Hug Twice

Alexa’s cardboard addiction has racheted up a notch.

Alexa has figured out that we are not quite pleased by her chewing of cardboard. So now she’s started trying to run off with her loot. But not literally run, since she is still barely walking and would rather crawl than run. She’s found our cardboard recycling bin, which was a thrilling day for her but not a great day for the rest of us. Now she will look around, and when she thinks no one is watching, she crawls as fast as she can to the recycling bin, grabs something, and crawls off as fast as she can move.

And then if she sees someone she hides cardboard under the couch, behind a shelf, whatever is closest.

She’s like a squirrel hoarding for winter. The one bright side is she doesn’t seem to remember she’s hidden any and never looks for it again.

But I keep finding cardboard under my couch…

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Hug Twice had posts in two carnivals this past week, The Carnival of Family Life at Colloquium included my post When They Need More Help Than You Can Give, and the Moms Blogging Carnival at Australian Women Online included my post The Only Thing That Stays The Same Is That Things Change.  Thanks to both hosts for hosting and including my posts!

A few posts I particularly enjoyed from both carnivals were:

• Between Us Girls:  Someone to Look Up To - Role Models For Girls.   I hope I can provide role models for my children.
• Diary of One: A Three Year Old and a Fish.  Oh… poor fish.  :(  I can hope my kids won’t do this but… well…

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It is amazing how quickly time passes.

It seems like only a few weeks ago, or certainly only a few months ago, that I brought my daughter home from the hospital two days after she was born. She still seems like my tiny precious fragile baby to me, even though by anyone else’s view, she is a robust, interactive, engaged toddler. A few days ago this was brought into focus for me all in a single moment.

Alexa has been playing with one of her big brother’s old puzzles. CJ has outgrown the wooden peg and shapes cutout type of puzzle, but we still have quite a large collection we’ve been saving for Alexa. They are on a low shelf in the playroom with easy access, and Alexa has taken them out many many times before, primarily to chew on the pieces. But today was different. She would pick up a piece, look very carefully at it, then look at the board and find the picture that matched it, and try and put the piece into its place - sometimes even successfully! I was thinking to myself, “Look! She’s a genius!” and then I realized that although she may be a genius, this was probably a pretty normal activity for a 16 1/2 month old child to be doing.

And that’s when it hit me. Even though she will always be my baby, she’s not really a baby anymore. She is growing up more and more each day - getting older and bigger and able to do more things every instant. Even though I am at home all day with her, it seems to be going by so quickly. I can’t believe that time is passing so fast. Before I know it, she’ll be the one taking the bus to school.

For now though, she’s still chewing on the puzzle pieces when she can’t fit them in their spots.

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Last weekend I was driving to the grocery store, and the car in the lane next to me started inching out of its lane into mine just as I started to pass it.  I made a split-second decision to speed up and pass the car versus hang back out of its way, because it was not going very fast (nowhere near the speed limit) and there were a line of cars behind it and would be behind me if I started going that slowly.

As I passed, I looked over into the car, and the driver was lounging in his seat, talking to the person in the passenger seat, and not using his hands to drive!  Maybe he was driving with his knees, I didn’t stop to look closer.  I wanted to get far away from the crazy no-handed driver.

I didn’t see a cell phone or food or anything that explained the no handed driving.  Not that anything would make it better but this I just didn’t understand.   He looked like your average mid thirties/early forties person… driving with no hands.  i could even see his hands, they were in plain view.  Just not on the steering wheel, or looking like they were going there anytime soon.

What are people thinking?  Crazy.

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For the first time since CJ started to go to school on the bus, I had a minor panic attack about his whereabouts.  His afternoon bus arrives between 11:20 and 11:30am every day (even though it is scheduled to get here at 11:37 am) and last Friday, it didn’t get here until 11:55am.

Yes, that’s late, but it isn’t incredibly late.  Unless you’re the mother sitting by the window at 11:20am, and as the minutes tick by, the bus doesn’t come.  And you wait, and wait.  And you tell yourself “I bet that they have a substitute driver, and it will be here at 11:40″ and then 11:40 passes.  And you wait, and start to wonder if somehow you missed the bus going by, and if you did, where would your kid be?

It started this little panic-feeling inside my chest.  I haven’t thought a whole lot lately about the bus and about how I am trusting my child to the care of others, but I am of course, and I started to wonder if I was crazy for letting my three year old ride a bus.  And just as I picked up the phone to call the school and try to figure out what was going on, the bus showed up.  Whew.

It is an interesting phenomenon inside my head.  If I think too hard about it, I feel things completely spinning out of control.  Ah, growing up.  It seems harder to watch my child grow up than it was to do so myself. 

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