Dear Max,
I have decided to get back in the gym and it has really been a great thing. Being a stay at home mom, teaching part-time and working on my masters has been keeping me extremely busy and somewhat stressed. Last month was VERY stressful. Mainly due to the health scare we had with Jake followed one week later by a forehead gash that required stitches. The thing is, life is stressful in general and I’m not that great at dealing with it. I’ve been feeling down about myself on top of being stressed and I finally made up my mind to do something about it. Exercise has always been a great outlet for me so I’ve made it a priority again. To be honest, I have always enjoyed working out and I’ve never had trouble finding the motivation to work out. The problem has been time, more specifically, time to myself. When you were around 9 or 10 months I tried taking you to the gym with me and it didn’t work out so well. You were a very clingy baby and you would cry if anyone but me, Dada, or Nona held you. You were, and still are, a mama’s boy. On top of that you had separation anxiety, so when I took you to the gym the first time they had to call me after only 10 or 15 minutes because you would not stop crying. At that point taking to the gym just stressed me out more because then I was worried about you getting upset and crying. Needless to say, I haven’t even attempted the gym since then. Now that Jake is a year old and you are almost 3 I figured it was time to try again. I worried more about you than I did Jake because he is easily distracted and he will usually let anyone hold him. I basically made up my mind that I was going to keep taking you until you got used to it because I knew it would be good for me, and good for you to learn to be away from me. The first day you cried when I left and off and on for the 30 minutes that I exercised. My plan was to just leave you and Jake for 30 minutes at a time and slowly work my way up to 45 minutes or an hour. So the next day you cried when I left but they put a movie on and you were completely fine the rest of the time. After that, I started giving you an ice breakers mint before going into the Kids Club so that you wouldn’t cry. It worked like a charm. Now when I take you to the gym you tell me that you want a mint so that you won’t cry. Now you want to go to the gym and you love playing there. The Kids Club is huge and there is a ton of play equipment, toys, blocks, and kid movies. It has been great for you and Jake to interact with other kids and you both like the two ladies that are usually there. It’s so funny because now you ask me if we can go the gym.
The weather has been pretty nice except for some occasional rain and Nona has been taking you and Jake on walks in the stroller and we’ve made some trips to the park in the wagon. We got the wagon last year but Jake wasn’t old enough to use it at the time. We’ve really enjoyed using the wagon this last month and I know we will probably wear it out this summer.
You are still very into playing cars and Jake loves to play with you. The two of you will get in the entry way on the tile and play “crash cars”. It is so fun to watch the two of you playing together. We put all the cars in the entry table and you guys have a lot more cars then we realized. We found this really cool How Wheels ramp with cars that floats in the bathtub. It has made bath time very fun and it even shoots water out of it. We also found Frank from the movie “Cars” and you were so thrilled to find it.
We were given the movie “Toy Story” this past month and you’ve really enjoyed watching it. The other day when we were looking at the discount isle at Wal-Mart we found a little Buzz Lightyear action figure for $5. I bought one for you and Jake so that you wouldn’t have to share. Now that Jake is older he doesn’t really like you taking things away from him and sometimes you have trouble sharing, especially when you get something new. It’s funny because you are always telling me that Jake doesn’t want something when he is clearly hanging on to it for dear life. I can already tell you two are going to have somewhat of a love-hate relationship. The thing is, you really do love each other and you are almost always playing together. It is pretty rare for you and Jake to do your own thing. As Jake is getting older he’s able to do more with you. Sometimes you get frustrated when you want to play catch with a ball because he just picks up the ball and runs off with it, probably because he’s scared you are going to jerk it out of his hands, I don’t blame him. I keep telling you that you have to teach Jake how to do things and sometimes you are very patient with him. He desperately wants to be able to keep up with you and the other day at McDonalds he actually climbed up to the very top of the play equipment trying to follow you. Honestly, I didn’t think he could do that by himself, but he constantly amazes me by the things he does. I ended up climbing up there with him so that I could make sure he safely got down the slide because there is no telling what he would have done if left to his own devices. The other day Jake woke up from his nap and you were still asleep so I was the only one he could play with. I could tell he missed you and he was ready for you to get up. I finally heard you make some noise so I said to Jake, “Let’s go get Max!” and he ran to your room smiling and giggling. When I opened the door he climbed right into your bed and jumped on you and you looked at him and smiled and said, “You silly booger!” I can’t imagine you two not having each other and it really makes me sad to think about kids that are only children.
You and Jake are always making each other laugh and it just melts my heart. Jake is so crazy and will start shaking his head and bucking wildly in his car seat or in his high chair just to make you laugh. The more you laugh the crazier he gets. The two of you like to put blankets over your heads and run around wildly and you are always tackling Jake. Thankfully Jake is really tough and usually just laughs but I know there will be many wrestling matches in the future.
With every passing day I love you more. You are starting to test us and show a little attitude and there are times that I just want to drop you off and let Papa deal with you. The thing is, I love you enough to discipline you because I care about you. It’s my job, and God has entrusted you and your brother to your father and I and we take that very seriously. Raising you and Jake is the most important job that we will ever have and it starts now. You are learning to obey the first time, to speak kindly and respectfully, and to use self control when you don’t get what you want. Training a child starts when they are born, and while it is very trying at times, we will never stop teaching you, because that’s how much we love you.
Love,
Mama
