Dad's Gone

Dad is out of town and he always seems to struggle a bit. His consolation prize is we bring out dad's rhino (yes dad's rhino) and he gets to sleep with him and play with him just while he is gone. Yes dad has a rhino, many many many years ago I bought it for him because he has always loved the rhino and there is a little inside joke with us. Randomly we have kept it all these years and little dude loves it. It may not provide me with sleeping through the night, but it helps with the tears when he is gone.

Easter

Today was a hard day, it may have been full of candy and fun times but I will not act like it wasn't hard for me. My dad comes for Easter, he has been here every year. We don't have family here for holidays it is just one of the drawbacks of being the only one who lives far away from others. So to celebrate Easter with my dad here was one of my favorite times of the year. I had a pit in my stomach when the Easter stuff came out in the stores. Dad would always show up at our house with a GIANT basket of some sort, filled with so much stuff for Ryder and me it was ridiculous. This year... it was lonely. Too quiet, too much of the three of us. There should have been a fourth person here and it was very apparent. Last year I made dad leave early and told him he wasn't allowed to stay for Easter. He was in so much pain and couldn't even do normal daily things. Something was wrong and we both knew it. His choice was to stay here and go to the VA I found here or go home and see someone. He did decide to leave, had I known it would have been the last time he would have been at my house I would have hugged him a little longer. I would have given him an Easter basket full of things we loved about him. I know he was with us here in spirit and Ryder had a great day, but i'm not sure this holiday will ever get any easier. 

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Mom & Ryder Day

Today we got to visit on of our favorite places the Coralville, Iowa Children's Museum. Anyone who knows my child knows how much he loves imaginary play. This place allows him to be a pizza maker, grocery store worker, doctor, ambulance driver, farmer, pilot, post office worker, and so on. He loves this place and talks about it often. He has been asking to go back to the place where "I can milk the cow". It was just a mom and Ryder day but we had a great time together and I have to say I am proud of my polite little guy. I don't brag often but he deserves it. When another child would take something he was using he had a quick response today of "that's ok, right mom. I can let them play with it". Love his sweet self.

Hotel 'Show & Tell' Shenanigans

The week before we were scheduled to leave Ryder started talking about all he was going to do at the "show and tell" ie... hotel. He asked me to call his Uncle Brad to tell him to please have Ben and Colin bring their dino slippers because they all had to play dinosaurs there. I am very thankful for a patient uncle when this mama did not want to swim in that cold pool. What is so hard about heated pools in the midwest. You would think this would be a given. It may have been march but it was 30 degrees outside and there was no way you were getting me in that pool. Ryder loved playing with Brad and in fact I think he left there thinking he was one of the coolest people he knows. Man I love these three little boys. 

Dinosaurs!!

Well our spring break plans got changed but luckily our uncle Brad knew how obsessed a certain someone is with dino's and called to invite us to the dino expo in Des Moines. Three little boys were in dino heaven that is for sure. You walk in to a dark room with loud dinosaur sounds throughout. As you move through the moving dinosaurs there seems to be never ending things to look at. Between the dinosaur that is eating (yes eating) another dinosaur, the large t-rex shadow moving on the back wall, and then the dinosaurs that are walking around the room it was interesting from an adults perspective yet alone to be a 3, 4, or 5 year old. I can't imagine what was in their head and how big all of that looked to them. The baby dinosaurs were very interesting. They seemed to move on their own and would respond to you. Ben even asked, "what happens when the baby dinosaurs get too big"? Thanks to Uncle Brad's quick response of "they get put on an island" I am pretty sure all three little dudes will forever be thinking that a Jurassic Park scenario is actually out there.