a couple shots with my boy. Thanks, Nonna!

CHEESE!

Nonna grabbed a rare "Dexter sitting still" opportunity to grab some cuddles.

And you can tempt him in to standing still for longer by showing him pictures you took on your camera. He LOOOOOVES seeing pictures of himself.

Of course we found the leaping water. Of course there was much running involved. Or course the child giggled like mad. Enjoy!

Nonna enjoys watching. And she took awesome video. Which I haven't uploaded yet. Maybe next post.

Hi Nonna. Can't stop to talk. Have water to chase.

Watching. Waiting.

YAY! Water!

We also sprayed water on each other here...

Huh. I wondered what she was drawing. I had to leave the room before she drew the rays of sun.

Dex rocked his sharing skills here. Well, first he stared at the kid hogging the sticks until he about burned holes in his head. Then he beat away on the xylophone for a while. And THEN he shared.

He even shared with Nonna.

We liked the little red chairs. They were 1) comfy, 2) red, 3) within arms reach of lots of musical things that made cool noises, 4) in front of the cute stained glass sun.

Feeling the bumps on the wall. I can't remember if Dex decided these were BIG BUMPS or ii-ii bumps.

We played hide-and-seek in here. This is Dex. Hiding. Good, eh?

So we were done, right? We were walking out to find the stroller. And I thought I'd get away with just changing Dexter's long sleeve shirt, because he didn't get too terribly wet. And, yeah. You know how that always goes...

Imagine Dexter soaking wet, with water puddled around his feet, looking at you saying "Mess. MESS. Mess-eee." OMG. Hilarious.

Yes. A mess. You are a mess, child.

Note the sequence of how the mess works. First, the wind-up.

Then the SPLASH

And finally the observance of the mess.

You're a mess, little man. Still love you lots!