Sunday, March 30, 2008

Yay for cheap toys!

The nesting instinct is officially in full swing. Must clean, must buy, must prepare!!! It's driving me crazy. I can't work on the nursery because it's still Kelly's office for now, I don't want to buy too much before my shower and I don't really need that much for Isabella anyway, because I still have all the major baby items from Benjamin, and having Benjamin to deal with leaves so little time to even think about the next one at this point. So, I try to control this urge by making endless lists (thus being productive while not spending any money) and focusing on what Benjamin needs for the coming season. With this in mind, I realized he really needs some new sport shoes. The ones I've seen new are around $25 - way too much for toddler shoes in my opinion, so I went to a Mom2Mom sale yesterday - a wonderful place to get nice, used things. Didn't find any shoes his size but I found some really fun things that I've actually been wanting to buy him and just haven't wanted to pay for. Since these were really cheap, I got them and Benjamin has been playing with them non-stop now for 2 days.

The first is a little rocking dog similar to one I've seen him playing with at the child care at my gym and thought was cute and the second is a huge foam puzzle with poke out letters. They have one at the library that he adores, and this one was $30 less than the one at the store so I couldn't pass it up. When I told him to play with his presents so I could take pictures, of course he didn't actually play, he simply got on them for a split second before running back over to look at the picture. I had to try several times before he'd stay on long enough to actually get a picture.


My favorite, though, is the look on his face while on the puzzle. I had told him to smile and this is apparently what I look like when I'm smiling because this is the face he made.


We've (well, not me, technically. It was Kelly that did all the crawling around in the attic) installed ceiling lights, both recessed and otherwise, in all our bedrooms and in our living room this past week. Benjamin picked up the useful word "bulb" in the process. As in lightbulb. His first English word, technically. He's absolutely fascinated by the new lights everywhere. He hardly slept the night we first put them in. He was up about 6 times from the excitement. Every day he runs into the various rooms, pointing up at the ceiling, saying either "bulb!" or "dada!" at least every 30 minutes. I'm not sure if exclaiming "dada" means that he's saying, "Dada put in the lights, isn't he cool!?" or "Dada made those holes in the ceiling, how come I'm the only one that gets in trouble when I put holes in things?!" Either way, Dada is a hero now. I love this age where everything parents do seems miraculous to the child. As a very witty friend of mine said, "Behold and then there was light, and lo, it was recessed!" Kelly, of course, is no less excited. He and Benjamin are like kids in a candy store, sliding the dimmer switches up and down with never ending glee. Seriously, though, I'm pretty proud of Kelly. The lights do look really cool.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Not a slacker, just a sickie

It's been a long time between posts but I have a good reason - we've all been sick. It's hard to say who got it first, but eventually all three of us ended up on antibiotics. We just can't seem to evade any little bug going around. Living with a toddler who thinks nothing of masticating everything he picks up off the ground and then coughing/sneezing in your face, definitely has risks. It's just impossible to avoid germs when you're the one wiping his nose and holding him all day. So, blogging took a back seat to medicating but luckily now we're all feeling much better. Dealing with a sick toddler is one thing, but also being sick (not to mention pregnant) yourself while doing so is absolutely exhausting. Amoxicillian, how I love thee, let me count the ways.

Another reason for the lack of posts, however, is my annoying habit of always forgetting my camera. So many cute moments pass me by with only my insubstantial memory to capture them. When we were healthy, we've been to several hands-on kids' museums, several different parks and playgrounds on warm days, and had a bunch of play dates here and there and never a camera in sight. Once I used my cell phone as a camera (at the Ann Arbor Hands-on museum) but thanks to the user-unfriendliness that is the RAZR phone, I have no idea how to get those pictures on the blog. However, ta-da! I remembered my camera today! We paid a visit to Mitt Romney's alma-mater - Cranbrook. The high school that costs as much as Harvard. They have a really fun science museum with things toddlers would find cool like large dinosaurs, domino displays you get to knock over, and (the best part of all!!!) lots of stair cases!!! :) Forget the dinosaurs - let's ascend and descend!


Seriously, I've never known a kid so happy to just climb stairs all day. I had to drag him away from them at times to actually see some of the displays. I guess nothing beats yoga on the stairs.


The lions, the rocks, and the dinosaurs were close seconds though. He really seemed to have a good time. It was worth the long drive at today's ridiculous gas prices.




Otherwise, life is progressing as normal. I'm about 33 weeks pregnant now (I lose count sometimes) and feel gigantic. I'm at a point now where I'm growing faster than Benjamin - that can't be good. One thing that's growing faster is his hair. This kid has major hair issues. I plaster it down several times/day and nothing seems to help.


An 8 year old girl was sitting in front of us at church last week and after sacrament meeting, she handed me a picture of a little boy she'd drawn. He had blond hair sticking up all over his head. "This is Benjamin - he has poofy hair," she told me. I promise I comb it!

The cool thing is that he's finally learning a few words. Besides the mama and dada that he perfected a while ago, he's also now saying the German words for dirty, oil, moon, and truck. Random, I know, but it's really fun to hear him speaking. I notice that's he's taking more of an interest in language in general too. He loves to listen to language with rhythm and patterns, such as Mother Goose rhymes, and will have me read the same book to him over and over again. My mother sent him an Easter card which he insisted we read at least 30 times. "Hippity Hoppity Happity Easter!..." His brain is definitely working. Can't wait to see what comes out. :)

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Eeples and Baneenees

Anyone my age out there remember Raffi? The pre-Wiggles pre-Baby Einstein pre-Elmo childrens' music sensation? I adored that guy as a child. He was right up there with Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. My favorite song was always "I like to eat Apples and Bananas" where he'd replace the vowel sounds throughout the song with different ones, like "Opples and Banonos" or "Upples and Banunus". Sadly I'd forgotten all about him until this week when Benjamin was running amok in the library and started emptying the cd shelf of all its contents. As I was frantically trying to maintain order, I happened upon a Raffi's greatest hits cd. Oh the memories! Benjamin and I have been dancing and clapping joyfully every night since. I play it while I cook dinner and it's been a blast. He requests songs from it during the day too and we'll sing together in the car or at the store. Nothing like singing "An Octopus's Garden" while walking down the aisles at Target.

When Benjamin isn't rocking out to Raffi, his other hobbies include swiffering (much improved now that I've shortened it by removing a couple sections of the handle) and attempting to eat with a toaster cover on his head. I tried to get an action shot of him swiffering, but as usual the camera hog stood still and posed the second he heard the camera power on. The toaster cover thing was classic. Every night while I cook he puts the cover on his head and laughs hysterically at himself. However, last night he was torn between trying to eat his corn and peas and putting on his nightly act and so he was jamming corn into the cover in an attempt to reach his mouth. Of course just as I got the camera, he figured out the secret - lift, eat, replace cover. What a funny kid.





Not so funny: smearing dinner in your hair. I wasn't feeling well tonight at dinner. I was suddenly dizzy and lightheaded and not in the mood to deal with his exploits. Benjamin knew how to take full advantage. Within 2 minutes he'd managed to fling his veggies and yogurt all over the floor, table, chair, and into his hair. Literally, this entire episode was no longer than a couple minutes. Normally I would have removed the items much sooner, but I was busy trying to keep from falling over and somehow the flying food just didn't seem as important. Sidenote: doing much better now. I have no idea what the problem was. It resolved itself after an hour or so.
The yogurt was strawberry so the extent of the disaster isn't easily seen, but despite my illness, I had to capture this moment before I hosed him down. Somehow you can't stay as mad when you're taking pictures like it was a slice of birthday cake he smeared.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Yes, MORE snow

While my friends in Utah and Germany are talking about the glorious weather they're having and how warm and sunny it's been, here in Michigan, we got more snow last night. Arrrgghhhh. The upside is that it was sunny today. So, we decided to pretend it was warm too and went to Kensington Park to play. It was great being outdoors and playing as a family. Thanks to a certain large soul-less corporation that shall remain nameless, we see far too little of Kelly most of the time.

Here's a pic of Kelly burying Benjamin in the snow.


I think even more than the newly born pigs and sheep, the highlight of the day for Benjamin was the tractor at the farm.


This was from last week, but I wanted to post it because I think he looks so cute in his pajamas. Benjamin decided he wanted to play with his diapers one morning and was carrying them around the house.


When I told him to smile for a picture, here's the face I got.