Bachelor Week Two Behind Us
Hello to everyone.
Xavier's second week with Mom away at school went well. He is accepting his new schedule of babysitter, school, babysitter, school, babysitter. Accepting it, but not liking it. Drop offs, even at school now, can be heart-wrenching. His cling-to-Dad-like-a-welded-on-monkey makes things sad when he has to be pealed off so Dad can go to work.
Early in the week, we did get to the lesson of running around the house in a diaper and eating in front of the TV. We often have the TV on while Xavier eats breakfast as he will eat significantly more while watching one of his stories. However, this was eating junk food (animal crackers) while in a diaper and on the couch.
One of the things we've noted these past two weeks (even Rebecca noted this over our Skype connection) is that Xavier is speaking more clearly. We are wondering if Xavier's immersion with other children more these past two weeks might be the catalyst, or if he just reached a new level.
He is also starting to voice his choices rather than pantomime them out. One night I put him in his high chair for another snack. He had not eaten much after getting up from his nap, so I needed to slow him down long enough to recognize he was hungry (which, by the way, is often a standard operating procedure).
He fought being put into the chair; I actually had to use the seat belt to hold him in. He became distraught, and asked for TV. I turned it on and selected one of his favorite shows (one which I can barely tolerate, but Xavier usually prefers watching it). Xavier grew more distraught and started saying something in his frustration.
He repeated it a few times. I thought I understood what he was saying, but I wasn't sure. I moved my ear close to him and asked him to repeat what he said; he had to repeat it twice for me to understand. Though spoken on a whimper, he spoke a very clear choice of what he wanted to watch. It was the whimper that made it difficult to understand.
"Okta-nots" he spoke. My eyebrows raised and I quickly praised him for such precise word usage. After that, I changed the TV from "Little Einsteins" to "Octonauts". I was extremely excited to change shows, not because we could turn off a show I don't well like, but that Xavier so clearly spoke his unsolicited opinion about what he wanted to watch.
Xavier's First Week as a Bachelor
Greetings to everyone.
Week one of Bachelor Training for Boys is complete. I think it was more of Single Dad training.
Overall, the week went by quickly enough. By Thursday, Xavier grew tired of being passed off to different baby sitters and school. The routine he has grown accustomed to definitely was not being adhered to, and he began to make a few complaints. His primary complaint meant clinging so tightly to Dad as to become part of Dad's body. I'm telling you, no monkey ever clings to its mommy so tightly. Xavier perfected the art!
I encourage him by telling him how well he is doing in his part to support the family needs and goals. He puts on a good face, but still he longs for the days of yore (which may only be two weeks ago, but that's a very long time for a two-year old).
We have been Skyping every night with Mom. Unfortunately, our big 70" TV does not support Skype. This is a major bummer as we had hoped it would. Now, we are constrained to smaller screens for our nightly Mommy visits.
Starting Tuesday, Dad began needing more frequent visits to the "little boys room." Although feeling well, still the visit frequency increased as the week progressed. I began considering what I may have eaten Sunday or Monday.
Waking up Friday I felt incredibly weak physically and needed the "little boys room" a lot. Drinking a glass of water went straight through me; every ounce I drank was accounted for less than 20 minutes later.
Fortunately, Xavier had a babysitter scheduled so I could make it into the office (Tuesday through Thursday I work from home so Xavier can get to school and speech therapy). It was all I could do to load him up and get him over to the sitter's house. I returned home and slept the day: eight hours, and I nearly could not get up to go pick Xavier up.
I dreaded bringing Xavier home, thinking he was going to want to play and include me in all manner of activity just as he did the previous nights in the week. There was no way I could rise to that challenge; I could barely sit up on the couch (and I am not exaggerating; I was a limp noodle), and I was drop-dead tired.
God has great mercies! Xavier was content to play so long as I was on the same couch with him and paying him attention. Every so often I needed to grunt or say something.
He went to bed on time and easily for me; another blessing. I waited up until I knew Xavier had gone to sleep, then hit the sheets myself. Xavier chose Saturday to sleep in late and let me sleep also. I got up feeling much better and able to move about the house.
Still, I find it amusing that Xavier chose Friday night to get serious about rearranging a room in the house. Our furniture in that room (Middle Earth, his play room) is still arranged for the Christmas Tree (now packed away). Xavier does not like the arrangement; it cramps his play space significantly. He chose Friday night to want to move the furniture back. At one point he asked me to move the couch. When I explained I was too weak to move it, he tried very hard at moving it himself, turning red in the face with the attempt. When the couch would not move, he tried moving the ottoman with the same resolve. In the end, he had to settle for being mad the couch still took up the space for his Hot Wheels track.
Bachelor Training Begins
Hello to everyone.
Today has been arriving (or looming depending on the day) slowly for several weeks now. Earlier in December, Rebecca learned she was to report to Patrick Air Force Base in Coco Beach, Florida. We had expected this trip to be in August of this year, but things change—and quickly with this one!
The stay in Florida is for training Rebecca must have for her job. A recent Inspector General's visit in Wyoming found the base not compliant by having personnel appropriately trained. The IG waved its magic stick and poof! August moved to January, sending Rebecca and a co-worked to school—for six weeks.
We planned on this being a family move, but Rebecca quickly learned from the school registration materials that families were not permitted and that she would not have time for them. Her classes start at 0800 and finish out at 1800 Monday through Saturday. And, of course, there is homework, so Sundays are pulled in as well (not to mention Sunday seems the only time to do one's laundry).
So, Xavier and Dad are home alone while Mom toils away in humid, spring-like weather.
Our plan getting up this morning was to drop Rebecca at the airport (DIA) at 0800; her plane's planned departure was 1030. We woke up to snow, and not just a little! Mix in the fact that it would be the beginnings of rush hour when we started to the airport, and that nine out of ten people in that rush hour crowd seem not to know how to drive with two inches of snow on the ground, we arrived at the East Terminal right at 0900. 0900 was the time I was to be dropping Xavier off with his sitter so I could go to work.
Rebecca's flight departed on time and she arrived a little early. She had a day and a half before she had to report for duty, so on Saturday, she went to the beach, watched dolphins in the bay and see horseshoe crabs scavenge the coastline.
Meanwhile, back in Denver, Dad and Xavier began their own school: Bachelor School for Boys. It's a six week crash course designed to introduce Xavier to fending for one's self like a man.
There is a little wrinkle in the training, however. Rebecca took care of several details before she left. Like all the sitters for Xavier so Dad could go to work. She even arranged for sitters so Dad would have time to himself. That, friends, is the loving care of a wonderful woman!
Not only that, but Rebecca, before she left, prepared and froze dozens of meals. We have lasagna, steak, spaghetti, pizza rolls, chili, breakfast sandwiches, lunches, dinners, even chocolate chip cookies! I've got a menu spreadsheet taped to the kitchen cupboard along with a list of weekly supplies. All I have to do is decide what we want to eat, then remember to pull it from the freezer in the morning.
With only the weekly exceptions of milk, fruit and pepperoni, neither Xavier nor I need to darken a grocery store for weeks!
Though I can teach Xavier how to pop pizza rolls into an oven, then sit and eat them in front of the TV while sitting around in his diaper, I guess I'll have to teach Xavier about ordering pizza, deciding on takeout, and falling back to the blue box of Mac & Cheese in a follow-on class.