August/September 2008

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.