Zeke, Aaron & JoJo

We kept busy and had some great trips this summer. In May, we had a unseasonably cold and rainy trip to Tybee Island and in June we had the honor of attending my stepsister Rosanne's wedding. In July, we went to North Carolina to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary and in August, we visited my family in Florida. Then, finally, we went to Turks and Caicos for our first big family vacation. (I mean this to say, our first trip as a family just for leisure purposes and not to see family or to get to an event or to rush around by car.)

Going to Turks and Caicos offered a lot of firsts for my boy: first airplane trips, first passport, first boat trip and first time swimming with a wild dolphin. No kidding! A wild dolphin! I only managed to capture a few seconds of it on video as the dolphin was leaving, but you can still get the idea. We took a half-day boat trip and towards the end of the trip the boat stopped at Big Water Cay. Aaron was already headed into the water as the dolphin swam up, but Aaron was fast thinking enough to grab Zeke to meet the dolphin at the back of the boat. The dolphin investigated for a moment and then swam back from where he came.

I love the expression on Aaron's face! Zeke hardly registers that this supercool thing has happened, but at least we have video of it to show him in the future so he can be impressed then.

We are calling the dolphin "JoJo" for the Turks and Caicos wild dolphin who famously comes up to and swims with humans in the area where we stayed. Who knows whether this was actually THE JoJo, but for all practical purposes, it was. I hadn't anticipated that we would actually see JoJo or his small family because of seasonal factors like currents and fish, but it looks like our boat captain found the right place. (Aaron tipped that captain very well, too!)

RIP Naps

Mark this moment: I think we are really seeing the end of the nap for Zeke. I knew it might be coming soon, as so many of my friend's older children stopped napping at 3. We may still squeeze out a few more naps, especially on busy days, but we have gone almost a whole week without a nap and skipped most naps the week before. Sometimes, we will still go through the nap routine and have "quiet time" which is not nearly as satisfying as getting him to nap. However, even when he was taking naps a week ago, he would still be grumpy at the end and often want to nap so late that it would interfere with dinner and the evening routine.

The upside of this (I'm looking for silver linings) is that the day can be more flexible if we don't have to be home at naptime and the day can be structured just a little more loosely. The obvious downside is that Zeke was a pretty good napper and I liked having that time. Also, I didn't worry about how much sleep he was getting a day, because between his nap and nighttime sleep, I think he got enough. Now we are trying to adjust his bedtime to be earlier and it is a challenge for all of us.

And, as his apparent need for naps has disappeared, mine has skyrocketed. I become zombie-like and exhausted around 3:30 and often need to nap for about 2+ hours. (So, scratch the part about not having to schedule my day around naps. Good bye, silver lining!) This usually bumps into the time that I should be preparing dinner, so we more than a few times recently we have had to frequent our local eateries if we wanted anything of a decent meal. It is nice to take a nap, but a drag to lose that time and even more of a drag if I have a 3 year old who wants me to get up and play "bear" with him and won't let me nap. I'm tinkering with my diet to see if it helps, but I am sleeping so lightly at night that I don't know that changing my diet will make too much difference.

(I did have a photo of me that Zeke took to accompany this post, but decided that it might be held against me if posted. The other day Zeke said he would nap if he could sleep in my bed. Of course, I fell asleep and he didn't and took my picture with his camera that he proudly showed to me later that evening. I don't need photographic evidence of my negligence for DFACS/CPS.)

There were 7 in bed....

For most of his life, Zeke has never really been attached to any "lovey" or stuffed animal. For about a year, we have had some "friends" in his bed with him, but that was more out of having a particular order and routine to bed, than it was out of a need that Zeke expressed. Regular friends included Baby and Otter.

Sometime this summer, though, Zeke started getting attached to stuffed animals. I attribute to his imaginative world growing and maybe also to watching/reading the children's story Corduroy about a teddy bear. After we saw that, I opened up the drawer where all the stuffed animals live and took out some teddy bears so that Zeke could see that he had some teddy bears to play with.

Well, now the summer is gone and past, but the interest in his friends has continued and grown and most of them have to sleep with Zeke at night. As shown here, we have: Cow (from our July trip to North Carolina), Teddy (sometimes "Zeke Teddy"), Mama Teddy, Baby, Knuffle Panda (after the book character "Knuffle Bunny") and Otter. It is very crowded in that little toddler bed. He does call them his "friends."

Zeke is most attached to Teddy who goes a lot of places with us. Just this week he has been to the art museum, shopping and to school drop-off. He even got to go with us on our family vacation to Turks and Caicos last month. When he first started playing with this teddy bear he called "Zeke" and the blue teddy bear "Other Zeke". This reminded some of my friends of the character from the Newhart show where the one brother is Darryl and his other brother is Darryl. Because I wasted my college education as an English major, though, I saw it as a natural latent interest and acknowledgement of "The Other" of literary theory and philosophy. That being said, the blue bear quickly "Mama Bear" (which is more Freudian, than Lacanian....am I right?) Zeke Bear and Mama Bear frequently mirror daily interactions between Zeke and me. By turns this is touching, funny and/or horrifying. Mama Bear is frequently bossy, Zeke Bear is frequently mischievous and wants cookies. Fortunately, they love each other very much and hug and kiss often, so I have hopes that it will all work out. It is also touching that Mama Bear often has to be with me. Zeke will give her to me at bedtime sometimes so that I have a friend to sleep with. I also have to have her around if we are sitting on the couch or if I am making dinner or any number of other activities that would be more convenient without holding a blue stuffed bear. Poor daddy -- he doesn't get any teddy bears.

Coming Attraction

Lots of news from the summer, not the least of which is that Sprout will no longer be an only child. We are expecting our second child, due early spring 2010. The official due date varies from late March to early April. We're scheduled to find out about if this is a boy or girl around Thanksgiving.

Profile of "Butter Bean" from this week's ultrasound

In what is a little quirk of the universe, Aaron and I are now where we were almost exactly 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Zeke. It was almost four years ago that I started this blog. We went to the Caribbean for the first time four years ago and announced our pregnancy shortly after. And, we just got back last month from our second ever trip to the Caribbean. This is just a coincidence, though, not pattern. If we are lucky enough to have more Caribbean vacations, we do not intend to have any pregnancy announcements!

Both the baby and I are healthy. I've been continuing to work out 4 times a week, I've gained less weight than before and have done well on any tests I've been asked to take. This pregnancy has not been quite the cakewalk that Zeke's was, though. The first trimester was all about exhaustion, heartburn, morning sickness, bad skin, ligament pain and more exhaustion. It seemed like the body remembered what pregnancy was last time and just went right back to that. Now that we are in the second trimester, things are getting much better and, for the first time in months, I had some energy this week. That being said, of course, I try my best to take a nap when Zeke does and today I slept most of the afternoon & evening while Aaron was at home. I think I've also been able to feel, at this very early date, the baby moving around. Not kicking, but spinning around. Still amazing.

We have told Zeke that we are expecting another baby. He doesn't get it yet, but we're sure he will as we get closer to the date. He's not really the kid that asks "why" about everything so we haven't gotten any questions and he doesn't seem particularly affected by the news. When we first told him, we told him something along the lines that "Mommy has a baby in her tummy." Zeke's only prior understanding of why something is in one's tummy is because someone has eaten something. Therefore, he seems to believe I have eaten a baby. His words were along the lines of: "Mommy has a baby in her belly and in her tummy. I EAT THE BABY! I have a baby in my tummy and in my belly."

I EAT THE BABY!

(We referred to Zeke as "Sprout" before we shared his name and so people have been asking if we are giving a nickname to this baby. I don't think it will be as big a deal this time, but we sometimes refer to this baby as "Butter Bean.")