Back on track

Can we say HUNGRY??? Andrew has gotten his appetite back...and then some. For dinner he ate a bowl of broccoli, a bowl of these puffed rice thingys (Veggie Bootie), 2 meatballs, a cup of canned fruit, and half a piece of pizza. Yowza! And that was just dinner! I think we're back to being Andrew again!

We had a fun day with Grandma and Aunt Sara. Andrew was performing like crazy from the moment they walked in the door. He had to show them all his toys and read books, etc etc. He had them cracking up with his little sayings. His newest one was created a few nights ago.

We were winding down for bed and he says to Jeff, "BIIIIIGGGGG one Daddy", points to me, "BIIIIIIGGGG one Mommy", and then points at himself and says "A-ew soooo tiny". His face gets all scrunched up as he says so tiny. OMG...how cute can this kid get??? (although it is a little bad for self esteem to have your kid telling you how big you are all day long :))

I'm a little worried Grandma may think we don't feed him, though. When we went to sit down for dinner last night, Andrew literally started cheering "Hooooray. I eat! I eat!" and threw himself at his booster chair. Weirdo.

Andrew's drug of choice

We discovered something this weekend that has changed our life forever.

Matchbox cars.

I went to a consignment shop last Friday and got this double car ramp thingy. So we went out on Saturday and got him some cars to put down the ramp. No kidding, he played with them uninterrupted from 9 to 12 on Sunday morning. It was like not being a parent for a whole morning. We dragged him away for a nap, and the first thing he said upon waking was "Play cars". So he played all afternoon...although he did ask for us to play with him some of the time (geez...what does this kid expect from us?!?). Jeff calls it "Andrew crack". All I know is...we thoroughly enjoyed the time off. We actually got to read the Sunday paper cover to cover!

Not all better

So Andrew had a great day yesterday. Short nap, no runs, not even close to throwing up. Sure, he didn't eat ANYTHING all day. That should have been my clue. He woke up SCREAMING at 6 am. I run in and he's got puke all over his face, in his eyes, nose, etc. Poor little baby. Thank God he sleeps face down, because he obviously did this while sleeping. Even sadder than poor baby waking up sick...he had exploded out of his diaper much earlier in the night. That mess was dried already. I swear I never heard a peep out of him. How can you sleep like that???

My dear hubby cleaned up the mess, while I cleaned up Andrew and myself. Andrew took much more work. But after soaking in a tub for a half-hour he seems quite perky. A little clingy. He's actually watching Finding Nemo with Daddy right now (I've already seen it twice this week!)

Anyway, apologies for my last whiny post. Kate and Colin should stay hundreds of miles away from Andrew. As should Memere and Pepere. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

All better!

Kids are amazing. Andrew is back 100% today. Well, his appetite is still a bit small, but he's not had any bowel trouble since last night, and no more throwing up. Hooray! But he took 2 naps yesterday (for a total of 3 1/2 hours). Today we are right back on schedule. And I'm TIRED. I miss two naps a day. I needed two naps a day. What will I do when we move to NO naps a day??? I shudder at the thought.

So I have earned a weekend. We've had to miss my mom's club outing yesterday, and I didn't have anything planned for today. I am STARVED for adult conversations. But tomorrow is going to be like a weekday, since Jeff has a fencing tournament in the am and fantasy football draft in the pm. (soon I will become a football widow again). I had hoped to bum off my parents, since Jeff is going to be busy all day tomorrow. But my parents are feeling an inbalance in their grandchild visiting. They haven't seen my nephew in quite a while. And we've seen them probably 5 of the last 6 weeks(kind of pathetic now that I think about it...) So my suggesting a get together merely led to them to thinking about Colin and then ditching me to go visit my sister instead!!! Good thing I love my nephew (actually I'm just a little jealous I don't get to see him too). I guess I'll have to bum off some friends instead :)

Poor Andrew

Or as he would say "Poooo Eeeww". He woke up this morning with a diaper full of yuck and drank his milk down very eagerly. I thought he must be quite thirsty after having the runs all day yesterday. Fast forward a half hour to the milk coming back to the outside...all over our recliner. He was so upset...he hates to have anything on his hands, and this was all over him, head to toe. Not to mention the sensation of vomiting is not all that pleasant...especially if you don't have a clue what is happening. For a second I was torn...clean up the yucky stuff off my nice chair, or comfort my little son. What a terrible mother. Of course I turned away from the recliner, scooped up Andrew (effectively covering me in the smelly mess as well), and went to take a bath. He perked right up after getting washed off. He probably felt better getting that stuff out of his system.

THEN I got to wash the chair off. Eeewww. I remember when a bad day was having a long meeting with my boss or dealing with an angry parent. Wow, we've reached new levels of "bad day". At least I don't have to worry about calling in to work and then making up the work that I missed when Andrew gets better. I can't complain too much about being a SAHM.

Poor man's zoo

When you are a stay-at-home mom, you begin accumulating a long list of cheap or free activities to do with your child during the day. Especially indoor activites...they are harder to come by.

Andrew was feeling a bit under the weather today (a case of the runs), so I wanted to do a low-key activity that wasn't far from home. So we went to the poor man's zoo, which most people call "Petsmart". Andrew LOVES this place. We show up and he runs to the doggy day care area. They have the play area glassed in so you can observe the dogs that stay there for the day or week. Right next to the doggy day care are the cats for adoption. Around the corner is the dog grooming area...again with the glass observation area. At the other end are the fish tanks, complete with frogs and hermit crabs. And in the middle are the birds and rodents. All of this equates to heaven on earth for Andrew. We made two complete circles of the "exhibits". There was a great big fluffy white dog getting groomed...Andrew called it a "polar bear". No wonder he thinks this place is so great. And all I could hear him say was " soooo coot" as in "kitkat soooo cooot" or "eesh soooo coot" (eesh=fish, coot=cute, and coot=cute, for those of you not fluent in Andrew-ese)

Thank God for Petsmart!

Good neighbors

So I've only lived here for 4 and a half months. And boy am I BUSY. Socially. Me. The girl with 3 friends -total- in So Cal. One of my favorite people to hang out with is my neighbor across the street. She's a yoga instructor with two little boys who doesn't care if my house is dirty, shares her veggies from her garden with me, and even knows the turkey baster story (and will still hang out with me!).

Tonight she took me out to dessert for my birthday. She invited one of the other mom's in the neighborhood, who invited her friend that had a birthday this week. Confused yet? All four of us went to the Melting Pot, a fabulous and fun fondue place (today's blog is brought to you by the letter f). We were there for 2 and a half hours!!! It's amazing how women can chat about nothing for hours. And we were a rowdy table. Mom's really should get out more...we bottle up so much that we're almost not socially acceptable once we finally break free of the home. We finished all of our dippers, and the waiter kindly brought us some more fruit free of charge. We playfully asked for more chocolate, and he kiddingly brought us each a Hershey's Kiss. Which we immediately put into the empty fondue pot to melt down. Apparently this is not normal, socially acceptable behavior. All the employees were coming to our table to laugh at us. Oops. The manager came over last, and we thought we were going to be kicked to the curb for sure. But he brought us another little container of fondue chocolate, smiling and stating that their chocolate is MUCH better than Hersheys. Kudos to the Melting Pot...they are patient, generous people :)

What a great evening. We're planning to go out together again for my neighbor's birthday next month. The question is...do we dare show our faces at Melting Pot again?

State Fair

Since we are new to the state, and really want to experience the culture, we decided to go to the State Fair today. Okay, let's be honest. The fairgrounds are only 20 minutes from our house and Jeff really wanted an Elephant Ear. It was about 1000 degrees but we managed to have fun anyway.

Andrew had a BLAST visiting all the animals. Who would think a rooster would be so exciting! They were crowing non-stop...and Andrew crowed right along with them. In fact, he couldn't walk while crowing, so every time he'd hear a rooster crow, he would stop walking and "Cock-a-doodle-doooooo". There were HUNDREDS of birds...so you can imagine the speedy progress we made through that building. Then he spotted a turkey, and ran at top speed yelling "gobble gobble" until he reached it. It was the mule and cow day at the fair, so we saw lots of cows (which Andrew really could have cared less about) and HUGE mules. Did you know that mules can be as big as stallions??? I guess they are called "jacks". HUGE. ENORMOUS. Where is my thesaurus. And so handsome. Andrew got to pet a few of these...and showed no fear, unless they moved unexpectedly. If they turned their head quickly or nuzzled his leg, he was finished. Let's move on the the next mule. Using his sign language for more and everything to get the message across. Cute.

Jeff got his elephant ear (yummo! as my dad would say) and Andrew and I chowed down on a pork sandwich, gyro, sausage, ice cream. We won a ribbon for "Most weight gained in 2 hours". Pretty cool. We ate this wagon-load of fair food while listening to a blue-grass band under a tent. Andrew was grooving. And everyone around us thought it was hilarious. That boy has rhythm! He grooved in his stroller..swaying his head like Ray Charles. Then we let him get up, and he was bouncing all around, swiveling his hips and moving his arms to the music. We've got to take this boy to more concerts!

Anyway, it was a lovely birthday for me. Oh yeah, did I mention that. Going to the fair for my b-day...I am truly not the girl I once was. When in Rome... We drove home and Andrew took a 15 minute power nap. So for my birthday, he didn't take a nap AT ALL. Literally Jeff and I are laying around the house, suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, while Andrew bounces off the walls. Celebrities get to go to the hospital for those things, and we are expected to keep an almost 2 year old safe all day. Needless to say, he went to bed at 6:30. And we are truly cruel parents. While we ate my birthday steak and mushrooms for dinner, Andrew had hot dogs. And we put him to bed before breaking out the cake. No "best parents" ribbons for us!

Bossy

I think we've created a monster. Andrew is becoming the bossiest kid I've ever met. He thinks that he holds the puppet strings to everything in the universe. I can't imagine why. I mean, he has a personal servent at his beck and call 24 hours a day (for several of those hours, he actually has 2). When we are in a group of family, friends, strangers, whatever, he is the center of attention. Every motion, every word is Ooooohhed and Ahhhhhed. For crying out loud, when he poops, we cheer! It's no wonder he can't comprehend Copernicus yet!

So he is getting increasingly bossy. Jeff, Andrew, and I were sitting in the living room thowing a ball to Shadow. Andrew and I were sitting, and Jeff was laying down. Right away Andrew says, "Sit, Daddy". And every few seconds he repeated it emphatically until Jeff indeed sat up. We all take turns throwing the ball, and Andrew will not allow anyone to go out of turn. Shadow brought the ball back to me, and before I could throw it, Andrew yells "No, Daddy turn". Excuse me for living! He even bosses animals around. At the zoo last week, the rhinos were lounging about, and Andrew yells to them "Rhino go there" and points to the opposite side of the pen. Uh, good luck with that one. This is cute now, but what kind of terror will we have in a year or so.

Then we were at the zoo again today, and rode the lamest train ride ever created by mankind. On the positive side, Andrew hated it and clung and tried not to cry the whole time (note sarcasm). Anyway, we had stopped to let more passengers on (we tried to warn them, but they didn't believe us), and a small child behind us yells out to the conductor, "Drive the train more, please". Ahhh, another bossy kid. At least I know Andrew is normal.

T-R-A-I-N

Andrew and I have a little morning routine. Which is apparently going to change after today.

See, I like to talk. Not working has left a void in my day...no one to have a conversation with. So since day 1, poor Andrew has had to listen to me jabber away at him. Every morning, we have a nice long discussion about what is on the agenda for the day...a kind of morning meeting if you will. For example:

"Alright Andrew! Today we have an exciting day ahead of us. First you are going to spread some breakfast into your hair and eyebrows. Then we'll spend a while chisling that out. Doesn't that sound like fun?"
"Gurgle, goo goo"
"Great! Next we'll..."

You get the idea?

Anyway, this morning I had begun the morning meeting as usual with Andrew. I mentioned that if it rained today we should do something fun, like go to the store that has the model trains. Oops. Andrew hears the word "train" and goes bananas. He runs to the garage door, opens it (yikes), and yells "Yes, Choo choo, go now!" What his little 20 month old brain cannot comprehend, however, is that it is only 7:15 am!!! Although our day is moving right along, most stores can't seem to convince their minimum-wage employees to show up before 10am. So I tell him we have to wait for the store to open. And...commence temper tantrum.

Oh how the 2 year old behavior is looming. Andrew stood by the garage door (which I locked with a key so he couldn't open it again) and SOBBED. Hiccupped. Threw himself on the floor. You would think I had just informed him that Santa died, or Shadow is living with another family, or, his worst nightmare, all the grape vines in the world have stopped producing.

So from now on, our little morning meetings will be different. Until Andrew learns how to spell, that is.

Perfectly normal

Today, Andrew and I went to the doctor to find out that he is perfectly normal. Whew! Grandma noticed that Andrew was walking a little funny when he was about 18 months old. My pediatrician referred me to a pediatric orthepedist (say THAT 3 times fast), even though she didn't think they would do anything because it was so mild. So there is a 6 week wait for an appointment. Then they moved my appointment back another month. So here we are 4 months later. And I think he may have grown out of it by now. :0 I REALLY didn't want to go. But Jeff convinced me that I would never forgive myself if he someday turned into the Hunchback of Notre Dame. So I went...and I brought my sarcasm with me. :)

"Hello Mrs. Spurgeon. And why are you and Andrew here today?"
"Because of my mother-in-law"
-nervous chuckle-"Oh...okay"

And so on and so forth. I am being especially cruel to my mother-in-law. She has seen the results of hip problems first hand working in pre-school. So I really do appreciate her attention to Prince Andrew. But that doesn't mean I can't poke a little fun, does it?

So they took x-rays and made him walk up and down the hallway. He was a champ. Hammed it up for everyone. I got to see his little leg and hip bones...before today I would not have believed that pictures of a skeleton could be cute. But it was soooo cute. You could see the outline of his chunky little legs. And he is so perfectly made...nice and strong and even. He may not even lope like his dad!

The cutest part of the day was Andrew's WORD OF THE DAY. I told him repeatedly this morning that we were going to the doctor, and that he would look at his feet. When the doctor was leaving, Andrew called out "Bye bye Doctor". So cute. And then I put on his shoes and socks and he kept saying, "Foot go? Foot go?" then he pointed excitedly at his foot and said "There it is!" Maybe we should be visiting a psychiatrist next!

A job for me

Okay, so yesterday I did something I never thought I'd do. I went to an evaluation for a "work from home" ad. My neighbor agreed to watch Andrew (a whole story in itself), and I went to this warehouse to fill out some paper work. It seems pretty legit. At least I don't have to pay anything to get started. They will call me after September 1st, I will come pick up a packet, I have a week to complete it, I turn it back in, I get paid $80. So what, you may ask, is this exciting, brain-challenging, fulfilling career I'm starting? Handwriting envelopes. Yup. Thrilling stuff. But at least now I can do something while I'm watching tv that will pay me.

Just our family

So today was our first weekend day alone as a family since about July. I AM NOT complaining. I love being able to have our families visit, and have social functions to go to. But it made it kind of weird to plan our day. We are out of practice sitting around at home. So did we go to church (my original plan)? Well...I hate to admit it...but the weather was so nice when we woke up... Yea, we ditched church to go to the zoo! Such moral examples we are giving our son. I am a bit ashamed now after the fact. But we had such a nice day.

We got season's passes to the Louisville Zoo about a month ago. I have been with Andrew a handful of times, but Jeff has only gone the one time. Andrew LOVES the zoo. He RUNS from exhibit to exhibit..."A-i-gator"..."Rheeee-no"..."Eh-phant"..."BIG Eh-phant", etc etc etc. We even picked up a new word: "EE-ba" (zebra). The really cute thing is that he is just as excited when he sees a squirrel or a Canadian goose. The zoo opens at 10, and by 12 it was too hot to be there anymore. So we said farwell to the zoo and Andrew went home and took a 3 hour nap!!! Yea for the zoo!!!

Whoppers

Sorry to disappoint those of you who are eagerly reading this for my opinions on the malty chocolate treats. Today I'm talking about fibs, lies, stories,...whoppers. Or at least, those that will come in a few days.

Let me explain...my grandmother is visiting us. She came down with my father yesterday and has spent the night. Grandma is quite the whopper-generator. She doesn't let facts get in the way of a good story. For example, last time she visited us, for weeks after she left she was telling everyone that Jeff eats 6 eggs and a pound of bacon for breakfast...EVERY DAY. Now, I'm the first to admit that Jeff is not a small man. But he eats a bowl of cereal for breakfast. We didn't have eggs ONCE while she was visiting. So you get the idea about the whopper-generator.

Well, we have moved since Grandma's last visit. We now live in a beautiful 4 bedroom home. With vaulted ceilings. And a bar. Very nice. But Grandma couldn't stop saying how it was "the nicest home she'd been in in years". Hmmmm...this sounds like a HUGE whopper just waiting to happen. And she loved our big screen tv. I can hear it now "Giselle lives in a mansion, has a swimming pool in her master bathroom, and a tv the size of a movie screen!" I just hope the stories get back to me!

Giselle, Andrew, and Elmo share a hug 

How computer literate am I?

Okay...here I am. I am about to find out how much I DON'T understand about blogging. But I want to get some of my daily stories down so that later on I can look back and LAUUUUUUGH.
As soon as something exciting and funny happens, I'll be back to write another post. Oh wait...this blog is supposed to be about MY life. Okay, I'll have to change my standards :)