Heard around the house

James tends to recount his day's events as he goes to sleep or when he gets up the next morning. This week we had the pleasure of skyping with Ali & Uncle P.

So this morning I hear:

"My mommy. My daddy. My Zim. Zim zim cat. My Ali. My P. My poop. My toot. Zim Zim Cat. Kitty cat. Ali, P, poop, toot. Zim, Ali, P, poop, toot. Ali. Uncle P. Uncle, Uncle P! Uncle P!"

Fall Photos

Someone had lots o' fun helping Daddy rake the leaves.


And "Cake!" has become a triumphant cry at family gatherings. Here James is enjoying Grandma's birthday. The next day, when we enjoyed the other half of her cake, he said, "Song! More song!" He seems to enjoy the singing almost as much as the dessert.


And then there's this....


James got this outfit from Grandma. It's been a while since he's worn a long-sleeved, long-legged one piece suit. It's pretty cute, but so different from his regular shirt & pants look!

Bad Mommy

OK, so here are a few reasons why I won't be winning Mother of the Year.

1. I have not posted any pumpkin patch photos of my cute son.

2. Because I have not taken him to a pumpkin patch in either of the two Halloweens/falls that he's lived through.

3. Or made a jack-o-lantern.

4. Or even bought a pumpkin.

and......

5. I'm taking him to day care tomorrow even though I have the day off of school.

With regards to #5, I'm planning a day full of MAJOR house cleaning and organizing. Which is much, much, much easier to do when a certain whirlwind o' cuteness is not here. Plus, he'll have tons more fun with his buddies than he would watching me try to clean.

I'll keep him home and we'll have a fun day on Friday :-)

Monkey Boy

Yeah, so James likes to climb.

On the table.

Or anywhere, really.

A few times as of late he's made it almost all the way over the gate that we put in the doorway. And Monday night at Grandpa & Grandma's house, he climbed into the tub while wearing his fleecy footed pajamas (and then started crying loudly because he got wet).

Today when we got home from school, we had our usual "game" in the car. It goes like this: I unstrap him from his carseat and he climbs over to the opposite side of the seat from me. I close the door and walk around the back of the car to the other door. While I do that he climbs back over his seat to the first door. And then we just keep doing this over and over. And over. And over. Lately he's also climbed up by the rear window and down to the floorboard.

When he finally stopped playing the game (because I grabbed him and dragged him out of the car), we made it to the deck. Then he was running all over the place. Then HE CLIMBED UP THE DECK RAILING. He was about to stand on the banister thingy!

Excellent.

Zoo Boo!

So, last fall we joined our county zoo. It is quaint and small, near our house and has a train that James LOVES to ride. (Having grown up by one of the nation's top zoos, I'm a bit spoiled.) There's also a pretty fantastic playground in the same park. Anyway, we've enjoyed our membership and renewed it this year. In our membership packet we got information about Zoo Boo, and understood that tickets sell out fast. We weren't entirely sure what the festivities would include, but we figured all those ticket buyers couldn't be wrong, so we used our membership pre-sale advantage and got tix for the non-scary Saturday afternoon slot.

Note: the choices were Fri. or Sat. night from 6-9 (bath & bedtime) or Sat. from noon-3 (lunch & naptime).

Well, Saturday was rainy and yucky, so they postponed it until today. Yea! We got James fed and all dressed up (putting his mustache on was much easier today than it was for his school's party Thursday night-- having Daddy here to hold him down was key) and headed over. The tickets said, "Be prepared for long lines" and they weren't kidding.

Basically it is just one long line.

The line starts outside the zoo as you're waiting to get in, then you stay in line as you go past the various displays and treat stations (it is all roped off, so there's no real way to wander along; you have to follow the path). We bypassed the magician and storytelling because both were already underway when we got to the locations, and by the time we'd made it through the path once, we didn't want to go back. We're pretty sure that James was much happier to take a train ride (another line) than to go watch a magician or hear stories.

He was thrilled to ride the train, of course. Not sure what he thought about all the displays and costumes. When we were near a giant inflatable jack-o-lantern & cat, all he kept saying was, "Triangle! Triangle!"

He conked out in the short time it took to get home. He was so out of it that he stayed asleep as we brought him inside and took off the outer layers of clothes. He then slept until about 5 and woke up for dinner with a mustache.

A tired boy & his daddy.

Long Time, No Post

OK, ok, ok.
I know.
I'm waaayyyy overdue. The funny/lame thing is I get so annoyed when the blogs I follow don't get updated, and here it's been almost a month! Aack.

So here are some of our favorite Jamesisms:
1. "chi-chi" (cookie, but now he's saying cookie. boo.)
2. "happy pop" (popsicle)
3. "chos" (Cheerios. and that's a long o in chos)
4. "snowMAN" (the boy loves listening to "Frosty the Snowman." Yes, it is just October. He has a book that plays the melody, so we thought he'd enjoy hearing the CD. Boy, did he ever.)

5. the second syllable of every word gets emphasized-- snowMAN, playGROUND, digGER, brocCOLI, ice CREAM

6. "Shea. Benny. Benicio." (Shea & Benny/Benicio are two of his classmates; he says their names almost every morning when he wakes up. Oh, and today when I picked him up, he shouted, "Cali! More, more, Cali!")

7. Nodding cutely and emphatically to say yes.

8. Putting his arms up to his chest (in a sort of huggy way) when anyone says/sings "love." For instance, when he hears, "...and how the reindeer loved him..."

9. Picking up a phone or remote, holding it to his ear and saying, "Hello, Nana."

10. Reading books to us.

Update

Last weekend we took a quick trip down to SC for my Grandmother's funeral. It was sad but also really great to spend time with our family.

Our flight was early Saturday morning, and the service was at 11. We were so afraid of missing the plane-- and the funeral-- (we did, in fact, miss our flight to Greenville three years ago, and ended up spending the entire day at the airport) that we left the house at 3:30. James woke up and stayed up! He was singing in the car, exclaiming "Bus! Airplane!" as we rode from long-term parking to the terminal, and happily running laps around the gates of Terminal A. He wasn't at all interested in eating breakfast. When we got on the plane he promptly shut his eyes and tipped right over. Before we even pulled away from the gate! He slept across our laps until they made the announcement that we were approaching GSP. We thought he felt a bit warm, but chalked it up to the early waking and the excitement of the morning.

He had a brief opportunity to exercise (up & down the stairs) and eat (he had just a few bites of oatmeal) at the hotel before we all headed to the Mortuary. Then he slept through the service. This was quite handy for us, but totally out of character for James. We stopped on the way to lunch to buy Tylenol. He was still pretty hot, and we felt certain it was a fever. At lunch he still wasn't interested in eating.

Seemed like teething-- the bottom molars have come all the way in, as have the top front teeth. The top molars, however, are just bursting through. Fever. No appetite. One runny, clear nostril.

He was SUPER hot that evening. And was asking for more Tylenol even though he'd just had some. He also was begging for "nuk" (milk) which Dan ran out to get. We gave him Tylenol every 4 hours, but he was still like a little charcoal briquet in bed. So sad.

On Sunday James had an appetite for breakfast-- he ate some oatmeal and most of a waffle. Dan went out to get a thermometer (and a carseat-- the car rental place had given us a toddler booster with no harness. HIGHLY unsafe for our lil' guy.) and James's temp was over 101. We stuck with the steady doses of Tylenol and also got some juice boxes (it's getting crazy up in here!) in an attempt to move away from milk for the congestion. He downed one juice box, and then was over that. Only wanted milk. Lunch was some bread and yogurt.

Monday he seemed a bit better in spirits, but still had a low fever and didn't want to eat much aside from breakfast. Kept the Tylenol coming.

No fever Tuesday. Also no appetite. We got on the plane at 5ish which is dinner time. He hadn't eaten lunch and had refused the attempts we'd made with snacks. On the plane he ate a ridiculous amount of Goldfish crackers and had some milk (after getting all offended when we'd offer him juice or water).

We decided to send him to his grandparents instead of daycare on Wednesday. He had a temp of 100.4 when I picked him up. No appetite.

Thursday morning he woke up a bit happier and asked for eggs for breakfast. But he kept whimpering as he ate them. Then he was crying, so I brought him into my lap. Then, for the first time in his life, he threw up. So I stayed home and called the doctor. They said he didn't need to come in, that it was probably a virus, to stay away from dairy and call back next week if he's still sick. Great, because all this kid wants is milk.

We made it through the day without incident until around 6ish when he threw up again.

On Friday he woke up really happy and I was sure he'd turned the corner. I gave him a choice of oatmeal or pancakes,and he chose pancakes. He ate most of one then threw it up shortly thereafter. He was back at his grandparents' house for the day where he took a three hour nap and didn't eat or drink much. He had an egg for dinner and then a bit of milk before bed. He woke up just before midnight to hurl.

This morning we've been puke and fever free thus far. He's eaten cantaloupe and a pancake and had a bit of juice and more water than he's had in the past few days. We did get an appointment with the pediatrician for 11:45, mostly to make sure he's not too dehydrated.