Simple pleasures

It is the simple things in life that bring us pleasure. We devote so much time to the pursuit of happiness, that we often miss what is right in front of us. For a toddler, the emotions swing quickly from one direction to another, and often to the extremes. They can be crying one minute, and the next, laughing hysterically. We obviously feel emotions a lot more intensely at that age.
  One of our new traditions that we have started here, is attending the Fleet Week air show which takes place over the bay in front of the Golden Gate Bridge with the pinnacle of the show being the Blue Angles. This was our second year attending and we will hopefully make it a long standing tradition. It is just as thrilling for Apollo as it is for us, and the best part about it is, it is FREE! We pack a picnic, bring some blankets, and pick out a spot on the grass in the waterfront park.  They have concession stands, souvenir stands and an inflatable amusement park for kids.
  Apollo loves slides and when he spotted one at Fleet Week, he went wild. He was a little tentative to go up the stairs at first so Melanie went with him the first time. After that, he was all to willing to go on his own. This slide has a huge drop to it. When you are at the top, it looks like it falls straight down. This didn't stop Apollo one bit. It was shear ecstasy for him, and so much fun for his mom and I to watch.

  I can usually find humor in the smallest things, but at times, I have so much on my mind and on my plate, that I find myself laughing less. One of the biggest blessings of having Apollo, is I laugh all the time when I interact with him. He has reached the stage where he refers to himself in third person; "Apollo tired.", "Apollo needs chocolate." and my all time favorite to date; in the middle of a melt down while crying, "Mama, Apollo freaking out".  How can you not laugh.
  Manners are also being learned. There is nothing cuter than when you sneeze and your son says, "Bless you Dada". When you offer a helping hand you get a "Thank you Dada", and when I stop by home for lunch on a work day, and I leave to go back to work, "Dada, give you hug".
  Such a fun age. The laughter is contagious, the sweetness is heart warming and tantrums can be entertaining...if they are short lived.  Everything, is fresh and new. A dog racing around the house, or rain water dripping from the roof is a source of deep heart felt laughter for Apollo. It has helped me to take a step back and take a second look and realize, "yup, that is funny".
One of my favorite questions that Apollo asks me almost daily is, "Dada, did you have a good day?". "Apollo, everyday with you, is a good day!" I reply.

  At the end of the day, its the simple pleasures that rein supreme.
  

Happy Songs!

What an incredibly fun age 2 1/2 years old is! I have to tell you, there are some hard times with the "terrible two's", but the trade off is the personality development. I am totally amused with Apollo and his "ism's". The funny things that he chooses to say, the way he says them, and the timing, not to mention the facial expressions that go along with it, are absolutely priceless. It is my goal to capture some of these phrases on video in the next couple weeks, and post them here.  Each day brings a new sentence and a new surprise.  Some of our favorites right now are: "Dada..."or "mama, I gunna put you to bed!" (in response to being crabby I suppose). "Dada, you need a time out? I go get the chair!" Apollo's "time outs" consist of sitting on top of a bar stool in the middle of the room. He did indeed go and get the chair for me...he must have meant business! "I need a go poop!...again!", and one of my personal favorites;  "BRUDDERS!! TURN OFF RADIO!!! RIGHT NOW!!" A nightly ritual as the birds have radio that we turn on for them. When their timer turns the lights off, they will scream incessantly until someone turns off the radio. Apparently the "brudders" (Brothers; Ian and Aden) are completely deaf, because they never hear the birds. Its a good thing that Apollo reminds them. 

Oh, there are so many many more. I will save them for video. Speaking of video; as promised, I have posted a video of Apollo dancing on a boat from one of our favorite summer adventures. Apollo loves to dance and loves music that he can dance to. He now has his own playlist on itunes entitled: "Apollo's Happy Songs". He hand picked these songs himself and will ask; "Dada, play happy song?". 

This is one of his favorite happy songs. Enjoy!

The sweet smell of success.

 I am constantly fascinated with Apollo's developing communication skills. The day to day progression, at times, is seemingly rapid. The mind is truly amazing and I find myself enthralled in each new development.  You can see Apollo's wheels turning as he works out the details of each new problem and then you see the light come on when he connects the dots. The choice of words he chooses for certain situations, never cease to surprise me either. You realize very quickly, just how much a 2 year old is really listening to what you say, by what he repeats.

  As it turns out, we are full swing into the potty training phase. A big part of this, is a game of trust and communication between Apollo, myself and Melanie. We have turned to the use of bribes in the form of Disney's Pixar, Cars. This has been met with great success, and for the most part, Apollo is now potty trained. We have had our fair share of full on battles along the way, however, we are now at the point where Apollo wants to make too many trips to the potty, just to sit there for 5 minutes only to lean forward, peer between his legs and declare, "No poop!" It is all part of the learning curve I suppose.

     Last week, as we were just getting over the hump of Apollo wanting to use the potty instead of his diaper, he started to get a cold. We were sure that we would lose the battle here, and we would have to start over from square one, once he was feeling better. Much to our surprise, what ever little bug he had, may have played a part in his wanting to be potty trained. Apollo developed a mild case of Diarrhea, and quickly learned that, however bad he  was feeling, it was worse to feel that kind of mess in his pull up and was much simpler to use the potty. I do have an aversion to poop so, if you use your imagination, you can see the look of disgust as I wrote this past paragraph. I even caught myself typing lightly, as if the keyboard was some how contaminated with feces. Yes, I do laugh at myself in moments like these. Now that I drifted away from my thought here, let me return by saying, Apollo made about 15 trips to the potty that afternoon and evening. It took him a long time to fall asleep, and he was very crabby and restless. It seemed that I had barely fallen asleep myself, when Apollo awoke crying, "Dada..." he whined, "go poop." It was almost 1am. I drug myself out of bed, carried this fussy little guy to the potty and sat him upon the throne where he did his business, all the while crying. We climbed back in bed and the crying continued with unintelligible mumbling. The mumbling gave way "Owee, oweee, OWEE!". At this point, you start to worry that something is seriously wrong.
  "Apollo, what hurts?" I asked. "Maba..maba...dada, owee" he replied. " I can't understand you when your crying, can you tell me where it hurts?" This exchange went on for several minutes, and each time I asked the question, Apollo became more agitated, it was nearing 2am and none of the three of us were likely to get any sleep if something didn't break soon. "Apollo, can you show dada where it hurts?". To my astonishment, he stretched out his arm, formed a fist and extended his index finger. In one sweeping motion, he reached his arm around to his back side, and pressed his finger firmly into his pull-up and right between his cheeks; "DADA, RIGHT THERE!" he exclaimed in a very clear and urgent voice.  I couldn't help but laugh. It was off to the potty one more time, then into the bath, a generous helping of Desitin between the cheeks and back in bed at 3am. It still took a good 30 minutes for him to settle and cry himself to sleep. I barely closed my eyes, and my 5:15am alarm went off. It was time to get ready for work. I was exhausted, yet, I chuckled to my self all day with the memory of the pre-dawn events. In hind sight (pardon the pun), I now know that "maba" was "my butt"... I guess I was a wee bit too tired to translate toddler.

  All was not lost. What emerged from the other side of this little event, was an all too willing potty participant.
  With our little guy on the mend and eager to use the big potty, it was off to the beach house for Melanie's birthday. Ian and Aden both caught pretty good sized fish for their moms present, but Apollo was sure they were for him. In fact, he loved the fish so much, that he gave them both a big ol' kiss on the lips.  When it was time for cake, much to Melanie's chagrin, I placed 37 candles on the cake. Upon lighting them, Apollo chimed in with, "Light this bar-b-que!". It was priceless. His timing could not have been better. I am sure that to a toddler, 37 candles does look like a BBQ.
  Apollo was convinced that the candles were all for him. We had to relight the BBQ a couple times and let him blow it out.
  One side note to this trip: The previous week, Melanie, Apollo, Emily, and Olivia spent the day at the beach. Apollo was apparently very impressed with his cousin Olivia, splashing in the waves with her mom. This trip, when Melanie took Apollo to the water, he kept asking, "Go see ocean?". " This is the ocean Apollo." "No mama, go see ocean like  WeeWaa?" (WeeWaa is Apollo for Olivia). Yup he figured if his little cousin could play in the waves, he could too.

  Its unanimous in our family, we all love the beach. It is a little too cold at the beaches here for my blood, but it is nice that we are so close to the ocean and that we have so many opportunities to go there when we have nothing better to do. There is always something new to see or do at the ocean.  I long for the tropical waters and cant wait to introduce Apollo to them.  I feel that one of the biggest hurdles of toddlerhood (and my personal battle with coprophobia) is about to be overcome. Just the savings from not having to purchase diapers and wipes (you can never have too many wipes...or diapers for that matter)
can pay for a trip to Hawaii in a years time. Plus, the shear embarrassment of your kid pooping his pants in a public place where everyone can smell, and the anxiety of knowing you are going to have to remedy the situation and you aren't sure how bad it might be or if you have enough wipes; yeah...hopefully, all soon to be part of the past.