Potty! and Strawberries!

It was a BIG day here in our house today! LM and I were hacking around in the morning and all of the sudden, he looked at me and said, "Potty NOW", so off we went. He sat there for hours- so long that I had to get some new books for his book basket as per his request.

Finally, we got our pee!

After a phone call to TH to celebrate with a round of pee, pee in the potty (if you don't know the song, I am sure you can imagine it), we got dressed for the day and loaded up in Mama's Truck, to go pick some strawberries.

I can't tell you how unbelievably well behaved my son was. It must be in his blood to pick strawberries. My Mother took us kids (5 of us plus what ever neighborhood kids were around) to go picking every year. We would spend hours picking flats of strawberries to make into jam for eating throughout the year and for giving as gifts. Such a simple thing, but I have been excited about passing this tradition onto my son. He stayed near me as I picked like crazy thinking I was on limited time. He spent his time helping me pick the red ones and pointing out the no-no ones (green or rotten). As I left each bucket or flat behind, he got concerned about it and would go back to check on it. He also would drag the small backpack along the ground to me. (Yes, I now use a small backpack as a diaper bad so my son can wear it and carry it around like a Sherpa.)

 Also it helped that Mama let him eat as many strawberries as he wanted. A wonderful time was had by all and I now have new memories in my memory bank.  Especially this one!

Snap Shot Memory

Do you know what a snap shot memory is?  I know you do... it is a piece of time, image, feeling, thought that you take a quick mental picture of a file it in your memory bank for ever.  I am a visual person and have several of these... sitting with my Dad just before he died, my Mom and I planting flower bulbs in the middle of winter so we had hope for the spring, my husband juggling oranges in the grocery store.... any who.... I had another snap shot memory this past Valentine's Day.

My husband and I have never had the chance to spend many Valentine's Days together due to our schedules.  Thus, this day has turned into a non-stress day for us.  We usually do cards for each other and sometimes a treat i.e. flowers, candy or a sweet but we don't stress about it.  This year things were a bit different because of The Boy.  We (TB and I) had to get together a card/treat for his daycare teachers to show how much he loves them and I have to admit that as I was cooking up their treat, I began to get into the spirit of the day!  We made some special candy and these Felt Fortune Cookies from Martha Stewart.

 

TB then had a good time trying to eat the cookies as I extracted them from his tiny little hands and packaged them in Chinese food take-out containers.  We used the sayings from the Conversation Hearts for the fortunes.  TB also gave out several cookies to some of the other special people in his life.... they were totally charmed.

The best part of Valentine's Day was that TH got up early with TB so I could sleep in.  My two men then proceeded to MAKE me a valentine with... get this... fingerpaint!  TH hates messes so this is crazy thoughtful and just about brought me to tears when I saw my first Mommy Valentine and that it was handmade!  I don't think TH knows how much this means to me now and probably for the rest of my life.  It was a snap shot memory to file away.