Downtown Adventure

Devon had an AT&T conference in Dallas and even though he lives just 20 minutes away from work, they got him a hotel room. It’s gone empty during past conferences, but this time we decided to spend a night there as a family.

We were supposed to spend Monday night, but after Devon had already parked his car at the train station, I found out you can’t park cars there overnight. West and I were just going to walk there and then drive the car home, but I realized that the key I have for Devon’s car doesn’t work in his ignition, just in the door. So, we decided to just have Devon come home Monday night and we would spend Tuesday night downtown.

Weston and I started out Tuesday, just after breakfast. We walked to the train station, took the train downtown and then found my car, which Devon had driven into work that morning, so I could pick up the pack ‘n play. The car was only parked two blocks from the hotel, but being pregnant,  pushing a stroller and carrying the pack ‘n play made it feel like 20 blocks! We made it to the hotel just in time for West (and me) to go down for a nap. After naptime, we headed out. I had big plans of going to the children’s museum, but it’s closed for renovations. I, then, thought we could go to the children’s aquarium, but the fair was in town  and since it’s on the fairgrounds, I would have had to pay to get into the fair and then to get into the aquarium. So, we decided to play it safe and find a park. The park we found was kind of chinsey looking, but West still seemed to enjoy it!

He especially loved it when he found a fountain and a friend! I really didn’t want him to get wet, because I was planning on going straight to dinner. But he was having so much fun; I didn’t want to ruin it.

After he played for a while, we went back to the hotel to get him changed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any extra clothes for him to wear, so my little date wore his jammies to dinner! At least he’s cute enough to get away with it J

After dinner I went to renew our parking pass, so we could stay parked there overnight. But I found out that we would have to renew it again at 5:30am. Since neither Devon nor I wanted to get out of bed that early, West and I walked around downtown trying to find a lot that would let us stay later. After about an hour, we finally found something. It would be an understatement to say that I was exhausted when we got back to the hotel! This pregnant woman pushed herself way too much in one day!

I really wanted to see Devon before I went to sleep (he had gone to a driving range as part of his conference), so I tried my hardest to stay awake. When I was just about to give up, he walked in the door, but he had a horrible headache. I went down to the lobby to see if they had any aspirin he could take, they informed me that they didn’t but there was a Walgreen just behind the hotel. It was just before 11pm, at this point, but it seemed safe enough, so I ran over to the Walgreens. I made it there just fine, but on the way back I was briefly chased by a homeless man and saw another man peeing on the side of the hotel. After the entire days event I was SO happy to be in bed, once again.

The next morning, West and I got all packed up and headed over to the lot where are car was parked. Just our luck, the car would not start. I found the lot attendant with the intention of asking her how I would get a tow truck in there. She informed me that if it was just a dead battery, she could send someone over to jump me. My car had been slow starting for about a week, so I was afraid it was more than that, but thought I would try a jump. Luckily, that’s all it was!! So, we completed our exciting downtown adventure with a trip to Wal-Mart.

Feet

A Weston Self-Portrait


I have, for lack of a better term, retarded toes. On each foot, the toe right next to the pinkie toes, are skinny on the bottom and fat on the top. On my right foot, that toe is kind of crooked, which makes the fat part go under my middle toe. When I get into running (which, thanks goodness for that toe, hasn't happened for a while), I have to tape the fat part or I get a major blister.

Devon isn't immune from nasty feet, either. His feet are perfectly shaped, but he has feet issues. I won't list all the issues, but I will address the major issue and that is ingrown toenails. Devon insists that in order to keep the ingrowns under control, he has to let his nails grow out to a longer than normal length. Which, essentially mean, I get to sleep with Freddy Kruger (except the blades are on his feet and not on his hands).

You always hope that these kind of problems will become recessive in your gene pool. Unfortunately for Weston, this didn't happen. Immediately when he was born I could tell he had my toes. I just hoped he wouldn't get Devon's feet problems, as well. But then the other day Devon was looking at Weston's feet and noticed that he already has ingrown toenails. Ugh! Poor guy, he got the worst of both worlds.  I feel bad for him, but I feel even worse for his future wife. The only thing I can hope for now, is that Landon will some how manage to dodge the nasty feet bullet. Good luck, Landon!

Life Lessons

You know how they always say that kids can be our greatest teachers? Well, I’m really starting to see how that is true. I’ve been thinking lately about two important lessons that I need to learn from Weston.

There’s no need to hold a grudge!

I don’t know about you, but when someone says something to me that hurts my feelings or makes me mad, I have to make sure they KNOW that I am upset about it (Said person is usually my husband). I can’t just accept an apology and be on my way, I have to make sure they feel proper remorse for the hurt and pain they’ve caused me. But not West. It’s so easy for him to forgive and forget. A couple of stories:

*I took West for his 18 month check-up. He was having a grand time playing in the doctor’s office, until the doctor came in. He then had to lay down on an uncomfortable table and be poked and prodded as I held him down. He made it very clear he did NOT like this! But as soon as his exam was done and he was allowed down to play, all was forgotten. He held no grudge against the doctor for all the poking and prodding and no grudge against me for holding him down.

 

*When West takes a nap that is too short or wakes up way to early I usually let him cry for about 20 minutes before I go get him. I do this, because usually he’ll fall back asleep. But the times that he doesn’t, it’s got to be frustrating for him knowing he’s helpless in that situation and all he wants is his mom, who’s not responding. But as soon as I go get him, he stops crying and is happy to see me. He doesn’t care that it took me a long time to respond, all he cares about is the fact that I’m there now.

There’s no need to discriminate when it comes to a smile and wave!

We’ve all been in the situation where we see a less desirable person walking down the street. When this happens to me, I’m ashamed to admit, that sometimes I look down and try not to make eye contact or, if it’s a really scary person, I might walk to the other side of the street. Not West! He’ll make friends with anyone. We take the train whenever we go to see Devon at work. Anyone who’s been on a commuter train knows that there are a lot of less then desirables. As soon as we get on, West starts waving and smiling at random people and it’s so amazing to see how there countenance changes! The other day we were on the platform waiting for our train. A different train approached the station and West started waving to the passengers on board. There was this homeless man sitting near the window, as soon as he saw Weston waving at him his face just lit up. Through the window, the man was making faces and waving back at West. This encounter took less then a minute, but it just made my day, knowing that my little guy had made someone else’s day and all it took was a wave and a smile.

Waka Waka

Weston is a bit behind in language development. Which is really frustrating because he's been ahead of the curve in every other milestone. His doctor is not worried, as he is very friendly, understands what we're saying, babbles, knows mama, dada and a good handful of animal sounds. However, I've been anxiously waiting to see what his first word (besides mama and dada), would be. He's said words here and there, but never anything on a consistent basis. When the time came, I figured it would be a word like cat, dog, ball or even soccer. Well, this past week, he finally said his first word, Waka Waka (which sounds a lot more like Caka Caka).

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, Weston is obsessed with music videos. His new favorite is Waka Waka by Shakira, a song about the last World Cup in Africa. Because he can't handle it when the videos need to be turned off, we have really had to cut back on the amount of time we spend watching videos. But it's so hard for me to turn him down, when he walks up to me and says, 'caka, caka?' It's even cuter when we watch the video and West does the little dance, that Shakira is doing in the picture.

While it wasn't the word I was expecting I'm glad we're making progress, even if it took Shakira to get it out of him. Who knew those hips could even memorize toddlers?