Dangers of Boredom

What do you do when your infant is bored? I appear to have totally forgotten! Mr. Paul is sick of playing with the dangly toys under the swing. He's sick of the ones on his carseat, the kicking chair is yesterday's news, his hands (while fleetingly intriguing) just can't hold his interest. Oddly, tummy time is the only thing that's not quite so boring any more.

The only thing Paul wants to do is this new scooting on his tummy deal that is suddenly possible because of the play mat we acquired from Kylan and Kaleb. This is a fun activity, but it requires Mommy to be a wall to push off from behind his feet. So now I spend my days following my son across the floor while he kicks me to propel himself forward. As you can imagine, this is tough for me to capture on video...this image shows how necessary it is for someone to be behind Paul so he can actually shoot himself forward. After a complete lap (one end of the street to the other and back), he's usually exhausted and I need to provide some encouraging feedback, maybe read a story or otherwise provide a leg-resting activity for a bit. He really enjoys it when I lay on my back like a dead bug and he gets to hover on my shins like superman.

I spent the better part of today doing just this...endlessly entertaining my three-month-old. Which means I didn't cook, blog, sleep, make my bed, do any dishes, go to the library, check on apartments, write birthday cards, el zippo. Ugh. It wouldn't be as bad if I wasn't totally sleep deprived, but the little stinker can't seem to go more than a couple of hours without food still. He's just growing so fast and blowing so much energy. It's amazing how he can keep moving all day and not fatigue for a second. He does get crankier when he misses his naps (as he did today), but he manages to fight sleeping all the same. I could have sworn that phase kicked in later with Penny. Yes, she was always checking things out and awake more hours than I was told to expect her to be, but I don't recall her being so cranky by the end of the day. Maybe Paul suffers under the delusion that his sister will let him sleep when she comes home from daycare. Silly Paul! The first thing she does when she comes home is ask him for some smiles. They're pretty cute together, though I have some serious fears about his mobility. Penny seems to enjoy dashing about around him, missing his flailing appendages by mere inches whenever she passes. We'll see how things progress. Shouldn't be too long before I can no longer count on Paul being where I left him when I try to dash out for a potty break or to get food from the microwave.

What next?

This past week I finished off my time at the museum by completing my exit interview. I debated pretty hard about quitting. It was nice getting back to working with the kids and using my extensive (ok, only in comparison to some) computer skills. I just couldn't justify the 12 hours a day away from home, though, with such a little one waiting for me here. I'd never see him awake except for middle of the night feedings - and that just doesn't seem conducive to sanity since he'd probably preferentially feed a few times at night just for the together time. Plus, I'd miss all the cool moments like this - first successful snatch at a toy. This one involves some skill because it's actually attached to the bottom of his swing (I'm too cheap to buy a play yard when there's plenty of furniture to dangle things from). His first successful grab truthfully was the crinkly feet, but I was too slow to capture that on film.

So now that I've got a little more free time on my hands, I'm feeling a little unrooted. Not sure what my next big task to tackle should be. Don't get me wrong, I never manage to find free time to do anything - Penny and Paul keep me remarkably busy. I'd love just to find some free time to catch up on the sleep lost because Paul is too hungry to sleep through the night yet. Whoo, I hope that kicks in soon! One of the additional perks we get to enjoy, though, is seeing some of our friends who have new little ones as well. Here's the back of Penny's head at Kaleb's birthday party. Kaleb is the little brother of our friend Kylan from St. George's University. We met Erica and Kylan back when Kylan was six months old in England. Now Kylan is four and his little brother is one! Hard to believe I once wondered why Erica didn't like packing up to go out on adventures with us every week. Now I'm intimately familiar with why ;) It's amazing how much has changed in the four years since we began this exciting journey (four years of blogging this week, I believe!).

So yet another adventure to embark upon - being a stay at home mom in the real world, not the pretend world of Grenada. Wish me luck!

Visit to the Dinosaurs

Our friends invited us to join them in a trip to the American Museum of Natural History this past weekend. It was a bit of a logistical challenge getting our two little ones mobilized, but we were out on the road for adventures once again. Having received a pack of dino flash cards for Christmas, Penny was intent upon visiting her favorite sauropod, someone she called "Long-necky." We therefore headed straight for the ornithician gallery, where we were rewarded with this great skeleton and even a bit of trackway. This really is the best place to go to see dinos because it is the best collection in the world.

We were able to see lots of familiar friends from Dinosaur Train - diplodocus, pteranadons, Corythosaurus, Albertosaurus, T. rex. There's not a whole lot that's interactive or touchy-feely in the AMNH galleries (just some reproductions of a few anatomical features like feet, teeth or claws), so much of the time was spent doing laps following Penny from gallery to gallery. We managed to find three separate locations with her favorite long-necked friends, which allowed us to see a few different places with our human friends. We stayed right up until closing, then rode the subway back to Brooklyn for dinner and a game of Beans (Bohnanza) with Celeste and Brent.

Can you believe it? Paul's already up to three boroughs! A trip to the Bronx will finish Penny's collection...maybe we'll hit the zoo when the weather warms a little.