Snowboarding - First Time for Everything

It was planned - we made the reservation at a ski resort to go snowboarding and have it be a momma and son date. I'm not going to pretend that this was an easy thing to do because a lot of pieces had to fall into place, like the weather, the baby and who would watch her while my son and I were out learning, and could we arrange it through the week when there wasn't school that works with my husband's schedule.
(I know I need to find a babysitter but I've avoided this since my son was born but I am now realizing it would be good to find someone that we trust and is good with both our kids.)

Learning some of the basics, like stopping. 

Our day finally arrived and we are both pumped to leave, I packed the baby's bag with extra everything and packed a duffel bag for my son and I with extra gloves, hats, snow pants, and extra socks. We finally were on our way and about 35 minutes into the one hour and a half trip, my son says his stomach is hurting, my husband thought maybe he just needed to go the bathroom. Less than 5 minutes and he said it's really bad and started to burp, I got a little excited and told my husband to pull over, pull over. We almost got there in time - ALMOST! Okay so now there's throw up on my son's shirt, pants, booster seat, car seat, and the floor. My husband pulled him out far enough for the second round but the first round was far worse than the second. At this point my husband and I were discussing that we need to forget snowboarding and go to our local MedExpress, our son, who hears everything screams, "NO, I want to go snowboarding, you said we could, I want to go!" I turned around to tell him if he's sick we will go another day but just as this was starting to come out of my mouth I noticed he had his full color back and was smiling ear to ear. It amazes me that once kids throw up their stomachs can instantly feel better.

Smiles while riding the lift. 

So then we were once again on our way but the clothes were an issue, they were wet and stinky and of course, we had driven past all the places we could have easily exited to get new ones. If we had to drive into Somerset to go to a store, we would be late but he can't wear the outfit he has on and the only store I know of that we would pass is a dollar store. You have to love smartphones because I found the number, called and asked the store associate if they had a pair of pants and a shirt in my son's size - anything will work as long as it fits. I explained he got sick and I was in need of something, I could actually hear her smile through the phone when she informed me that they had something that would work.

When we pulled into the store's parking lot, I ran in to grab the clothing and a box of crackers because I thought the little guy might need something in his stomach before he physically exhausts himself outside. The store associate had a smile on her face as she totaled up my purchases and offered me the best of luck for the rest of the day. Yes, we all needed it. I did fail to mention that our baby girl only slept a little on our trip and screamed the majority of the drive, which is normal but added a little more stress.

Little snowboarder - stopping for me to
take a picture with the sun in his eyes. 

We arrived at the resort and checked in with the rental equipment office where they gave us instructions on what to get and guided us to the boot rental station. As we were waiting on the guy to get our boots I told my son he needed to get his snow pants on and all of the other layers so he'd be ready for the boots. He and I both struggled to get into the boots, keep in mind that the baby is screaming for me to hold her instead of her daddy but I needed both hands to get dressed and squeeze into the frustrating boots. Try if you can to picture it, everyone is a little frayed from the trip and the baby won't stop screaming, and we are desperately trying to get dressed - fast. We awkwardly walk in the boots over to get the board rental station, the nice, polite girl brings out skis. I mention that we were going to snowboard. "Oh, well you have the wrong boots," she says. Back to the boots area to get the right ones. Did I mention that because the baby was so mad, she now needs changed again? After we finally got the right boots and the boards I realized I had never been so happy to get out in the freezing weather. My son loves the cold weather so I knew he'd be more relaxed outside than inside.

My son asked if we could try to snowboard while we waited on our instructor, we purchased an hour session for both of us to learn. Sure, let's try it - scooting and sliding around on a relatively flat surface. He was more confident than I was, but he has a much shorter distance to fall than I do, right?!

Our instructor walked over and asked if we were ready, he also asked me if I wanted to learn or if I wanted my son to learn because we couldn't both learn at the same time. Obviously different teaching instructions. There was no doubt that I wanted my son to learn, but I wanted to learn too, I thought that's what I purchased; but we could deal with that later because this was all about the little guy. For an hour, he listened, tried to do whatever the instructor told him, and gave it his best. He was smiling, laughing, and now and then throwing a snow ball at me. He loved it and did amazingly well for his first time. He finished and we went inside to find the baby sister and dad to get some lunch.

Baby and Daddy
(baby girl refusing to look at the camera)

He told my husband how they played 'red light, green light' down the mountain so he could learn to stop and start and how much he liked boarding. My husband asked me why I didn't learn and I explained the situation at the beginning. After lunch as I went into the corner of the bathroom to nurse the baby girl my husband went to the rental place to talk to the instructors and explain that we wanted to both learn. He worked it out that I would also get a lesson after the lunch hour. Please keep in mind that he had a screaming little girl that wanted her momma to hold her for the past hour and he managed to stay pretty calm, cool, and collected.

My son watched my lesson and was anxious to get back out there, so as soon as I was finished he wanted to go back to the top of the mountain. We made a couple more trips, digging in his heels and toes to play the 'red light, green light' game. After those couple trips he was pretty exhausted so we called it an extremely successful day.

And a special thanks to daddy because he took a day off work to watch the screaming little one while my son and I got to have fun. 

Lego Maniac - only the 2013/2014 edition

Do you remember the Zack the Lego Maniac commercial from the 80s? Well I have the lego maniac, but it's not Zack.

What does my little guy want from Santa, yes, Legos, Legos, and more Legos. Oh and don't forget that anyone that asked him what he'd like for Christmas, like his grandparents, he of course said Legos.

Keep in mind we already have what I think is a ton but they were all in one big container, so I mentioned it might be easier to sort all the colors and then build everything we have with the directions. I'm a little OCD and like to organize things like that - not things like my kitchen. Yes, my husband and son thought this was a great idea, but mom was voted the person to sort. I actually heard, "mom, you're pretty good at sorting, better than me, so maybe you should just do it."

After getting each color in it's own gallon bag, my son started to build some of the littler trucks and things he had the directions for. He loves building and constructing over and over but to sit and watch how fast he is while I tried to keep up by building a helicopter, I was impressed to say the very least. We decided after we each built one piece, well he did two, that we'd build together. Sounds fun and special, right?! Well…it was both of those but it also was competitive. In order to participate I had to keep up because now and then it turned into a race to find the right pieces. Actually, it was very special for me, although the little baby girl hated it. She screamed for the majority of the time whenever we worked on all the projects because she wasn't the focus.

Because Santa will probably deliver more Legos he wanted to leave everything built so his pieces wouldn't mix - at least not yet.

This is probably just over the halfway point. 

Movie Date

Our son has been an only child for almost five years so we knew that we'd have at least a little struggle for attention when the baby arrived. My husband and I talked often about this before the new baby and have continued to talk about it now but while I was pregnant I thought every month I would try to have a Momma and Son Date. A date for just the two of us when we would do something fun and special. Today we went on our date and saw the movie Monsters University at the theater. And being that it was a fun date we ate an entire large bucket of popcorn and M&M's. Hey it was a special day so I didn't want to think about needing to lose the baby weight.

Anyway, we had a fabulous time, we both laughed at the movie and during the fraternity party we danced in our seats. Yes, my son thought I was silly and have no doubt that I'll end up embarrassing him when he gets older but for now - he thinks I'm funny. I'm satisfied with that :).  I have to say I have always loved Disney movies, bright, colorful, and just done extremely well.

If you haven't seen the movie I would encourage you to go - and I need to tell my favorite part. (Not the exact words but the overall message)
Johnny Worthington tells Mike: When you lose tomorrow (in the Scare Games) no one will ever remember you.
Mike responds: When you lose tomorrow everyone will remember.

Loved my day!

Moving vs. Children's Museum

I mentioned in an earlier post about our family moving and even though I was extremely excited about getting into a new home the actual moving process...well, I was dreading. I lost sleep, had high anxiety and even believe I had mild panic attacks over it. I had worried my husband enough that he asked me to  leave on the big day of moving. I think he wanted me to be present at the house to help organize the people and make decisions on where large furniture should go but we decided on furniture before the big day. The part I had dreaded was the people portion of this process. I love my family for helping and am very grateful but this was the anxiety portion and he knew that so he told me to go do something. He had thought maybe I could go shopping but that's not really a day that I see as a lot of fun. (And yes, I can hear some of you gasp because a lot of people love to shop but shopping with a four-year-old doesn't equal fun for me.) As much as I was stressing out, I probably wouldn't have been required to take our son, but there's no way I would have ever done that. He's moving all of us into a new home, then I'm definitely taking our son to do something.

Climbing up to the top.

We decided I'd finally take our little guy to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum for the first time. If you ever get the opportunity to take your child...GO! We had an absolute blast that day and typically our family isn't an all day venue type of family unless it's a pool or beach for vacation but we spent about five hours visiting. I highly recommend it and my guy was a little skeptical because he didn't think it would be hands-on and playing with momma all day. The museum has so many things to do for all ages of little ones. Even when you first enter they have this monstrous climbing maze that goes up into the second floor but is caged so they can't fall but parents can see their children at all times. I even ran to the top of the second floor when he got to the very top to surprise him. "Mom, how did you even get up here?" It was cute because he didn't see the stairs. My son actually stayed climbing up and down for quite some time. He gained more confidence of his climbing abilities each time. Bracing himself against the cage to reach areas he wouldn't normal be able to reach. 

Pulling and pushing the levers

to make this guy move. 

I have to say we went to each exhibit/area and tried almost everything, from the circuitry station to running on a kids treadmill making the gears spin in order to rotate the tires. We pulled levers to move this big wooden guy and let me tell you, it took all 38 pounds of my son to pull and push some of the levers, but he loved that when he really tried, he successfully made the guy move. 

The last exhibit we visited was the arts center, which in hindsight we probably should have done first so everything he made could dry but we will know for next time.

Making paper

Painting

Screen printing

I highly recommend and strongly urge you to take your child or children and visit if you can. We had a great, fun day.