A Present for Mama

I'm taking a staycation this week. I knew we couldn't afford to travel anywhere and I decided that with a house and a Landon, it would be just as fun, and probably much more relaxing, to use my vacation days to stay in. I'm working from home today and tomorrow and then Wednesday through Friday I am offline. My last day off didn't go so well, but I've been looking forward to this for a while.

And it was perfect. It was as though Landon gave me a present for his birthday (which really, given that we grow and give birth to the children, should be the way it works). He went to daycare in the morning so I could do some work (and today was "gymnastics class", which Landon apparently adores), but I picked him up at 11 because I missed him. I arrived in the middle of lunch and it was hysterical to watch Landon freeze in his chair making frantic "eh! eh!" noises while he tried to decide what to do- shove all his food in his mouth and then run over to me, or just run over to me first? I ultimately won and we celebrated by having more lunch at home.

I still had work to do but for possibly the first time ever, Landon played happily and independently around my desk and in the play room. I think it's the ridiculous number of "buses" he received at his party. He hasn't had any new toys since Christmas and I think he's finally old enough to really be excited about the newness of them.

After nap time we went to the park. It was only 102 today, with a nice breeze, so it was almost pleasant to be outside helping him dig up wood chips to put in the bucket he carried around like a purse.

He also did lots of climbing on equipment outside his age range and three times I had to chase after him because he'd spotted a dog he wanted to pet wayyyy across the park by the mailboxes. Once I reached my maximum heat intake for the day we headed back home where Landon played with his buses and I did some more work. I even managed to have two conference calls without any yelling of any kind! I interspersed my typing with peekaboo and racing cars down the hall. My sister just started her first post-college grown-up job here in Austin, so Landon and I decided to take her out to dinner (JP had a company thing). He loves his aunt and spent much of dinner smiling at her and eating her tater tots. When we got home it was past his bedtime, so we headed upstairs for the bath/book routine. The dump truck ("BUS!") had to come up too, which added approximately 17 minutes to our climb up the stairs, but we made it.

After the bath it was time for a book. Landon selected "Bark, George," as he has done every night for the past two months, and then he crawled into our reading chair and tried to look too cute to be put to bed.

After we read our books, he magically accepted the fact that we needed to motor our buses into his room and go night night. At this point, he had absolutely convinced me that he was too perfect and too sweet to be put to bed, but I was trying very hard not to tell him that.

Once in the nursery we put his two favorite buses into bed, stacked up his favorite books, and swapped out his orange blanket for a bus covered sheet. I was expecting at least some of the usual protest, but nope, I put him in the crib and he snuggled down with puppy and exclaimed "Night Night Mama!" When I got out my camera to get a picture of him with his new trucks, he popped up his head and said, "Cheese!"

He said "night night" again as I closed the door to his room and I haven't heard another peep. I'm now sitting here in the study giggling at all the adorable things he did today and feeling so, so grateful to spend this time with him. Having a child is the hardest thing I've ever done and while I have been brought to my knees with exhaustion, fear, and frustration, I've also been blessed with days that make my heart hurt with wondering how I could possibly love him more. Today was one of the heart hurting days. Nothing extraordinary happened and we didn't stray more than 2 miles from home, but it's one of the best vacations I've ever taken.