#MicroblogMondays - Sick : (

Oh the never ending mind game of wondering when is the right time to pull the trigger and take your sick kid to the doctor...

We have been so lucky that Dylan has not been sick too often in his 2 years of life, but we've also taken lots of precautions to make this happen: nanny, restricted winter activities, extra worry, etc. But he's sick now and it's the first cough he's ever had and it's in his lungs and I'm freaking out because it sounds a lot like the Enterovirus (which has already had cases confirmed in my County).

I haven't taken him in yet because he's acting normal (like singing in between coughing) and he's eating and drinking okay (not great) and he doesn't have a temp, but I'm just waiting for that additional factor to push me to take him in.

Bedtime is the worst, breathing-wise, which is hard because I know he's better served sleeping than crying in a doctor's office...but then everything improves in the daytime and the cycle starts over.

So we wait.

(Please don't worry that I won't take him in...I absolutely will if there is no improvement, he has retractions, clear wheezing, or any other scary bad worsening symptom.)

What is #Microblog Mondays? See the original explanation here.

#MicroblogMondays - blogging after baby

I think it's really interesting to see which bloggers continue to blog post kids. I needed to blog to get me through IF as did they, but I think I needed it for more than that.

I'm a sharer. That's how I process my thoughts and my life and it's not good enough just to write it down. I need other people to hear me. I can't explain exactly why. It's probably some terrible narcissicistic attention-seeking behavior. But it keeps me sane so I sure am thankful for it.

I miss the ladies I was in the trenches with, most of whom rarely blog anymore, but it's also fun finding new connections on the other side.

Happy Monday!

#MicroblogMondays - Yeah!

"Did you go to gymnastics today?"

"YEAH!"

"Was Daddy there?"

"YEAH!"

"Did you have fun?"

"YEAH!"

We are having real conversations! (Kinda...he also said "Yeah" to "Did you go swimming today?," not true.)

Of Toddler Love and Communication

We are still in the midst of a very exciting language explosion in our household! It started with signing more, then continued to expressing no or "no, no, no, no, no" (in a sing-songy voice), and then finally progressed to mimicking. Dylan has always said new words whenever he wants too, usually after a lot of repetition by me, but almost never mimicking me.

Now that he mimics, I can prompt his language so much more easily! Say "up." "More water?" And my favorite is practicing "love you." I've tried "I love you mama" too, but two syllabus is his max.

But last night, during my favorite time of the day, the first 20 minutes of bedtime (the last 5-10 minutes suck and often consist of him sticking his fingers in my nose, mouth, ear, eye, trying to get out of the chair, asking for more books, crying for more books, begging for more milk because he knows it delays bedtime and then finally some strong but usually brief protest crying), he started singing with me!

It start with Pat-a-cake. On some of the longer words like "man," he would say them with me and he would even do the motions. Then we sang "Wheels on the bus" and he did all of the motions without any prompting!!!

It is beyond cool when you see proof that your child has learned something in the past and is now doing it independently for the first time. Then I get excited, then he gets excited and my heart explodes.

And kisses. I cannot get enough of Dylan's kisses. Dylan's current method of kissing is a long closed-mouth kiss while grabbing the back of my head with both hands and pulling me towards him. Aaaaah! My dad watched him yesterday and he would come up and kiss me, then run over to Gramps and kiss him, then come back to me. Magical.

Can he please be a big sappy mama's boy for the rest of his life?

(It's nearly impossible to take a picture of him hugging or kissing me and I also don't have my camera out when we're singing songs, so here's our latest selfie.)

(And the Instagram version. I love how he's sitting like a big kid in this huge chair.)

#MicroblogMondays - More

Dylan learned how to sign more which is awesome. But now he signs more all the time, but without attaching the word to what he wants more of! He's frustrated because he knows he's communicating. I'm frustrated because I want to reward his effort, but sometimes I don't know how. And the worst times are when he asks for more books after his allotted 3 at bedtime. How do I say no to more books?!

(Using the remote and pretending it's a phone. "Hello?")