Tommy Tales

Not sure (as usual) how much time there will be. It's almost 9am and Thomas still hasn't gotten up, so I thought I'd go on and start, but he will probably be up at any moment, so...

I did make it to the gym yesterday, yay!! The only thing was that I had prepared myself for a more 'relaxed' work out, I was planning to swim a mile, and it turned out that the pool is closed this week for cleaning. Ahhhh well, so I got there and discovered this and realized I was going to have to run, which I wasn't prepared for. I did the bike first for 30 minutes (about 11 miles), so I could talk myself into doing the rest. Then I did get on the treadmill and did my 2 miles - running the first one and then walking for about a half mile and then running for the last half mile. I felt good afterwards, so that was a good thing.

Thomas did okay in childwatch. It's really hard to leave him sometimes. He does fine being left places as long as someone is paying attention to him, but if I try to distract him with a toy or something, he will not let me leave, so I basically have to wait for one of the staff to come and help distract him. It's funny because when I just try to give him a toy and say, "okay, say bye bye to Momma now, I'm going to go for 1 hour" - he will cling to my legs and yell my name over and over. It breaks my heart. But then if one of the staff comes over and engages him, he won't even notice that I'm leaving or care. He loves attention, that kid. And he doesn't seem to care too much who is giving it to him, haha. But I should add that he's always happy to see me when I get back, which warms my heart. The staff at San Mateo was ooohhh and ahhh ing about how cute he is, how much he loves Elmo. He was dragging around a stuffed Elmo doll and I knew it was going to be difficult to convince him to leave it behind. I tried to talk him out of it for quite a while, told him that Dipsea and Po were waiting for him in the car, c'mon baby, let's go to the car and see Dipsea and Po. He wasn't buying into it, so finally I had to just grab him and go. Of course he was upset, but he got over it so quickly that he was fine by the time the door closed behind us.

I tried to get him signed up for his swim lessons. Emmett didn't want me to take him during the week because he wants to be able to take him sometimes to the lesson, which I can appreciate and understand. Unfortunately, the Saturday class was full, so we are on the wait list. We will keep our fingers crossed that a space opens up for us. Otherwise we will start the swim lessons on the first of October during the week and I will take him. I'm half excited and half apprehensive about how the swim lessons will go. If he likes the whole thing it will be a wonderful experience. If not, it will be unpleasant, to say the least. So far his reactions to swimming have been pretty mixed, so we'll have to see.

We left the gym about 1pm, which is pushing my luck since that is Tommy's nap time. I have to spend the whole 15 minute ride home trying to convince him to stay awake. It was so funny yesterday because he was giving me the dirtiest looks whenever I would turn around and call his name. He was so tired, poor sweetheart. His eyes had this sort of dull, glazed look that told me he was half asleep already. First I distracted him by giving him crackers. Then, when he was obviously not hungry anymore and wouldn't eat anymore it got even harder. I was singing out loud to the radio, gesticulating with my arms and hands to try to engage him and then turning around and calling his name when it looked like he would nod off in spite of my efforts. Then, as we neared the home stretch, the freeway runs along the bay and so I pointed and said loudly, "WATER!", that got his attention for a minute and he pointed and said "water!" and looked out the window for a few seconds, but then fell back into his stupor. As we pulled onto the exit ramp, I saw his eyelids droop down once, and I quickly called his name (if looks could kill, I would have been dead for sure then) . Finally we made it home and I gave him a bottle of milk and put him down for his nap. He didn't let out a single peep for an hour and a half.

I ended up letting him nap too long and then we were rushed so that I could get to work on time. The more stressed I got the more upset he got and started fighting with me and kicking so that I couldn't get his pants or diaper on. Eventually I had to resign myself to being late to work and just calm down so that we could actually get moving, but it was very stressful. I dropped him off and rushed to work, but was 14 minutes late. Not good. I've GOT to make more of an effort when I work the 4-12 shift, I'm late way too often when I work that shift because I try to extend the afternoon too far before I get ready for work.

Emmett and Tommy went for a run with Brian after work. Unfortunately, it didn't go too well. Emmett's knee is really bothering him and he is unsure if the injury will heal in time for him to complete the marathon training. He sounded really down about that last night.

I called them in the evening and it sounded like Tommy was very happy, so I was relieved that the stress he and I had during the afternoon hadn't spilled into his evening with his Dad. I got to talk to Tommy on the phone and he said, "hi Momma" and then a bunch of other stuff that I couldn't understand, but I was just so excited that he wanted to talk to me on the phone! He said my name a bunch of times - he has recently started calling me "Mommy" as well as "Momma" - and when Emmett took the phone back he insisted on taking it back from Emmett so he could talk more! It was great. He sounded like he was really trying to tell me something. He was talking about 'football' - which he says really funny because he pronounces 'football' very slowly and carefully, like 'fooootttt ball'. He also is CRAZY about baseball, which he calls 'b-ball'. He has seen so much baseball with his father (and I'm not saying this is a good thing) that he knows it's 'b-ball' when he hears about 3 seconds of the Giant's announcer's voice.

I got to leave work an hour early last night which was nice because it meant an extra hour of sleep for me. Tommy got up in the night last night, poor baby. He has been getting up a fair amount lately, not sure what is up with that. At least it never takes long to soothe him, I give him a bottle of warm milk and talk to him for a few minutes and then he goes back to sleep without a problem.

I have to run now, if that boy isn't up by now, he should be - so I better go and rouse him.

Love,
Melissa