Wild Boy Milestones

Hola Wild Boy followers!

This week we are going to pay homage to milestones.  Let me start by explaining I, like all new parents, was obsessive about baby milestones in the beginning.  At one point I could have rattled off exactly how old a child should be before they rolled, scooted, crawled, sat, waved...all that crap.  My encyclopedic knowledge lasted for about one week after Gav was born, and sleep deprivation kicked in and I forgot everything.  Following that point I never caught up on sleep. Ever. I totally relied on my awesome pediatrician to tell me that the boys were doing what they need to be doing at our well check visits, and then I would get that cocky "my kids are on track" swagger and high five the cop and get all proud of myself until one of them would do something like get stuck in a life jacket in the middle of winter and panic like a cat with it's head covered, running into walls and weeping hysterically with mild injuries until I could break them free...

Hypothetically, of course.

Anyhow, after a while parents kind of invent their own milestones. Things that are really important to them. Some of these are totally typical, like potty training. This is huge for obvious reasons, like diapers are awful. I really can't emphasize that enough - as a parent you are literally responsible for several years for cleaning up every form of waste a child can possibly produce with an infantile digestive tract and relatives that think they're being kind by giving your kid apple juice causing poosplosions that necessitate onesies being CUT OFF your child as you gag and dry heave. But really, potty training itself makes parents super eager for the process to be finalized.  Little things, like the fact that maybe your kid managed to go poop by themselves in the potty and come out totally clean despite the inherent risk of the superhero outfit you didn't realize he was working around, and you thought "my God, we may really have it mastered this time!"

You shower them with praise, only to later figure out that he had actually used the bathroom rug to wipe himself like a dog doing the infamous butt drag leaving you a scene of absolute horror in the master bathroom to deal with...Situations like that made potty training a pretty big deal. But I was also super thrilled with things like my boys being able to fasten their own car seats, and tell me BEFORE they vomited rather than hosing me down in Exorcist fashion after telling me something super vague like "my throat hurts." Maybe not necessarily a milestone the pediatrician was keeping track of, but worthy of a celebratory dinner and drinks for the cop and I.

Our most recent milestone happened this week.  The Wild Boys were going to the State Fair on Monday with their grandparents, like every year, and like every year they forced me to measure them that morning so they were prepared for ride restrictions. And lo and behold, Gabe was 49 inches people!!! For those of you not dealing with young children, 48 inches is the benchmark for big kid rides, and while Gavin made it a few years ago Gabe has been relegated to the likes of the dragon coaster and little planes that fly in circles for eight long years. So 49 inches was cause for huge celebration here in la Casa, and we opted to do that yesterday with a trip to Six Flags.

I'd like to pretend we're just super awesome parents here that celebrate their children.  Truth is, the cop and I are kinda amusement park junkies. Or we were, back when we started dating. Since when we've been totally busy and hauling around little babies who had to ride the aforementioned dragon coasters and little planes, so this was a REALLY big deal for us. We got to the park, eager to start, and Gabe immediately made us all indulge him on a "warm up" family coaster. Sigh.

 

But really, it was probably good for us all. Because after one ride the cop and I realized that past a certain age, roller coasters are physically painful.  Like, really.  But we drove two hours, and we were doing this! So, from opening until closing time the whole family rode coasters like crazy, walked roughly eight miles, drank unlimited soda and every now and then took a break to check out cool animal exhibits. The cop and I really needed the animal events to break things up a bit (translation: to sit down and allow momentary recovery) but the boys were as jacked up as is humanly possibly. In the law enforcement world sometimes we use the term "Crankenstein" to describe someone absolutely OUT OF THEIR MINDS on stimulants. That was Gabe on soda and Gavin on adrenaline.
Gabe was so far gone at one point that after obsessively trying to get a butterfly to land on his hand for ten minutes he didn't realize one was on his head. And Gavin just kept running in circles from the end of the rides back on to the loading area with a crazy look in his eye, yelling things like "that was sooooo awesome, I think I'm going to puke - WE SHOULD DO IT AGAIN!!!"

 

 

People, the cops and I totally represented on behalf of parents everywhere. We kept up. We rode the rides. We ate the food. And we shut the park down.  It. Was. AWESOME.

 

This morning we all woke up sore and slightly Six Flags hungover. I'm super cognizant of every muscle in my body. But I'm doing better then Gabe, who was coming down from massive amounts of caffeine and spent about 45 minutes on the couch laying down arguing the case for 49 inches also meaning he can have coffee in the morning. Nice try kiddo.

 

I'm not sure what our next milestone is, but I can't wait to celebrate it! Until next time - happy adventures from La Casa!