Recently as I carve out time to catch up on recording the life of Captain B, I feel like a catholic school girl confessing my time since my last blog post. I have never actually been a catholic school girl, but I imagine it’s the same guilt. And while I have spent plenty of quality time with my son, the good camera has not been invited to our parties. More guilt about that. I’m just going to go with what I have, knowing that I’ll be glad for any morsels when I’m reading this after Brendan goes off to college. Thankfully, that’s still a looooong way off.
Let’s start with Valentine’s weekend. For Christmas, Rob gave me two nights at a fancy hotel 30 minutes from our house. It was to be our first weekend away from Brendan. He knew this would be met with mixed emotions: sleeping in = good, being away from our son = not on your life. He arranged it so that The Uncles would fly in for the weekend which would be like a holiday for Brendan, but also sad for the parents to miss out on time with them. Anyway, with a whirlwind of emotions, we agreed to the following: we would put Brendan to sleep on Friday night with the Uncles here, and then we would drive the half hour to our hotel and be away from our boy for about 40 hours. In other words, longer than we had ever been away from him. I’ll save you the suspense – it all worked out fine. We arrived and the nice hotel person poured us each a glass of wine and I started to relax. Then she told us that we could take the wine with us in the car as we drove back to our cottage since they own the property. We were so giddy with the novelty of wine glasses in our cup holders that we forgot cup holders were not exactly built for stemware. As we pulled away, two full glasses of wine in my lap and all over the car quickly reminded us. But it also reminded me not to take anything too seriously. After we got things cleaned up (which included dunking our wine soaked car mat into a fountain – which in our defense, looked more like a bathtub than the Trevi), we spent the next 39 hours sleeping, eating, reading and looking at pictures of Brendan.
When it was over, we felt refreshed and anxious to get home. Being 30 minutes away really helped – I knew we could be home in an instance if needed. But it was never needed – Brendan had his own personal vacation with the Uncles: a trip to train town, countless treats and presents and allowances of naughty behavior, and many hugs and giggles and snuggles. Along with a new talent:
Uncle Brian also cooked us an amaaaazing meal, and found a heart shaped potato in the process. Of course.
It made an excellent addition to my collection of heart shaped things. There were also a few other entries in the Valentine’s category. First, I was greeted at school by a poster on the door with quotes from the kids on what they love. We say “Thankful’s” with Brendan, so I assumed I might see a similar response on the poster, but here was his response: “I love chocolate cake – and I eat it!”. Clearly Grandma’s impromptu party carried some serious weight with this boy. And speaking of Grandma, we also received a special package with matching Mommy/Brendan Valentine hats:
We created quite the stir at school. And these pictures make me realize that I am too old for hair this long.
We had Brendan’s parent/teacher conference and were delighted but not surprised at the feedback. One of the main things highlighted was his empathy – that when one of the kids in daycare is sad or upset, Brendan not only notices but always tries to help. He is also great at clean-up time, and even helps the other kids put the toys in the right places. And apparently he likes to play ‘house’ with two little girls. One of them is the mommy, one of them is the baby, and Brendan is the daddy. I demanded a video but have not received one yet. I did however, see how gently he responds to the ‘baby’ when he decided to bring a sheet of Spiderman stickers in to share with his friends at school. He had such a look of delight on his face as he offered to let everyone choose their favorite sticker. And when Ella (the baby) seemed unsure of what to do, Brendan bent down to look in her eyes (she is a little peanut) and in the sweetest tone, helped her to choose a sticker. He is my superhero for sure – and he is all about superheroes right now. Superheroes and race cars, and even sometimes the blending of the two into discussions of super-hero-race-cars. Also including the not-so-occasional breakdown if there are not any superhero articles of clothing clean and available to wear for each and every occasion. If things continue on this trajectory, I think it’s safe to assume we will have a superhero themed birthday party this year. Particularly because he already told me that he wants a superhero party. I am already dreaming of the possibilities.
And now for the tragedy section… I got a call yesterday that my baby got his finger smashed in the hinge end of a cabinet. I moved at super-hero-race-car speed across the building and found my little man at the front desk curled up in the teachers arms with some ice near his clenched little hand. Both he and his teacher were relieved to see me, and as he was passed into my arms he said one word in a quiet shaky little voice: “home”. He barely let me look at the little purple bruise beginning to show under his fingernail before he buried his head as deep as he could into me. As we sat and cuddled, various teachers and friends came to check on him and moments later he was fast asleep – snoring and drooling on Mommy’s chest. I realized that he would get the best nap at school so I sat with him a while longer before tucking him into his bed at school. I was there and scooped him back up before he woke up and could tell immediately that he was feeling better when the first words out of his mouth were, “what are those friends eating?”. We had a little snack time (it was yogurt afterall…) and one of his best buds, Griffin was sitting with his Mom and told her about B’s finger. He asked her if he could give Brendan a hug. Brendan was happily eating his yogurt and I said, “Brendan, Griffin wants to know if he can give you a hug.” My little man stood up with a purpose, threw his arms around Griffin and the two of them happily sank into a hug between two friends. Griffin will definitely get an invite to the superhero party. When he was done snacking I said, “Brendan – how about if you and I leave early? We can go see both Mommy AND Daddy’s offices (his very favorite thing) and then we can head home.” He responded as if he had just won the lottery, and we had the best evening ever.
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Other favorite Brendanisms:
– He is really into the word “carpool”. He knows what it means, he knows that we get a special stamp at work when we are a carpool, and he knows which lane is the carpool lane – even announcing each and every time he sees the carpool diamond in the lane.
– He has discovered the wonder of the cargo ship – one of Mommy’s very favorites too. Recently we were driving to work and he started saying “beep beep beep beep” and then “waaaaaaayyyy wooooooooooe” (our version of a cargo ship horn) and then he came up with a question that knocked my socks off, “Mommy – what sound does a cargo ship make when it backs up?” I don’t know – but we are going to find out together.
– He continues to be such a polite boy. He always says please and thank you, but he has also learned to ask for something using the word, “may” and often says things like, “Mommy, may I can please have a treat?”. He has also learned that when he wants to get up from the table he can say, “May I please be excused?” and now does so without us even prompting him. Turns out good manors are adorable. His tantrums are not as polite, but that just proves he’s really a two year old afterall.
– He uses the word, “belong”. I don’t know why, but I particularly love this. He combines ‘belong’ with his empathy for some heart exploding moments. For instance, when the bowl of yogurt was empty at snack time and he asked his teacher if there was more, she said there wasn’t any. But then she made a call and a new bowl of yogurt showed up. Brendan was pleased, but also had a look of concern on his face. “Who does this belong to?” She explained that another class room didn’t finish their yogurt, but B had to ask one more time before he helped himself, to be sure that he wasn’t taking yogurt away from someone else.
I love this sweet boy so much. I know I love him because he is my son, but I also know that he has a soul that would stand out to me no matter how I knew him. It’s the kind of connection that is the essence of belonging. Of home. Of family. All words we use daily, especially during the very special conversations we get to have when we’re alone in the car – and all words that make us smile that certain smile of knowing as we gaze at each other in the rear view mirror.
It was more than a week. Since the last post, not since the last time I checked.