Made in Richmond

My dad and stepmom took a trip out west last summer. Upon their return, they brought with them a cowboy hat and Yellowstone National Park “sheriff’s” star for JR.

“Perfect!” I thought. “He can be a cowboy for Halloween. Done and done.”

And then I didn’t think about it for four months because, hey! I already had it figured out.

As it got closer to Halloween, we tried to introduce JR to the concept of dressing up as a cowboy. We would casually suggest that he wear the hat. Gently encourage him to belt out a “Yee-haw!” Give him ever-so-delicate guidance to try on a bandanna.

No dice. He wanted NOTHING to do with them.

Our friend Sarah offered up her daughter’s frog costume from a couple years ago. It’s basically a pair of pajamas with a hood that happens to feature eyeballs. I thought surely he would go for it.

Well. When I attempted to get JR to try it on the day before Halloween, he had a total meltdown, complete with flopping himself on the floor, gasping “No!” through tears.

I put on the brakes at that point.

He’s not even two. He won’t remember this at all. He needs to look at Halloween as a fun evening to be spent with his friends and family, not a time that his parents force him to put on weird clothes for their amusement.

So, I found a red T-shirt and painted some black stripes on it, stuck him in a pair of black pants, handed him his blue blanket, and boom! We had a very happy Linus:

Here he is with his friend (and godbrother, if that’s a thing) Jack, who happens to be sporting the lion costume that JR happily wore last year — back before he had opinions on things.

As I mentioned, my birthday wasn’t the most celebratory of days in the Catrow house.

But there was one particularly bright spot. It arrived on my front porch at about 3pm.

My friends Maura and Matt (who have a very annoying habit of living in Fredericksburg which is definitely NOT Richmond) arranged to have a lovely bouquet of flowers sent to our house as a birthday surprise. Because they are wonderful like that, always popping in one way or another, whether it be a text message or a phone call of “Hey, we’re in town, let’s eat dinner and hang out!”

There might have been some happy tears.

Yeah, I think I’ll keep those guys.

I turned 29 today. I was supposed to sleep in a bit, have a leisurely morning with my husband and little boy, rest while JR took his nap and Ross watched football, and then drop JR off with his grandparents so Ross and I could enjoy an evening out.

Not. So. Much.

Instead, I was ripped from my sleep at 2am by a screaming toddler with a fever. Then I was ripped from my sleep again a few hours later by the same toddler with an even higher fever. So, we spent the morning in the doctor’s office, wandering around Target while we waited for JR’s prescription to be filled (after a quick trip to Krispy Kreme to try and be festive), and heading home to rest. JR’s fever eventually spiked to 104.5 which led to a call to the doctor to find out exactly *when* I should freak out and continuous prayers that we wouldn’t be celebrating my birthday in the ER.

JR cried a pretty much all day and we watched A LOT of Winnie the Pooh, but his fever finally seemed to be under control by around 4pm. After escaping briefly running a quick errand, I came home to find this:

While I’m still bummed that my birthday celebration will have to wait until next week, coming home to this, my two boys sleeping soundly (and competing over who could snore the loudest), it made the destruction of our plans sting a little bit less.

Another Garfunkles & Oates (ha!) favorite: Pregnant Women Are Smug (I obviously don’t think ALL pregnant women are smug, but, Lordy, this is funny)

JR,

Well, hello there, little boy!

It’s somewhat sad but very true: while you’re still sporting quite a bit of delicious baby fat (which you will probably hold on to for a while, if you’re anything like I was), you are most definitely bidding farewell to your snuggly baby days and entering a world of Boy.

You speak in sentences. You have opinions. You have preferences. You establish boundaries. You are LOUD.

And you are just so fun.

The other night, you, your father, and I had a dance party in the kitchen. You jumped around, laughed, and even started singing some of the words in the songs. I talk to your dad often about moments in life when, if it were your last, it would be completely fine just because things were just so wonderful. Our dance party was one of those for me.

Speaking of songs, you love them. You’ve even started making them up. There are simple tunes, basically consisting of the same word over and over again, but I love hearing them. My personal favorite is “Monster song.” It goes a little something like this:

Monster! Monster!
Monstermonstermonster!

The talking is nonstop. I have lost count as to how many words you know and use regularly. Let’s just say it’s a lot and we are not currently worried about that part of your development, in any way, shape, or form.

People are starting to comment again on how big you are. That had tapered of a bit when you were around year old, but I guess you had another growth spurt (both up AND out), because people continued to be somewhat surprised when I tell them you’re not quite two years old. Perhaps you’ll be a linebacker yet.

Speaking of linebackers, you’ve become very interested in football (or “touchdown ball” as you call it). Your father is quite please with this development. You will sit and watch almost an entire game. Defense seems to interest you much more than offense because you pay closest attention when people are getting tackled. However, you do NOT like it when Dada and his friend Justin start shouting during the games (either out of joy or rage) because you seem to think they are yelling at you. You’ll learn. You’ll also learn to just avoid Dada when the Hokies lose — it’s just best for everyone. Trust me.

Coloring is another favorite pastime, and you do it with significantly more focus than you did even a month ago. You seem to seek out specific colors and you like to scribble on the page and have me label your “drawings” for you. Favorite subjects are airplanes, Mama, choo choos, and cows.

Your second birthday is rapidly approaching, much to my overwhelming dread chagrin. It’s not that I’m not excited to celebrate; it’s just that it’s one more step away from the baby version of you. Even if we do give you brothers and sisters at some point, I will never, ever again hold baby JR, or feed baby JR, or sing to baby JR. Now I have a little boy.

Luckily, a very, very cute one.

Love,
Mama

You know, it’s pretty impossible to be in a bad mood when this song comes on the radio.

As soon as I hear those first few finger snaps, all is well with the world.

Your toddler rocking OUT to it in the backseat also helps. He even tried to do all the “Whooos!”

(Oh, hello there. Sorry for the absence. I’ve been busy at work, shackled to my desk, creating this for the Richmond Folk Festival. If you’re in the good ol’ RVA this weekend, you should consider checking it out. If you have any questions, just ask me because I know absolutely everything about it, considering I’ve done else but read and write Folk Festival-centric words for the last six weeks.)

So my kid won’t shut up. Ever.

Don’t get me wrong. I love that he’s a talker! I had real fears early on that my introverted nature would cause me to forget to speak to him (if I had my way, I would only IM or text people), leading to delays in his language development.

Yeah. That’s not an issue.

Here’s an example of what we hear all day, every day here at the Catrow house:

Mommy. Moooooooooommy. MAMA! Toast? Hun-eeeee toast? Pooh-bear? Watch touchdown ball* TV? Mamaw at home. Mamaw at home with Papaw. Feed doggies? Feed doggies downstairs? Outside? Shooter potty outside, ok? Ride, car ride? Mama ride car? JR ride car? My ride car. Wat-uh. Mama, wat-uh, peeeeeeeease. Tank-oo, Mama. Taaaaaank-oooooo, Maaaaaamaaaaaa**. Mama wat-uh. Mama potty***? Mama read Ham****? Dada where are ooooooooo? Watch touchdown with Dada! Snack? Snack! MY SNACK. Mama, more snack peeeeeeeeeeease. See Thomas? See choo-choo train Thomas? Jump! Mama jump? Mama jump and fall down? MY jump! Col-uh*****, my wanna col-uh. PAINT! Paint? Hands? Paint bwush? On table? Paint yucky. NO! EAT! PAINT! MAAAAAAMAAAAAAA!

And on and on like that from 7:30am to 7:30pm, except for his nap when he takes occasional breaks but will usually have one our two outburst in his sleep, usually concerning Mamaw’s red car or how he wants his “SOCKS! ON!”

*What he calls football. Pretty much the cutest thing ever.
**That one usually goes on for a few minutes. He think it’s HILARIOUS.
***He is very concerned with whether ANYONE has, in fact, gone potty, but he’s particularly interested in my bathroom habits.
****His name for Green Eggs and Ham.
*****What he calls “coloring” and “crayons”