Deadline Met, Moving On...

Yes, I know its been over a week since I've been on here writing a post despite the fact that I said I was going to try and get on at least twice a week or so, but hey, life happens.  The last week or so has been a whirlwind, not in a dismal or depressing sort of way, just busy and crazy with Christmas and the whole family being home.  I have actually taken a few days off of work over the last week, something which I rarely do, but since my wife and son are home, I figured it would be the perfect time.  In the past week, which almost seems like two with the amount of activity that has transpired, a lot has happened, and almost all of it is good.  In fact, I don't think anything even remotely bad happened.  So going back to last weekend which was crunch time for me to get our son's room finished and ready for him to move in to, I must say that a lot got done on his room in the matter of 3 days.  As of last Saturday, I still had a lot to do in our son's room.  The taping of the sheet rock was essentially done, but some trim still needed to be put up and all the trim needed to be wood puttied and caulked.  So from early Saturday till Monday afternoon, I managed to do the following; finish putting up trim, wood putty all the trim, sand all the sheet rock and trim, prime all the sheet rock and trim, caulk all the trim, and finally finish coat the walls ceiling and trim.  On top of that, I cleaned everything up and got our son's new twin bed into his new room so that we could drastically change his life by not only switching rooms on him but also switching him from a crib to a regular bed.  I must say, the color that we picked for his room, a nice bright yellow, is actually a really nice color.  And the room happens to be my favorite room in the house now.  But getting back to our son and his new room.  Tuesday was the first night he slept in his new bed and remarkably, he had no issues, slept through the night, and didn't fall out of bed.  After being used to seeing him sleeping in his crib, he looks incredibly small in his new bed, especially since he curls up into a little ball to sleep and is surrounded by stuffed animals.  In fact, sometimes when I go in at night now to check on him and make sure he is covered, I can't always find him.  All is good though.  I think what helped with moving our son into his new room was that I let him help me with certain tasks during the construction of his new room and from the get go, we told him that the room we were working on was going to be his new room.  As such, he was excited about the new room long before we actually moved him in there.  So the room is done, he is moved in, and the next project can commence....soon.

 

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  Our son is now of the age where he can understand more and actually enjoy the Christmas season.  We introduced Santa Claus to him, albeit on a minor scale, and even put out the cookies and milk for Santa, which of course he looked for on his way down the stairs Christmas morning.  When we got to opening presents, of which there were about a handful for each of us, my wife, son, and I; he decided that he needed to play with everything he opened before moving on to the next present.  He didn't get any toys as he already as enough of them, but he did get plenty of puzzles, an ornament for the tree, and a little toy car.  That was the extent of his presents.  He absolutely loved his puzzles and continues to work on mastering them every day, over and over and over again.  The hardest puzzles he got were a set of four, twelve pieces each, with no big picture or pattern to put the puzzle on.  At first, he struggled a little with the puzzles, but as we helped him and with each time he repeated the puzzle, he got better and better to the point now where he can do every one of them without help.  He is either memorizing where the pieces go or recognizing the patterns.  However he is doing it, it is amazing to watch him put them together, to watch the dexterity in his fingers, and to just be with him as he works out the puzzles.  He is now more interested in his puzzles more than almost anything else, except his blocks that he loves to build towers with.   It is amazing what happens when a child turns two year old.  Ever since his second birthday, it seems that everything is "clicking" a little, rapidly growing brain of his.  He is curious about everything and loves to get involved in anything we are doing.  On top being curious and understanding the world more and more, his mastery of the English language is growing by leaps and bounds.  He is moving closer and closer to full sentences and while there are still a good number of words that you almost need an interpreter to understand, he is getting clearer and more precise with his speaking every day.  To watch him grow from a little lump of breathing flesh to the age he is now is amazing.  And as I talk to others who have children and I tell them that this is currently my favorite age, they laugh and say that I will be saying that every year for a while as they did the same thing. 

Last, we went on our first family trip down to a museum in New Haven this past Saturday.  We figured our son is now at the age when we can start exposing more of the world to him and what it has to offer.  Our plan was to head to the Yale Art Museum, but as that didn't open till 11 and we were there at 10, we headed across the street to the Yale British Art Gallery instead.  Only one of the floors was open due to renovation on the other two floors, but that proved to be more than enough for our son handle at a time right now.  The gallery proved to be perfect for our son as they had a lot of animals in the paintings which he could recognize and also sailboats.  Whenever we stepped in front of a new picture I would just our son's eyes roam across the canvas, darting here there and everywhere, taking it all in.  Whenever we would ask him what a specific animal was, he would whisper the answer back to us.  We didn't even tell him he had to whisper, after all its just a museum, but he figured since it was quiet, he should probably whisper.  It was adorable.  We were there for a half hour to forty five minutes before our son began to lose interest.  Not wanting to push him too hard on his first museum visit, we left and decided to walk around the Yale campus.  That was the second highlight of my day after the museum visit.  Once we got off the main streets and into some of the wide open courtyards, we set him down and he was off and running, to no where in particular, just running through the courtyards of Yale.  He was like a little machine, he just kept going and going and going and it was a lot of fun to just be out, getting fresh air, and watching our son run.  To sum all of this up, despite leading a crazy life, I love being a father and wouldn't trade it for anything.