Halloween!!

William and I love to take walks. We take at least one walk every day. With Halloween approaching the people in our neighborhood have been decorating.

Well, we were taking a walk yesterday around our neighborhood, and we were passing a house that has a lot of Halloween decorations - pumpkins, lit-up skulls, spiders, you name it. Well, high up, hanging from the highest window was this huge ghost/skull thing. It was pretty freaky, actually. William was in his car and since it was so high up, I stopped and pointed up to the ghost. He followed my point and just stared at the thing with his mouth wide open. I didn't want him crying so we pressed on rather quickly, but I was laughing to myself so hard! Later in the afternoon today we took another walk, and he remembered that the ghost thing was there, and immediately looked up at it as we passed. I really wish I knew what was going through his little head! Too cute!

Growing Up...

My boycha is 13 months now, sniff, and has for some time now been rejecting his delicious jar-style food in favor of whatever it is John and I are eating. I'm quite thrilled that he's an awesome eater, not at all picky. As long as he sees me eating it, he'll eat it too.

I've been able to satiate his hunger with regular "table food" and no baby food for several days now. Yippee!! He loves my chicken noodle soup sans chicken, peanut butter toast, yogurt, anything pasta related, soft fruits and veggies, and...well...anything else that's not too hard or tough to chew. It's great, actually. Yesterday morning we made pancakes and eggs for breakfast, and he ate a whole pancake and lots of bites of egg. I still have some pureed food in the freezer that I need him to finish, though, which should be no problem.

Now if only I could get him to stop peeing on me and use the potty....but that's a whole other post!

Final Product

I decided to carve a dog.

Since William LOVES Scooby, (at least he loves "saying" Scooby, or "Dooby doo") I decided to do Scooby. I started it last night, but got sick of carving it halfway through so I finished it this morning.

John also carved my little pumpkin I had for decoration. He did a scary ghost-face. I think William was pretty impressed with both of them. Not sure he recognized Scooby, though.

I Love Fall

We've been sick as can be the last few weeks, but we ventured outdoors regardless.

This afternoon John, William, and I headed over to Lombardi Ranch to pick out a pumpkin to carve. We went there 3 weeks ago, before I left to visit my fam, but it was drizzling and we decided it wouldn't be a very fun time. Today the weather was hot, hot, but we had fun.


William was convinced the sheep barked...ALL animals bark, in his mind. (So cute!)

Then he took a quick ride on the tractor.


We did find a great pumpkin that I plan on carving. Last year I did Animal, from the Muppets, so I have to pick something just as creative this year. Hmm....any ideas??

It's Been Awhile....

I know, I know....It's been a few days since my last post. I've been in Michigan visiting my family, so I do have an excuse. William and I got back home last night, and we're both suffering with very bad colds, and William has an ear infection to boot (or so the doctor thinks...he was screaming rather hard during our urgent care visit, so it was hard to tell. He's on antibiotics just the same.)

The plane ride home was horrid. horrid. horrid. My little guy has been testing me in every area, as of late, screaming loudly when things don't go his way, or he doesn't get something he wants. And that's exactly what he was doing on the plane. He wanted to suck on the emergency card thingie, and I said no, and he turned around to me and screamed a short, shrill scream. Over. And. Over. The two wonderful ladies next to me commented on what a strong will he has. (They have NO IDEA!) I smiled, and tried my best to get him under control. Yeah right. He pretty much was that way for 3 hours of the trip, and the last hour he was content to stand between my legs, wedged into my seat and the seat in front of us.

I had lots of nummies, toys, books, etc. for him to play with, but because there is NO room on planes these days it was rather hard to get them out of the diaper bag. Well, after 4 hours of non-stop wiggling, he finally put his hands up for me to hold him...just as the wheels of the plane touched down at LAX. It was then that he decided it would be a good idea to fall into blissful sleep. Lovely.

10 minutes later I had to wake him up so we could get off the plane. That didn't make for a very happy kid. I'll spare you all the rest of the details.

We did make it home, and after 45 minutes of solid crying, he finally fell asleep. I think he was confused as to where he was, being in a different crib for the last 2 weeks, and me sleeping in the same room as he.

My trip back to MI was wonderful! I got to visit some old friends, hear about new pregnancies, eat food I didn't have to cook, sleep extra long with family to watch William, play lots of Scrabble, and other fun things! I had a great time.

Thanks Mom and Dad for everything!

So Proud...

Yup, I'm the very proud big sister! My brother is in his second year of med school and this shot was taken at his Rite of Passage ceremony.

Help! I'm Out Of Toilet Paper!

And I don't know what to do!

Ok, I do know what to do NOW...but last night was a different story.

I had run downstairs to get a new roll for our upstairs bathroom (I don't keep any in William's room for obvious reasons!) and when I opened the cupboard and picked out a new roll I discovered that it was soaking wet. Whatever. I tossed it aside and grabbed another one. It, too, was soggy. After inspecting ALL FIVE rolls, and discovering that they were ALL wet I had a panic attack - we were all out of toilet paper - and it was almost midnight on a Sunday night!

(I should clarify - there was a teentsy weentsy amount of paper on the existing roll.)

I called to John, telling him we had a leak under the faucet. He inspected it, thanked me for finding it (of course, hunny!), and announced that it was no biggie; he just needed to replace a line/valve and it would be fine. Sure. Whatever. But that didn't solve the toilet paper dilemma.

I decided that nothing could be done about it at the moment and went to bed - warning dear husband not to use all the paper in the morning. (He's up before me, so has a distinct toilet paper advantage.)

So...I'm still here. And still lacking toilet paper. Again, nothing can be done about it right now, as my son is napping. Arugh....

Here's to being able to hold it for as long as I can! Otherwise I'm off to the pool! (Not to pee in it, of course...there's a bathroom there!)

Here Son, Play With This Ax.

I'm not even joking here.

I'm not big on staying home 24/7. I try to get out several times a week, whether it be the mall, park, bike trails, whatever. Today I loaded William in the car and headed across town to go shopping. Not that I needed anything, but I like eye shopping. :)

William is a shopper, too, as long as I give him something to play with while he's in his stroller. He prefers toys he hasn't seen before, so I usually head straight to the toy section, pick out a small toy for him, and continue shopping. So that's what I did today as well.

While perusing the various toys I saw a toy set that made my eye balls pop out: an ax, crowbar, and pepper spray set. No. Joke. It was plastic, of course, but still. I can't even imagine giving my "innocent" son a crowbar and ax to play with. What are toy makers thinking? I tried to give a positive spin to this horrible set...maybe the crowbar could be used to help an old woman get her stuck car door open? or the ax could be used to help firemen put out that second story fire at the pet store?

Seriously, now.

Parents wonder why their children clobber other kids in nursery, why a 12 year old stabs another kid, and the list goes on. Could it be that we, as supposedly the "responsible" adults, are letting our children play with violent-meaning toys? Could it be that when their little thumbs are able to click buttons we shove an electronic game in their hands? Could it be, that instead of showing our kids how to have a good time on the swing set we let them play for hours on end with mind-numbing computer games?

Children today have TV in their bedrooms, computers in the bedrooms, and other high-tech equipment that allow parents to check out of their parenting role and be more of an absentee parent.

And we wonder why they can't function in the normal world, have low school performance , sleep problems, attention problems, and learning problems?

Wake up people!

It's time to get more involved. DO things with kids. PLAY with kids. ENCOURAGE creativity instead of unimaginative, idle hollowness. I could say more, but my son is waking from his nap.

(Steps off soapbox)

~The Mamma