Skip to main content

Dear Jesse: Adventurous Outings

Dear Jesse,

Today we went to Altitude trampoline park for the second time this week. We went on Tuesday because I mistakenly thought our that’s when our friends were coming. They were actually coming on Thursday, so we went again today to join our friends. You LOVE the jump park. I sometimes wonder how long you would have to be there to actually want to come home. We have been there for over 3 hours and you still throw a tantrum when it’s time to leave.

I’ve learned I have to talk you through every aspect of the jump park, anticipating the most unpleasant parts, like waiting to get your wristband before storming the trampoline, taking a break to go potty and coming with me when the timer goes off and we have to leave. Poor Ona and Bobo didn’t know my tricks. They bravely took both you and Alora to the jump park alone the last time they visited. I packed for them some extra pants in a plastic bag just in case, along with even more extras in the diaper bag and encouraged them to take you to the potty at least once an hour.

When at the jump park, unfortunately, you refused to stop jumping to go potty. Unfortunately, you pooped your pants. When Ona saw you had stopped jumping and were looking very ashamed with a big lump in your pant leg, she brought you to the bathroom. She took of the pants, lump of poop and all, and stuffed it into the bag. She cleaned you up and put on the spare pants.

After some more jumping, Ona and Bobo got you to eat lunch with much effort. As soon as you had eaten you ran back to jump some more despite their pleas for you to go home. After numerous attempts chasing you down and to get you to get you to go home, they didn’t know what to do. They started to despair and gave up trying. You jumped and jumped, refusing to stop until suddenly you stood there, immobile, as a huge puddle of pee formed at your feet. Ona picked you up and made her escape, running to the car with you under her arm without a backwards glance.

I guess Ona and Bobo didn’t see the extra underwear I packed because when I came out to greet you when you arrived, you smiled up at me from your carseat, completely naked from the waist down.











Today with our friends I had been watching you like a hawk. You had done an admirable job keeping our jump park rules after I had repeatedly explained them to you. When I had to change Alora’s diaper I asked two of my friends to keep an eye on you and told you where I was going. About a minute into the diaper change, you ran into the bathroom with your big smile and a mischievous gleam in your eyes. You ran out of the bathroom in the middle of the diaper change. Unable to immediately chase you down, I didn’t know where you went, but I could hear some commotion in the men’s room.

When I was done I looked around and you were nowhere to be found. The last time my friends had seen you was when you ran into my bathroom. I called out for you in the men's room and heard no answer, but I could still hear a lot of flushing going on. I dared a peak around the corner and I could see a figure behind a stall door. I went back around the corner contemplating if I dare open the stall door on a potential stranger. I took a deep breath, walked into the men's room and opened the stall door. There you were looking up at me with a big wad of soaking wet paper towel in your hand standing by a toilet with more paper towels inside. I grabbed your wrist, flicked the wet paper towel in the garbage and washed your hands. Then, much like Ona and Bobo, I didn’t investigate the toilet situation any further and hightailed it out of there.

I love you my little adventurer. 

Mom

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

7 Questions People Ask When They Find Out My Husband is Deaf

When it comes out that my husband is deaf, I'm usually the first person people have met with a deaf husband. Here are some of the most common questions/reactions and the answers: 1. Does that mean you know sign language? When I first got asked this question I was surprised. My husband is deaf, of course I know sign language! However, I have since realized that some hearing/deaf couples really can talk to each other, lip read or use a mix of ASL and speaking. In my case, yes I know sign language and yes I am fluent and it is the way I communicate with my huz. 2. How did you learn ASL? Some hearing wives are native signers with deaf siblings or parents and have grown up in the deaf community. I'm not. I took two high school classes and one semester in college and that's it. I was never super into it (I actually took it because it was easy), but when I met my husband I just fell in love with him and he taught me almost everything I know. Fortunately I picked it up pretty...

The Stranger Who Changed My Life

Today is last day ever that I won't be a mom. Tomorrow I will meet my little boy. My Pregnant Timeline I spent the first couple of months after I found out I was pregnant in shock. I felt that this was the right time but I had no idea how things were going to work out for us. I was working my tail off in NYC, I had very little support and I was depressed. I literally felt like an alien had invaded my body - a feeling that took me completely off guard and I never thought would be associated with my own pregnancy. I just didn't know how in the world I was going to care for this little person in our situation. I was so frustrated with my own lack of faith! Why couldn't I be like Mary? She simply said "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" and then went on to sing a song of joy and rejoicing. She did this with no idea what would happen to her at that point and she could have been killed when her family and Joseph found out...

Why Fayoz is Deaf

"I was so sick, the doctor finally put me on antibiotics," my friend told me. This was at a party Fayoz and I were attending back in our dating days. I interpreted this for Fayoz, fingerspelling the word "antibiotics." "What are antibiotics?" Fayoz asked me. "You know what antibiotics are," I replied. "No I don't." "Yes you do. A-n-t-i-b-i-o-t-i-c-s" "I don't know what they are," he insisted. "You...don't? Antibiotics are how you went deaf." There was a stunned pause, then: "How did I go deaf?" Antibiotics isn't really how Fayoz went deaf. It's just a part of a story that leads me to believe it was in God's plan for Fayoz to be deaf. Fayoz had been deaf for 24 years before knowing the reason he was deaf. Can you imagine that? His parents thought they had explained it to him, but with ASL being their 5th language, and before that their communication in ge...