Rob and Jen and a couple of boys

2009- Quarter 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:37:00 +0000

2009- Q1
Yes i have gotten lazy and now do only quarterly posts. Get over it. This Quarter's Top HighLight: after 2 years of trying, Andrew can not roll him tongue. It's only uphill from here.

Art
This month’s art collection covers winter, assorted odds and ends. We started off the year with a Christmas Reindeer, and then what I assume is the Chanukah or maybe Kwanza Bunny. Then we moved to Snowman-made-from-can bottoms and the Season of the Sneaker. The sneaker was actually one of Andrew’s finer pieces of work, aside from the Super Scary Hairy Orange Spider that bears some similarity to a chicken.

Pre-sleep rumble
I thought bath time was supposed to calm kids down? It seems to be the quiet before the storm. One night the underwear spontaneously flew from the drawers and landed all over the room. James bravely weathered the storm, then passed out on the floor.

Another night I hear a big THUD and come in to find the humidifier in about 10 pieces on the floor with about 2 gallons of water quickly absorbing into the carpet. After re-assembling the humidifier, with most pieces, several weeks later I entered their room, unannounced, to find them sitting on the dresser, daring each other to push it off. Little do they know that the humidifier is the only form of medication they receive when they get colds. We can thank an overzealous media for that.

One night I THOUGHT I heard them making a racket (do I sound like a parent now?) and I just opened the door, looked at them with my German Face, turned off the lights and closed the door. The boys looked stunned, then I heard Andrew say "James… we weren't doing anything?!"

Sleeping Arrangement
Can someone remind me why parents go to the effort of purchasing (or in my case swapping furniture within the family) a bed? We have 2 beds and 2 boys, yet James chooses to take over Andrew’s bed. Some how Andrew got pushed to the foot of the bed like a puppy dog.

Then James chose to act out the Monkey Jumping On The Bed book.

They soon grew bored of the bed and chose to lay out every blanket we own on the floor on the bedroom. They seem to be just as comfy sleeping on the floor….makes sense since I slept on the floor for about 4 years as a kid.

Closet Melee
I did not realize just how many clothes out children owned until they decided to clear the closet one night. Andrew thought it was great fun, until I made him stay up to SORT the hangers. After about 2 hours he passed out, and so did I. The next evening we spent 4 hours together with him handing me each and every piece of clothing and color coded hanger to put back in the closet. I thought this was punishment, but he seemed to enjoy it way too much. The closets are now on lock down. And when I asked him if he would do it again he said “It’s Mommy’s fault. You forgot to lock the closet”. I have been outsmarted by a 3 year old….again.

Career Move
If Naked Customer Service becomes a career path, Andrew is all set.

Pinball
The Pinball machine’s future looks a lot brighter now that the boys are playing. It has been removed from the Endangered Species list for the house.

Potty Time
I am happy to report that young James is giving potty training a whirl....again. He has the mechanics of it figured out, but does not understand the schedule…..as in get naked and sit on the potty before opening the plumbing pipes. I have been pee’d on more times than I care to remember.

Andrew has now decided that peeing in the corner of the bedroom makes him little brother laugh hysterically. Andrew likes to entertain, and has had repeat performances several nights in a row to mommy’s chagrin. Unfortunately our cat is not taking to Andrew marking his territory, so we have a battle of the boys raging. Is this really my life?

Roo pictures
Give a 3-year old a camera and this is what he takes pictures of.

The glaring sun picture is the ceiling fan, also known as ‘sleeping place of beanie babies’. Andrew said he tried all night to get the 2 dogs stuck up there. Good thing he did not turn on the ceiling fan and watch them fly off.

I said “Take a picture of yourself” and he photographed his feet.

I said “take a picture of your brother” and he takes a picture of his hand.

Andrew does not just think outside the box, he can’t even see the box and does not even know it exists.

Naptime
Sadly naptime for Andrew has come to an end. We no longer try to get him to nap on the weekends, but sometimes he falls asleep on the sofa in the afternoon with whatever he is playing with. This day it was the (unused) orange toilet plunger. This Home Depot $4.98 item has been a favorite over the years.

Dress code
The boys must not have gotten the memo about wearing pants. It just cuts down on the laundry.

Our Alpha Dog
At daycare Andrew has taken to sneaking up on the smaller kids in the class and roaring at them, causing them to crap their pants.

At daycare Andrew has started watching his teacher with an Eagle Eye. Whenever she turns her back, he runs and hides. When they can not find him, they have to call the office, declare a Lock Down, and his teachers and 3 directors go on a hunt for Andrew.

When Andrew is misbehaving, his teacher calls the director's office to have her come talk to him (this is new since he used to go to the Director's office which he enjoyed way too much). Once the call has been made, he goes from a spazmaniac, to a sweet little boy sitting on his cot for the pretty lady to come talk to him.

Alpha Dog has been so active at daycare that I know have monthly meetings with 2 organizations and the daycare to coral his behavior. The March meeting was spent covering “Why it is not appropriate to moon your classmates”. I see many Parent-Teacher-Principal conferences in my future.

Random Conversations

Germs
James dropped his cereal spoon on the floor. Andrew exclaims "Quick Mommy, pick it up before the germs hop on'.

Why We Need Make French Toast
One Saturday morning Andrew was explaining why I needed to make French Toast for breakfast:
"You and Daddy went to Kazakhstan to get me, then you went to Guatemala to get James, so we need to make French Toast now." Odd logic, but surprisingly accurate. We never ate French Toast before the boys.

Football
When the Eagles were playing the Cardinal in the playoffs Andrew said he saw red birds and white birds. I asked him which bird he liked more and he said "the more better birds". I'll leave it up to the reader to decide which bird that was.

Boo Boo Buddy
In a frenzy of active play James ran head on into the corner of a family room pseudo padded chair. He then headed right to the freezer to get the frozen Boo Boo Buddy. Andrew beat him to the freezer, snatched the boo boo buddy and they had this exchange:
Andrew: "Where's the hurt?"
James: Point to his forehead
Andrew: Applies boo boo buddy to his cheek for about 2 seconds then asks "All better now?"
James: "Nope"
Andrew: Applies boo buddy to his chin and then proclaims "You all better now"
James: "Ok"
They run off to play.

Black Out
Do you have any idea how hard a 2 year olds head is? One night I was leaning down to James’ forehead to give him a good night kiss and he decide to sit up uber fast to surprise me. Our foreheads slammed, I saw a bright flash of light and a head ache emerged. After recovering from the stunning I tried again to give him another kiss good night and WHAM he does it again. Another flash of light and then I blacked out for a couple seconds. Andrew watched all this and was quite concerned and said “Mommy, you need to go to Dr House.”

Fine Arts
The boys' exposure to the fine arts is limited to the Disney Channel, but has recently branched out to Nickelodean. We have maanged to escape the evils of Elmo and Barney. This is what is gobbling up our Tivo space:

Bear And The Big Blue House
My Friends Tigger And Pooh (includes Tigger Movie, Piglet Movie and the 1970's Pooh movie)
Handy Manny
Yo Gabba Gabbaa
Mickey's Clubhouse (borders on annoying as Barney)
Little Einsteins (ok, but sure is no Handy Manny)

Next Quarter.....the boys take Walt Disney World by storm.

December 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Christmas
The boys thankfully slept in to the ripe old hour of 6:30 on Christmas morning. They still don’t totally get Christmas yet, so we all had a chance to enjoy opening the presents at a leisurely pace. James was quite proud of his backpack, which was a big as he was. And Andrew’s need to help disassemble electronics was curbed with a Handy Manny TV Set you can take apart. The creators were kind enough to make the screws loosen the part allowing the part to be removed without the screw actually coming out.

After presents it was time to move on to breakfast, French Toast again. Here’s a picture of Andrew last year and this year.

By mid afternoon we had moved on to snacks. I could not get the pomegranates opened fast enough for them. The bowl never made it to the table, they just sat on the carpet by the sink and ate them. They also started to peel off their clothes by noon. By the time uncle Scott and aunt Peg arrived, they were in their underwear.

Door
The boys were excited with the first snow. They like to look out the front door to check out snow, girl scouts, the young nurse across the street, the garbage truck or incoming visitors. Here’s another picture from April of this year.

Snow
The first couple times it snowed the boys were very excited. The snow was mixed with ice which meant daycare would close early. The boys were excited about driving home in the snow and wanted to go outside as soon as we got home (but not before Mommy stopped in an empty parking lot to explain "donuts"). James got dressed in snow boots, snowpants, a sweater, gloves, scarf, winter coat, and hat. After 5 seconds outside, he decided his Guatemalan blood was not meant for the cold. Meanwhile, Andrew was in jeans, t-shirt and his winter coat, refusing to wear hat, gloves, scarf or pretty much anything that would keep him warm. I had to drag Andrew in after an hour, but not before we went for a ride down the driveway on our sweet new sled. Sure, you might see it as a plastic recycling container, but to us it is a sled. This caused much confusion on Trash Day when Andrew asked what the men were doing with his sled.

Pellets
The wood pellet stove has been keeping the house warm all winter. Andrew is vigilant in making sure James does not touch the hot glass doors. James got a wee bit too close one day……that will be the first, last and only time that will happen. With the pellet stove comes bags of pellets, and lots of them. The boys are now using their sturdy Rainbow Lion as a work horse to help haul the 7 or8 40-pound bags we go through each week. If you make anything sound fun, they will be glad to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88F5nE6fD6E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXGIrReVfRA

Tub
Rub a dub dub, two boys in a tub means lots of interesting moments. Do you know how loud 2 boys can scream in the tub just for the fun of hearing the echo? Did you know what water can be splashed about 6 feet up and over the shower door? Have you ever seen a ‘bubble’ contest in the tub? After this month I can answer all of those questions. Andrew is the same wild and crazy man outside of the tub as he is in. Here they are now, and this time last year.

Things I Thought I Would Never Say In Regards To Tub Time
7. No Sword Fights
6. Who made those bubbles?
5. No Belly Flops
4. No Wrestling
3. Use a washcloth. Don’t lick your brother clean.
2. Don’t spit water at your brother “private part”
1. Don’t giggle when your brother spits water at your “private part”

I am now sure that was going through their heads when they put the ski caps on, but this can't be good.

Andrew found some sunglasses on clearance at the supermarket. There was a huge out-of-season display made of cheap cardboard that looked as if it was about to topple over and he was drawn to it like Pooh Bear to Honey. Two foosdtore workers nearby kept a close eye on him, ready to pounch when he knocked the whole thing over as he randomly yanked sunglasses off the display to try them on. Without incident, he picked these "Gidget" glasses, then gently placed them into the cart, instructing me not to 'mash them' them with the bag of salad. The store workers finally were at ease and went back to their work.

Potty Time
With 1 boy potty trained we hoped the other would not be far behind. Recently James has decided that he does not need to wear a diaper; he takes it upon himself to remove his pants and diaper, place his diaper in the toilet, put his pants back on, then flush the toilet. There are several flaws in this plan, which I will leave up to the reader. Andrew also has the desire to Go Commando as he removes all the warms jammies we put on his after bath time. Forget the dilemma of boxers vs. briefs, these boys prefer to go au natural. They are really taking this ‘go green’ to reduce laundry a bit too far.

Art
Here is this month's sole art project that was blog worthy. It's a Turkey Hat, just try telling me it's not cute.

Moments That Make You Go “Hmmmmm”
From a daily daycare report: "Andrew made some better choices today. However, he emptied a bag of glitter and sequins on a friend and on the floor. He did help clean up. This is great'.
James dropped his cereal spoon on the floor. Andrew exclaims "Quick Mommy, pick it up before the germs hop on'.

At daycare Andrew has taken to sneaking up on the smaller kids in the class and roaring at them, causing them to crap their pants.

At daycare Andrew has started watching his teacher with an Eagle Eye. Whenever she turns her back, he runs and hides. When they can not find him, they have to call the office, declare a Lock Down, and his teachers and 3 directors go on a hunt for Andrew.

When Andrew is misbehaving, his teacher calls the director's office to have her come talk to him (this is new since he used to go to the Director's office which he enjoyed way too much). Once the call has been made, he goes from a spazmaniac, to a sweet little boy sitting on his cot for the pretty lady to come talk to him.

And here’s one that made me cry. We were sitting at dinner one night and Andrew asked where Mommy’s Mommy is, to which we replied “Heaven”. Andrew instantly says “I go see her sometime?” How do you reply to that ?

October/November 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:00:00 +0000

School Picture Day.
Of course we have to dress them alike, it's our rights as parents. By the time pictures rolled around James' hair was not as stylish, but the photographer was able to get some nice pictures.

Potty Time

I am glad to report Andrew is pretty much done, with the exception of night time. However, if he puts socks on at night, that seems to cure the problem. James is catching up fast with the potty scene. He's been trying for a year, but now he almost says the word before tottering over to the potty, stripping diaper, pants and socks then defying gravity and climbing up on the seat himself. I am glad to report James did not have the adventurous spirit Andrew did with "Distance Shooting" from a seated position on the potty. James is a bit more challenged with which side of the pants the underwear goes on....and which way is front.

Flu Shots

Fall means Flu Shot season. To lessen the blow the day Andrew had his appointment we went to Dunkin Donuts for a pre-visit meal. The nice gals at our local DD are quite liberal with the cream cheese. This year we did the FluMist instead of the Flu Shot. Andrew screamed bloody murder, and James giggled through the whole thing. They are 2 different sides of the same coin. In case you are wondering, Andrew kicked off the cream cheese and left the bagel behind.

Autumn

A couple weekends in a row in October our daycare had outings to pumpkin patches. The first one was well attended and had hayrides through corn fields, pumpkin patches, rides, food and ponies. The following weekend just Andrew went to the other pumpkin patches and there were about 100 less daycare kids.....Andrew was the only one. Lucky Andrew had 2 teachers and me to entertain him. The teachers were awesome, one from his current room and one from his previous room. They are such sports they even rode the tricycles with him. They are the greatest.

Halloween

Halloween brought another set of cool glasses. They match Andrew's super-cool Yo Gabba Gabba Broby jammie outfit.

I tried to make the boys' Halloween costumes this year, and I totally struck out. My grand plan was to make Andrew a Laundry Basket (any stereotypes of Asians and Laundry was purely coincidental) and James would have dirty laundry pinned all over himself. Well, the boys took one look at my "home made" costumes and went into a screaming frenzy. Apparently no amount of candy or stray coins were worth the embarrassment. Andrew would not even come close to the laundry basket, but I was able to lure James into the laundry basket with stray candy. We settled on James being a Hockey Referee and Andrew going dressed as himself. We were out for about an hour on foot, and stopped in at 1 out of every 5 houses we passed. Apprently Andrew has some sort of advanced candy detecting device I am unaware of. After our attempt at trick or treating we went to my friend Brenda's house where they sat on comfy charis, watched TV and grazed Brenda's Candy Bowl. By 9pm they were in a chocolate and Sponge Bob induced coma. They are not safe from future embarrassment.....the Laundry Basket has been put into storage.

Birthday

November James turned 2. We celebrated with our old neighbors, and as seen in the photo, some prunes, beer and an ice cream cake. This year was a step up from last year when we bought an Entenmen's cake. It doesn't look like he grew much taller, but be no longer has a pumpkin-round head, and he grew a neck. Here are the pictures from both years. If you a not figure out which photo is his 1st birthday cake, you are ready to apply for a position in the presidential cabinet.

A Handful

Since we never had kids before, we used Andrew as our barometer for what little boys are like. James is quite a bit more mellow, aside from eating small children and getting kicked out of his first day care in under 7 months. But the new daycare is great for both boys. They have been very patient with Andrew's 'spirited' personality and 'opportunities to make better choices tomorrow". It seems that young Andrew will be the Zack Morris of his school time. After several challenging weeks/months at daycare I met with the teachers (and director) a couple times. They told me that "all the kids want to sit next to Andrew because he is so much fun" which translates to "We need to do something about his behaviour". They have been very helpful as we try to reign in his Kazakh Spirit and 'craftiness'.

Let's Go!

One morning Andrew was in such a rush to get to day care (it was Muffin Day) that he grabbed every one's coats and my purse and headed out the door.

Rob makes the boys' juice before leaving for work and one day he left the fridge open which caused it to start beeeping. Eagle Ear Andrew heard this from upstairs, froze in is tracks and and spouted out this stream of conscience thought pattern: WHAT DAT SOUND. ME CALL DADDY. THE MONSTERS AT THEIR OWN HOUSE EATING BREAKFAST AND WATCHING TV,GETTING NAKED, GETTING MILK. EVERYTHING IS OK

Here are some attempts at getting a Christmas Card photo after bath time one night. Didn't get one of the official Christmas Cards yet? E-mail me (euuayya @ yahoo . com )

Art

The past 2 months have given us more 'hand and foot art', along with what I thought was Jesus on the Cross. Turns out, it was just a scarecrow. November closed out with this a nice kitty cat, oddly enough holding a clothespin. As always, the art work is priceless to us, but recycling material to the rest of the world.

August/September 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:43:00 +0000

August & September 2008

The summer closed with a bumper crop of 'art' work. We found that daycare workers are quite creative when it comes to animals based on a 1-year-old's hand. It's a whale, no wait, it's a porcupine! Not to be outdone by the poisonous overly happy bug eye'd frog.

Andrew goes a bit more abstract. When a teacher takes a piece of green construction paper, draws a leave and tells the kids to "cut the leaf", only one child chose to cut the leaf in half....mine. And what goes with a leaf? A lady bug with movable wings.

Potty Update

James has been watching Andrew sit on the potty fro a while now, and decided he'd like to sit high atop the throne as well. We got our hopes up that he might potty train a year before Andrew did, but we think it's just a fascination. But any diaper avoided is a pleasant gift. Here's James this month, and Andrew on the same throne when he turned 1.

And what necessitate the need for the potty....how about a nice bucket 'o prunes. We found out what happens when a child eats 10 prunes a day or 2 day, then eats 2 boxes of raisins. I tried to blame the 'accident' on the floor on the kitty cats....then I realized James processed all the prunes and raisins at one. We haven't come this close to barfing in quite some time.

Washer Mania

Another lesson of having boys, you will wash, and dry, a lot of rocks . This was one day's stash of rocks, that were discovered at the END of laundry day. We tried our best to convince Andrew to return his rocks to their friends on the playground, but no dice. instead we put them in a ziplock baggier so he would carry hem around for a week or 2. He might as well treat them well, after all they were sanitized and steam cleaned in the Whirl Pool.

HeadGear

James is the king of odd head apparel. One day he came home from daycare sporting the princess party hat from a birthday party, and then later that week he chose to wear Andrew's seasoned Lightning McQueen underwear as a French Beret.

August was Magical Month at daycare, and he came home with this awesome crown, and a magic wand. Andrew still prefers his Kazakh hat, although he has not worn it since he was 1 in this picture.

Shoes

What happens when you don't buy a lot of toys? The kids play with shoes. One day I told Andrew to line up the shoes. In my head of I was thinking to put like-shoes next to each other, Andrew chose to line them up in a mirror image. What does that say about his thinking patterns?

Cabin Fever

After week's of trolling through Craig's List for a playhouse for the backyard, we found a used Log Cabin. It's almost 15 years old, and on it's 3rd family, but it seems to have weathered the storm well. And some nice lady 20 miles away offered to take it apart and drive it to our house. She was either really eager to get rid of it, or truly a kind hearted person that we are glad still exist. I sent her the photos of the boys playing with it and she said she cried with happiness. Life is Good.

Andrew prefers to call it "My Chip's Farm House" since the neighbors moved to a farm house.

Kitty Time

Andrew is still making friends with his kitty. Although he plays a little rough, Tigger is a sport about it. Andrew's new job is to feed the kitties....which he remembers to do once every 2 weeks. Here's Andrew with Kitty now, and 2 years ago.

Mommy Mistake # 4912: 16 oz. of Red Juice = 60 minutes of Spazakh

Mowgapalooza 2008

Our summer parties have changed quite a bit since they started about 10 years ago. One frequent flyer, Anatoly, remarked that in the early years there was lots of beer and late night lingering, then there was the year with the inflatable jousting ring, then a couple years of Dodge Ball, and now the post-nap time mid-afternoon party was filled with water balloons being filled by the Chef. Andrew had a good time, and at bath time was crying because he did not want his party to end.

Beach

We spent a week at the beach in September. Atlantic City might be known for it's buffets, but James prefers the 8-Mile Buffet Of Ocean City. When we was not screaming he was using the shovel to stuff sand in his mouth. Four hours later we found out that sand is the Colon's Exfolliant. It rivaled the Prune Incident.

We were lucky enough have have 3 Boys And their Momma join us for a couple days. With a whole ocean of water, they chose to play in the puddle the hurricane left behind from the day before.

When they had enough of the sand, the beach house provided enough entertainment. 2 Bunk Beds + 5 boys and 1 ceiling fan is a recipe for disaster.

And when that entertainment wear out, the trash trunk is always good entertainment.

James is usually a man of few words, but when we foolishly experimented with putting 4 of the 5 boys in 1 bedroom one night he said, clear as day "Get Me out". we later found the 2 3-year olds had taken over the pack'n'play.

We finished out the week with one last bike ride on the board walk. Andrew saw a car on the boardwalk and freaked out. He proceeded to spend the next 20 blocks yelling "NO CARS ON THE BOARDWALK" and James would follow with "NUH CUH" (No Cars). This was funny for the first 10 blocks....but as I said, he rode for 2o blocks. We look forward to more fun, same time next year.

Yo Gabba Gabba

We recently discovered the most bizarre show on Nick Jr. called Yo Gabba Gabba. We were all transfixed the first time we saw these guys. Forget Sesame Street, these oddly shaped guys are hilarious, they are the Muppets of the new millennium.

Time Out

Andrew continues to be quite the energetic little boy and we do what we can to keep hm well-behaved. One day we ran out of ideas and told him the The Sheriff from the Cars movie was watching him. It seemed to work, and still does work. A couple weeks later when we picked him up at daycare and we asked how his day was, the teacher just shook her head. We told her to say "Sherrif Is Watching". She thought we were crazy, but the next day she hugged us. We don't understand the power of the Sherrif, but we are not questioning what works.

Rock On

On a recent trip to Pittsburgh we were lucky enough to be serenaded for an hour with the Good Bye Song from Bear And The Big Blue House. James tries his best to back up Andrew. The footage is a little choppy because we were moving at about 80 mph.

July 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:01:00 +0000

July 2008

No other picture captures the personalities of the boys like this one. Mellow James and Spazful Andrew. It’s no wonder James tries to climb out of the tub. You can imagine what night times are like now that they share a room again.

Draft

The great Draft Act of 2008 has been enacted. We now have monthly Toy Drafts were we empty the toy basket (yes, we have stuck to the 1 toy basket rule 2 years later) once a month and go to the reserve cabinet to draft a new round of toys. This month’s lucky draftees were the Backyardigan’s guitar (courtesy of Schanna), John Deere tractor (once again, Schanna) and assorted Matchbox cars from the Car’s movie. For teh record, Matchbox cars are waaay nicer than hot Wheels. The draft is working well and we plan continue the monthly draft wher ethe boys do the drafting. The only draft dodgers we have are some really annoying battery operated toys that we shipped off to Canada. One item which made the draft of stuffed animals for the bed was Lufty, the trinket the stewardess gave me while Andrew was screaming his way to the US back in 2006. James has taken a keen liking to Lufty and tried to eat the landing gear, but Daddy sewed him up in mommy's absence. Yes readers, Rob did SEW! When James cries, Andrew fetches Lufty for hm to try to calm him and says 'It's ok James, here's Lufty". It's times like that, that even ou tthe beating they give each other.

Songs

Andrew likes to end his day with a warm bath, story time, then butchering of our childhood classics. He may butcher them, but they are cute. He has chosen to change the words to "Old McDonald Had a Farm” to “Old McFarmy had a ” saving both time and effort by combining 2 lines into 1. But if he saves time with one song, he has to even out the time somewhere. He has stretched “The Wheels On The Bus” to having no less than 40 verses, which brings us to our Top Ten List and clearly a crowded bus.

Top Ten things On The Bus

10. The Goat on the bus goes Baa baa baaa.

9. The jacket on the bus goes zip, zip zip

8. The jeans on the bus go on and off, on and off, on and off . Hmmm, me thinks high school will be a challenge.

7. The king on the bus goes I Rule You

6. The elephant on the bus goes “bbbbbruuuuugh”

5. The van on the bus goes zoom, zoom, zoom

4. The butt on the bus goes fart, fart, fart

3. The cake on the bus goes “eat me now”

2.The toilet on the bus goes flush, flush, flush

1. The giraffe on the bus goes “ “, “ “, “ “ . That last one confused him, but he went with it.

Birthday

Andrew had this 3rd birthday, and we celebrated in typical Taylor style: a cake from the food store frozen section, and guests we ran into at the supermarket that morning. Here is Andrew displaying the 3 Stages Of Embarrassment when people sing to you: Denial, Trepidation then Acceptance.

Words

Andrew is talking a lot more and it’s odd to have ‘conversations’ with him at the dinner table. They typically revolve around the cars from the movie Cars and what Doc, Sheriff, Lightning and Wingo think. But every once in a while he lays a new phrase on us. Lately it has been when we ask him to do something he says ‘ok, sure”. And now he likes his bagel toasted in the morning “like Daddy cooks it”. When he has left over food to asks to “save it for dew-morrow”, as if the crumbs of a bagel will hold over night. Andrew confuses some phrases; one day at nap time he "liberated" all of the pages of Llama Red Pajama from the confines of the book. Momma LLama was not happy and Andrew said "that's ok mommy. you're sorry". So now the book has about $15 worth of tape piecing back the Frankenstein book. Along with the good words, are a few more choice words which he obviously is picking up from the daycare kids, or PBS after-hours.

Art

Another month and another set of art work to confirm the notion that there are no popular Kazakh or Guatemalan artist icons across the age of time. We have the mystical paper plate neon flying saucer, Rare one-eyed paper lunch bag owl, sun that sort of looks like a stick man, and cow with odd rhombus spots that looks like he had too much whacky weed out in the field.

The Happy Star Flag (apparently the USA has only 1 really happy state now) and the ever creative fireworks display. I thought that one was really creative on the part of the daycare teachers.

But my favorite this month was an art revelation I had. Upon first looking at this one I thought James drew a butt with his hand prints on the cheeks. Then Rob was quick to point out it is a butterfly, or as I shall ever think of it now, a Butt-erfly.

Cars

Before we had kids we thought movie-tie-in products were a bunch of crap. Now that we are the proud owners of 2 Sheriffs (Radiator Spring and Dirt Track) and no less than 4 Lightning McQueen’s ( race car, Radiator Spring, Radiator Springs cruising and Cactus) and about a half dozen other car characters, I can say that we are now believers….and we are the ones who got sucked into the aisle at toys R Us to buy them because, after all, they are cool.

.Potty

I am glad to report that our first potty trained child has been achieved, with the exception of sleep times. We will now stop filling the land fills with our massive diaper load which made up 90% of the weekly trash. On a low note, Andrew now knows what corn on the cob looks like coming out—he was fascinated.

.And for Megan M., here is the action shot of Daddy cutting up the raw chicken wings for Andrew's birthday BBQ. Safety first.....note the Lysol wipes.

Rock On
For our Audio portion of the blog, we feature the jazz ramblings of Andrew on the harmonica. Sadly, he plays better than I do.

May And June 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:35:00 +0000

May and June were chock full of excitement. In April I got ‘packaged’ from work and got the boot (no tears shed there), then in May James got the boot from daycare and I got a new job,

and in June we headed to Chicago for Kazapalooza.

Tasty Human Morsels
We switched daycares due to James’s tendency to eat small children. Seems the kids at his first daycare were a bit dim and would extend their arm to see if he would really bite. Have you seen the size of his belly? Of course he will sink his teeth into your North American white meat you foolish young ones, at least Andrew is now quick enough to move before being consumed. The kids, and us, really love the new daycare. Who would not love Muffin Wednesday where the early arriving kids mix up muffins and us late rollers get to eat fresh muffins! They are geniuses at the new daycare. And they will be opening their new site less than a mile from our house this fall. Rock on!

School Bus
In May be niece graduated college, and where else would I take a rammy 2 years old? To an uber boring graduation of course. No offense Megan, you are an exciting Aunt but the rest of your fellow graduates are not up to the excitement level of Cousin Megan. Andrew’s primo highlight was riding a school bus from the remote parking to the graduation. It lived up to his highest expectation. The only thing to top it was the following weekend where he got to use power tools with Uncle Scott.

Art
The 2 months were light on artwork as we switched daycares. Apparently this month was Alien month, or maybe it was Outer Space week, and Andrew brought home this anorexic one-eyed creature. The teachers sure are creative.

Our other artistic offering remained a mystery to me for several weeks as I let it lay on the kitchen counter until I could figure it out. Then I realized I had it upside down…..it is a watering can.

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BedTime
Ahh, bed time, that peaceful time of day. Occasionally it starts out as 2 little smiling boys crawling into bed and falling asleep within minutes. Then the other 364 days of the year it ends up like a cage match (yes, they are back in the same room) which we break up when we hear the little one squeal. Eventually they quiet down and we open the door to see the carnage that has ensued…..stuffed animals strewn about the room and James sleeping onto top of the pillow on his beat half hanging off. After a month of battling with the ‘closet’ wars where the contents of the bottom rack and half of the top rack lay on the floor like casualty of the Civil War, we finally removed the door knobs from the closet doors. As if that were not enough we installed bi-fold door locks so they could not wiggle their little paws underneath and open the doors for quick emptying. Perhaps the door knobs will return when puberty arrives.

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Cheap Toys
Andrew’s love of no-frills gun continues with playing Bucket Head with James. They like to put the buckets on their heads then run into each other and the walls. Good times.

Pool Time
Before we left for vacation we had a major heat wave and the boys enjoyed their kiddy pool. You can see we spare no expense with pool toys: old water bottles and plastic plant pots.

We also multi-task and water the plants with the sprinkler along with the kids.

Here's a picture of Andrew sitting on the patio chairs by the pool 2 years ago, and now.

Potty Training Update
The magic day was arrived. Andrew switched daycares, along with James, and Andrew’s new teachers are miracle workers. Within 2 days they had him ready for underwear. He had a couple accidents the first week, but Andrew is doing a good job when he’s awake.

I was prepared for the long haul and ordered some potty training ‘aids’ from on-line. These things called PODS are meant to ‘catch’ little mistakes in the undies before the flood occurs. When they arrived I realized I had paid $20 for a package of Maxi Pads with 1980’s technology. Yes, I do have SUCKER tattooed to my forehead.

While in Chicago we had a couple ‘accident’s. But I must say Andrew did a surprisingly good job holding it for 10 hours on the travel days. He must be part camel.
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The first day we were walking down the street and Andrew said he had to go so we bolted into the first store we saw, The American Girl Store. After navigating through hundred of awestruck girls and much pastel décor we found the bathroom, but Andrew had stage fright. On the way out we found the manliest thing in the store to take him picture with to commemorate the moment: American Girl Motorcycles.

But when he has an accident he goes all out, however I must accept most of the blame. Andrew’s Colon Clock is set for 6:15pm, regardless of time zone. I made the mistake of keeping him out past the bewitching hour and we were not at the hotel with his ‘cushy seat’ and he has not mastered public potties for the solid evacuations yet. You can image what ensued. As I stood in the handicapped stall trying to comfort a freaking out little boy I was stuck with a pair of undies that were in desperate need of attention. Then I remembered my mother saying when she had cloth diapers she would hold them by the edge in the toilet and flush a couple times to ‘pre-clean’ them. Awesome idea! I was a genius! Problem Solved!

Unfortunately the public toilets in Chicago have a herculean flushing force and in a flash the undies were gone, snatched from between my thumb and fore finger, jetting through the sewer lines of Chicago. Andrew and I stood there dumbfounded, blinking and all I could do was laugh. We made the quick 2 block walk back to the hotel to recover while Daddy finished dinner with the rest of the Kazak families who undoubtedly wondered where we vanished to. In those mere 2 blocks Andrew found no less than 20 people to tell “Mommy flushed my Lightning McQueen underwear”. Not one of my prouder moments, but it does restore faith in the flushing power of American plumbing fixtures.

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Lounging.
Andrew digs just lounging about….no need to buy the whole sofa, he just sits on the edge.

Eating: the Good, The Bad, The Ugly
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Why does Andrew eat with socks on his hands? Duh! Because he can.
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When I asked Andrew to go to the closet to pick out what he wanted for dinner he returned with

Waxed Paper….because it had a cookie on it. He was upset that we could not eat it, so I had to open it to show his there in deed were no cookies in the ENTIRE roll. In this picture he appears to be displaying his Good Fella's Gangster face.

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How’s this for a cool looking plate for dinner? Oddly, it looks like a meal I had in Kazakhstan: chicken, potatoes (tater tots), pickles, veggies and ketchup. BTW, we bought the plate at Disney World—it’s a Mickey Hand.

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Bibs, who needs 'em, we have a Stema Washer now.

Another good chocolate chip cookie day.

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One night at a restaurant Andrew entertained himself by pouring water from one cup to another, then we added a third to really confuse him. Unfortunately 3 cups of water do not fit into two cups. Fortunately it was an outside restaurant with a mesh table so it was an easy clean up.

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Yogurt is good for the skin.
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I can’t say the same for Chipwich ice cream sandwiches on a hot day on jeans.
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Andrew has almost mastered the eating skill and comes up pretty clean.

No, the water bottle is not that giant, but James likes to hug it.
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Chicago
We spend a week in Chicago at Kazapalooza with about 20 other families that adopted from Kazakhstan. We learned to appreciate that Andrew is not more of a spaz than other kids, it’s just in his blood. Chicago was a really nice place to visit: lots of trains, cars, buses, ambulances, fire engines, parks and dogs to keep the boys entertained. It puts Philadelphia to shame.

One of the first things we went to see was the BEAN which is a giant shiny kidney bean that reflect the city: peculiar but a lot of fun.Chicago also sits on a beautiful lake, and this is the only picture of the lake I took. Trust me, it’s bigger and nicer.

Of course we had to go to Wrigley Field, and it happened to be Father Day. And some guy’s family loved him so much they wished Jeff Morrison a Happy Father’s Day.

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There’s also a nice river running through town, but once again those pesky kids got in the way of nature’s beauty. In the background is a freaky round building with a parking garage on the bottom and condos on top. Parking there would freak me out.

One afternoon we met up with another family that adopted the same time we did. Andrew was so excited to see his old roommate, Marlon, that half way through lunch he curled up in the stroller and crashed for the afternoon. You will notice the stylish tile floor of Pot Belly, where we ate several lunches. They rule.

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Chicago Bulls
On our visit to Chicago we seemed to run across bull after bull. And where else for a nice family picture but in front of a bull with the boys looking a the pretty girls walking by. I must say that Chicago is one of the friendliest towns I have even been to (although we have not been to a hockey game where I tend to find the meanest people God created), a stranger walking by offered to take our picture even though she had 2 small kids in tow.
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Our second bull shot (you had to see that one coming) was outside an Irish restaurant. What do you think of when you think Ireland? Beer? Potatoes? Heck no, cow! Andrew was the only one who made it into this picture as we had a little “quiet time” away from the restaurant to re-center on what acceptable behavior is. You will notice he has no shoes on….he lost them when he abused his shoe privilege at the table--- don’t’ ask, he’s odd.
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Fire Engines
Daddy was more excited about the fire house across the street from Wrigley field…..until the fireman came out and let Andrew climb up inside. Fortunately this time he did not find the button for the lights and sirens.

Hugs
Andrew likes to give his brothers hugs…James prefers to give his brother head butts.

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Chicago Children’s Museum
One of our better museum choices in Chicago was the Children’s Museum. The kids were a bit timid with the water fountain at first, but after a while they were fearless.

Once inside Andrew cooked a couple pizza in the faux oven. Andrew was issues with wearing bracelets, so his admission bracelet got stuck to his shirt.

Next it was on to the plumbing display. We hope James' use of the water pipes is not a foreshadowing of of teenage years.

Museums
Chicago has many fine museums, most of which are not appropriate for kids. Did we care? Of course not, even when the grumpy old man made several snide remarks about bringing kids to an art museum. Hey old man, Andrew’s going to outgrow diapers, I can’t say the same for you. Unfortunately James’s prunes did not kick in time to add to the musty art museum aroma.
At the museum Of Contemporary Art there were many fine, and not so fine pieces of art. Andrew preferred to talk to the fish. This was preferred to what he did at the Chicago Museum of Art, which was to yell at the pictures in a vain effort to get them to talk back. However one gallery was closed as they re-painted the walls, which the boys found exhilarating and watching the electric scaffolding go up and down.

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Next it was on to the Field Museum, also known as the Museum of Dead Stuff. Yawn. There was a big reassembled dinosaur, but hardly worth the price of admission. I can see that on the Flintstones.

Parade
Fortunately for us we were in town for the Puerto Rico Day Parade, so it felt just like being at home. The highlight of the parade for the boys was the 150 busses that arrived hauling people from remote parking areas. Holy cow, it was like a never ending see of busses that amazed me. And the 4x4 police vehicles excited Daddy.

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Parks
Chicago Is full of parks, which was great for 2 growing boys.

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This month’s movie portion brings us 2 short movies of Andrew’s Adventures with A Stroller and 1 of the boys running n the park in Chicago. You will notice that James has his shirt on inside out….that is what we do when one side gets too messy—no need to change shirts!. Thanks to Schanna for providing us with the Stroller that brings hours of entertainment.

Hopefully the rest of the summer will be as fun.

April 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:15:00 +0000

April 2008
You know you are a Daddy when you have reached this level of Fashion Faux Pas. How many other hip Dad's out there wear shorts, black socks and black shoes to grill dinner on the patio?

OK, you can put your hands down now.

Hair

Andrew's dislike of getting his hair combed continues. I think in the past year I have combed his hair less than a dozen times in the morning. But I think we might have found the trick. One night one of our friends, Lauren, was coming over for dinner. I asked Andrew if he wanted to comb his hair, which he replied with an immediate and emphatic "NO!". Then I said "Lauren is coming to see you". And we came running over and said with a sweet little boy shy voice "Comb hair please". when Andrew is not running from hair combing, he hides out under the sink with his brother, and their favorite orange plunger.

Words

James is still the quiet one, although it is a challenge to get a word in edgewise with chatterbox Andrew. He now points to the kitty cats and says "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" which is James-Speak for "Kitty". He is a man of few words, but he does like his broom.

Worms

Sometimes the rough and tumble boy in the dirt has girlie moments. One morning after a night time rain shower we walked out to the mailbox. The driveway was littered with worms. He squealed like a little girl when within 5 feet of a worm, demanding they were chasing him. OK, I can understand being afraid of mice because they move fast. But a worm? You need to be real patient to watch them move, let alone believe they are attacking you.

Chow Time

No one ever said meal time would be pretty with kids. James has taken to strategically wearing his food, like this "banana shoulder" day. And there is no finer sign of a good meal than showing off your belly.

One night Andrew had waaaaay to much to eat and his belly was quite large. At bath time when he stripped off his clothes he looked down and said "Hey! Where did my p*nis go ?" The next morning after his tummy had processed dinner, he found his dear old friend.

My Money

Andrew's fascination with coinage continues. Here's are some action shots of discovering a coin, then safely stowing it in his pocket. Unfortunately he would take the coins to daycare and we have received several notices that he is not to bring coins to daycare....and they tape the offending coins to a 3x5 card, tormenting Andrew since he can see the money, but can not touch it.

Potty Time

We had major milestone this month. After a dinner chock full of Bush Baked Beans Andrew delivered his first yule log on the potty in over a year. This anomaly was met with much joy, celebration, high fives and hopes that more will follow in the near future. Andrew was just as excited as we were. Although when I said "Andrew Poop In Potty", he quickly returned with "Noooo, Andrew Poop on Mommy". Not a pleasant image for anyone involved. Most of the time we catch Andrew squeezing one out under his table with a quite concentrated face.

Two weeks later, he had another potty delivery. I am trying to contain my excitement.

Girl Watchers
A while ago when Girl Scout Cookies were in season, the boys would run to the door when the doorbell rang. They were delighted to see the Girl Scouts and would watch the little girls walk down the driveway....then down the street.....then around the circle.....then up the street. they would not say a word, they would just watch them from afar.

Rocks

With spring time comes the much awaited "outside time". At the mention of the "O" word, James will run and get his shoes and got and hop up and down. I thought only puppies behaved like that. With all of the rocks we have in the backyard now, there's not much need for toys, except maybe a dump truck to haul the rocks.

Books

Recently we went through the book archives from the books we had as kids. I can honestly say they just don't have books like they used to. I ran across the "Ice Cream Cone Coot" book which one of my sisters used to read to me. Andrew is fascinated by the drug-inspired art work and verbage from the 1970's. Apparently the book was a favorite among other kids too, and some whackos think it's valued at over $200.

Until Next Month, the Taylor Brothers Say Bye.

March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:01:00 +0000

March 2008

Another month and the boys continue to keep growing. James can now get up to the play table by himself. One day we caught them playing nicely together....for about 15 seconds. But as long we have a camera we can freeze these moments in time.

James is getting bigger and stronger and can now hold his own against Andrew, and we are finding James initiating the wrestling bouts with Andrew more and more often.

They must have been watching some college wrestling because we see James take the Wrestling stance on all fours, allow Andrew to try to hold him down, throw him off, and then when they get too far from the starting point, they return to the place and stance that they started. Better they wrestle the real way than that goofy WWF stuff, but i will draw the line at wrestling tights.

Money
Andrew’s new fascination this month was money, more precisely coins. We were at Bennigan’s one night for dinner and he disappeared under the table (yes, our threshold for acceptable behavior has been recalibrated with children). He emerged with a penny and announced “money for college”. I guess every penny does count, no matter how far it goes. He put the penny in his pocket and checked on it frequently to ensure it was still there. Now before he goes to bed he takes out his ‘college coin of the day’, puts it on the bathroom counter, then retrieves it the following morning.

Store
Andrew is starting the connect the dots, sometimes to our chagrin. One morning I was pouring the Rice Chex (preferred 9 times out of 10 by Taylor boys over Cheerios) and ran out. Andrew looked at me and said “No more Chex? Need to get more at the store?”. So any time we run out of something, be it pellets for the wood burning stove, bath tub soap or vitamins he will say “Need to go to store?”. May not sound exciting to you, but to us it is thoroughly amusing.

Cheap Toys
The boys have once again discarded all of the purchased toys from China in favor of the most peculiar items. This month’s toys of choice are
10. Garlic peeler
9. Packaging for Garlic Peeler
8. Plastic Measuring Cup
7. DVD case
6. Colander
5. Stairs
4. Laser Pointer—they chase it like the cats
3. Bucket—placed on head
2.Magazine paper insert
1. Blanket

The blanket is quite a versatile toy. It can be used as a sled for rides around (and around and around) the whole downstairs, it can be used as a tent and it can be transformed into a Blanket Monster.

Horse
One day Daddy was trying to sneak out to the mailbox without 2 escorts so he told them he was going to “See a man about a horse”. I thought that was code word for sneaking off to the potty, but I did not question it. Andrew remained at the kitchen table, stunned as to there being a horse in the yard. When Daddy returned Andrew asked “Where’s the horse?”. Daddy told him it was in the barn, to which Andrew replied “Stuck in barn?”. This conversation went on for the rest of teh night. Poor little fella. Sometimes it’s just like torture to innocent young minds.

Hey Guys
I guess slang starts early. When Mommy and Daddy are being slow about rounding up the kids and Andrew wants to get going, he now says “come on guys!”. After dinner we often play “Run around the house and hide from the kids then jump out and yell bahhhhhr”. If we hide too well and Andrew can not find us he’ll just wander around saying “Guys?.....Guys?”. Again, cute, but torturous.

Potty Training
The quest continues. We think James will be leap frogging Andrew. One day James was standing at the coffee table and looked down at his crotch with a concerned look. I asked if he had to go potty and he tottered over to the bathroom and waited for me in front of the potty. Sometimes he will deliver and sometimes he will not. Andrew got wind of this action and now plays along without the delivery. So I have been trying to teach Andrew how to extract the APPROPRIATE amount of toilet paper from the roll and gently bunch it like a "fluffy cloud" in preparation for the day when he has something to wipe. He much prefers to make mashed down dense clouds that are destined to clog the plumbing in the coming months. Until either child masters the potty, the wall mounted toilet paper dispenser is just used as a handle for the egress from the toilet. So far one dispenser has fallen victim to the super human grip of Andrew. Take note of the heinous wallpaper I sleected years ago....Andrew refers to the wallpaper as "JAMES". No idea why.

RoShambo
To keep Andrew entertained while he passes time on the potty I have been trying to teach him Rock, Paper Scissors. He can make the 3 hand signs so far, but in his world, any of the 3 options can crush anything I throw out. Sometimes in the middle of a meal, car ride or swim lesson he will burst in with SCISSORS and make the hand sign. This thoroughly confuses the swim teacher Miss Penny. Oh what it must he like to let your mind wander and have random outbursts.

Cribless
James moved from the crib to the toddler bed, which he has already marked as his territory with hundreds of bite marks on the rails. I guess it is not intuitive how to sleep in a bed, as he chose a quite unorthodox position the first night. He also likes to gather all stuffed animals housed in his room and bring them into bed…then cry when he has no where to sleep.

Food
The boys have rediscovered fruit. They can each wolf down 3 adult servings of mandarin oranges for dessert. Peaches, Pears, Strawberries, Apples look out, you are about to become endangered species. Andrew's latest culinary adventure is to tear up toast, put it in his milk, then fishing it out and slurping the milk out of the bread and eating the bread.

Scare You
We have been putting Andrew’s improv skills to the test. Somehow Daddy started trying to “Scare” Andrew by saying boo. This morphed into “I scare you with a bat”, which Andrew replied “I scare you with a shoe”. These are the Top Ten Things Andrew Scares Daddy With
10. I Scare You With A….guitar
9. I Scare You With A….boat
8. I Scare You With A….brother
7. I Scare You With A….elephant
6. I Scare You With A….milk
5. I Scare You With A….plate
4. I Scare You With A….Bear
3. I Scare You With A….bus
2. I Scare You With A….tour bus
1. I Scare You With A….Poop

And he means it with that last one.

Personal Hygiene
Andrew’s disapproval of personal grooming continues. I have tried every trick in the book to clip his nails, but he screams bloody murder and after 20 minutes of screaming and only 2 nails cut I usually give up. As a kid I have absolutely no recollection of getting my nails clipped, so I have resigned myself to the notion that Andrew’s nails will just wear away on their own….or I will teach him to file them down on the tile grout lines in the kitchen. He is getting better with haircuts, but we usually wait until his hair looks like A Flock Of Seagulls to get it cut. For all of his lack of personal hygiene he is quite the hugger. He needs to hug his brother hello and goodbye at daycare when they part, when they wake up and before they go to sleep, and he will hug any female at daycare, including other kid's Moms. The hugs are nice, but we know their days are numbered as he gets older, so we take all the hugs we can get now.

Art

Another month and another bumper crop of Art Mysteries of the 21st century. Here we have a lady bug, which we can only discern from the colors. Next to the Lady bug is a white dinosaur, which I can only guess was inspired by the black fog monster from LOST.

March was Air Travel month at DayCare, which brought us this airplane and feathered creature. And what do you need to spot airplanes? Binoculars blinged out with colored tissue paper which Andrew is demonstrating.

Who says you need to wear a shirt or drive a car forward.

March 2008

February 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:43:00 +0000

Sleeping Like a King
When James came home last summer, Andrew started climbing INTO the crib so we had to move him 'temporarily' to the Guest Room which has a Queen Size bed. Andrew has yet to move back into his brother's room and downsize back to a meager Toddler Bed. So it looks like the little body will be sleeping in the big bed for the unforeseeable future.

James on the other hand is still in a crib and sleeps face down. i guess no one explained to the nation of Guatemala what "Back To Basics" meant. We can't get him to break the habit. But he does sleep nicely with this awesome humidifier: The GermGuardian.

Curiosity Is Not Just for Cats

I seem to keep catching Andrew doing the goofiest things, like climbing the outside of the stairs, or trying to leap from the back of the sofa onto the kitchen table (and falling about 2 inches short). I wonder what is going through his head, then I remember what I was like as a kid: one day I was standing in the powder room staring up at the light drying my hands after washing them. I started to wonder if I could throw the hand towel and get it stuck up on the light. So of course I tried and of course I did not throw hard enough, and of course the towel caught the drinking glass sitting on the mounted tooth brush holder causing it it crash into the sink. When my brother and Dad rushed in I said "I dunno what happened". So no matter what goofy stuff Andrew and James do, I can't give them too hard of a time.

Bye Bye Balloons
Yet another set of balloons have fallen victim to Mommy's Hands. First it was the balloon at the top of the cathedral ceiling that I tried to suck with with the vacuum extension hose....and in the blink of an eye it went from free floating balloon, to shreds in my Dyson. Then one weekend we took a drive up to Bear Creek Ski resort to let the boys see lots of snow and watch the snow tubers. When we got back in the car, the 2 balloons we just got from Perkins got caught in a gust of wind and floated somewhere over Berks County. The whole ride home Andrew innocently asked "Where pink (balloon) go? " . I felt like a bad Mommy. James was unphased as his Perkin's cookies were unharmed.

To make up for it I bought them some Mylar balloons at the supermarket and they went CRAZY smacking them, running around with them, running with them tied to their pants belt loop. And Andrew is honing his tomahawk skills my throwing his Handy Manny tools at the balloon from across the room.

Dr. House
Andrew often gets lost on the way from the kitchen to the car in the mornings, en route to daycare. He will head off to the living room to color, or if he does make it to the garage, we will climb the piles of bags of wood pellets (which are getting kind of low by this time in the winter). To 'motivate' him to get into the car I have been waving my iPod in front of him, which is like waving a red flag in front of a bull-- he charges for it. That worked for a while....until he wanted to hold it, which was not going to happen. So I have resorted to 'luring' him into the car with the promise to "Rock Out" to whatever it is I happen to be listening to on my commute. This month it was the soundtrack to the TV Show HOUSE, so the morning chant was "Rock out to Dr. House!". Of all the things I say, Andrew chooses to repeat/chant this everywhere. Now he just talks about 'Dr House" all the time....so we know what he will be for Halloween. One of the songs on the soundtrack starts with a lot of Piano. After about 2 weeks Andrew said he would like to play piano. So I ran through a couple other instruments to see if he wanted to play them too:

Piano: Yes
Guitar: Yes
Accordion: No
Drums: No (Thank You, God)
Trumpet: No
Saxophone: Sheesguhnoon (not sure how to interpret that)

Andrew now has his own 'iPod': a paper cut out from a magazine. He has been toting it around since November. The teachers at DayCare must think he is spoiled when he speaks of his "iPod".

Manners, continued
We continue to work with Andrew on good manners. One night he wandered downstairs about an hour after going to bed. He stood in front of us watching TV, and just stared at us. We didn't want to startle him, so we just said "We love you Andrew". He continued to stare at us, as if thinking, then said "Thank You" and went back to bed.

After being told "Shut Up Mommy" and various other phrases I refrain from typing here, I sat Andrew down on the steps to talk about what is appropriate to say/repeat. I guess I scared him with my stern tone because he started crying and ran into the other room. But fear not, a couple longs hugs, reassuring I Love Yous and kisses on the head and all was better......and no more Shut Up Mommy. If only all of our problems could be solved with a hug.

Who is Pop Pop?

One weekend my Dad and his wife came up for lunch. After they left Andrew and James stood with their noses pressed to the glass by the front door. Andrew started to whimper "Where Pop Pop Go?". I looked at him kind of funny because no one ever called him Pop Pop. Andrew had a guilty look on his face and finally said "Where Grand Pop Go?'. Strange little boy.

CrossFire (special submission by Daddy)
On Today's Crossfire………..

Andrew and James had a play date on president's day with Jacob and Aaron. All was going well, the boys were having fun.

Andrew decided that the snowman (he says nooooomannnn!) on the window was his.

"My snowman!" -- Andrew
"No it's not it's my snowman!" - Jacob
"No… it's mine.. I take it home with me!" - Andrew
"It's mine" - Jacob
"Nooooo! My nooooman!" - Andrew
"How can it be your snowman? It's taped to my window?!" -Jacob

This would have been a normal 3yr old arguing with a 2yr old BUT the way they were positioned across the table from each other it looked like they were debating the evils of Hillary Clinton vs the stupidity that is Bush Jr.

Art
Another month and another batch of whacked out art. This month we had animals and food. Apparently it is obvious the first one is a porcupine, our neighbor Chip identified it instantly. And what says Happy Valentines like a skinny legged money? Rounding out our Animal section is a toilet paper roll caterpillar. Andrew was so proud of that one.

The food is a bit more 'abstract'. The green thing is a doughnut....or perhaps many donut holes. The black and white drawing is a pizza. i have heard of White Pizza before, but this takes it to an all new level.

Cookies
We are raising 2 little cookie monsters. With one of the world's greatest inventions of the western world, we bring you Break and Bake cookies simplifying the effort of making cookies. Here are some before and after photos.

Jammie Time
What is cuter than little kids in footie jammies....not much. We got Andrew these red jammies in the size of a 4 year old and he fits them just fine now. He may outgrow footie jammies too quick. James on the other hand will wear them well into his 20's.

Ladders
Andrew's new fascination is with ladders. I am not sure how it started, but he can spot one from a mile away. Normal people see ladders in boring places like on firetrucks in or in their garage. Andrew sees them at intersections. After a week of stopping at this stop light on the way to daycare, and having him exclaim LADDER, I grew puzzled. Then I realized the big utility poles/towers look like ladders to him.

Latter in the month we had some home improvements done and the work men left 5 or 6 ladders i the garage over night. Andrew just about went into overload, everywhere he looked was a ladder of a different shape, color and size.

Where do Mommy & Daddy Go All Day?
Andrew often asks where we go all day....now he was stopped asking and tells us.
Daddy goes to Wawa to buy coffee. I guess that takes all day.
Mommy goes to work to make money for college, and to drink water.
Oddly enough, WaWa is one of the few words he can say crystal clear.

Speech Therapy
Every Thursday a speech therapist from the county comes in to work with James to make sure he can get a word in edgewise with his brother. They give up a report each week with exciting things like "while dotting crayons produced 'DaDa' and while marking lines produced 'aaaah'". Who knew such actions were noteworthy for a report.

Potty Training: right idea, wrong location
No improvements on the potty training front. But Andrew had one of his first traumatic experiences: laying cable in the tub. It was not pleasant for either of us, but Mr. Scrubbing Bubbles came to the rescue after Baby Ruth was fished out and flushed. The experience freaked him out so much that he got out of the tub and then went #1 on the floor. Of course this all happened just a few scant hours after I had scrubbed the tub and floor. I do not want to gross you out with the photo of Baby Ruth.

I eagerly await this magical 'When He is Ready" moment when Andrew decides he is ready to potty trained. For now he just does his business behind a chair.

January 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Yes, Christmas has passed. But as I put away the Christmas tree and the rest of the decorations, Andrew mourned the loss of Christmas. So I pulled out the Santa Hat which he now sleeps with. Unfortunately Pooh Bear must not be allowed to either wear or see the hat.

Handy Andy
One of the boy's Christmas presents was a Handy Manny toolset, Manny is a Handy Man on Playhouse Disney. The boys have started 'fixing' just about everything, mostly fixated on their wheeled toys. And where else do you do repairs....but the coffee table? Luckily the Lion has remained in tact through all of the work sessions and no injuries have ensued. Although, Andrew has tried to tow the Lion with the school bus.

Diaper Man

After bath time Andrew's job is to select a BLUE diaper for the night, which are the tidal wave diapers ready to handle 11 hours worth of juice, water and milk intake from the day. Then in the morning his job is to select a WHITE diaper for daylight activities. Last month he started selecting both diapers at night time. After trying to explain only the BLUE was for night time, I agreed to putting on both diapers, thinking he would not like it. WRONG! Now he wears 2 diapers to sleep at night, which in theory should save time in the morning as I could just rip off the inner diaper and he would be ready to go. Some how it does not work that easy. Then one night, for some reason known only to a Kazak, he chose to put a third diaper on....his head because putting it on top of the other 2 diapers would just be silly. Andrew then demonstrates a new form of aerobics. It's times like like these where I swear he is genetically related to my family.

Ketchup

More proof that Andrew is genetically related to Rob is his love of ketchup. Sure, every kid puts it on tater tots and hot dogs. But how many kids repeatedly ask for Ketchup for their pancakes. It makes me shutter to think about it. The only think more repulsive is eating balls of butter at Perkins. The nice chef provides 1 butter ball to slather on the pancakes, but Andrew just sticks a fork in it and eats it like a popsicle, then asks for 2 more. To keep his cholesterol down, he eats Cheerios every morning.

Magic SchoolBus

Andrew continues his navigation skills en route to Day Care with Mommy each morning as we reach each intersection he gets to chose between the 2 options that will still get us to daycare in a reasonable amount of time. Well, this works just fine for Mommy, but not so for Daddy. One morning when Daddy did drop off Andrew was expecting the same level of participation in getting there, which caused several freak out attacks when Daddy went his own way. The only thing that cured the problem was the magic appearance of a school bus at each turn. The sure fire way to stop most temper tantrums now is to say "Hey, is that a school bus I see?!" Even when we are driving without the kids in the car, we tend to get excited when we see school busses.

Sharing is good.....sometimes

We have been trying to teach Andrew and James good manners, heavens knows we don't have them so they might as well. So we have been trying the Please, Thank you and getting them to share. The sharing is primarily an issue for Andrew who likes to think that all toys and food (except vegetables) are exclusivly his. This was all well and good until one night we had friends over, who we shall refer to as Megan and James. We were all sitting on the sofa and Andrew chose that moment to dig up his nose for some treasures. Unfortunately for all of us, he found a jewel which he held up for all to see. And even more unfortunate for Megan, he chose to attempt to share it with her. What's a little boogie among friends.

Out of Juice

We have learned another way to manipulate our children. Any time there is a toy or TV show we don't care to partake in, we say that it is "Out Of Juice". This first started with the Christmas Swivel Sweeper, which truely was out of juice. It can now be applied to the TV, a horribly annoying car toy or even a tired parent. We hope this lasts long.

More Cheap Entertainment

The Sunday paper is good for more than just the coupons....like hours of 'paper diving' or 'paper wrestling'. did you know that you can make it 'snow' newspaper ?

Art Work

This month brings up a mish mash of artwork. First, James created this little Gingy who looks like he has had way too much egg nog, or a long night under the Mistle Toe.

We are not sure what the heck this cyclops red thing is that James created. Perhaps a loopy Devil? Either way it's going to scare the kids back into church.

This little beauty is entitled "A Hand" by Andrew. I'll be damned if I can find any body part in this piece of art. Perhaps there are other lifeforms in the universe and Andrew is in touch with them. it sure beats his 'Family Picture' where we all looked like balls of yarn. Hmmm, I am starting to see a trend here. Beware of the Yarn People.

January must be Weird Hat Art Month. First Andrew came home with this toker high hat and then the Harry Potter Sorting Hat. We can only hope he is a Griffindor, but something tells me he has Slytherin in him. We can only wonder what Art surprises February holds for us.

Then and Now

People are always saying how much kids change, and they change so fast. These 2 pictures of Andrew were taken 11 months apart, and they look like they were taken a day apart. So much for kids changing so fast.

This month we also got the rare gift of a picture of Andrew from someone who was in the orphanage a month before we got there. He is displaying his red eye brows that come out when he's crying.....so we know he cried for more people than just us in the orphange. Check out those stylish jammies.

And for those readers who don't think James gets his fare share of the blog, here he is doing what he loves best: eating. He believes that the Lunch Hour truly is an hour. His plate appears to be clean because...well it is clean. He can down 5 dollar pancakes, a banana and a half and still have room at lunch for 2 hotdogs. Oh yeah, and throw in 2 snack times for the day as well.....all before having dinner. More proof that he somehow inherited our genes.

December 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:01:00 +0000

This month we scored a ton, well maybe 75 pounds, of hand me down clothes from our friends the Rounds Boys. We piled all of the the clothes on the floor and Andrew and James played all afternoon in their mosh pit of clothes. We came away with quite a few clothes, saving me a trip to the store to find pants to fit Andrew. In this picture James, face down in cotton, is wearing the Christmas sweater from one of the Rounds' early Christmas cards.

The clothes are much appreciated. You can see we were starting to run out of clothes in the right size.....or maybe the Boys just like stylish in their jeans.

James got a really nice new coat, but we had to leave the dog behind.

A day at the Rounds House is always actioned packed. Andrew got to ride a horse, and James got to go dancing with an older lady (not an OLD lady, a lady older than James). And no one went to the Emergency Room so all in all, it was a great day. The boys get tuckered out and crashed when they got home. We all got a good nights rest thanks to Schanna, aka Mrs Rounds.

Bedtime

For the past couple months I have been working with Andrew after bath time to put on his own jammies. One night he decided to put the jammies on backwards. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with it, so off he went to bed with jammies on backwards.

After jammie time, then it's off to read books. We have been spending a lot of time on the ABC book. We seem to spend a lot of time on 'C'....C is for Cake. And then Andrew goes on to tell me who eat cakes.....Tammy, Chip, Mommy, Daddy, Brother, Heather, John, Patrick. Pretty much everyone in Andrew's universe eats cake in Andrew's head.

The Girl Next Door

Andrew has become quite interested in cars, trucks, buses, pretty much anything on the road. Each morning as we leave for daycare, Andrew announces when he sees the neighbors car. But lately he has taken a fascination with Tammy's car. One morning he came in at 4am to ask 'Where Tammy Car?". We think he has a crush on Tammy, who gave him a hat to wear at Halloween. Andrew is always in high fashion, he continues to sport the 2-hat look. Look out Tammy's husband!

Andrew has moved on to selecting Tammy's next car. So far the front runners are BMWs and Range Rovers.

Hoof 'n' Mouth

This month the boys got the first of many daycare illnesses: Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. It sounded a lot worse than it was. They just get grumpy for a couple days and don't eat much for a couple days. Since they are in daycare we needed to get a note from the pediatrician that said they were not contagious. The pediatrician looked at us like we were from Mars because kids in daycare are always infectious with something. So back to daycare they went after an unplanned vacation day. And when Andrew ate 6 meatballs for dinner, we figured he was ok.

Balls, Balls and more Balls

Last year my niece Megan gave us a bag of 100 balls. We had been holding back on breaking them out until we really needed to. One snowy/rainy day was the perfect day. Andrew enjoyed trying to throw the ball, and occasionally it would go forward. James, forever the food hound, tried to eat the balls.

After an hour we tried to round up all 100 balls to stow them back in the bag. Somehow 100 balls came out but 98 went n.

In the video Andrew is trying to throw the balls up to hit the fan, without much luck fortunately

Andrew has been working on his too-fast-for-the-human-eye throwing. You see the wind up then the ball is gone and you see a quick flash of a ball .

Driving

Andrew's Kazakh driving skills are still developing. He was pushing James around, slammed into the doorway, then kept going. More than once he will be pushing James on the car when they leave the room, then seconds later the car returns with no passenger.

Art

Another month, and another batch of artwork. We found a quite disturbing Pirate Andrew paper doll at the bottom of the bag from daycare. We're not sure why it's disturbing, but it's just odd.

And we also had a another barnyard extravaganza. It took me a while to figure out that the red thing was a barn, because the chicken was quite disproportionate, and the monster sheep was downright scary.

Walking

James started walking this month. After months of creeping along the sofa and table, he started taking a couple steps, then walking across the room. I am not sure who was more excited, Mommy and Daddy, or Andrew. One day when the boys were home from daycare, Andrew and I were walking James around the house all day, each of us holding one of his hands. James was also very excited that he was walking, with a grill from side to side. After a long day of walking, James likes to chow down.

One night Rob was walk ing James down the hall to bed, just like he walked Andrew down the hall at the same age.

The other night, just before bedtime they boys were running up and down the hall, expending every last iota of energy. Andrew make sit down the hall just a little quicker than James.

Please Place the Item in the Bag

One Sunday afternoon when Andrew was in a quite energetic mood, off to the foodstore we went. I usually go through the UScan aisle because there are fewer items in hands reach for him. We had a rather large order to scan, and Andrew soon grew antsy. After each item is scanned the computerized female voice announces "Please Place The Item In The Bag". Andrew decided he would practice his new found skill of repeating words. So for the next 100 items he announced "Please Place the Item in the Bag" which comes out sounding like "Peeeeeas Pace Ida Ih Bahhhhg" which grew louder and louder with each item. As any parent will tell you, you kind of tune things like this out. Well, I guess he became quite loud without me noticing because more and more people stopped to see what the problem was. Soon enough we were out of the store and back in the car, where he continued the chant, and I am sure he repeated it in his sleep.

Dipping

Potty training attempts continue. We are still at the 'oops, too late' phase. Andrew will tell us seconds after the event occurs, that he went. But he continues to sit on the potty before bath time, and see just how far he can dip his rear end into the toilet before feeling the ohh-so cold toilet water on his tushy.

In other potty training news, we have braved the grounds of the Toilet Paper roll again. For a year we have been living is no toilet paper on the roll because Andrew sees it as his job to grab it and run, allowing it to unravel. He seems to have gotten over than fascination for now, and I cam glad to have toilet paper back on the roll on the toilet paper dispenser.

This month's Cheap Entertainment

We have returned to Fun With Diaper Genie Rings. Once James came along, our Diaper Genie consumption increased, and so did our inventory of empty refill canisters. We now have enough Diaper Genie rings to build some nice towers. This will keep not only Andrew, but also James busy for hours. And with a nice deodorizing scent. Here is Andrew, with his Stoic Soviet facial expressions next to his creation. It's times like these that I am sure the Orphanage Director is proud.

Here is the oh-so-exciting-only-a-parent-can-watch 3 minute video

Driving Mr Andrew, or Andrew Positioning System (APS)

At the parenting class we took this fall one of the things they suggested to keep the kids entertained in the car was to have them tell you when the stop light turns red or green. This has really turned out to be a lot of fun because Andrew is totally excited about helping and it can turn a cranky child into a focused happy child instantly. And James likes it when Andrew screams GEEEEEEEEEEN MOMMY. Andrew has decided he needs to expand his car responsibilities to directions as well. When we reach an intersection he will point his hand and say "This Way!". It's usually the route we normally travel, but sometimes he vears off course like suggesting random exits off the highway. One day we will go on a driving adventure and follow all of his 'This Way" directions and wee where we end up.

Wii Gonna Be Rich

One morning i was at Wal-Mart doing some Christmas shopping and they announced 'Attention Wal-MArt shoppers, the shipment of Wii's has arrived". I got caught up in the frenzy of racing grandmothers to the pick up counter and bought one before realizing we did not need one. So I figured I would post it on eBay and make a bundle since they are such a hot item. Much to my dismay the supply was now exceeding the demand and I made a whopping $25.

Christmas

Christmas is upon us, and so came our first broken ornament. On a high shelf, not high enough obviously, we had the stocking hung with not much care. Andrew pulled on them, brought down all of the stockings along with this ornament, formerly a kitty cat dressed as Santa. No real cats were harmed in the incident.

Christmas Eve we let Andrew pick out his clothes for the day, and he came up with this Awesome Outfit. Half Hand Me Down, Half Sweat Pants from Kazakhstan. Total Cost: $1. Value When Andrew Starts Dating: Priceless.

Christmas morning we had the traditional French Toast...well, ok it's only been 2 years now. But we do look forward to making the kids sit through breakfast before letting them open gifts.

Here is Andrew from last year. As you can see in a year we have dispensed with the need for bibs most of the time, and moved James up to a booster seat about a year before we moved Andrew out of the high chair.

And for even more excitement, watch the videos. Andrews eats French Toast and pads of butter, and James eats French Toast until the syrup bottle attacks.

Then it was off to open presents. As you might have guessed, James enjoyed the wrapping paper and boxes more than the presents....until a couple days later when he discovered that toys are fun. Andrew continued his tradition of Cleaning Tool Christmas with a Swivel Sweeper this year. In less than 24 hours, he vacuumed enough to have to empty it 3 times.

Andrew's Cleaning Tool from 2006: a Swiffer. He is still as excited to play with it today, although he has passed the Swiffer Torch on to James.

This is Andrew's way of Saying "We'll see you on the other side of December in 2008"

November 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:20:00 +0000

Jammie Time
One night I thought it would be cute to dress the boys in matching pajamas and take a picture. After 20 pictures, this was the best I could do, with James sticking his fingers in his ears and Andrew's head cut off. We bought the smaller version of the Jammie's before we left for Kazakhstan and then we received the bigger set as a shower gift for Andrew. When we were in Kazakhstan Andrew wore the smaller outfit several times, and it's hard to imagine Andrew that small with James bursting out of it at the same age Andrew was when he wore it.

James' First Birthday
James had his first birthday the beginning of the month. We celebrated it Taylor-style by having a play date with ours friends the Rounds and their 3 boys to tire everyone out, then with our 2 neighbors at home. Nothing but the best for James...a store bought Entenmens cake. Actually I had to buy 2, Rob accidentally ate the first one the night before his birthday, after all who would think that an Entenmens cake would be a birthday cake.

James was quite smiley with his cake, unlike Andrew a year earlier who had his serious face on.

Cheap Entertainment
In our on-going theme of Thrifty Parenting we are continuing our quest for cheap entertainment. Any parent will tell you that a cardboard box is more fun than the expensive toy in the box. This month we have moved on to balloons. Not just any balloons, but the ones left over from the blood drive at work. Not only did the boys have fun with them, Uncle Scott also enjoyed slamming them between his hands at Thanksgiving making a VERY loud sound which was greeted with endless giggle.

Since the balloons were filled with helium that caused issues when they floated to the peak of the cathedral ceiling. That problem was remedied by Uncle Scott standing on a kitchen chair and lifting Andrew above his head to snatch the balloon string. Yes, it was unsafe and fun but no one was hurt. Later when the balloons floated up again, Andrew got the chair out climbed up and tried to jump up to reach it, but he was about 7 feet too short. Then we realized a long handled mop worked just fine to reach them. Duh.

When the enjoyment of balloons runs thin, then it's off to the super market. They have race car or fire engine shopping carts, I am not quite sure which it is. At the beginning of the shopping trip the boys are quite content in the cart as seen here, but by the time we reach the canned fruit aisle the mayhem is starting to brew and the brotherly rivalry starts. By the time we hit the frozen food aisle, someone is getting kicked or pushed out of the cart to an audience of fellow shoppers.

When the excitement of free shopping carts peaks, then we head home for the ultimate in cheap entertainment: shadows. Andrew has been entertained by shadows for a couple weeks now. He likes his shadow, mommy's shadow, the shadow of the cow puppet and for the ultimate entertainment: the shadow of a latex balloon which not only is a shape but also takes on the color of the balloon. Unfortunately when the sun sets, the fun goes away. One night we were driving in the car and Andrew was quite upset that he lost his shadow.

Thanksgiving
This year we had Thanksgiving at our house with my brother's family and my Dad and his wife. Small enough to be enjoyable, but large enough to enforce the Kiddie Table for Andrew and James. We had the traditional turkey, stuffing blah blah blah, and we also had this fine centerpiece made from the kids' puppets to represent our favorite meats: Chicken, Pig and Cow (on the side you can't see). I could not find the turkey puppet, and I could not bring myself to adding a horse, regardless of the Kazakh meat preferences.

The day after thanksgiving most people go out shopping, instead we went to our friends the Greening's house for Black Friday Breakfast. It was really just an excuse to get the kids out of the house and burn off energy (read: Trash a house). It was a chilly morning so we had to bundle up the kids. James was so warm and toasty he fell asleep in under a minute, which was a miracle because Andrew, in the muck-a-luck hat, was busy singing Pooh Bear songs while grasping his Pooh Bear Baby Wipe dispenser.

Play Time
For James' birthday the neighbors got him a ride on toy. James sits and Andrew pushes. One day Andrew decided to make a train and push all of the other ride on toys. Jame usually enjoys this until the leisurely ride means a full speed crash into the wall. After a while Andrew grew bored of pushing and decided to cluster all of the toys in the middle of the room, then drive around them and spin out. I think this is a sign he is out growing the ride on toy he got over a year ago.

Young James is starting to walk on his own. One day he was pulling himself up on a walking toy getting ready to walk around, when the Krazy Kazakh came flying in, causing him to re-think his strolling plans.

When the boys finally do settle down, they like to sit at the play table and color. Well, Andrew colors and James eats the non-Toxic markers.

Bath Time
One night we (read: I) thought it would save time to put both of the kids in the tub at once. It was an experience. Between the tub farting ,trying to wash 2 kid's hair, it was an experience. I also don't think James liked it when Andrew tried to wrestle him in the tub. Certain body parts need to be clothed prior to contact sports.

After bath time, it was time for goofy matching pajamas and story time.

This brings me to another new favorite tub past time of Andrew's, one I hope will not continue. Let's call it submarining: He lays back in the tub so his body is just under the surface of the water, then 1 body part in particular 'surfaces' and sprays like a fountain. Of the joys of having little boys.

Bedtime
Andrew's bedtime ritual is getting a bit easier, at least once he gets into the tub. Turning out the light has become a piece of cake. I ask Andrew which of the stuffed animals he wants to help blow out the light and he picks up the animal and pretends to make him blow out the light. One night it was CHICKEN. The Chicken sings the chicken dance, then dances it. He takes it to eat, to sleep and to daycare. After a couple days at Day Care they were happy to see us take it home, only to have it return the next day. His teacher gave it too him, so we don't feel too bad. But usually it is Pooh Bear who blows out the light, and then blows the door closed.

James is a piece of cake at bedtime. We rock him for a couple minutes and he is out. Then it's off to the crib where he flops over and sleeps for 11 hours, 12 if we are lucky. but when he wakes up he goes from pleasant to cranky hungry in about 35 seconds. Unfortunately it takes us more than 35 seconds to get every dressed and ready for breakfast.

Hair Cut

Andrew was in dire need of a hair cut. Here's the after and before (with chocolate birthday cake) pictures.

TV Repairman
A couple of years ago we bought a new TV and there are a couple moving parts on the inside. We had had to replace just about every one. Why call a qualified professional when you can think you can do it yourself. This month was the most difficult one to replace, so we called in a specialist, a guy Rob work's with. Andrew thought he would lend a hand by wielding a screw driver to a piece of electronics that cost more then the present value of his college fund. He still continues to play with the screw drivers, but only to 'fix' his Fischer Price toys. BTW, the TV was fixed for the price of a pizza and Italian Hoagie.

November Artwork
This month's artwork features an abstract depiction of what our family looks like to Andrew. I can only guess that each of the family members is a color and the colored lines in no way are meant to symbolize our actual shape.

The week after Thanksgiving Andrew brought home this brown gem. It's about 2 feet long. When asked what it was first he said "Tehhd" (turd) and then "Cat Pooh". We are not sure what it is supposed to be, perhaps a turkey leg or a tree of some sort.

Get Ready for Christmas with the Taylor Elves.

October 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 00:37:00 +0000

Parenting Classes

This month we started parenting classes. We are learning many things, such as cave-man speak. Apparently I blabber too much to the kids and all of the words confuse them, so now instead of "please take your pajamas off and get dressed so we can go eat breakfst" I say "pajamas.....shirt". It seems to be working, on the kids and Rob. I am looking for the magic one-word phrase that captures the essence of "please put all of your toys away".

Holy Water

The middle of the month we went out to Rob's parents' to get James baptised at his mother's church. At the beginning of the service is the children's sermon and we took both boys up. All of the other kids sat quietly on the floor about 5 feet from the Reverand. Not Andrew; he stood about 6 inches from the Reverand and ate his little baggie of GoldFish for the 5 minutes the sermon lasted. Then towards the end, Andrew lets out the World's longest gold fish fart. Luckily it was not too loud, but I certainly could hear it (and smell it).....and the little girl with her nose to Andrew's butt made note of it for others in case they missed it. Luckily, Jesus is forgiving.

James did very well, although he was fascinated by the Reverand's beard and kept trying to grab for it while he held him at the baptismal font. Andrew on the other hand just wanted to play splashy splashy. After the service we returned to Rob's parents' for a picnic and some Sunday vacuuming.

Chow Time

James is now moving on to self-feeding, otherwise known as face painting with oatmeal. Luckily the nice folks at daycare are also working with him so we have some help. After the parenting class they said we should 'empower' our children; We are letting Andrew pour his own cereal and milk (with a bit of assistance). One day the Cheerios let loose and he exclaimed "MESS!". But he's been doing well, and I have even been giving him the normal ceramic bowl we use, and he has not broken one yet, although he likes to bang the spoon and our table is now Distressed Formica-- the latest style.

Andrew often dawdles at breakfast and I need something to motivate him to finish up and put his bowl in the dishwasher. Andrew is not a normal child. One day I offered him his 1/2 teaspoon of fish oil (omega 3 for big brains) and he came running over to gulp it down. As if that was not weird enough, the next day I lured him with a snack bag of prunes to which he declared "PUUUUUUUNES", gobbled down breakfast and came to retrieve his treat. Luckily this was on a daycare day, as the prunes deliver 4 - 6 hours later.

We have also been letting Andrew retrieve the milk jug from the fridge himself. Oddly he calls it Muck, which is that I called it for quite a long time as a kid. One evening he pulled out the milk jug and it was almost empty. He shook it and then looked at me as if to say 'Can I drink from the jug?". I figured he might as well, since he will be doing it anyway in a couple years. He slowly lifted it to his mouth like it was a cup, but nothing was coming out. So he threw his head back and tried to chug it, resulting in a milk shower. Note to self: Milky clothes can not sit in the laundry basket for a week.

Halloween

Someone gave us these cool glasses at Halloween. Andrew calls them EYEBALLS. He put them on one night and announced to me "I do'ed it". I tried to correct his grammar, but he just looked at me and proudly said "Andrew do'ed it".

The kids dressed up as a Referee (actually he was the neighbor, who ref's on the weekends) and a furry green thing, or a soccer field. I bought a really cool Boo! balloon at Wal-Mart to tie to the stroller, but Andrew chose to liberate it on the 3rd house. So the rest of the night all I heard was "Bye Bye Balloon". James was the lazy man's trick or treater; He sat in the front seat of the stroller all night while I made Andrew climb in and out at every house. Sometimes Andrew was a bit adventurous and would bolt past the front door of a stranger's house; He surprised one guy who was sitting in the family room putting together a computer while his wife tended to the door.

We chose not to partake in the time honored tradition of pumpkin carving. Instead we went with the new-age traditon of slapping stickers on the pumpkin, topped off by hugging the pumpkin. In Kazakhstan if you hug a birch tree they say it gives you energy. i am not sure what hugging a pumpkin offers. Stickers are a lot more forgiving than sharp objects and gooey insides.

Here's Andrew and James as the furry green monster, a year apart.

Winter is upon us and so comes the new batch of embarassing winter clothing. No, he's doing his super-model-distant-look-pose, there was a tractor trailer unloading wood from Home Depot at the end of the street and he froze mid-step while mailing a letter.

Another stellar month of bizarre art work. This month James checks in with his first offering with Sticker Art.

Top 10 Things We Thought We'd Never Say

10. Don't lick the book

9. Please don't step on your brother's face

8. Is that a shoe in the toilet?

7. Don't stick the toothbrush up your nose.

6. Did that smell come from you?

5. Yes, you can sleep with the chicken tonight.

4. Put the broom down.

3. Put the vacum down.

2. How did the oatmeal get on the ceiling?

1. Get your tongue out of your brother's ear, please.

A year has gone by and Andrew sure how grown. Andrew 1 year ago and this year

The many faces of James

September 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:36:00 +0000

Gone To The Beach

This month was the boys' first trip to the beach. Each found different things to interest them. For Andrew, it was chasing birds on the beach, on the street, on the boardwalk, on the driveway...pretty much anywhere a bird can be, and there are lots of places at the shore. He would taunt them with GoldFish, then hide the bag. One day he filled a water bottle with sand (oh my what expensive beach toys we have) and then walked along the beach shaking it out attracting about 40 sea gulls. The Gulls have good memories, because later that night on the boardwalk they pooped on his Ocean City shirt the first time he wore it. Good thing he did not have a funnel cake, or they would have snatched that too.

James chose to spend most of his time on the beach eating sand, attempting to eat broken shells and miscellaneous washed up sea life, and crawling several beach blocks down the wet sand on the beach. Once he made it 2 or 3 blocks, he would just sit and wait to be carried back. This made for quiet a tiring day for the little fella, but he still had enough energy left to hold up the kitchen table at night.

Noxious Fumes

After the beach one morning we went back to the house for lunch: hot dogs and baked beans. After a full plate of beans, Andrew rises from the table, walks around the table and pauses by the window to look out at the bay. Next thing I hear is high pitched chirping that would make make your ears bleed. You got it! My boy set off the carbon monoxide sensor with his hind quarters. I didn't think it could happen, but Andrew is walking proof. It's bark was worse than it's bite, but Bush Baked Beans are off the menu for a while.

Aside from Baked Beans Andrew did find enough to eat. One night we went out and he got Grilled Cheese, which he enjoyed so much he had to eat it double fisted. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, Cheese, and not that orange junk, it was made the way the Good Lord intended Grilled Cheese-- with white American cheese.

The Cow Strikes Back

For the past couple months we have been trying to figure out what makes Andrew's tummy into a (chocolate) milk shake factory. After several controlled experiments, we determined it was milk. He's ok with ice cream, yogurt, cheese and pretty much any dairy product except for normal liquid moo milk. Perhaps Andrew should have thought twice before punching out that stuffed animal cow. I checked with the doctor and she said "oh yes, his bowel flora has been altered". It makes it sound like a bouquet of roses you would send to someone who just had a colonoscopy, but it smells like anything but roses. Hopefully in a couple months he'll be off the Moo Cow Disabled List. James does not care for the 'milk' aroma, so he ends up holding his breath.

Rough & tumble Kazakh

A sleeping Daddy on the beach is no match for an energetic 2-year old Kazakh. Rob had visions of sleeping on the beach on vacation, but those visions quickly disparated in seconds. Andrew and Rob spent quite a while playing "see what happens when you wake up Daddy on the beach".

Andrew tried making some friends on the beach, mostly by casing out the toys of the other kids and pouncing on the toys when they went to the water. Andrew was also making friends.....He walked up to an overly amorous young couple sharing a single towel on the beach (they were 'stacked' on each other) and stared at them until the young woman looked up and said "Hello" after what seemed an eternity. I am sure we have many embarrassing moments ahead of us.

On our pre-kid vacations we would make it to the beach around 10ish, but when you have kids who wake up at 6am, you are on the beach by 8:30......before the lifeguards get there. Andrew spent a while climbing the lifeguard stand. He tried to get all the way to the top, but I pulled him down before he made it that far.

Top 10 Ways Vacation Are Different Now

10. Sleeping in on vacation means 6 o'clock

9. Afternoon naps no longer make you feel guilty

8. Packing the car to the gills and still forgetting things

7. 2 hours of "Greatest Hits Of Bear In The Big Blue House CD"

6. Thankful they are too young to ask "Are we there yet?"

5. Ocean waves are noisy and children without volume dials are the norm

4. Good Excuse to dig in the sand for hours

3. Someone else is more afraid of the sea weed than me

2. Did someone say they wanted ice cream?

1. Watching their amazed faces the first time they see and hear the ocean

One night after getting a couple of tuckered out kids fed, bathed and into bed, Rob went out onto the dock to fish (which Andrew called his Fishy Pole). I think he might have caught one fish during a couple fishing attempts, but at least we did one one really nice sunset to watch. My friend from high school, Cheryl, owns the house and she said there were amazing sunsets, but I didn't realize it would look like this.

Back From The Beach

After a week of vacation, Andrew had a rough time getting back into the swing of things. If you think you ever had a bad hair day, check out this 'doo. And once we got the hair straightened out and Andrew dressed, he proudly came over with his shoes on, which he did all by himself. Do you see something a bit askew?

After a week at the beach it was back to daycare for a couple days. As usual, Mommy was running late and Andrew stood in the garage doorway waiting for me with the "come on!" look. Meanwhile, James was playing "Catch the crawling baby" as I chased him around the kitchen trying to scoop him up.

Chop Chop

The month ended out with James' getting his 'manly' oepration after many rounds with the insurance company. He was a trooper and didn't really mind too much...of course the Motrin might have helped. We hope he likes, it, because there's no give backs with this operation.

Ma Hhhhat

Andrew has developed an odd attachment to Rob's baseball hat. He wears it from sun up to sun down and the ladies at his daycare thought it was attached to his head. They tried to take it away at nap time but he protested so much them let him hug it like a teddy bear. One day I showed up at DayCare to pick up Andrew and he immediately led me the coat room, where his hat was stowed for safety (apparently the daycare ladies pried it from his sleeping hands). He pointed to the hat, then turned around to his friends and gave them a proud look, and they came scurring over. As I reached for the hat they "ohhhhed" and when Andrew snatched it from my hands they went "ahhhhhh". Andrew proceeded to strut around the room while his little buddies followed him like mice followed the Pied Piper. It reminded me of the scene from Sixteen Candle when Farmer Ted herds all of the geeks into the boys bathroom to proudly present Molly Ringwold's undergarments. The next day his daycare friend who was in awe of the hat, proudly presented me with an Ant, to which Andrew graciously ohh'd and ahhh'd.

James And The Temple Of Food

James is quite a hefty youngster, but he often fights his food. We have long since given up on feeding him against his will since he does tip the scales. He seems to miss our feeding fury and now when we load up the spoon he will happily takes several spoons and woofs them down.....then at the 4th or 5th spoon he starting flailing his arms in a chopping motion that goes first up and down, then side ways and dares us to feed his open mouth, giggling the whole time. It's like he has booby trapped his mouth. Then if that's just not challenging enough he will quickly, and I mean quickly shake his head left to right, as if saying no, with an open mouth as we attempt to slip a spoon into the moving target. If you miss, he ends up with peaches from ear to ear and looks like the Joker.

Habby Bih-ay

This month i had a birthday and at teh dinner table mentioned it was Mommy's Birthday to Andrew. He sat there confused for a couple seconds then said "Habby Bih-ay" which is Andrew-speak for Happy Birthday. I am now as old as my mother was then she had me....but she had 4 kids to chase around and I am busy enough with 2.

Father Words Of Wisdom

Every once in a while I will remember some words of wisdom from my Dad. One came screaming back at me this week as I picked up 50 feet of toilet paper: "With kids in the house, always put the toilet paper on the roll so it rolls off the back and not the front". At the time the tidbit went in one adolescent ear and out the other, but now I know why he said it. When a kid slaps the toilet paper roll silly, it rolls off the front faster than if the roll was reversed, creating enormous fun. Most of the toilet paper rolls have been removed, but James entetained himself in the lone bathroomo still with toilet paper in tact.

Where Did Daddy Go?

Every morning when Rob leaves for work Andrew asks "Where did Daddy Go ?". I tell him he went to work and Andrew replies "No, Daddy in car." Then mid-day I'll ask "Where's Daddy?" and Andrew proudly tells me "In his car". So apparently Rob leaves the house every morning before 7am to go sit in his car somewhere all day and then returns home by 5. Won't Andrew be let down when he realizes that he actually goes to a job.

August 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:43:00 +0000

Co-Sleeping

No, not us sleeping with the kids, the kids sleeping in the same bed, um I mean crib. One night after about 30 minutes of listening to giggles and grunting over the baby monitor, which turned into annoyed cries, I decided to check up on the boys, who share a room. Both were crying hysterically. Andrew had climbed INTO the crib and was crying because he could not get out, and James was crying because he wanted Andrew out of his space. We never had any problems with Andrew trying to climb out of the crib last year, but I guess he wanted to play with his brother even during nap time.

This happened once so we thought we were in the clear. Then came nap time one rainy Monday afternoon. I put them in for their nap, put in a load of laundry and heard an inoridinate amount of giggles 5 minutes into nap time. At first I thought I was just listening to Andrew 'read' James a book. Upon inspection, Andrew was wildly jumping up and down in the crib, next to James who was thoroughly entertained. Did you know a crib is also a trampoline? After a while Andrew tuckered out, and it appears he is forcing James to sleep standing up.

I removed Andrew from the crib, placed him back in his own bed, which now sits in the MIDDLE of the room at least 4' from any wall (that's another story). Two minutes later, more giggles. He was back in the crib. After placing him back in his bead again, he was back in the crib in under a minute. After 5 crib break-ins, I got curious. So I closed the door then cracked it a little bit so I could peak in. Andrew watched me cautiously from the comfort of his bed, sauntered over to the door and shut it do I could not see in. I waited a minute, then cracked it open and he immediately slammed it shut, just waiting for me.

Well, if I could not witness then I would get it on film. I set up the camera in the closet on the bottom shelf to get a good angle. Andrew climbed up on some blankets and snatched it, then climbed in the crib. I moved the camera further back on the lower shelf out of reach, he slammed the closet doors, then climbed into the crib. Finally on the 6th attempt I got him on film. Nothing too sophisticated, he just wedged his foot on the crib mattress, and pulled himself over the rail. I knew spending all that time on the Jungle Gym at the park and feeding him all of that fruit and protein would come back to haunt me. Alas, they once again fell asleep together in the crib. And when Andrew is not climbing in the crib, he is underneath the crib kicking the mattress from below, giving James the Magic Fingers treatment.

Are you noticing that the clothes are different in all of these pictures? We can't seem to break Andrew's habit. When I kept going in every minute or 2 to pull Andrew out and strongly advise he not climb into the crib, he got a little testy and emptied several of the drawers. This must be the Kazakh version of 52-pick up, except it was 144-Pick Up.

Finally the time came for us to split up the boys into separate rooms until Andrew agrees with me that crib climbing is a No-No. I think that day will come when the crib leaves the room, and we have 2 beds in the room---- far enough apart so they don't try jumping from 1 bed to another.

Potty Tails

I tried Potty Training with Andrew this month. Let's just say a 25-month Kazakh is not interested. Someone said you can train a child by not putting a diaper on them.....after 10 minutes of chasing a naked toddler and shooing him off the furniture and carpet I gave up on that and moved to real underwear. He did great for the first 2 hours, then 2 cups of juice broke loose. So I gave up until I can find some rubber pants. I also tried putting him on the real potty seat and not the cushioned Winnie The Pooh seat that goes on top of the normal seat. He fought the hard seat, but after a day or 2 he stopped his complaining, and after falling in once, he has learned to concentrate on balance and not whacking the toilet paper dispenser. After 2 weeks we had a delivery, and I am hoping it continues well.

James on the other hand is know as Lightning McPooh. I continued to put him on the potty after lunch each day and seconds after his tushy rests on the padded seat, he is done his business, often to his splash down surprise. Saves on some ookie diapers later in the day. I won't get too excited because Andrew had the same lunch time ritual before we went to day care, then regressed. But for now, I am happy with Lightning.

Shoe Fun

Anyone with kids will tell you that no matter what toy you buy a child, they are more interested in the box/bag. Once they do play with the toy they tire of it easily and play with something not intended as a toy. Case in point, Shoes. Andrew likes to put on my sandals and clomp around the house. His supreme look is my sandals and Rob's baseball hat...worn backwards. For now, James just enjoys taking all of the shoes out of the shoe stand and sitting in them, tossing them, sniffing them and occasionally chewing on them. It keeps him busy for an hour or more, but sometimes a wild shoes just up and bites him in the butt and brings tears to his eyes.

Food Fusion

James is starting to understand what happens to left overs in our house: Food Fusion. It's a ritual that started when I was growing up when my Dad would mix the partial boxes of cereal. Why this occurred we do not know, but it has become ingrained in my behaviour. So the other day James enjoyed a nice dinner of GreenBean-Sweet Potato-Chicken With Stars-Peach-Oatmeal surprise. Oddly, he chowed it down faster than the food individually. Must be Food Synergy.

Pot Heads

On a nice calm morning Andrew likes to get the pot lids out and wake up the world. He bangs them on the tile floor, on the cabinets, on the kitchen table and on the wooden indestructible coffee table. I tried to get him to bang them on the sofa for a nice muffled sound, but he was not having any of that. Now he has progressed from just 2 lids, to 3 lids.... and teaching James the fine art of the shell game for when they take their Brother Rumble Show on the road.

Art?

This month at DayCare was Animal and Emotions month. Andrew brought home quite a few gems and these were the prized ones to make it to the fridge for the month. Duck and Lobster underscore the important role that paper plates play in child crafts. the last one is about Emotions....Happy, Sad and Good Grief Charlie Brown. 'Emotions' would not have made it to the Fridge Hall of Fame, except whenever Andrew would walk by he would proudly announce "Habby!"

Party Time

Since we have lived in out house we have had either a summer or winter party. Each year they grew more and more elaborate culminating in t-shirts, posters and a street blocked by parked cars resulting in the neighbors putting their house on the market the next day....well OK, maybe that was just a coincidence.....but come on, it happened 2 times! Our summer party, Mowgapalooza-- named after our beloved late cat Mowgie, in our pre-child days featured beer pong, coolers of beer and dodgeball. Mowgapalooza went on hiatus in 2006 as we went to Kazakhstan, but it returned in 2007 with a more kid-friendly vibe....there were Swim Diapers for All!

High/Low

Recently one of my child-free friends asked what the Best and Worst part of having kids is.

The Worst was an easy one: Liqui-Pooh. I always knew there would be dirty diapers, but Heavens to Betsy, I never knew there would be an aroma that would linger for hours. And while driving down the road without any kids in the car the aroma would somehow pop back into memory and be just as revolting.

The Best was more difficult because it's not one thing, it's more like witnessing the boys see or do something for the first time and see the light bulb go on over their head. Watching Andrew watch me say a new word and then repeatedly try to form his mouth to repeat it, or the first time Andrew hugged me back when I hugged him for putting his shirt on by himself, or watching them laugh at the right time during My Friends Tigger & Pooh when Tigger makes a rubbery funny face, or the first time I went from being Mama to Mommy. Those are the best things you don't appreciate until it happens to you.

July 2007, the rest of the month

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 17:54:00 +0000

James had a major milestone...his first potty delivery. After a couple days of giving him a fresh diaper after lunch, only to have him deliver between the changing table and the crib, I decided to put him on the potty after lunch. Success on the 2nd day. He was taken back a bit with the first splash down, but subsequent deliveries were met with giggles and looks of surprise....or maybe he had just never been cheered on to do his business.

Top 10 things I Now Find In My Vacuum

10. Kitty Hair

9. Kitty Litter

8. Gold Fish

7. Cheerios or Rice Chex

6. Bits of partially chewed paper

5. Cat food a child has relocated from the food bowl

4. Spent Pasta

3. Shredded napkin

2. Dirt/Mulch

1. More Gold Fish

Sibling Rivalry ?

I never realized just how fast kid's fingernails grow. After getting clawed at one afternoon I decided it was time to clip James' nails. After a couple finger nails Andrew came running over and wanted his done, or so I thought. Successfully fending off Andrew until all 10 of James' were done, I started clipping Andrew's. He freaked out by nail #3. Turns out he didn't really want his finger nails clipped, he was just trying to save James from the Evil Nail Clippers, which for the record have never drawn blood.

Andrew like me, is not a happy camper when he wakes up from a nap, or in the morning. James on the other hand is quite happy to arise any time. One afternoon Andrew was wailing for 30 minutes after he got our of his bed by himself after nap,time, while James was happy to just spend the time crawling up and down the hallway waiting for the screaming to cease. I hope that Andrew soon learns to stay in bed to sleep off the grumpiness. This was also the day that 30 minutes into nap time, which was filled with cries, I went in to check on them and found Andrew had climbed INTO the crib with James. Andrew was crying because he didn't know how to get out, and James was crying because he wanted his space back.

Top Ten Things I Thought I Would Never Say

10. Put that down, You'll put your eye out (Rob actually said that in reference to a belt)

9. Don't Step on your brother

8. What just went up your nose? (Answer: goldfish)

7. What just went up your brother's nose?

6. Let's watch another episode of My Friends Tigger & Pooh

5. Have a cookie, and stop eating grapes (if you know what happens when grapes get processed, you'd understand)

4. Just how much Beefaroni did you eat to produce THAT ?

3. For the 10th time today, get your hands out of there!

2. How did you get your arm stuck in the toilet?

1. What went into the toilet to make you put your arm that far down the hole?

Andrew has discovered stuffed animals, after almost a year of being home. When we first got home we had a pile that people had either given us, or ones from when we were kids. He looked at the stuffed animals, and then us and could not figure out why we kept pushing them on him. One day he picked up a soft blue elephant and proclaimed he shall be named Bubbles. When I told him it was an 'elephant' he again looked at me like I was crazy because the word 'elephant' must surely be a made-up word. After our trip to Disney world, he finally figured out the stuffed animals. Now he sleeps with a good portion of the Hundred Acres Woods: Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Roo. Lately Andrew has discovered the Cow that moos when you either shake him, or turn him upside down. It looks like he is punching him out here.

Chow Time has never been a pretty picture. Here is Andrew a year ago after a major smorgasbord meal when he started feeding himself, and then now after spaghetti and chocolate ice cream. Not much improvement.

James is not that much better with eating, although we are still feeding him. This night he had a particularly difficult time with the cereal head wound and apple sauce (the shiny stuff on his face).
The Many Faces Of Andrew

Citizen Kane Andrew

June/July 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 14:01:00 +0000

Go Fly A Kite
It's been a busy couple of months so I never got around to a June post, so this one will be chock full of pictures. A couple weeks ago there was a slight breeze so I decided to get out the Mr. Potato Head kite and try to launch it. Unfortunately our backyard is in a dip, so although it might be windy at the neighbors, it is not so in our yard. But Andrew did spend the better part of an evening running up and down the yard trying to get the kite to fly, after he got jealous when mommy tried. Alas there was to be no kite flight, but it did ensure a tired little boy who just about fell asleep in the tub and then slept through the night.

The seasons changed from Spring To Summer, so it was time for Andrew's Quarterly Haircut. He does not like having his haircut, so we try not to torture him too often. Here's the before and after pictures. In the After picture, you'll notice one of Andrew's favorite toys outside the glass door: his Water Table. You may see a wheel barrow, but Mommy sees money savings as we did not need to spend $60 on a cool water table from Toys R Us when a rain storm, a wheel barrow, some rocks and some old Tupperware will suffice.

The end of June we went to visit Rob's parents and Andrew discovered yet another cool toy:a sawed off broom. We offered him a ball to play with outside, but all he wanted to do was sweep. Unfortunately he chooses to sweep the mulch into the grass, but we are working on that life skill. I tried countless times to take away the broom but he was not giving it up. You can tell by his face that he means business. Don't try to separate a Kazakh from his broom.

Here's a family portrait of the men of the family. Oddly, Andrew was the only one looking at the camera. And he does have the coolest shoes of the bunch.

Once we arrived back from the family visit, my niece and I jetted off to Guatemala to pick up Little Brother James. It was a hellacious week, but once we were home a week or 2 he settled down and the scream-until-you-lose-your-voice bouts were not as common. Andrew shared his assortment of toys with James, with the singing bus being his favorite. Cousin Megan knows how to pick the winning toys.

Here's a picture of James arriving in Newark, and one of Andrew arriving a year and a week earlier.

Andrew had his second birthday in July. Soon after his arrival in America last year was his first birthday so he did not really catch on. Well, this year was not much better. Note the "Mommy will hold my breath until you stop screaming" face.His birthday is July 4Th, so we took the cake to a BBQ with us. I guess he is not really understanding the whole American Birthday Experience because he was screaming, while the other kids were eyeing up the cake.

If a birthday cake was not enough to celebrate, we were off to Lowe's later in the week. They have a really neat race car cart that both kids liked, although you would never know if by their "German-Mommy" faces here. We did spent about 30 minutes in the Home Organization aisle to develop their acquired love of organization that I am trying to infuse into them. If you spot a Kiddie Label Maker, let me know.

Aside from going to home improvement stores, they do play pretty well together. Here's what looks like a quiet moment, but Andrew was actually 'reading' a book by joyfully singing/screaming at the top of his lungs in some text which must be alien, and James was playing with the Winnie The Pooh telephone at full volume.

Andrew often gets confused as to what is a baby and what is a kitty cat. He likes to pat James on the head, but he has yet to feed him a liver flavored kitty treat.

Bounty Frequent Fl yer

I have come to realize that a large portion of my grocery store budget will be spent on paper products. I never envisioned going through a roll of paper towels every 2 - 3 days, and a 400-pack of table napkins once a week. Growing up we always had the crappy store brand napkins, not quite with chunks of wood, but they were good for exfoliating your face after meal time. As my brother and sisters moved out of the house and I was the only one left my mother switched to the primo napkins: Vanity Faire. We could use them for meal time, but for heaven's sake, not to do something like blow your nose. As I moved out of the house I continued the Vanity-Faire-no-Nose-Blowing tradition and enjoyed it for over 15 years. Then kids came along. I could either continue the Vanity Faire napkin habit, or save for college. So my kids will experience the face exfoliating napkins for many years to come. If you encounter a Frequent Flyer Program for paper products, do let me know.

To start off the day Andrew likes to do a little vacuuming, then begs for juice, then smiles. All before 7am.

Things I have learned about having 2 kids

1. The dishwasher gets run each day.

2. The washing machine get used at least once a day, and sometimes up to 7 or 8 times a day.

3. Paper products are like oxygen to children.

4. Sending the kids outside to play keeps the inside clean.

5. Juice = Sticky Floors = Daily mopping

6. Barfing is contagious.

7. Whatever yogurt 1 child has, the other one wants.

8. The older one will call the younger one "Baby", so don't bother naming the younger one.

9. Running errands now takes 2x the time.

10. Two kids are a lot more fun than 1.

Sometimes James dozes off towards the end of a meal. But as soon as we pick him up and try to put him into bed, he is instantly energized. Damn those energy sources found in Fruits & Vegetables!

When we first got home last year one of our friends got us this ride-on toy. It look Andrew a while to get the hang of it, and now he cruises around on it at lighting speed (also known as rounds-speed for our friend who got us the car). Even after a year, he has the same pose, but now he drives around carrying a frog bucket of markers on his arm.
Soon after James arrived home, we figured we needed to get him one of those toys that he sits in and plays with lots of toys. This became even more apparent as we tried to get him to crawl more to work off several of the chins and pudge he had developed in his leisurely lifestyle of Guatemala (sleep, eat, be held, repeat each hour). Well, he certainly did learn to crawl/slither well; in one weekend he slithered across the floor on 2 different occasions to break both the cat food and cat water bowls (now replaced with plastic ones), all while we had a grease fire on the outdoor grill (fire extinguishers are handy). So the next day I went out and bought this exersaucer. I never would have thought it would have over 50 screws, over 60 parts and require 9 AAA batteries. Three hours later the grand daddy of exersaucer's was complete. It keeps all 4 of us entertained, and Andrew out of the cat's hair. But both James and Andrew enjoy it, and it keep the cats safe. After a long day of playing, he is exhausted.

With the Exersaucer comes music, and with music comes Andrew's traditional Kazakh dance, which oddly enough looks like a 1980's Mosh Pit dance. He leaps up and down, spins around in mid air, body slams the floor, surfs the coffee table and screams incoherently. Further proof that the Kazakh Man has the same dance ability as the White Man. Hopefully James will have a bit more rhythm.

Andrew is practicing for super-model career.

Bath time has been an adventure with Andrew lately. Whenever I say "OK, time to brush teeth", he will roll over onto his stomach, stick his rear end in the air and point and announce BUTT! This has been happening for over a month now, so he is certainly confused. I have also been trying to teach him how to rinse the toothpaste from your mouth and spit after brushing. This is met only by giggles and repeated requests for "Mommy Do".

Andrew's morning ritual is now to wake up us, after James awakens him. He comes running into our bedroom around 6:15 and announces BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, the wants us to start an episode of Tigger & Pooh on Tivo so he can watch that as he feeds Tigger (our cat) and Fluffernutter kitty treats. It's a win-win situation for Andrew and the cats. We plan to get room-darkening shades for the boys' room to curb this early morning arousal.

After a long day of playing, Andrew heads up the stairs with a loaded diaper. After a really long day, the diaper is sagging so much, he is sporting the 'plumber' look. Thankfully I did not capture that on film.

May 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:23:00 +0000

One Year Ago We arrived In Kazakhstan

How else would we commemorate our 1-year anniversary of landing in Kazakhstan? We went to Disney World! Andrew did not seem to mind the crowds, neither would I if I got pushed around in a stroller, napped throughout the day in my stroller waking only for parades or the occassional duck, to be carried to a ride, or fed ice cream.

The first day we were there Andrew made the most of his Disney Experience,playing with the pen and paper in the hotel room within the first 30 seconds, then spending an hour pushing the stroller around a back corner of MGM studios. We had several Disney workers come up to us and make 'witty' remarks. Thanks, we know we spent a lot of money to have him push the stroller around, and your Magical Reminder of that was oh so appreciated. But where else can you do it in front of a huge picture of a Couple Of Purple Otters and a giant Bear ? Money well spent, and I am sure the orphanage director had just this activity in mind when she entrusted us with little Andrew a year earlier.

We were there for a week and it was a lot of fun watching Andrew react to everything. He had a bit of a hard time trying to make sense of the giant ducks, cats, bears and mice who roam the restaurants. But he did not freak out screaming once. One morning we went to a breakfast with Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eyeore. They slowly make their way around the restaurant so everyone gets a chance to take photos(got lots) and get autographs (thank goodness we did not do that). We got a chance to see everyone except Pooh. We tried to string out breakfast as long as we could waiting for Pooh to 'return from the honey pot' then make his way to our table, but there's only so much food you can feed a kid without concern of a later explosion. After a full breakfast, then 2 bowls of whip cream, yes I said bowls of whip cream, we left satisfied with our photos of Tigger, Eyeore and Piglet, who Andrew was quite confused by. I guess a 5 foot Pink Pig is a bit odd even in his world.

Highlights from Our Trip

10. Andrew strongly dislikes busses.

9. Andrew strongly likes farting in the pool.

8. Ice Cream is dairy, and therefore is allowed 3-5 times a day

7. It's A Small World is enjoyable when you go with a child

6. Ice Cream 3 times a day makes many farts..see #9

5. Vanilla Ice Cream does not stain as much as Chocolate

4. Fireworks are loud and make children smile, clap and cry simutaneously.

3. Ice Cream on a stick in 90 degree heat melts faster than can be consumed.

2. Pirate Of The Carribean has the most entertaining waiting line for a child.

1. Pooh, not "Winnie The", does not taste good.

As much as Andrew enjoyed the rides, he really liked the little playgrounds they have all over Epcot and the Pooh Playground in the Magic Kingdom. One night the park stayed open until 2am (we made it to 11pm) and Andrew spent about an hour on the Pooh Tree trunk slide under the lights as we rested our feet. But the 'tongue' slide was his favorite....it's really a leaf in teh Honey i Shrunk The Kids Playground. His word of the week was "Dyed" which is Andrew-speak for "Slide". Unfortunately, now whenever I drive by a public playground or we walk by a residential backyard he thinks those slides are for him.

Pooping with Celebrities

One night we walk into in the Noodle Station in the Magic Kingdom to get dinner and they had one section roped off with bunches of cameras and a couple security people. Andrew was fast asleep in his stroller so we ordered and ate dinner while he slept. Over the course of dinner Rob said it was John Travolta doing an interview, so of course I wanted to get a picture, but was shut down. Andrew shared my excitement over the celebrity citing and pooped himself to such an extent that we purchased new clothes for him in the park that night. Later that week we went to Downtown Disney, got this photo with Potatoe, and hoped the celebrity citing would not cause the same output.

It was a tiring week for everyone, but it was a lot of fun. Even Daddy enjoyed it.

A couple weeks after we got home from DisneyWorld we heard from our adoption agency that Andrew's little brother made it through the last major paperwork phase. I will be in Guatemala for about a week and we will return home early July. Adoption was official May 23rd, so we can post a picture.

April 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:21:00 +0000

Bubble Night

We had a few warm days so far this spring and got a chance to try out the new bubble machine. Just as the box states, it create "Thousands of bubbbles in minutes". We were truly amazed at the shear number of bubbles. Andrew on the other hand was more interested in the source of the bubbles, which led to carrying and bubble machine around and pouring all of the bubble juice out, gooping up the machine and breaking it. While we were in Target we saw a gallon bottle of bubble juice and thought to ourselves, "A gallon! Why that would last a lifetime!". Not so with the battery powered bubble machine, it could burn through a gallon in an hour or less. I see much bubble juice in our future.

On Bubble Night Andrew was also 'accessorizing' with the handle of the bubble Machine that he ripped off the machine. I guess he was so proud of his actions that he had to toast to the occassion. This pictures reminds me of what a 1 1/2 year old would look like at a frat party with sippy cups of milk.

Here he is with his collection of empty bubble bottles, which we went through in 2 short evenings. I also forked over my old cell phone for him to play with after I switched plans and got a new cell phone. When I first gave him the phone there was still juice left in the battery and he not only turned it on, but also turned on the speaker phone and hit some series of buttons and the phone starting talking to him. This freaked him out a little bit. When I get the final phone bill I'll see how freaked out I am.

This month's SINK or FLOAT experiments

ToothBrush- Float

Comb- Float

Toe Nail Clippers- Sink

Super Ball- Sink...Float....Sink....Float

Entire Roll of Toilet Paper- Sink

New Diaper- Sink.....slowly

Kitty Friends

Tigger is still trying his best to make friends with Andrew. Although some days Tigger is more interested in a cat nap while Andrew is interested in a wrestling match. More than once Andrew has pinned Tigger, but the cat always prevails when he lets out a growwwwwlhissssss and Andrew quickly backs off. The other cat, Fluffernutter, is slowly making friends with Andrew. Each morning she times her ascent up the stairs at the same time Andrew is doing his descent. Then she flies by like a lightning bolt and brushes against him , leaving her scent on him to ensure Tigger knows who is boss. We still occassionally catch Fluffer in Andrew's room at night checking up on him.

Sleepy Time

At the end of a long night, Andrew is crashed. His jammies are getting a bit small, but it's the end of winter and we didn't want to buy another pair of winter jammies. I call this his Slim Good Body outfit....as if anyone is old enough to remember that show. I think he might have been on Captain Kangaroo. I'm glad we spent all that money on cute blankets for hin.....which he discards 5 minutes after tuck him in. And No that is not a big hole in the crotch....I think it's Jupiter....or maybe Uranus (shut up, I know you were thinking it).

Favorite Movie

We just installed 6 ceiling speakers in an effort to clear the family room of unnecessary furniture, including speakers, wchi are pesky things that get in the way of playing cars. Whenever we put in a movie that has THX sound, it cycles through all of the speakers. Andrew is usually lounging on the sofa in the 'optimal listening zone' and gets the full affect. We watched CARS which had lots of vrooooming sounds affects that he liked. His favorite part of any movie: the THX intro. i see a visit to see Monster Trucks in out family outing future.

Shower Time Activities

Shower/Bath time is everyone's favorite time of night. Andrew likes to splash, and it means we are closer to going to sleep after a long day. The routine is after bath time, I turn on the shower to wash the bubbles out of the tub, and off of Andrew. Andrew likes to stand in the water stream and get pelted in the face with water. Unfortunately the sound of running water 'motivates' him shall we say. Another reason why the shower frequently gets sprayed down with bleach cleaner several times a week. Can you guess what he is doing in this picture?

Swim Lessons

For a kid that loves the tub, I was certain he would take to the water like a fish. So I couldn't wait to sign him up. The big day came inthe middle of March for his first swim lessons...in with the 6 month olds. I was certain he would breeze through the class and they'd let us move up to the next class. WRONG! We got to the pool and we was itching to get in, couldn't stand to wait the 10 minutes for the previous class to end. I carried him in the water, and once his waist was under water he started screaming, and did not stop for 30 minutes when class was over. There I was, with 21-month old Andrew, covered in boogers from crying and the rest of the class was all kids younger than him, happy as a clam to be in the pool. The other parents, and teacher, were looking at me like I was torturing him. The 2nd week of lessons was not much better; He did stop crying for about 30 seconds when a slender girl in a black bathing suit walked by,then it was back to screaming. I think we are destined to be in the Wet Heads class for quite some time.

Rob saw this picture and said, "Hey that looks like Einstein!". i thought he as giving Andrew a bit too much credit for his ability to grasp simpel concepts like 'More?" and "Do you have to pooh pooh?". Granted he has the tongue, and the eye brows, but his hair is a bit more tame. Not to mention that Andrew is Naked. You be the judge.

My Dad and Liz came to visit and brought Andrew this pre-Easter construction vehicle. We are not quite sure what it is; it's not a front end loader, it's not a bull dozer, it's more like a super powerful snow plow. Either way, Rob was excited about the toy, and Andrew about the box. Later Andrew decided if the new vehicle could fly (it can, but only for short distance....until a wall is encountered) and then enjoyed the toy more than the box.

Liz also got a good picture of Andrew, on yet another bad hair day....and thsi is even before nap-time bed head.

Then we went to the park and Andrew raised all of our blood pressures as he walked the gang plank to the slide, and teetered at the the top as we all shouted "Sit down!". He obviously heard us because he started to walk down the slide, followed by a quick transition to sitting (some would call it falling) The first couple trips down the slide he was a bit frightened with the whole gravity thing, but by the end of the outing he was enjoying it.

March 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:39:00 +0000

Daylight Savings Time

Andrew has been doing his best to support the new DayLight Savings Time schedule that will be implemented in America in 2007. He has assisted President Bush's Energy Act of 2005 by waking up 1 to 2 hours earlier....unfortunately Mommy and Daddy are inclined to sleep past 4:30am. By the time we get ready to leave in the morning he is tired and ready for a nap, but no dice, we are rolling out the door by 7am. We tried keeping him up later, which only resulted in a cranky baby at both bath time and breakfast time. Then we tried running him around the house after dinner to tucker him out, and even tried this wrestling move, but still no luck-- he wakes before the birds. The good news is, he naps like a champ at daycare!

Career Training

Andrew has taken it upon himself to deem all play phones unworthy of his entertainment dollars. Instead he prefers Daddy's desk phone....which you can see is no longer on Daddy's desk. After picking up and not-so-gently slamming the phone down several dozen times Andrew will pick up the phone and attempt to take notes with a pen and notepad. In case you are wondering about his 'desk', you are correct-- we spared no expense. That is the empty trashcan box he is sitting on, the same box he has been playing with for over 6 months. If you zoom into the picture, you will see a little scar at the end of his left eye-brow....the result of his run in with a foreign chair and first ER visit.

When Andrew feels like getting out for a walk, he grabs Mommy's sneakers. Unfortunately he has picked up on Mommy and Daddy's inability to tell left from right. But that does not stop him from stomping around the house with a goofy proud grin on his face. And how else would you finish off a day of playing with Mommy's sneakers--- wash them in the toilet of course. It took quite an effort to fit the sneaker in the toilet bowl through his kid-size potty seat, but I was able to rescue the sneaker before it was fully immersed.

AquaScreamFest 2007

You know how when you were a kid your mom always said to talk quietly while you are in the pool because voices travel across water. And you also know the echoing affect when you yell in a gymnasium? Well, if you put them together you get Andrew's first attempt at Swim Lessons. There were about 6 other kids there from about 6 onths to 2 years old. All were happy campers in the water blowing bubbles and giggling contently. Then there was my child, who was screaming as if toe nails were being slowly extracted from all extremities. At first I thought the water was just a bit cold, but after 35 minutes of all out screaming the group lessons were over and the screaming continued until we were safely dressed in dry clothes and in the car en route home. I can only hope it gets better over the next month. If not, we'll be setting up the little inflatable pool in the basement and taking him for dips in there.

Little Brother

Last summer while we were in Kazakhstan we decided Andrew would one day need a little brother. So last July, after being home for a couple weeks we started the process for a little brother from Guatemala, a bit sooner than expected but due to some changes in the process of adoptions from that country we thought it was better to get things moving. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation, or the elation of getting over jet lag, but we are happy to report that Andrew's little brother was born November 2006. This month we visited him for about a week and hope to return to Guatemala at the end of the summer to bring him home, about a year after starting the process.

The Guatemala process is much different than Kazakhstan, except that both take about a year. First, you get matched with a child, then wait many moons for the paperwork to go through, which is the opposite of Kazakhstan. Second, you stay in an uber nice hotel with a pool which overlooks a volcano; I never could find a clear day to get a good shot of the volcano, which I am told is 'kinda dormant'.

And most importantly, the comforts of Western Civilization are never far from a call to the concierge desk-- i must say that Dominoe's pizza tastes better in Guatemala than America. Towards the end of my stay some of the other families and I got the munchies and ordered pizza ---- about $15 for 2 large pizzas and some soda.

Donde Esta los fotos?

Where are the pictures of Junior #2 you ask? Sorry, we wont be posting any pictures until he's legally our son....no need to jinx anything jeopardize the adoption. So you will have to use your imagination.

February 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:00:00 +0000

Cat Napping
We moved Andrew to a little bed last month. It's winter time, and it gets chilly at night. So one night he thought we'd put Tigger at the foot of Andrew's bed. Andrew was exhausted and so much wanted to play with kitty, but instead they decided to have a stare down. Andrew ultimately won when he quickly shuffled his feet and inadvertantly launched kitty: like Daddy like Son. I am sure Tigger will get cold at night again, forgive Andrew and sleep on his feet again once Andrew is good and deep in a winter slumber. Until then, Andrew has the Blue Elephant to keep him company.

Super Bowl
Andrew saw his first Super Bowl, well he watched the people at the party more than the game. He 'assisted' the people playing Foosball by always keeping at least 5 balls on the table-- not everyone shares our excitement that he knows how to put a foosball in the foos hole to put a ball in action. He spent the majority of the party, with friends and neighbors, running around the house. When it came time for feeding he plopped down at the table and had some new foods. Our neighbor showed him a 'cool' new game to do with his sippy cup, wing it across the table and giggle. Yes, we all thought this was fun and great entertainment.....but then the habit continued for a couple weeks. Did you know that upon impact a sippy cup often loosens its lid and magically transforms from a SIPPY cup to a LEAKY cup? To honor our neighbor and reward him for showing Andrew this 'cool' new trick, we have named the bus driver of one of Andrew's favorite toys after the neighbor. Here is Chip the bus driver, along with wife/passenger Tammy (who was not a proponent of the new 'cup tossing trick').

First American Emergency Room Visit

This month we found out just how much energy little boys have....and how fast they can run around a corner, take air and hit a dining room chair. How fast is it? About 3 hours in the Emergency Room and about 10 stiches worth. Andrew cried a little bit when it happened, but we were visiting an experienced house of 3 boys, and the consensus of 3 of the 4 parents concluded it was best to slap some antiboitic cream and a Band-Aid on it and he was fine for more play and dinner. Then after dinner and some running around he started leaking so off we went to the ER, right around his bedtime. Rob was the wise 1 of 4 parents who thought an ER visit was initally warranted. What followed was 2 hours of screaming, broken up by an hour of playing with the phones in the Emergency Room waiting room. I was glad to have an hour of 'Ha-bow...Bah Bah' repeated several hundred if not thousands of times instead of crying. After my ears were ringing from the screams I mosied over to the reception desk to see if we should come back tomorrow to get him sewn up (passive aggressive threat), given the number of snow boarder accidents that were rolling in to the ER on a Saturday of a holiday weekend known for ski trips. The nice lady said we'd be going back "any minute". I knew she hadn't a clue when we'd go back, so Andrew and I parked our screaming butts in the the chairs next to the in-take desk, away from the main waiting area so we would not annoy any one....except the intake lady. (Daddy's note: this was Daddy's idea... ) Within 10 or 15 minutes we were called back and the nice lady doctors and nurses sewed him up nicely....all tothe relaxing sounds of "Screaming Baby". I will save you from gorey pictures of boo-boo, and show him in action on the phone. Now we need to come up with a much cooler story for the history of the left eyebrow scar instead of "I ran into a chair". Feel free to leave a comment with your story suggestion. DEWD YOU CRUSH BEER CANS ON YOUR EYEBROWS!!! WHOA!!!!

What Number comes after #2?
We have been experimenting with some more discipline techniques. The latest in our parenting attempts is counting to 3. After Andrew's bath we turn on the shower to hose him and the tub down (with warm water of course), then turn off the water and wait for him to mosey down to the end of the tub where we can wrap him in a towel to dry him off. Sometimes he gets so into playing in the 'rain', that when the rain stops he keeps on playing. So now we say "Ooooooone, Twoooooooo" and he usually heads to our end of the tub and starts screaming because he does not want to get to "Three!". On occassion, when he is standing on a kitchen chair at the dinner table and we give him a "Ooooone" he'll immediately plop down in the seat and resume his munching. Rob still needs to work on his 'threatening counting' delivery-- he tends to say "onetwothree" quickly without striking any fear, totally undoing my training.

Top 5 Toys Of The Month
5. Mommy's Shoes (he fetches and puts away...Good Boy)
4. Pad of paper and pen (with lid sealed on for safety)
3. 2 inch string
2. Stray dust speck caught in a sunbeam
1. 4 oz container of cottage cheese (ok, this was an accident)

ManMade Fountain
Sometimes I am surprised by the things little boys do, well maybe not surprised, just caught off-guard. The other night as bathtime was finishing up and the shower was on, Andrew got 'inspired' by the sprinkling water of the shower head, and decided to make his own 'fountain' in the shower. But not just any fountain, he chose to rotate in a circle and hose down everything in sight. Let's just say I was caught like a deer in the headlights at what was going on, and after Andrew went to bed, both the tub and I got a thorough cleaning and disinfecting. Sure you laugh now, but it probably happened to you. I should have learned by now, that he uses his God Given weapon for target practice after the 'lean back on the potty seat and shoot a stream through the door jamb' incident a few months ago. We can forego a photo of him in action, but here he is with his proud face afterwards. Some please tell me this is just a phase he is going through, and not foreshadowing of future skills.

January 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 01:54:00 +0000

Swinging Into The New Year

The next town over has a really nice park and this cool swing. We think it's a swing for handicapped kids, but it also works well for Andrew who is almost outgrowing the baby swing and is no where near co-ordinated enough to stayed seated in a normal swing. You just latch him in and give him a couple good pushes and he's off and flying. Although he did get a little spooked when he was swinging so high that he starteed to lift his little rear end out of the seat. But with the padded pants and padded jacked on, he was safe. We finished out the day at the park by a walk through the woods. There is a nice path, but paths are not meant for the Kazak Man, we had to go off-roading through the woods and stomp through the leaves and find every mud bog there was. This was fine until he got tired halfway into the trek and wanted to ride on my shoulders all the way back to the car....leaving muddy shoe prints all over the front of me.

More ArtWork

Andrew brought home this little gem during 'Transportation Month' at DayCare. It appears as though the one plane is flying through some sort of bizzarre snow squall/tornado/cloud, and the other plane is either about to enter the foul weather, or it lost altitude and dropped from the sky. Either way, I don't want to be in either plane. This one did not get much 'refrigerator' time. Hopefully next month's artwork will bring as many confused looks.

After a nice big breakfast of oatmeal and vitmains, and some Organic dried fruit things, Andrew likes to catch up with the world by reading the Merchandiser newspaper from Berks county. He is now ready to start his shopping for cow tongue and pig stomach, and knows where the week's bingo games will be held. It takes him a good 5 minutes to tear apart the newpaper and distribute it all across the kitchen floor. If we don't pick it up quick enough, the cats get confused and think they have an enormous litter box courtesy of Andrew. Hmmmm, who has trained who?

Compu-Toddler

If we leave the door to the computer room open he'll sneak in and hop up in an empty chair. This time Daddy was the victim. One day I left my computer unlocked and when I returned he had hit some weird keystroke sequence and my mouse would wander aimlessly with the occassional display of a funky round icon with an eyebrow, and he disabled all the tool bars and icons in Internet Explorer. Do you have any idea just how powerless you are without a mouse, toolbars or icons? You might was well just change the Windows language to Russian. If you look closely at the 'artwork' on the wall, you will understand why Andrew has night terrors on occassion.

First America Wedding

The end of the month my nephew got married, and it was Andrew's first wedding experience. Unfortunately there was no Polka or Chicken Dance so he did not get to partake in the total America Wedding Experience, but he did just fine with Cel-e-brate Good Times. This was also the first time he stayed at a hotel....in America. He made quick work of the hotel ammenities and with 35 seconds of being in the hotel room had grabbed the pen and notepad. I was a bit nervous about the pen since I had not packed my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for a weekend get-a-way in Delaware. The room was pretty kid safe, so I let him wander aimlessly and not one drop of pen hit the wall all weekend, unlike the crayon incident at home.

At the church he was quite entertained for the first half hour that we sat in the pews waiting for the wedding to start. He was entertained by the assorted family members that sat down and talked while the pre-wedding music played. He was even so comfortable around the newfound extended family that he let some sacreligous farts loose, giving new meaning to the word pew in reference to a church. I am now immune to the aromas from the netherworld, but Cousin Patti was sure he had delivered a load to be remembered. One quick look down the back alley revealed nothing, so we stayed and chatted until the bride walked down the aisle. At that point he decided to share with the other wedding well wishers that he knew how to use his 'outside voice' in a small church at inappropriate times. Needless to say, we did not make it past "Dearly Beloved we are gathered here today....". We spent the majority of my nephew's nuptuals in the lobby watching through the glass wall. In good family form, the wedding lasted 10 - 15 minutes.

The new tradition these days (how old do I sound?) is not to throw rice, or to even release ballons, but to give all of the family and friends little bottles of bubbles to blow at the bride and groom as they exit the church. So we all gathered outside, lining the sidewalk in chilly weather, ready to blow, and we ended up on the down wind side, a good thing given his fart-tacular display inside. Just as the bride and groom were about to come outside a hush came over the crowd and I hear my Aunt say with a smile "Oh if Grandmom Novak would see those bare legs". Apparently Andrew's pants had inched up as he fidgeted in his stroller. So it's not only Kazak woman that think all children's skin surfaces should be covered! Andrew was quickly distracted as hundreds of bubbles blew his way and I pulled his pant legs down. His wedding dinner was everyone's dream: Chicken Fingers and Fries. I'm surprised he had much room for that after cleaning out the Appetizer Table of all of the strawberries. He still wanted more berries so I had to resort to chopping up small cherry tomoatoes so they looked like strawberries. The texture slowed him down a bit but he woofed them down, and then the table had to divert his attention by blowing bubbles.

After the wedding I stayed up too late talking to family in our room, and 'tried' to sleep-in the next morning. Andrew on the other hand, had gone to sleep 6 hours before me and saw no need to sleep past 7am. Luckily he found a 2 inch piece of string in the crib which kept him entertained for about 30 minutes. After that excitement wrapped up I tried offering him a stacking cup to amuse himself, but he was having none of that, he wanted to get moving. Unfortunately I needed to get a shower and he was too energetic to be contained in a crib so I did what any other creative mother would do: I scoured the hotel room and found the ideal object to safely keep a child entertained for the length of a shower: a box of tissues and a roll of toilet paper. Not only was he enterained, but he is now trained to 'decorate' the neighborhood the night before Halloween when he is a teenager.

The family spent the rest of the morning teaching him the fine family traditions of milking every last minute out of the 'complimentary' breakfast and cleaning them out of every last container of yogurt. If I had not already taken my luggage to the car I am sure all of the bananas and plastic spoons would have returned home as a momento of the weekend. By noon he was buckled in, no more bare skin, and ready for the journey home. Check out his stylish hat, you can tell by the look on his face that he does not think it is as cute as I do. It comes with matching spiny backed mittens too. Admit it, you want one too.

First America Hair Cut At Home

After I got home from the wedding and saw the pictures I realized his hair was getting a little long and he started to look like some of the girls in his daycare class. Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I kept looking for opportunities to cut his hair. One of the guys at work cuts his kid's hair while he eats Raisins, but Andrew would not play along with that. So one night in the tub after I washed his hair, he was busy playing with the Sesame Street Ship in the tub so I combed out his hair, got out my mother's old sewing scissors (as if I will ever sew) and started chopping away. Unfortunately Andrew was sitting sideways so I could only see one side well, and I blindly cut the other side. Let's just say that a blind man with the shakes would have done better. Some areas were left long, others were darn near bald. And somehow I managed to give him a bowl cut without ever bringing a bowl near the tub. Poor little fella, it's a good thing all of his kiddie vitamins make his hair grow fast....and that it's winter and he can wear a hat to hide Mommy's Mistake. At least he no longer looks like a girl, and we've cut a couple minutes out of his morning routine by eliminating the need to comb his hair. Check out the pictures, he went from Mop Top Beatle to Buzz Cut Sting in under a week.

See ya next month.

December 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:34:00 +0000

After 4 months of being home, Andrew has rediscovered the Kazak hat I bought him before I left Kaz. They are cool felt hats, for about $2. We didn't buy too much Kaz stuff while over there, but this hat was cute. We did think it was neat that he picked up his hat one day when we said 'hat' and kept putting it on his head, and not on the cat's head. And he's even color co-ordinated this day, which is not a common occurence in our house. Obviously I did not dress him.

Diaper Genie Entertainment
Do you have a Diaper Genie? Not sure what to do with all of those refill rings? Well, they do stack quite nicely and have a nice deoderizer aroma to freshen the cabinet toys are stored in. Usually he just walks around with one, but this day he decided to stack all 4. And when not used for stacking, they also make good 'pucks' for sliding across the coffee table when playing "Ghetto Shuffleboard". Sure, you laugh and mock me, but it's not only hours of entertainment for a child, but also for parents. Soon Diaper Genie ShuffleBoard will be sweeping the Nation and you can say you read it here first. We may even need to move onto the Diaper Genie II which has a different size refills to mix up the game a bit more.

TV

We don't have the TV on much for Andrew, not that we are granola munching tree huggers, it's just that he doesn't like the TV on because it means he has to compete with the TV for our attention. But every once in a while he will walk by when it's on and something will catch his fancy. One night he was watching some fishing show, which is a total man thing. How anyone can sit there for an hour and watch 2 old fat guys from Deliverance in a boat wearing ugly clothing pull fish into a boat and then marvel at their 'unique' characteristics is beyond me. But close to bath time one night, Father & Son sat next to each other on the sofa in some sort of fishing induced coma. I understand it was close to 'shut down' time for Andrew so he was probably burned out from the day, but what was Daddy's excuse?

Top Five Things Andrew Watches on TV

5. Mustard Pancakes- some Muppet-like Show with a sassy cat named Mr. D.-- it's in High Def. The whold family is mesmerized.

4. Gus the 'other' famous Pennsylvania Groundhog lottery Commercials

3. Bear & The Big Blue House-- ok, I like this too, that opening and closing Bear song makes me happy

2. Any fishing show

1. Victoria's Secret Commercials; These usually elicit a few 'ohhhhhh's and a couple 'uhhhh's (and a couple grunts)

ArtWork?

Every couple days Andrew comes home from daycare with some things we'll call ArtWork, and I use that term loosely. Actually, our artistic abilities are about the same, which is not saying much for my ability. One day he came home with a month's worth of artwork and I can only assume it was barnyard month at daycare. Granted I did not grow up on a farm, but I have no idea what the heck this beast is. It must be some magical creature from Harry Potter that can be mobile without possesing any apparent appendages to propel itself. It's either that or Mr. Hanky the Christmas Pooh grew some ears and a fuzzy tail. Here's the rest of the barnyard animals, don't laugh, you too probably had doznes of these creations hidden away in a closet.

BirdWatching

We, well, make that I, am still experimenting with oddly matched clothing. Try to think outside the box.....clothing patterns do not need to match, they can have a theme. In this case the theme was "Clothes That Came Out Of Other People's Basements". The plaid pants were super heavy weight which not only keeps little kids warm, it also adds another layer of protection for the furniture when a diaper receives more than it's fair share of a load and decides to liberate a portion of the treasure. Sure, you may be saying "ewwww" but think about it, I am a genius! Sorry Schanna, did not mean to foul the awesome pants you lent us. Guess you are in no rush to get them back. Clothing aside, Andrew and Tigger were watching the birds, and if you look closely between Tigger and Andrew you can see a pile of peanuts outside the door that the squirels were snatching. This provided about an hour of entertainment. Tigger and Andrew got along well, until Andrew decides to cover up Tigger....with his body, which Tigger answers with "KHahhhh ssssssssss" (cat speak for "you have until I count to 3 to get off of me")

'Mo Money

One day in the mail Andrew received his first Christmas present, cold hard cash. It literally was cold after sitting in the mailbox all day. Andrew decide to try to warm up the money by rubbing it together, perhaps hoping it would multiply. No such luck, but he did enjoy playing with the bills and ripping them apart (they were glued to each other by the sender). Luckily he did not try to tear them in half, or color on them with Crayons. All was well until Daddy got home and snatched up the dough, I guess he did not see the humor in the situation that I did. But fear not for Andrew, the accounting department took note of the funds and it will be deposited into his college fund. Which leads us to a discussion on cash gifts. First let me start off with, I am in favor of them :-) At this age Andrew could care less about toys, just insert some cash into an empty toilet paper tube, put it in a box and he will be happier than a pig in mud. On one of my drives into work, about 45 minutes each way, I came up with a plan for cash gifts. Any cash gift he gets, he will receive a portion based on a sliding scale dependent upon his age (yes, I have been reading a lot of tax codes where everything is realted to a sliding scale):

Up until age 5, he receives 0% of the cash, it all goes into his college fund
For every year after age 5, he receives an additional 5% to use as he wishes as long as his portion of any one gift does not exceed a dollar amount to be determined later, and the rest goes into his college fund
If Andrew does not like this plan.....well tough. Our household is a dictatorship, not a bi-cameral governmental thing. You can tell I will be of no help with homework about the US civics.
The only Daddy Defined exception to this rule is if he gets a hockey scholarship to Harvard or makes the NHL. In which case daddy will be getting a Porchse or Land Rover Defender 90 with his college fund OR free tickets to each NHL game.

As you can tell, I have a lot of idle time in the car during commutes. I'm sure I could put it to better use, but I don't.

Kitty Koloring

One day when Andrew was home from daycare (apparently they don't take kindly to vomiting kids and you need to keep your kid out for 24 hours) he found out what Tigger does while he is not around. Tigger likes to sleep on Andrew's playtable which sits in front of a window. The table placement is ideal for Tigger for two reasons: enables birdwatching without the burdensome effort of lifting one's head, and maximized sun exposure for lounging. But this day Tigger's sunbathing was interuppted by Andrew's coloring. Tigger is not one to back down, and neither is Andrew. So they reached an agreement that Andrew would color on one tiny corner of the table while Tigger oversaw this 'coloring'. Andrew then proceeded to color for about an hour, all the while having a conversation with Tigger, who was listening intently to the mystery language of "la la la". (note from dad... Andrew currently speaks "EWOK")

Words

Each night when we put Andrew to bed he is a little chatterbox. He "practices" the words he knows CAHHHHH (cat: it's in capital letters because it's usually yelled...at Tigger as he enters any room), dohhhhhhhhhhg (dog, with a silent g) and eesheeee (fish, and it's pronounced quickly and with eyes squinted as if you are wiffing a fishy smell). At daycare each morning I need to build extra time into our schedule to stop at the fish tank by their front door so we can point to and announce each of the fish. It was cute the first couple days, but after a month now I am hoping it's a phase which will end soon and we can move on to announcing that we are taking off his coat and hat.

Christmas

The month ended out with Christmas. We kept putting off getting a Christmas tree, although we did go to the Tree Farm and let Andrew run trough the trees smelling them, touching them and attempting to hug them. We figured we'd let him get it out of his system on someone else's tree and not in our house. Our plan worked! The day before Christmas Eve we headed to Target to snatch up a last minute sale and get this skinny tree (it makes the limited number of presents look more impressive....look at the presents closely and you'll notice some decorative boxes of Target Tissues as well). Our fake tree offers all the benefits of a real tree, it leans (I did not assemble it correctly) and sheds needles (when the Tigger cat chew on it). But we don't need to water it.

Christmas morning started out like any other morning, with regular breakfast and vitamins. Then while Andrew was feeding himself, and moisturizing his hair with yogurt, I attempted to make French Toast for the first time in my life. The pediatrician had suggested months ago giving him French Toast and I thought "French Toast? How exotic, even I don't eat that!". The Toast turned out pretty good, and it was easy to make. Andrew ate 2 big pieces, same as us, for his 2nd Breakfast. The post-Breakfast activities were topped off by Andrew delivering 2 Yule Logs in the potty after breakfast. Next it was on to presents under the tree.

Andrew was not the most speedy unwrapper. He would rip a piece of paper about the size of your thumbnail off the box, then start walking to the kitchen trashcan. We soon diverted him to a paper bag by the presents for all of his paper recycling needs. The first box took about 15 minutes to unwrap...I'm sure in a year or two when 20 presents are unwrapped in that amount of time we will be relishing the slow unwrapping process. As he unwrapped each one he'd look at it and start to play, so we'd have to hide the freshly unwrapped gift to start on the next box. By the time the unwrapping was done it was time for lunch.

Once all the present were stripped of their paper we started a new family tradition...although I am sure it's more of a Baldwin influence than a Taylor influence. I took all of the shredded paper from Andrew's handy work, dumped it on the floor and let him play it in like it was leaves in the yard. That excitement lasted a couple minutes, so we moved on to makeing 'wrapping paper angels' (like snow angels) on the floor....ok, that was just me. Andrew grew bored, or suspicious of that and decided it was time to get his favorite gift out and put it into action: The Swiffer. The Swiffer also works well to clean up the soapy residue left on the floor when you blow bubbles inside the house.

2006 was a good year, and we look forward to what 2007 has to bring.

November 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:39:00 +0000

November 2006
Yes, it has been too long since we gave him a haircut... Here he is sporting the Ed Grimly look. And yes that is an ear wax remover in his hand, not only is it functional, it's fun in the tub! This is what transpires when Rob doesn't help bath him.
He has come off of his Halloween Candy High....no wait, that was us who ate all his candy. Hmmm, well you know we were only looking out for his safety by taking all the chocolate "choking hazards" away. And he did not bring in too much of a haul for the effort expended, maybe 20 pieces of candy and a ton of yucky lollipops (not even Tootsie Pops). We thought he'd at least be able to eat the Halloween Raisins, but he was less than thrilled with those and tossed them on the floor one at a time. Even the cats would not touch them. Mental note: stepping on Nature's Snack in bare foot is downright ookie. Before Halloween escapes us for another year, here's the tamed Halloween Monster, securely buckled in the car. Yes, he was growling like a caged animal on the verge of nodding off.

This Month's MileStone
Our big development milestone this month: wash clothes. After a couple months of us washing him in the bath tub, he now gets the idea of the wash cloth and sort of swipes it across his legs and belly. And to make bath time and hair washing less traumatic, I now wait until he is REALLY tired for bathtime and too exhausted to scream when the shampoo water gets in his eyes. Now most of the time he just waits patiently for the hair suds to go away so he can have splash time. And by the time I am toweling off his hair, he sometimes starts to nod off while getting diapered.

This Month's Cheap Entertainment
We found that Andrew likes to pull the refrigerator magnet clip off the fridge, thus dumping all of his fine artwork on the floor. Then he walks around with the clip like it's a treasure. We took it from him one night and quickly clipped it to the loose part of his sleeve by his armpit. It was just out of his reach when he tried to unclip it with the opposite hand, causing him to slowly rotate in hopes that somehow that would make his arm grow 2 inches longer. After about 5 rotations his limb did not magically grow, he got dizzy and fell over. Which then led to rolling across the floor trying to get the clip. Finally he rolled up against a piece of furniture, pinned the clip and victoriously released it. To celebrate his domination of the clip, he presented it to us, which we then re-clipped to him and had another 5 minutes of entertainment.

After a couple nights he got bored with that and we moved on to clothes pins, which have a much loser grip. And we upped the ante by clipping 5 or 6 to his shirt and/or pants at a time. Sometimes it takes a while for him to realize there is one clipped to the back of his shirt, but eventually feels it flopping around and has a confused look on his face like someone farted. He has picked up some skills from the cats and now rubs along the doorframe to knock the clip off, then walks around with the clip for a while, opening and closing it while repeating 'ohhhhh". I highly suggest purchasing a pack of 50 clothes pins for 79 cents.

And just when we thought the fun would not end, the socks came out. He must be keeping a stock pile of them in with his toys because whenever we turn around he has another pair. He'll run around the family room with them, drop one, stop in his tracks and say 'uh oh' and backtrack to pick it up. Then he struggles to climb up on the sofa with them in his hands and bounces up and down on the sofa and rolls around with them. Was it the Socks, the Sofa, or the 1970's Styx playing on the stereo that had him jamming? Who knows, but he was having a blast. They just can't teach stuff like this in a Parenting Class.

This Month's Top Ten Cheap 'Toys'
10. Socks
9. Boxes
8. Sleeping Cat's Belly Hair
7. Empty Cereal Box, with a smaller box inside.
6. Toilet Paper roll filled with rice.
5. Toilet Plunger
4. Fridge Magnet
3. Tissue
2. Post-It Notes
1. Fridge magnet IN the plunger

In case you are wondering what #6 looks like, here it is. You may laugh at it, but it has provided hours of cheap entertainment. Especially when I used packing tape instead of Duct tape and the rice got sprayed everywhere upon the first few vigorous shakes. It's a good thing that rice is cheap, and not a choking hazard. For some reason when he pulls it out of the toy basket (yes, we did downgrade from a toy BOX to a toy BASKET, but it is a Longaberger Basket-- I knew my Basket Habit of the 1990's would come in handy) he giggles when he shakes it, as if he forgot the sound it makes. It also brings the cats running as they think it is the sound of catnip.

This Month's Word

We were sitting around one night watching Celebrity Jeopardy, also known as Jeopardy for Dummies. Let's just say it was so easy that Lenny of "Lenny & Squiggy" fame got just about every question correct. Some category about foreign words came up and it was a Video Daily Double. They showed the word, Водка, Russian for Vodka. Alex Trebeck says the word and Andrew immediately repeats it, exactly as Alex did, but with a little bit of an accent pronouncing Russian letters only as baby exposed to the language can. We were surprised, and repeated the word, and he said it again. Oh how proud we are of our little Kazak.<> Between his new found discovery of vocabulary and his growing Foosball skills, he will be ready for college before Doogie Howser, M.D.

This Month's Toilet Antics

Andrew is quickly finding out what happens when he won't let me take of his clothes before potty and bath time.....the camera comes out. If he could talk, you can imagine what words would be spewing from his mouth. Until that time, or he starts dating, this little gem will be saved away on shutterfly.com. Believe it or not, the shirt he 'almost was wearing' is a very manly 3/4 sleeve baseball jersey. But when you wear it on your head like a Russian babushka, it loses some of it's masculinity. And yes, the dark gray area is the 'slobber zone'; he is never at a loss for saliva.

And to prove that not all habits are inherited, some are learned, here is Andrew sitting on the Infamous Ship Door Table. It's quite an ugly beast circa 1970, but it is durable and made it through my youth. I guess Andrew sees us sitting on it, and figured it was like an elevated floor seat. So now he climbs up there at night and colors in his ubercool Crayola coloring book. Crayola has these special books and markers where the marker colors only clear, but when you color in their magic book, which comes with a hefty price tag, the colors shows up, but only inside the lines. So he can scribble away and the pictures doesn't end up too bad. Unfortunately we lost most of the markers except the pink one, so everything is now pink. But when he accidentally colors on the table, carpet, sofa, wood floor or himself it does not show up. Well worth the extra cost of the book and markers.

First Thanksgiving

The month finished up with our first Thanksgiving together. We decided to stay home and make a turkey feast.....well I would not exactly call it a feast but it was tasty,and probably would have been better if I set the oven to 325 instead of 230. So we ended up cooking the bird an extra hour to avoid poisoning ourselves, which means tasty meat, but wickedly dried out left overs. Andrew did not seem to care, he put on his Pilgrim hat he made in school. Well he did not quite put it on, it took about 20 attempts at pictures with the hat flying off to get this one. In the picture please take note of the Thanksgiving Sippy Cup (for Andrew) and Pilgrim Red Bull and Vodka glass (for Rob). It took a while for Andrew to warm up to Thanksgiving dinner being served 2 hours before his normal meal time; we had to start off with Yogurt to tame him. He liked the turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, but took to flinging the cranberry stuff. Needless to say, there was quite a bit to clean up off the floor after dinner. Luckily Andrew's fondness for the vacuum is still going strong and he helped to clean up. You may notice he is wearing only 1 sock-- let's just say that you don't want to get any loose clothing near the vacuum. Tigger sleeps with one eye open now.

Here's a picture of the Fearless Tigger. He takes whatever it is Andrew has to dish out, usually tail grabbing and head smacks with the occasional eye jabbing or nose picking. Tigger has learned to take refuge behind the computer monitor, on top of the router, and stare down at Andrew. I am sure it's only a matter of time before Andrew climbs up on the computer desk and chases him down. But until that time, tigger will muffle the wireless network signal to prevent the neighbors from picking up our network. How's that for hi-tech security measures ? But I think Tigger is getting tired of Andrew harassing him during his frequent nap times; Andrew needs a new playmate.

Parenting Techniques Gone Wild

We are trying a new parenting technique for discipline. Back in the 1950's it was paddling, in the 1980's it was TimeOuts, in the 1990's it was Re-Direction. And we are now ready to forge into ground breaking territory: Punishment By Ugly Outfits. These heinous pants, hot off the Kaz clothing shelves, are hiked up to his armpits. They are so ugly Rob believes they are stylish; to me they look like something Brittany Spears would wear to the supermarket. The punishment does not seem to be working as he plays like normal, unphased by his fashion faux pas. I guess we will have to resort to Sitting On Your Hands for punishment.

October 2006

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 01:38:00 +0000

Top 10 Good Things About Having a Kid
10. When I talk to my child people don't think I am weird, like when I talked to my cat
9. Crayons are once again cool.
8. Toy Shopping now is legitimate.
7. I can walk slow around the neighborhood and people think it's the stroller when I am just really tired.
6. Organizing a child's closet is another reason to spend hours in the Organization section of Home Depot.
5. I am no longer too old to watch the Disney Channel.
4. People don't look at you weird when you go to see Cartoon movies.
3. I can make fax and motor boat sounds in public and no one questions it.
2. When you're having a bad day, you can blame it on lack of sleep.
1. You can fart in public and blame the toddler.

We went to see the fire engines at the fire station down the street. I think I was more excited than Andrew, especially when the Med-a-vac helicopter took off. I loaded up Andrew on the fire engine and the thing he was most interested in was the weird metal anti-skid floor of the back of the fire truck where the firemen sit.

We now have confirmed proof that toys are not what is fun, it's the boxes. Andrew has been playing with this Pampers box for about a month now. When it started to get a little beat up, we but put it inside a large box to give the new box more strength. The new and improved box is now used as a stepping stool for the foosball table, which my niece Megan taught him how to put the foosball through the fooshole. Another year and we'll have him playing, and beating us.

Our dentist will be glad to know, that with about a dozen teeth he is now brushing daily. Although I am not sure if the bubble bath bubbles are the recommended toothpaste.....or if brushing in the tub is advisable. At least it's a start to proper dental hygiene. We'll save dental floss for another day.

With October comes Halloween. We got a hand-me-down costume from a friend and Andrew was not too happy to become a monster. Which leads to crying which leads to a runny nose and....The Boogie Monster! The only thing that can calm the savage beast, is a cell phone. They had a parade at DayCare, which was more like 50 kids meandering around the playground crying for their parents. It was a pretty funny site.

Then the real Halloween we went out trick or treating. I was not sure how long Andrew would last and I was not about to be toting around a 24 pound screaming boogie monster and a bag of candy. So we, ok I, set up the wheel barrow with blankets to let him ride in style. Rob was a bit embarrassed by my mode of transportation, but he was left at home to keep the home fires burning. Rob will just have to learn that my side of the family is weird; my brother would have thought nothing was wrong with pushing a kid around in a wheel barrow. In the end the wheel barrow worked out awesome and may make a return next year for when Andrew really gets in the swing of Halloween and we bring home a load of candy.

The first couple of houses Andrew was not quite sure what was going on. When we rang the door bell and they opened the door he'd walk right in and wandered around the house. This worked out ok because the first couple houses we went to were the immediate neighbors and this did not freak them out. At one house they gave him one of his favorite toys, a Swiffer, and off he went to cleaning. After a couple minutes of being inside, wearing a furry costume, he got hot and turned into a Grouchy Monster, so off we were to the next house. After 2 hours we were both exhausted.

We are still working on the whole self-feeding thing. No one said it would be pretty and we have proof of that. And yes, that is a Chiquita Banana sticker in his hair. I let him keep trying to feed himself since he doesn't quite take spoonfuls, more like dipping the spoon to see how much sticks to the spoon. At that rate he'd been eating for about an hour, which explains the tired and weary look in his eye. If you think things do not look pretty at this point in the meal, you should have seen the Special Delivery that he bestowed on us about 6 hours later.

When me niece was visiting we brought up the play table from the basement. It was the same play table I had as a kid and it certainly was showing the wear and tear, from the orange gobs of paint on the chairs to the permanent Hawaiian Punch stains on the table. We unrolled a piece of wrapping paper, backwards, on the table so he could color with Crayons. He seemed to really like the table, or maybe it was just that he liked sitting in a chair at the table. Either way, he quickly made himself comfy and put his feet up on the chairs as he scribbled with the crayons. Now if I can get him to stop coloring with his Crayon on the new wood floors.

And here he is showing off his crayons. Is he doing an Ad for Crayola? Check out his hair!? We really have to get it cut.

And here is cousin Megan, Andrew's New favorite buddy.