Our Weekend in Not Enough Pictures and a Look Ahead at Next Weekend

Well friends another amazing summer weekend has come and gone. I am trying to savor every summer moment while I can. I had this past Friday off and I actually dropped Emma off at daycare while I got my hair and nails done!?!?! Me time to the extreme is what I called it and it was amazing. I still felt a twitch of mommy guilt for not spending the whole day with her since those for us are few and far between, but I do have a few extra days off this summer and I fully plan on getting in some quality mommy baby time. This past Friday, after the me time, I picked up Emma after lunch and finished my errands. Then we went on a special trip to Gymboree! She enjoyed having the whole place to herself and loved running and climbing and throwing balls all over the room. She has discovered how to climb on things these past few weeks which is fun and scary all at the same time. 

Then came Saturday and Emma’s crankiness went onto a whole other level. I am coming to the conclusion that she gets bored with the usual toy set up at home pretty quickly. So we switched things up a bit by taking her outside. She got a water table for her birthday from Nana and was excited to get into it! She loved scooping the water out onto her feet. Eventually this too became blasé and she found a secret passage way into the house (aka the dog door)! She kept looking inside to make sure the magical door didn’t eventually take her into a different dimension, one with more interesting things to do.

After a few more entertaining minutes at the dog door, she decided the next logical thing to do would be to run toward the stairs of the deck at lightning speed., where I learned that she has already discovered the sit and shimmy move (also referred to as the swoop and scoot) which had me laughing tears at one point and then crying tears of frustration the next. Unsure about the sit and shimmy…allow me to explain my friend. You see often a child will sporadically decide to flee the premises at unprecedented intervals throughout the duration of the day. Without warning, your child will suddenly take off and you will not react fast enough to stop them initially, but luckily for you, your limbs are longer than theirs, therefore allowing you to catch up to the child and make contact with an arm or hand. Momentarily you will breathe a sigh of relief as the child’s speedy conquest to run off a cliff has come to an end. As you begin to let your guard down, the child suddenly plops down to the ground in a “my body has gone limp” kind of way. The first time this happens and possibly the second, your adult body slowly exhales as it appears you have won the battle of the great escape. But do not be so naïve friends, this child has no intention of going with the flow. As soon as you let your guard down said child will wrench their hand out of your grasp, spin around, shimmy out of your reach and 180 degree it back to their original destination (aka the evil mountain stairs).

I laughed the first time this happened, my clever little girl figured out how to get away from me to get where she wanted to go (or try to). The second time she did it I finally realized what was going on, open defiance. I thought I had a few more months to go before it got to this level and I innocently thought that nothing this devious would happen until she was a teenager, but low and behold, here I was at the mercy of my child’s first real attempt at not only trying to get away from me, but trying to outwit me as well. I quickly schooled the young grasshopper on who would ultimately win in this battle and redirected her impressionable mind back to the water.

After our little tryst on the deck, we came inside so mommy could run around like a mad woman to get everything packed for a 7 hour hang out with Nana. Thomas and I had a wedding to go to, an event that lasted more than an hour or two, which has been our normal outing MO when it comes to babyless romps. I was a little nervous leaving my now defiant child with her grandmother but wanting to see my friend get married won out, and five bags crammed full of stuff later, we were off to Nana’s.

We had an amazing time at the wedding. It was bitter sweet in a way seeing my friend get married. Mostly sweet because he is a wonderful, caring person who deserves to be happy, but also a bit bitter because this is another reminder that my friends and I are growing up, but hopefully not apart. These are my college friends, the ones I used to spend every day with and now we all have careers and families and grown up non-kegger things to do. We really didn’t end up taking that many pictures because our digital camera is dead and my iPhone is about half a picture away from telling me it can’t take it anymore so do your best to imagine us all dressed up here (I know hard to do since we never are).

So the next day was…Father’s Day! Hurah! My husband got to sleep in while I cooked breakfast and did the dishes. Then he got his present…a picture book with pictures from his first year as a daddy. He also got a cast iron skillet that he requested. We had lunch at his favorite place and ended the day meeting up with my dad for a bbq. All in all it was a sweet, low key kind of day which we enjoyed.

Today just so happens to be my husband’s birthday so the celebrating continues! We are planning a beach trip get away this weekend with his twin brother and their family to celebrate. It will be Emma’s first time to the beach and her first time in the car for longer than an hour….dun dun dun! Stay Tuned for how we make it through that one.

How did you deal with your child’s first signs of defiance?