Our first year ends with one great vacation

It's that time of year when families get ready to go on their long-awaited vacations. We almost never take a vacation. Sure, we take off from work, but we never go any place of note. Last year, however, we decided to go on what my stepson would call a "real" vacation. We planned to drive to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and stay at a family resort right on the beach.

Oh, yeah.

I was excited about this trip. When I say excited, I mean jumping up and down and singing excited. This was our first real family vacation. Imagine, a vacation where we didn't work on the house. There would be no cooking, cleaning, laundry or any other daily chores. The only thing I needed to do was relax.

It couldn't have happened at a better time. I was 30 weeks pregnant and miserably huge. We planned the vacation during the week of the Fourth of July. This is an all-American holiday filled with fireworks, beer and lots of food, but it was also the same week my daughter turned 1. Her birthday is July 3. This meant fireworks on the beach for Sophia's first birthday (and for her Mommy and Daddy for surviving her first year).

Once we finally got to our destination, the first thing we did was head to the beach. I was so excited about showing Sophia the ocean and letting her play in the sand for the very first time. We slathered on the sunscreen, put a swimmy diaper and her brand new, first-ever bikini and headed to the beach.

First thing we learned was that Sophia loves the sand. Actually, she loves to eat it. OK, fine, let's try the ocean. Not a chance. The best she would allow was for us sit with her at the water's edge, and I mean the very edge, where she could indulge in the finest wet sand South Caroline could offer a finiky 1-year-old.

At the end of the day, she was covered head to toe in sand, with a majority of it taking up residency in her diaper. It probably added five pounds to her skinny little frame. No lie.

By the end of the week, though, she was running around the water's edge, still a little put off by the waves, but being as brave as she could while still eating as much sand as her tiny little hands could get in her mouth.

The whole week was so much fun. I think even my then 13-year-old stepson had a good time. But vacations are a lot like childhood, it went by way too quickly.

This summer, we aren't planning any vacation, but I still have wonderful memories of our last one. Looking back, no matter how much sand was consumed, it was a great time.

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Careful, your genius is showing

Driving home from work we pass several horse farms. This is crazy to me. When I was growing up and living right outside the big city, we used to drive far away to see any kind of open space. Looking back, it wasn't that far. But when you’re a kid if you're in a car for more than 10 minutes it's far away. Now that I live in the sticks, I still find it fascinating that we pass horses, cows, sheep and even llamas during my 15 minute drive into work.

Sophia is terrible in the car, she always has been, so I often resort to pointing to things out the window as a distraction for her, like trees, flowers, horseys, baas (sheep. Don't ask, it's a Sophia and Daddy thing), big trucks, school buses and anything else I think might grab her attention long enough to stop her whining about being stuck in her car seat.

While driving home from work yesterday, I pointed to the horses grazing in this totally huge farm we pass every day. There are usually five or six beautiful horses hanging close enough to the road for Sophia to see them. Every day as we drive past, she says, "Hi, horseys." It's cute, but yesterday it was genius. As we were passing the horses, I pointed them out to Sophia. This is our exact exchange. I swear..

"Horseys, Mommy."

"Yup, Soph. There are the horseys."

"Horseys eat, Mommy."

"Yes, the horseys are eating dinner."

"Horseys eat grass."

She's only 22 months old. Her power of deduction is unbelievable. I never told her horses eat grass. In fact, I don't know what they eat; I'm assuming here that they eat at least some grass. She made this conclusion all on her own. Freaking amazing.

But wait, there's more.

We tried to have a calm, cool and collected dinner last night hoping that we could get her to swallow at least a couple bits of food. I made her absolute favorite, macaroni and cheese (because she asked for it) and vegetarian chicken patties (because it's at least some protein). These are two things I know she has eaten in their entirety in the past, which made me hopeful she'd eat at least some of it. She must have been hungry because she ate about half the mac and cheese and two bits of the chick patty. But here is the crazy part: My husband came home in the middle of dinner, went to the refrigerator and grabbed the rolls, bologna, cheese and mustard, and brought them all to the table to makes himself a sandwich.

Sophia, sitting across the table from Jon, happily munched her mac and cheese until Daddy started eating. This is when she started her yelling to get up. Instead of fighting with her, we just took her out of the booster seat and went about eating our dinner. Sophia then sat herself on an empty chair, took a roll out of the package and tore it apart to make herself a sandwich. She grabbed a slice of bologna and put it on the bread. Next, she took a slice of cheese and placed it neatly on top of the bologna. Finally, she asked Jon to spread mustard on her sandwich, which he did only after he was able to jolt himself out of his chair after being stunned by his daughter's sheer genius.

She then put the top of roll on the top of her sandwich and took a big bite.

My daughter made her very first sandwich — and ate it — before she's even 2. She made the sandwich by copying the exact steps Jon did to make his own sandwich.

Un-freaking-believable.

Ever since the sleepover party, her verbal skills, which in my opinion are extraordinary, have quadrupled. She's speaking in full sentences, using words like IS, ARE, HER, I, YOU, it's crazy. And now she's drawing conclusions and making sandwiches. Jon said those tweens probably treated and talked to Sophia like a peer for a whole day, so she picked up a lot from them.

Great. Now I have a genius almost 2-year-old who thinks she's a teenager.

But, let's not forget that is is not even 2 ...

This week's lesson: Yet to be learned

Not every weekly lesson can be learned without a little help. Not every lesson is specifically about me, so here is the lesson I'd like to learn this week:


We all have horror stories about our kids. Currently, my horror story is about how Sophia is refusing to eat in the kitchen. My last situation, so to speak, was when Sophia was sick and refused to sleep alone. It was an awful two week for the entire house. Both Jon and I were up at all hours of the night trying to comfort her and Ryan when she would cry loud enough to wake him. But it only lasted a week.

During those two crazy weeks, I shared my story about Sophia not sleeping well with a friend and that's when she told me her horror story. Her 15-month-old daughter simply refuses to sleep on her own. My friend was complaining that she hasn't slept in the same bed with her husband since her daughter was born.

How sad, I thought. But, it gets worse. I saw her yesterday and she asked me how Sophia was sleeping. I told her she was sleeping fine, but it was hard breaking her of the habit of waking in the middle of the night. She then proceeded to tell me that her daughter is still not sleeping on her own and has developed a nasty habit of making herself throw up after being put to bed.

How awful. I feel terrible for this poor woman. She says she "knows it's her fault" but she doesn't know how to stop it. So, my friends, anyone have any suggestions? I did a quick Google search on the topic and found lots of parents who are suffering in this same situation, but I haven't found any real answers to the problem.

What a way to end the day

Every night we go through the same routine. It’s a terrible routine and I wish we could stop it, but we just don’t know how. It starts out when we put dinner on the table, that’s when Sophia starts. Pretty much right after she gets in her booster seat, she starts yelling. “Done. Done,” she says as she’s standing up on her chair. Things just escalate from there. The yelling turns to screaming, all the while, Ryan is quietly eating.

Dinner has become a two parent job, one to take care of the “Sophia situation” and the other to feed the baby. Neither Jon nor I actually get to eat anything and we don’t have any idea how to stop it because we would really like to have a nice family dinner.

We’ve tried putting her in Time Out to calm her down (she calms down until we put her back at the table). We’ve tried to let her eat whatever she wants (her dinner becomes a huge buffet of things that never make it in her mouth). We’ve tried just letting her not eat (but how long can a mother not feed her baby? Not long). We’ve tried yelling at her, negotiating with her and pleading with her. We’ve even tried taking her out of the booster seat and letting her sit in a “big girl chair.” Nothing seems to work. She just will not eat at the table. That is until after dinner when, in a desperate attempt to put some kind of food in her little belly, we give her something that she can eat in the living room.

Now this doesn’t happen every single night. We probably have one, maybe two nights a week when she will quietly sit and eat whatever’s in front of her. But those days are few and hard to come by.

I know toddlers are picky, but I’m really concerned that she almost never eats dinner (or breakfast or any meal that we try to put her at the table to eat) and that she’s throwing an almost daily temper tantrum that we, clearly, cannot control. I also know that we are, somehow, creating the situation, but I'm not sure what it is we're doing or what to do to stop creating it. I’m worried that we are creating a family doomed to be on “Supernanny.”

Probably worried about nothing

Did you ever have one of those days where you think you might just be crazy? Today is one of those days.

During the last couple of days, my husband and I noticed that it seemed Ryan was not hearing. When we'd call his name, he wouldn't look at us and sometimes, no matter how loud we talked, he wouldn't look at us until we waved our hand or made some kind of motion. So, naturally, we were concerned, but not concerned enough to rush him to the doctor because he is babbling and making lots of noise.

Last night, however, Jon and I were discussing his hearing, and I found this Web site with risk factors of hearing loss in babies. I went through and read all of risk factors. Some of the risk factors mentioned on the I thought Ryan was experiencing are does not awaken to loud noises, does not freely imitate sound (unless you count the unending da da da da he says), cannot be soothed by voice alone, does not turn his/her head in the direction of my voice and does not point to familiar persons or objects when asked.

At the bottom of the site, it says if your baby has any of these symptoms, they are at risk for hearing loss.

This is when I started to get concerned.

So when I dropped him off at daycare this morning, I asked the teacher if she noticed any hearing loss and to keep an eye on it for me. Immediately, she sat on the floor next to him. She said his name and right away he turned to look at her. He heard her, no doubt.

While I stood there, feeling like a complete idiot, she continued to talk to me and Ryan and Ryan kept turning away from her and then looking back at her when she started talking again.

She did not dismiss my concern and said I should have a doctor test his hearing just to be sure.

Moral of the story: Get used to the kids making me feel like an idiot. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last, but don't ever disregard maternal instinct.

On my own

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Oh, I am in trouble

So, Ryan had his first marriage proposal. You laugh, but I think the 12-year-old who proposed was serious … and that is seriously funny.

Sophia and Ryan went to their first sleepover party Saturday night. It was very real 12-year-old girl sleepover party, complete with Paris Hilton pocketbook and perfume gifts for the guests, Sophia included. She didn't get perfume (thankfully), but she did get a pocketbook and a stuffed frog.

Here's how my two little babies ended up at a girl's sleepover party:

My husband's cousin was married Saturday and her wedding was an adult's only affair. It was a nice opportunity for us to get out, but that meant I needed to have someone watch the kids. A good friend of mine who has watched my kids about a million times, offered to take the kids overnight, but her daughter was having a sleepover party.

No way, I told her. I thought she was going to have her hands full with six 11 and 12-year-olds already and didn't need any additional kids. She persisted, saying that my kids would actually make her night much easier. She said the girls would absolutely love the babies and they'd give the girls some distraction.

Boy, oh, boy, was she right. When we picked up the kids Sunday morning I don't think they wanted to leave. Sophia had her finger nails and toe nails painted by the girls and they look so cute. Pink, purple, silver, almost every nail is a different color. It is soooo unbelievably cute. She danced with the girls, played with them and basically left the party thinking she was, in fact, a tween. I swear, after the party she was even talking in full sentences. I think this party sealed the deal, she is now more girly than I ever imagined she could be.

Ryan, on the other hand, didn't have his nails done, but he did have his first marriage proposal. Of course, I'm not in the business of marrying off my kids, so I had to let the little girl down easy. She took the news pretty well, but she did ask that he come back when he's older and marry her.

He's a charmer, what can I say. I'm sure that means trouble for me later.