Week in Review – 6 Oct. 2013

You guys! I am the QUEEN of procrastination this week, I realized just about oh 45 minutes ago that HEY I STILL HAVE TO DO THAT WHOLE WEEKLY UPDATE THING BEFORE PEOPLE THINK I’M IN LABOR AND START OBSESSIVELY CALLING MY PHONE* SO I BETTER GET THAT DONE! It’s this weird denial/procrastination thing where I know there will be another whole child living with us that will need my undivided attention, appearing sometime in the next few weeks, REALLY ANY DAY NOW, and yet the last of the baby projects are kinda half done and I should probably pack an overnight bag for Pete just in case it’s needed but you know what? I think I will just settle in with another fat slice of zucchini cake and goof around on the computer some more before I work on this thing. Or any of the things, really.

*True story, when I had Pete my sister Beah figured out I was in labor because I was not picking up my phone, and started calling over and over. She started call-bombing me oh, about 90 minutes after I started pushing, YES NINETY MINUTES INTO PUSHING, and was exhausted and frustrated and this kid was just not turning/coming out and anyway. The nurses politely asked my husband to turn off my phone, and I snarled at him to tell me who was calling, and he (ever the upstanding gentleman) refused to say. Smart move. I found the whole situation to be funny after I finally pushed that damn baby out though, I promise.

SO YEAH BACK TO THE UPDATE. Which I should just call the Pete Show now, because that’s pretty much the only news worth noting this week. Also would it kill you if I told you that I was only bothered to bus out my real camera one measly time? Yeah? I can see your sad faces from here.

Did you know, I thought people were just using stills of Sad Dawson and and NO IDEA THERE WERE ACTUAL GIFS AS WELL? I had to share the love, sorry.

Soooooo! There wasn’t a ton to note this week, anyway.

(1) Pete bitch-slapped some poor kid at school, because Pete is overly attached to his teacher at the moment and she was holding that kid’s hand. Yes, you read that correctly. Awesome. That’s a fun call to get while at work. She assured me that aggression is a “classic way that anxiety appears in children this age, probably due to his soon-to-be new sibling” so I took Pete out for lunch to talk it out, and where I presented him with a stress ball to use the next time his “hands got mean” (which was the best I was going to get out of him as to why he hit poor little Asher). He also made an “I’m sorry” card that he gave to Asher, along with a hug. Things seemed to be okay at that point. And so I plodded back to work and prayed that this whole talk/stress ball thing works and we’re not inadvertently raising a bully or serial killer something. Ooof. Parenting, you guys. It is not always the most fun thing around.

Also I never knew I would have an ACTUAL, REAL USE for a freaking free stress ball you get at conference trade shows, so hold on to those things, folks! You never know when you’ll need it!

(2) In much nicer news: Pete tried four note-worthy foods this week. Blue cheese, for the first time, he finally got curious enough on cheese tray night to swipe a hunk. And he loved it, and asked for more. WISCONSIN BOY ALERT. Also, my coworker got home from a business trip to China and brought back some ‘snacks’ this trip. I grabbed a few to give to Pete as a guinea pig. Both the fuling cake and the candied haw were gobbled up. Which is not a brag, because honestly: sweet is sweet and kids will eat sweets in any and all forms. Finally, he tried hot wings for the first time. This, I was most excited for. We downplayed the heat factor and told him to dig in. He took a big bite and almost died, I am serious he very dramatically fell to the floor, flailing while scraping every molecule from his tongue and moaning about the BURRRRRRRRRRNING HALP MY MOUTH IS BURNING HALP HALP HALP. Hot wing fail. Sad face.

Below is a crappy phone shot of Pete with the candied haw. He said it was “delicious chewy sour candy” and I absolutely planned to take a nibble myself, but the inside of the haw fruit kinda looked like brown, dry sawdust. So I let him finish off that bad boy.

(3) Pete has learned to mark his food, which is quite a handy life skill I must admit. Namely, he was worried that his father would eat all of the salted caramel gelato in the freezer, so he insisted on putting his name on it in an effort to stop him. Smart move, child. Except something tells me that won’t actually stop him (try a lock next time or better yet: eat it all before he can get to it).

(4) Pete had his first ‘race’. His school does a 5K/1-mi ‘Fun Run’ thing every year, they do this instead of fundraising which I think is pretty darn brilliant. So of course we all signed up, and showed up bright and early Saturday for the big day. Pete was so excited. He pretty much rolled out of bed on Saturday and stumbled into our room to start getting ready.

Once on site, he ran around like a nut and checked out everything and made sure to locate all his friends and chat up anyone that would make eye contact with him. I am still not sure where this ‘socializing’ gene of his came from, definitely not from us, we are normal introverted people.

We were all lined up and I was walking around taking some shots and happened upon this gentleman. Let me just say that he stood out mainly because he was wearing red in a sea of blue, his shorts were really short, and all that was missing from making that the Best Hipster Running Outfit of All Time was a pair of tube socks and a sweatband. He totally killed it on the course, too.

Pete started off on the 1-mile course walking with us. Then after about, oh, 20 feet of walking he was officially over that and started to run. And run. And run.

I chased him the best I could. I should point out: it was super foggy that morning, I mean I messed with the photos to get much of the haze out, if that tells you anything. So I was a wee bit concerned about losing him in a crowd of random people (like dear lord, do not let him veer off with the 5K runners, you know?). So I basically spent the first half of the course chasing him and yelling for him to PLEASE SLOW DOWN, meanwhile Scott chased me and called for me to PLEASE STOP RUNNING YOU ARE NINE MONTHS PREGNANT. I found myself cutting through a few fields to get ahead of Pete, and eventually he found a pack of other pre-K buddies ‘running’ together, so off they went and I let them go. Kinda. I still jogged a bit. I was dumb and had a wide-angle lens on the camera, and darn it but that’s not exactly the best choice for shooting a bunch of racing 4-year-olds.

Oh also: the first picture below is of a new spray park in town. It opened the last week of summer. And I am trying to wrap my head around those horse heads and what exactly they are doing there…

They all held hands for a little bit while running, which pretty much killed my mommy heart dead. Below is my best attempt at getting the four of them crossing the finish line. I was cutting through yet another field, sprinting as only a hugely pregnant woman can, scaring pretty much anyone who witnessed that. I don’t care. I got a few shots for posterity.

I caught up to Pete shortly after he crossed, and we hit up the food area to refuel that dude. LEMONADE IN STARBUCKS CUPS AND TRAIL MIX AND BAGELS FOREVER, the kid was in heaven. So he ate and hung out with his buds while we waited for Scott to finally find us.

Also lots of big hugs for Pete’s beloved teacher.

So yes, we did it! After some photos by the banner we hit up the shelter and took in the music and face painting and more food and fun. The end. We seriously had to drag him out of there crying after 2 hours. The end.

That handsome creature in the last shot, the one leaning against the beam and flashing his winning smile while simultaneously (discreetly) giving me The Bird? Yes, all mine. You are jealous, especially after I point out the Finger part, aren’t you?

As an epilogue: we ran around to a few stores, trying to find parts for his costume (giant fail; had to order online), and then went home. And the rest of the day I felt like my nether region was going to FALL OFF. Like I had been punched many times Down There. I hobbled around the rest of the day, and frankly was still a little sore this morning. Running while hugely pregnant: yet another thing to add to the long list of “all those really stupid things Emily has done in her life”.

And that’s about it, guys! I made the Transformer boots for Pete’s costume, I made Beah’s famous zucchini cake with the last of the summer zucchini, and Scott made a giant pot of soup for dinner and lunches this week. Fall is officially upon us. Pete spent most of Sunday alternating between the couch and playing Transformers quietly on the floor, he seems to have picked up some bug (great timing, kid). We pushed liquids on him like maniacs all day, talked him into resting on the couch as much as possible, and drugged him up nicely with Motrin tonight. So hopefully he feels better by morning, because we don’t have a lot of PTO to waste at this point.

Okay guys that is seriously it. Have a good week, blah blah blah, will see you again next weekend. OR sooner – I have actually been kinda working on the old photos from our Memorial Day weekend trip to Minneapolis. I KNOW. Perhaps I will share if I get bored.