Road Trippin'

Road trippin' with my two favorite allies. Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies. It's time to leave this town. It's time to steal away. Let's go get lost anywhere in the U.S.A. - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Last weekend me and Maddox decided we needed to get away. We took a quick road trip to see my dad in St. George. 3.5 hours of driving with a 2 year old is the equivalent of a road trip to Florida. Well, maybe not Florida, but it definitely felt like a full blown roadie. As we were pulling out of the driveway, my brother who lives in Cedar City called to see if we wouldn't mind picking up his dogs from my mom and dropping them off with him. Maddox was all about it, me not so much. I love dogs, but not in my car, as I'm trying to drive. Or in our case, in my car as Maddox needs a nap. We picked up the dogs in Payson, and headed on our way. Maddox loved having them along for the ride. Of course he didn't sleep, because they were yapping the whole way to Cedar City. Maddox thought that they were laughing at him, so he kept trying to be funny for them. He kept making the face from the photo above, talking to them in a funny voice, and drumming (as he was calling it) on their carrier.

Surprisingly even without a nap Maddox was such a good boy. He didn't whine or cry the entire time. When we got to St. George my dad was picking up a few things at the mall and I didn't know how to get to his new house, so we just met him at the mall. Maddox was seriously pissed when we arrived at the mall. He thought that our whole trip had been to go to the stupid mall and he wasn't having any of it. He was ready to go to grandpa's house not a stupid mall. When we got to my dad's house Maddox was in heaven. There is a big open field directly in front of his house with a playground for little kids. It was about 65 degrees outside, and Maddox was able to exercise his 2 months of wiggles from sitting inside all winter and not being able to play in the sun. After he tired of the playground we stayed out on the grass and played a game that Maddox calls "A deep fly ball!!!" Basically he just stands there and I throw a ball as high as I can and we try to catch it. That went on until my shoulder started to feel like it had been used as a door stop. Saturday night was a good time. My dad had a city awards dinner or something to go to, so Maddox and I had a night out on the town. By the time we pulled out of the driveway he'd fallen asleep. We needed to get a couple of things at the grocery store so I drove around for a while letting him get a little nap. After he woke up we did some shopping and then drove over to see the temple. Maddox loves to see the temple, it's right behind the firestation, and the gym on his favorite places in the world list. It was very pretty as always, and Maddox was thrilled to find out that it's the place where his "great grandpa Peggy," was married. "Ooooh I like that," was his response when I told him that news. Sunday we spent some time with grandpa before our trip home. We would've made great time, but Maddox demanded a chicken nugget stop in Beaver, and a blowout poop your pants stop on the side of the freeway just south of Nephi. Those are never fun, but the trip itself turned out to be a big success. That night as Maddox called to tell his mom good night he shared with her his favorite part of the trip, "Grandpa bought me some lemonade!!!" Oh the simple pleasures.

Bed Time Routine

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. And since the time I first got the idea it's grown into something huge. Maddox's bedtime routine as he's gotten older has become something larger than life. I'm seriously now planning about 45 minutes out of my night to make sure that we get done everything that we want to/need to get done. (If you include bathtime and the 20 minute wrestling match known as tooth brush time, then we're getting in over an hour.)

It all starts with story time. This is when we read 3-5 books of Maddox's choosing. Usually we read the same 3-5 books, unless we've purchased a new book that week and it works it's way into the rotation. Some nights (this is becoming more frequent) he decides that he should read to me. This is the funniest thing ever, with certain books he can go word for word on every page. With other books he'll pick out the two most complicated words and emphasize those two, while mumbling jibberish over the other words. Some nights he's just not feeling like reading and will sit on his bed while I read to him, and he'll wait until I'm not expecting it and he'll pull my head back away from the book and laugh. This doesn't sound very funny, but last night we laughed out loud (lol'd) for like 10 minutes, it just didn't get old because he's got great comedic timing for a 2 year old. After we get done reading books we say our prayers. Maddox's prayers are the greatest. He gets about 2 sentences into it and says, "dad, you say it." The best is a few weeks ago he asked if he could say his prayers inside of his Toy Story tent that's in his room. I let him do it and it went like this, "dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, thank you for mommy and daddy and Maddox, OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! THERE IS A BUZZ LIGHTYEAR ON THIS TENT!!!!" I couldn't stop laughing. Anyways prayer time is followed by a 'goodnight' telephone call to Maddox's mom. He usually sits there and listens to her talk, tells her about our night, and tells her he's going to dream about riding on a red tractor with her. Once we've made the call it's time for singing time. We turn off the lights, and sing 3 songs, always the same songs, and always in the same order. We start with "Lullaby," the Jack Johnson-Matt Costa version. I'm only allowed to sing it exactly as it was recorded by them. Maddox will not allow any substitutions or creative expressions by daddy. Example, "I'll be home soon darlin, I guarantee," is a line from the song that I on occasion will sing as, "I'll be home soon Maddox, I guarantee." No dice, at that point I'm told to start that part over and "don't say Maddox, say darlin." Oh, and I'm supposed to be tickling his back this entire time. After I finish this song it's time for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," again, no variations and I must be tickling his back. The third and final song has become my favorite. I'm supposed to hold him like a baby and sing, "You are My Sunshine." I like this one because my grandpa used to sing it to me, as did my mom, when I was a baby. Sidenote; one of my favorite moments of my entire life was hearing Maddox sing that song to my grandpa. Anyways, Maddox has me hold him like a baby, like a giant baby. He's so big now that it's become kind of awkward, I hold him but his legs and head just kind of hang there, and I think he kind of recognizes this because sometimes he's laughing while I sing this to him, and he usually starts climbing out of my arms and into bed before I finish the final verse. This is one of those things that I think both of us kind of do for the other person. If we were able to sit down man to man and discuss this I'm sure it would end up being resolved with a "oh, you don't like that? I was only doing it for you," from both parties. Maybe we'll have that talk when he's in middle school. Anyhow, when we finish singing time it's time for me to tell him 2 stories. He picks the subject of each story and then I make up the story. I'm interrupted by his suggestions though throughout. The first story is usually about Maddox being a racecar driver, he has a red racecar, a red helmet, and he always beats daddy who is a racecar driver too. Last night daddy blew a tire on the last lap and his yellow racecar spun out of control, allowing Maddox to win the race. After we get done with the racecar story, then it's time for me to tell a story about Maddox the fireman. I tell a 4-5 minute story about Maddox saving lives, stopping fires, and basically being the most badass fireman of all time. At the end of the fireman stories Maddox always adds, "...and then, Maddox went to eat some food and drink some rootbeer." This is where we say goodnight to one another. Usually he tells me goodnight, and then I know it's finally time for me to go to bed. At first I started to get frustrated with the length of this routine. I mean seriously, I'm looking at the length of this post and I'm amazed at how long this takes. It kind of reminds me of one of those way too long bro-hug handshakes that has like 50 secret combinations. But the more I think about it the luckier I feel to have this wonderful boy all the nights I do. The length of this routine is just making up for the nights that we have to be apart. And when I think about the nights that we're apart I want to add a few more activities into the bedtime routine.

"Honey, Hun, Baby, Babe, Bebe, Sweety!"

One of the facts that I've come to terms with in my life is that Maddox pretty much owns me. When he waltzes into my room at 5:30 in the morning, he pretty much controls what happens from that point forward. We're either snuggling together for an hour or two and sleeping (this is ideal.) Or, he's yanking my half dorment corpse out of bed and we're having oatmeal time and Elmo (this scenario is much more common.) He comes up with new ways to get my attention, and ultimately get his way. The newest way of doing this began this weekend. We had quite a bit going on around our house. The NFL Playoffs, Maddox's new learning video game that he got from his grandpa, cleaning up Christmas decorations, playing volleyball in our living room with a giant beach ball we found in the closet (this was an epic game of v-ball), watching "Cars" a time or 4, among other things. So as you can imagine cleaning up the house wasn't too easy with a little dude that was giving me the full court press all weekend. It was one of those weekends where when he laid down to sleep I literally collapsed on the couch ready for a break. So by Sunday night I was feeling quite discouraged with the mess of dishes in the sink, the kitchen that needed cleaning, laundry, and other things I needed to do. I decided to let him play with some toys for a bit while I tried making my move to get some stuff done. A few minutes later Maddox came to me to play baseball (our version of baseball is him standing on one end of the living room and pitching it to me on the other end. Once in a while the throws in "A DEEP FLY BALL!!!!" By chucking a ball almost to the ceiling and making me run after it. That's how we play baseball.) I told him that daddy needed a few minutes to finish some stuff and then I'd be happy to come and play with him. But since he's got the patience of a bank robber he persisted. I kept coming back with, "in just a minute buddy, daddy is busy right now." That didn't cut it either, so he decided to bust out the big guns. He came back a few minutes later, "Please! Honey, hun, baby, babe, bebe, sweety..." and probably a few others. By the time he got to sweety I lost it, I'd tapped out. He used everything his mother or I have called him, he got all affectionate on me to get his way. I immediately dropped what I was doing and played some baseball. I thought this was a funny, one time thing. Until I put him in bed and we finished our reading, praying, and singing a song while I tickle his back routine. As I walked out of his room he yelled after me, "Daddy!! Daddy!!" When I kept walking he yelled, "Honey, hun, BABE!!!!" I had to go in and sing one more song at that point. It's not often that someone calls me "honey," except for waitresses over the age of 50 at local dining establishments. But I'd rather hear that from him than anyone. Maybe the affect of that will wear off eventually, but if not I guess I'll get a call from him when he's in college, "dad can you send me some money," and when I give any resistence he'll come back with, "honey, hun, baby, bebe, please...." Either way at least I've come to terms with the fact that he runs the show.