Miles has discovered the art of repetition. This weekend I read the book Tails at least a million times. I have to admit that it is really cute to see him so interested. He shuffles through the other books (actually he throws them on the floor) until he finds his beloved book. Then he has me read it over and over and over again. Being the boy genius that he is, he no longer takes the time to feel the soft, fluffy tails or touch the scaly ones. He is now obsessed with pulling and pushing the tabs to make the tails wag.
Last night we had dinner at my parents’ house because my husband was out of town. While I sat and ate my father, in such great Grandpa-like fashion, read Tails to Miles. What he thought would be a quick reading session turned into the entire meal. Granted I have learned to eat ridiculously fast but this time I took my time, chewed my food, and listened to Tails. Again. And again. And again.
We have sold and shipped an AirCrib! Actually we have quite a few orders in hand and lots more in the works since our debut at the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. But we shipped our first non-sample AirCrib this week! Now if only we had some more I could actually start shipping against our other orders…
Life in our household is back to sane again. Last week was probably the worst week that I have had in a very long time. Miles was in and out of daycare due to some “uncontainable” bowel movements. Apparently an intestinal bug traveled its way around his class and kids were in and out all week. Fortunately he seemed to feel fine, unfortunately it was not the best week for me to miss work. My mom and husband were able to fill in some to help out. We managed to make it through and I spent the weekend in a drunken stupor just relaxing with no schedule or agenda. By Sunday I was finally feeling human again and ready for the week to start.
My life is completely crazy right now and if only I could get a decent nights sleep then I might be alright. Miles was sick last week with a fever so I kept him home from daycare. Because work is so busy right now that meant that I got even further behind. I’m not complaining, if my baby is sick then my numero uno priority is to take care of him but life outside of our family doesn’t slow down one bit while we are on the sick wagon.
Then we went away for the weekend to a wedding on Cape Cod. The wedding was fantastic and I had a blast dancing the night away. We hired a sitter through an agency and she was wonderful. So wonderful that I stayed out a whole hour later then I had planned. That still meant that I was in bed by 10:15. How lame am I? Miles was a party animal, he was up all night. Not really but it sure felt like we were back in the newborn days. He finally got up for good at 4:45. I had taken the care to rent us a condo rather than a hotel room so that we would have room to take care of Miles. That morning the condo was full of hungover wastoids trying to sleep off the wedding bliss that they had felt the night before. So Miles and I were stuck in the bedroom where our own hungover wastoid (my husband, his father) was trying to catch some zzzzs.
I thought that was an early morning but that was nothing compared to Sunday morning. On Sunday morning Miles woke up at 3:45 and between screams thought that it was a good time to play. That morning we were staying at our friends’ house and their 2 year old was in the next room. Not cool to wake up the neighbors Miles, not cool. So we cut our visit short, packed up the car, and headed home at 5 AM. Miles slept for the entire three plus hour trip. And we all took a nice two hour nap at home that afternoon.
The night waking has not ceased upon our return to home. And he was kicked out of daycare for having the squirts. He can’t return until Wednesday.
And through all of this I am scrambling like mad to get our really cool press kits out the door. So dear editors, please take pity on me and publish something, SOMETHING about the AirCrib. Please.
Today is my first day back from a nice, long vacation. A lot has been happening while I was gone. Our tradeshow crate was packed and is now on its way to our first juvenile products tradeshow - The ABC Kids Expo! I am excited to hit Las Vegas again, it is a very fun city to have a tradeshow in. We have been busy signing up for as many cheap (I should probably say inexpensive or affordable but why bother) marketing opportunities as we can find. We should get some good exposure at the show. Once we can get people to our booth the sales should be a slam dunk. There is some positive thinking fer ya!
Today is also Miles’ first day at a new daycare center. I was very reluctant to leave the old center because I loved his teachers. At an open house at the new center yesterday I was reminded of why I made the switch. The new place is so much more professional and his teachers seem very nice and caring. The drop off this morning went without a hitch. I was a bit bummed because the teachers weren’t there, they both have children starting kindergarten today and so are coming in late. I tried to tell the fill in teacher all of the instructions but she was busy dealing with a screaming child. The phone hasn’t rang yet so they must have figured everything out.
We are all leaving the office at noon today to go boating for the afternoon - yippee! It is going to be a hot day so a nice cold brewski and a swim will be awesome.
Today was a big day here in the office - we received our first batch of production samples! We have been waiting a long time for these to arrive and have gone through many revisions to get here. We took all of them, every single one, out and inflated them to test. Here is a picture of us receiving the shipment:
And here is a picture of our office full of aircribs:
Provided everything goes as planned these puppies will be our samples so that we can start selling!
On the homefront Miles has shed his angelic skin and the little demon inside is starting to show. He suddenly has a mind of his own. Where did this come from? My little boy who I swore could do no wrong is starting to have mini tantrums! Mini tantrums for the mini boy. I guess that makes sense, as he grows so will the tantrums. I don’t think I’m ready for this.
Yesterday we took Miles out for his maiden voyage - a trip aboard our family’s pontoon boat. He was very willing to let us put on his straitjacket, I mean life jacket. His cheeks were pushed up so high that I still don’t know how he was able to see. That kid has some cheeks! He sat on my lap at the table and banged away happily (his new favorite pastime). If I weren’t such a horrible mother who constantly forgets the camera I would post some pictures for a nice visual.
We headed out of our bay at a nice slow pace and Miles’ banging started to slow down. His eyes glossed over and he stared at his grandmother as if she wasn’t even there. I sat back and let him collapse like a lump of clay into my arms. At last, my baby boy was actually cuddling with me! He lay in my arms with his eyes half mast for the next several minutes, in a complete trance. Eventually he fell asleep and didn’t budge until we were back on the dock and taking off his life jacket.
It may take the rocking of a boat and the fumes of an engine but damn it, that boy will still cuddle with his mama! Do you think it will work for years to come?
