What dreams may come

Tic, tic, tic, tic...the time is drawing nearer. Melanie is well into her 37th week , which is considered full term. She has been having some pretty strong but irregular contractions.  Ian and Aden will be gone to scout camp all next week, so it is almost certain that the baby will come while they are gone as we will have to scramble to find someone to take Apollo.

Hugging baby brother

  Apollo is very enjoyable these days. The personality is really coming out, along with the attitude. One of the fun developments this month, is Apollo relating his dreams to us. I owe Melanie the credit for this discovery. During an early morning bath, Apollo was talking about some fantastical events, involving family members. It finally dawned on Melanie that Apollo was talking about a dream. She quizzed him about what he saw and he told her all the details. The cool part for me, was that I was able to ask Apollo about his dream and listen to him tell it in his own words: 

  "Apollo, did you have a dream last night?"

"A dream?" he replied.

"Yes. When you are asleep and you see a story, it is called a 'dream'."

"Oooooh! When I sleep, I see something." Apollo answered.

"What did you see?", I asked.

"I see Apollo and dada and the moon, and we fall off the cloud," he started.

"Did we fall to the ground?"

"Nope!", he snapped back. "We flyed away."

"Well, how did we fly away?" 

"We have wings!" he exclaimed.

"Wow!", I said, with excitement, "Where did we fly too?" 

"We just fly around the clouds." Apollo responded, very 'matter of fact' like.

"Who else was in your dream?"

"I see De-duh and the mean brother" (that is Ian and Aden respectively...we will get into the 'mean brother' name later), "They fly to the ground."

"They didn't fly around in the clouds with Apollo, Dada, and the moon?", I interjected.

"Nope. I think brothers were too (s)cared, but we see momma and she was flying around the clouds too! It was really fun!"

  I am certain that Apollo inherited the skydiver gene. There are few things more precious to me than conversations such as this. I loved watching Apollo's face light up when he told me about his dream, and the realization in his eyes that there was a "word" for his sleep stories.

  Apollo is obsessed with cars. His all time favorite movie to date is the animated, Disney/Pixar; Cars. We bribed Apollo last summer, with toy cars from the movie Cars, in a very successful attempt at potty training. He has nearly all the character cars from the first movie. This past month, we took Apollo to see Cars 2. We (by we, I mean "I") made the mistake of buying him a new character car from the new movie. Actually, the car was not the problem; the problem is the pictures on the back of the box with several other cars on it. Once Apollo noticed these pictures, he had to have the cars that he did not yet have. He insisted that we go to the store "RIGHT NOW!" and buy him a car. The power struggle was on. There are three ways you can deal with a toddler; give in, distract, or go to battle. Distraction does not work very well with Apollo, especially if he has his mind set on something, and as much as we wanted to give in, we seized upon the opportunity to teach Apollo some new life skills. We explained to him that, he needed money to buy the cars, and the only way to get money, was to do chores, and earn it. Then it would take him a few days of chores and saving all his money until he had the $3.50 he needed to buy a car.

  This strategy borderlines on going to battle. There were fits and tears, demands and protests, and once Melanie was done, Apollo started in. That was a little joke...the drama was all Apollo...at least this time. Melanie provided Apollo with an empty plastic spice jar and some coins to get his savings started. He then proceeded to pick up his toys, help water the plants, feed the dogs, etc. After completing each task, he would ask, "Can I have some money now? Can we go to the store now?" It took a couple days of walking around with his money jar, asking for money, throwing more fits, and the help of a couple over zealous parents, and Apollo had enough money to make his first purchase. We made our way to Walmart, where Apollo discovered there were bigger Cars toys that he wanted, and was completely appalled that they cost more money than he had.

  All said and done, Apollo bought himself a new car, and learned the value of goal setting, working, earning, saving, and being a consumer. Not that we want him to be a consumer, but all the other lessons he learned are valuable.

  Mel had her 37 week visit with the OB/GYN today. Things are looking good. The baby's head is nice and low, his heart beat is strong, Melanie is dilated to 2 cm, and is 50% effaced. We are mostly ready for the baby. The bags are packed, everything is in order, paperwork is done...If only my dreams were filled with flights amongst the clouds, I might rest easier. Instead, my sleep stories are filled with all things baby. It is exhausting. Still, I look forward to what dreams may come...

The Green Snake with the Sun in it

I am utterly intrigued with the mind of a three year old. The process by which they learn everything from motor skills to communicating, is not only fascinating to me, but it is quite humorous. I love how insightful  Apollo is. I love his choice of words when having a conversation, either to himself, or anyone in earshot. It is fair to say that I am mesmerized by the whole process.

  I did not foresee that at this age, Apollo would reach the point that he realizes he has not yet learned a word that he needs to use to express himself. His method for verbalizing this lack of word wisdom is simple; "I can't say something". You can hear the frustration in his voice at the fact that he does not know the word or words to use. We listen for the cues and try to present the words to him to use. The fascinating part is that he will often know that you are not presenting him with the right word and will refute it with "Not that one!" On the flip side, when he discovers the right word on his own, he will exclaim; "I found a word! I can say something! Hooray!"
  There is another side to the quest for words; Apollo will often assemble words from his limited vocabulary, to describe something that he saw and is now looking for. The challenge as a parent, is to listen to what he is saying, and think in the simplest terms possible, and we can often figure out what he is trying to look for. Two great examples I can offer are from this past weekend at various Independence Day Celebrations. The first story is from July 4th, as we were at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds, at the Red, White and Boom celebration. We chose this event as it has Apollo's favorite band playing at it, for the past two years. We spent last year standing right in the front of the stage with Apollo on my shoulders dancing to the music. The band that I speak of is Wonder Bread 5. This band plays hits from the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and today, all while wearing costumes and wigs. They are very entertaining. This year, when Apollo decided it was time to make our way to the front, I scooped him up and sat him on my shoulders and made my way to the front row. Once we got up front, Apollo started  to freak out a bit and wanted to leave. I eventually had to leave and start making my way back through the crowd, all the while, Apollo was going on and on about something that I could not understand. We made it back to Melanie, by which time Apollo was nearly in tears. I finally had to set him on the ground, get down on my knees and ask him to tell me what he wanted...several times. "I want to go to the toy store and get the Queen in the red box, with the button to push with the light on it". After several minutes, I finally realized that he was talking about going to Walmart (we went earlier that day) and getting the toy he wanted (which we told him he could not have) that was a Disney Pixar Lightning McQueen car that was in a red box. The car had a button on the top that when pushed, the hood opened and a little LED light illuminated and the car talked. I was a bit perplexed as to what the trigger was that set him off on this obsessive moment. I thought maybe it was this all boy bands rendition of Katy Perrys, 'I kissed a girl'....no, that wouldn't do it.   It was at that moment, that I realized that it was much simpler; it was the costumes! Wonder Bread 5 was dressed up as 'Toy Soldiers'.

  Or at least that is how Apollo saw them. I am not exaggerating when I tell you, incidences such as this are a daily occurrence. I know it drives Melanie nuts, but I think it is adorable.
   My favorite story of the weekend is the morning of the 4th. Apollo woke up at 7:00am. Trying to avoid a conflict with his mom, he rolls into my arm and whispers, "Dadda, the sun is up. Lets go get breakfast." I drug myself out of bed and was ordered to make pancakes and scrambled eggs.  While cooking up this order, Apollo started asking for the "green snake with the sun in it". I told him, "Apollo, I don't think you have a green snake", "Yes I do! it has the sun in it! Go get it now!" He snapped back.
   This went on for well over an hour. I quizzed Melanie, Ian, and Aden on this. They all agreed, they did not know what Apollo was talking about. Apollo will pretty much call any thing a snake that is long and flexible, so I was playing back in my mind any thing that I had seen laying around that was green and could be considered a snake. But what about the sun? I could not think of what had a sun on it that looked like a snake. Apollo finally found what he was looking for in Aden's room.

 We had spent the previous evening at a friends house. They had a pot luck dinner and we watched the fireworks from their home, courtesy of the city of Windsor.  The children were all given glowing necklaces and glow sticks. Apollo had a pink glow stick, but apparently he saw Aden with a green glow necklace. He found this necklace in Aden's room and paraded it around the house; "See, this is the green snake with the sun in it."
  Indeed, it was. Mystery solved.