testing, testing

And so it begins. My beautiful, soft, sweet boy is really testing me. It's hitting and biting, and my mother-in-law tells me he gets at least the biting from his dad.

He looks at me with a big smile, then hits or bites me (it's normally me, though I've had to sign some incident reports when it's been someone at school), then says "stop" and makes the sign for stop. To be fair, if you didn't know that he does the sign and says it, you might not know what he's doing, but I do so I do. I tell him "no-no hitting" and sign "stop," and he says and signs stop and then does it again. Must put the boy down, otherwise this could be an endless game.

At school, he does it when he's frustrated by someone - Nora has a toy he wants or some such. At home, not so. He's really just testing me.

Anyone?

Does anyone else do this?

Every time I start a new endeavor, especially at work, I'm nervously optimistic at first. Then, as I get underway, I get a little overwhelmed at accomplishing my mission and fear that at any moment everyone will discover that I'm a complete phony. This inevitably disintegrates into some level of meltdown in which I confess to a confidant, normally my husband, that I'm way too stupid for my job, whatever that may be. He then reassures me that I always think this and that I always do well. I thank him but secretly know that he's biased because he loves me and that this time I'm really in over my head. It's different this time. He gives me steps to think about, "tomorrow, you're going to go in with a great attitude, take little steps and set realistic expectations."

So, at New Client, NC, I've already been through the cycle, and I'm now feeling much better about things. I saw it coming this time, and I warned my lovely and patient hubby about it. Unfortunately, he took an illtimed business trip and was gone during the melancholy semi-meltdown. Unfortunate. We're on a good road now, full speed ahead.

Honestly, I even see it coming and I still fall for it. I'm 40 in a few weeks - when will I get it? I mean, really get it and avoid it, as opposed to falling for it again?

City Girl at heart

I'm a city girl. I'm from Chicago originally, and I feel at home in most cities' downtowns.

NC (new client) is right downtown in the city where I live, and that makes for a very happy me! I've run into several people I know this week, I've eaten lunch at fun places, and I've enjoyed the atmosphere. Another thing that's fun for me is that I'm working closely with lots of people who have expertise in my area. I'm used to being the only expertise in my area for my clients, and I'm feeling a little bit back in my element. This is a very different consulting gig for me (and my little company), and the change is refreshing. I'm sure I'll go back more to what I had intended, but I'm enjoying the variety. Promising start at NC. YAY!

is it next month already?

This has been a pretty big month.

Let's see - since our last postings, we've been to Savannah and Hilton Head for a very strange wedding (VSW) and revamped our entire morning routine. Now that I'm a mom, I think the latter is more notable.

The VSW was VS (but lovely) for several reasons. First, the wedding and the reception were in precisely the same location, but not on the same day; one Saturday, and one Sunday. Frankly, my reception was on a different day, but that was because I was married in Hawaii but had a reception here in the midwest; the commute would've been prohibitive. This was at the very same place, a house on the beach. This leads to the second oddity - the bride and groom stayed in the house on the beach, which was gorgeous - makes total sense. However, they invited several other couples to stay there in the house with them, for their honeymoon. I wouldn't have reacted well had friends and/or family shown up on my honeymoon. We wanted to do things on our own time, sightsee what we wanted to see and generally spend two weeks playing together. Third, the speeches were interesting, in that the best man's speech centered around the small size of the groom's privates, and the groom's didn't mention the bride (though it did mention several tourist attractions in the area and the general advantages of Hilton Head). Hmmm.

Savannah's lovely, though - we took the trolley tour on a day that was so hot we melted, ate on the riverfront and enjoyed the plantation-style architecture. We'll definitely be going back there. Hilton Head was wonderful as always, and we have about a zillion pictures of Aidan being adorable on the beach. He loved being curious and digging in the world's biggest sandbox much more than he loved being in a hotel pool. Not excited about the pool. He also had a great time at putt-putt, carrying his red plastic club around the course and giving emphatic commentary.

Also last month my company won a contract for a large project that I'll be working on for a new client (NC). NC will be taking most of my time, though I'm still keeping Fridays free as much as possible. Because of wanting Fridays for Aidan Play Time, I need to be more prompt during the week to fit in as many hours as possible. This has led to the Great Morning Reshuffling. Now Daddy takes Aidan to school two days and I take him two days, which feels extremely luxurious so far. Aidan's trying to adjust to his new schedule that gets him up 1-2 hours earlier every day. Between that and cutting a bunch of molars (early), he's having a bit of a rough week. On the bright side, my little company is expanding faster than we'd thought.

One new development with Aidan is "uh-oh," a very useful word if you're 15 months old. He doesn't quite understand that "uh-oh" is for an accident; he uses it that way, but also in a way analogous to "fore!" If he's about to throw something, he'll say "uh-oh" and then throw it. He also uses it as, "Hey - I'm trying to tell you something here!" For example, earlier in the week Daddy forgot to put the car seat in the car ahead of time, so had to do it in the morning. Apparently he wasn't as alert as one might hope, because driving down the road, he heard the "uh-oh" and then the same but more urgently. He turned around to see what was going on, and Aidan's seat was slanted to 45 degrees or more, and Aidan was hanging precariously across the seat. He says that was a sight to see (and hilarious to hear), and we're still laughing about it.

Now our travels for the year are over, which is bittersweet. This girl loves to travel! However, I am happy to have a little more time, conceivably, to work on the house. I have to say that my house is not immaculate, as surprising as that may be, and that I can use the time to do some cleaning up of clutter or find the actual ground beneath the weeds in the back yard. Wish me luck on all counts.

ps - a word from recent experience: bang! If your sump pump has stopped working and it appears that your basement is going to flood, don't panic. When you call your dad at 4 am, he'll suggest that you bang on it, and it will go right back on, averting however narrowly all disaster. Seems that banging on sump pumps is well-known in some circles, but for those who aren't in the know like I wasn't, there's a helpful hint.

It's all coming together

Yesterday, Aidan and I had to drop something off for Daddy on our way to school/work. At a stoplight as we got close to his office, I turned around and told Aidan, "We're gonna go see Daddy!" Of course, he got all excited. Then he looked out the window, saw a black SUV very much like Daddy's, and started pointing excitedly toward it. He knows Daddy's car!

This morning, as Daddy was leaving, Aidan did his usual "Hi" with wave. Daddy looked at him and told him, "Daddy's leaving now, so we say Bye Bye." Aidan replied, "Bye" with wave. It was actually his second Bye, but this one was obvious and verifiable.

In the car on the way home tonight, we were playing "What do you see?" I see a tree, I see a car. As I was pointing, he started to point and make "eh, eh" sounds, which are the sounds he makes to let me know he's signing something to me, like "more" at dinnertime. I pointed to the sky, and he said "kye, kye" about 5 times. We said it back and forth. I realized then that he knew I was telling him the words. We tried others, but kye was the clearest.

Aidan likes to play with keys. On his was into the house after work Daddy was holding Aidan, who started reaching for his keys. Daddy said, "Do you want the keys?" Aidan said, "key, key."

It's beginning!!! In the forseeable future, I will be having conversations with my son. He will be able to express himself even better than he does now. I realize that this is only the beginning. He's not consistent yet, and we've got a long way to go, but it's really beginning! I'm even more excited about this than about the sandbox, and that's saying something.

Can it be a visionquest if it's in search of a sandbox?

It sounds easy enough - the boy must have a sandbox! Shouldn't every store carry sandboxes and be as excited as I am about ensuring that the boy gets one, and speedy fast-like? Um - sadly, no. This was a two-day venture.

I loved my sandbox when I was a kid. My dad built it (as he did most things), and it was perfect! We - I and all the neighborhood kids I grew up with in Chicago - played in it for years and years. I've been determined that Aidan would have one, too. Saturday morning, as soon as the stores opened, he and I started our quest. We went to store #1, we found LOTS of perfect sandbox and pool (we're getting a membership to the community pool this summer!) toys, and we had to get most of them. We found a giant bouncy ball. Not one sandbox. Well, there was one, but it was outrageously priced. No fear - we had several other options. By the time we had exhausted those, however, it was lunchtime. Nobody likes a hungry Aidan, though to be fair he gets it from me - nobody likes a hungry Mommy, either. Thwarted!

Sunday morning I started out alone, no less determined. I had searched online and found what I was looking for - a selection of about five different sandboxes! I got to Store #5, where I never go, and it was humongous. Ginormous! Searched and searched for a sandbox, an associate, really anything that would help me in my quest to no avail. I did get sent back and forth from end to end of the store a couple of times, though, which was great.

Finally, the in garden section I found a very helpful gentleman. He told me that "almost no one works here on the weekends anymore." Why would a ginormous retail store scale back its staff on weekends when more customers are there? I don't know. Anyway, just as he and I both were about to give up, I spotted the one sandbox they had left. One type, one sandbox. No problem - one's all I needed! Loaded up a more sand than a gal should have to haul around on a ridiculously hot day, and back home to put it all together.

Luckily, realizing the quest was very easy once all the pieces were in place. No assembly needed, just a little more hauling around of sand on the same ridiculously hot day. Got the whole thing ready to go, toys and all, and wouldn't you know the boy was napping? After about a year and a half of waiting for him to wake up, or maybe half an hour - not sure which, I got to strip him down to his diaper, lather him up with sunscreen and take him out there. I tell you, the whole, hot, two-day affair was worth every second. He loves it! Climbed right in and started exploring. Very handy that the mud room, I mean kitchen sink, is close to the back door - I can just hose him off with the sink's sprayer, and no sand all over tarnation. Everybody's a winner!

Hi!

It's Aidan's first real word; he waves and says Hi. Mom-mom, Daddy, ba-ba (bottle), signs for "more" and "all done," and Hi. That's so Aidan - he's a very interactive sort of boy, working his hardest to engage every person he comes across in some sort of game or flirtation. What's the best tool for all of these things? "Hi!"

Oh, and separately, did you know that Godiva stores have drinks? They're along the lines of iced coffee, but they're made of chocolate. Honest!