Just Me and The Boys

Thursday, March 15

Spring Has Sprung!

Well, it's 2:24 a.m. and I am awake because I took some migraine meds before bed that have caffeine in them. It was either take the meds with the risk of lying awake pain-free or lay there with a pounding headache. I drifted off to sleep OK, but was awoken by two little boys coughing in the night. Sigh. Well, anyway, I guess this is as good a time as any to update the blog!

I think we can blame the aforementioned headache and coughing on springtime. Everything is in bloom around here including my fun daffodils in the front flowerbeds. We've had a good bit of rain lately, too, so everything is lush and green. Ah, spring in south Texas... the birds are twitterpated, the bluebonnets are blooming, and the pollen counts are making everyone itchy and sneezy!

The only disadvantage to the rain is that it keeps my boys indoors. They've developed a nice habit of insisting on outdoor play every afternoon. It has been such a mild winter, and I haven't minded going out at all since we know the muggy spring and beastly summer will soon be upon us. Ian enjoys riding his bike while Seth just tries to keep up. We tend to attract the neighborhood kids (and some of their moms) when we're out, so my driveway becomes quite the hangout spot on any given afternoon. I love it and wouldn't have it any other way!

I guess here is our little neighbor friend, Lily, giving Ian a proper sendoff before his t-ball practice. You gotta love a little man in uniform. It's been Spring Break this week, and we've not lacked at all for things to do! It's been a very, er, social month for me between family visits, scheduled play-dates, impromptu play-dates, girls' weekends planned, and hopefully a date night or two with the husband! Don't get me wrong, I tend to be the social butterfly and all, but I'm thinking I might actually need to schedule some down time in the near future!

Speaking of down time, and I'll conclude with this little update. It has been six weeks since the ankle incident. The injury is definitely better, but not completely well. I can finally walk without a limp and even justify going for a few hours without wearing a brace or wrap of some sort. It gets sore and swollen by the end of a busy day (which is all our days lately it seems), yet gets stiff and sore if I sit too much! I've completed my rounds with doctors and physical therapy sessions, so now I just keep waiting the allotted 3-6 months for a full recovery. Blerg.

Saturday, March 10

Game Faces

This week we entered the world of little league sports.

I'm not sure why he looks so serious about it because I assure you he's quite excited. Counting down the days until the next practice, in fact.

And I must say that I am smitten with those tiny baseball pants and cleats. Can't wait to get the full uniform on him!

Um guys, what should I do with the ball?

Concentrating hard on fielding practice

Who's on first? (They rotate positions for now.)

Of course, we think our little slugger is quite coordinated and athletically inclined (reference recent posts about gymnastics, bike riding, and rock wall climbing). However, he's not the best on the team (based on one practice), he's not the worst either, he's not the smallest, and he's not the biggest. A good nice average. All of the kids seem pretty clueless actually (well, except for the coach's son).

I observed that half the kids stand there looking like deer caught in headlights, while the other half look like chickens running around with their heads cut off. It's quite comical to watch a dozen four-year-olds attempt an organized team sport. This could definitely be interesting... but fun nonetheless!

Tuesday, March 6

For You, Grandpa

John's grandmother told me today that his grandfather checks the blog first thing in the morning, and when there's a lapse in blog posts, he starts to worry. Well, don't worry, Grandpa, we're still here! I know I probably set a precedent by blogging nearly every day during Ian's birthday week. I think we've needed some time to recover from that week, actually!

The real hangup has been that I wanted to post a video of Ian riding his bike without his training wheels. I had a lot of footage that I wanted to edit, and quite frankly, that just takes time. The video I put together is kind of rough because a) I don't know how to use iMovie very well and b) it crashed at the end (thankfully) so I couldn't go back in and tweak it once I had seen the whole compilation. Because it is widescreen format, I'm just posting the link:

Ian Rides a Bike

I'm so thankful to have places like this blog or youtube or even facebook where we can share things with our family and friends... especially those who are far away. We love you, Grandpa and Grandma!

Monday, February 27

MPM: Waste Not and Paint Dot

When I was preparing for Ian's birthday, I told myself not to get too crazy. Some folks would say, "Oh, don't worry with that. The kids won't even care." I didn't like that mantra, because the party-throwing business is fun for me, you know! But in the interest of time and money, and well, my sanity, too, I did scale down from some of my initial grandiose plans. I knew I wanted to make some decorations, but I also thought it would be good to put those pieces to good use after the party if possible. In other words, don't put too much effort into something that will only last for two hours on a specific day!

Remember this display from the party? Man... the sharpie marker nearly did me in while drawing the buildings! So, I took the pictures and such off the top and put them in my scrapbook. (Yay for instant scrapbook pages!) Then I used some paint dotters to do clouds and a sun in the sky. That was last week's craft, playing with paint dotters (which are great for kids but hard to explain, so follow the link for more info).

The kids use paint dotters at school all the time.

Seth has stickers, not paint, on his arm by the way.

This week, we colored some little wooden characters I found on sale for super cheap, oh, like six months ago. (Party planning and craft gathering both go way back, it would seem.) I had Ian focus a little harder on coloring in the lines and even upgraded to some fine-tip markers for the project.

One of our little dudes was a doctor, so Ian took that one to his four-year checkup today to give to his pediatrician. I didn't get an extremely detailed report (John took him), but our healthy boy is 40 lbs. and 42 inches tall, 80th and 90th percentiles, respectively!

Once our little wooden people were colored in (Ian got lazy toward the end at coloring in the lines as you can tell) it was time to play!

Where do the people live? In the city!

Ian enjoyed making them dance, climb the buildings, do flips, and tackle one another.

Attack of the 50-foot baby!

Yep, Seth enjoys playing, too. So now we have a little play scene and people in it. It's good fun.

Sunday, February 26

22 and 2 in 2

That's 22 months (Seth's age as of today) which means he's 2 months from turning 2. I just love it when numbers work out like that, and I can make a post title about it. And let's face it, Seth could use some face time on the blog, don't you think?

Well, Ian is now four, and I sure hope it's the fabulous fours because Seth's terrible twos are definitely upon us. That child's favorite word is "NO!" with "MINE!" coming in as a close second. He's entering into that stage where he wants to do everything himself, too. His tantrums involve high pitch screams, and it's not easy to pull him out of them. He's also not too keen on taking photos these days, usually giving me this face:

But I stuck with it and finally got some giggles and grins out of him. He's still a fun and expressive kid, despite his recent displays of the typical toddler disposition.

Seth loves to play outside with his big brother (and often the neighborhood kids, too). His favorite thing to do is push his truck around. He calls it "guck." That word could also mean sock, jacket, rock, or stuck. So, if he's outside wearing his socks and jacket, and a rock gets stuck in his truck, well, then we might have a hard time figuring out what's going on.

"Guck" however, is not to be confused with "gulk" which is what he calls milk. He calls water "wah-woo." Strawberries are "stachies" and "sna" means banana (or snack, but usually they are one in the same). He seriously has his own little language. Some words he says are spot on, others are only slightly reminiscent of the actual word, and the rest, well... remember that kid "Boo" from Monsters Inc.? Yeah, that's what it reminds me of... mostly nonsense with an occasional familiar word and lots of inflection.

Don't let this next picture fool you... the kid is still 100% mama's boy. He does enjoy Daddy's "up-highs," but lately, he's been somewhat of a dad hater otherwise. I'm sure that as John still dishes out the tickles and the tosses, he'll win Seth's heart sooner or later.

Some other goofy pronunciations that I'd like to have record of include: "Ah need!" which means he needs something. It is no longer I want, but I need! "Ah-doo" is thank you. "Bah-bo" means diaper. "Bo" is what he calls his bear. He is starting to parrot more, so we know that the language explosion is probably on the horizon.

Seth loves to play with cars. Ian got some Hot Wheels for Christmas and his birthday, but Seth is usually the one toting them around. He also enjoys puzzles (different from Ian) and has recently gotten more interested in books. He calls it a "boop," and if he can't solicit you into reading one to him, he'll get one and make up his own little story.

Lastly here is a video of me reading a book to Seth. It doesn't have a picture because I had to hide the camera, otherwise Seth would become more interested in it than the book. (You may have to turn the volume up to hear.) It's basically just a book with pictures of animals, and every time we get to the goose page, he laughs hysterically. In fact, with most books we look at, he has a favorite page that he keeps wanting to go back to... in the truck book, it's the car transporter page. In the baby animals book, it's the chinchilla page (and he can pronounce that word surprisingly well), and in the train book, it's the page with the freight train. He's such a funny kid! I can't believe he'll turn two so soon!

Friday, February 24

Our Little Gymnast

One of these days I'll stop reporting/bragging on my fantastic four-year-old. However, today is not that day.

As you may have read here before, Ian has been taking gymnastics since he was 2.5. When he was 3.5, his current gymnastics location referred us to a different gym in town that had a boys' program. While he was still in the preschool class there, we were supposedly poised for a transition to the all-boy class at some point. Well, that point came sooner than I expected, actually. The age range for Ian's new class is 5-7, and he joined them on his fourth birthday.

Honestly, I had mixed feelings about this. I could see that he was clearly ready for something more than his preschool class, but was he really ready for this next level? He's definitely a head shorter and probably a year younger than most of the boys in that class. But you know what? The kid totally held his own! He was doing flips, backbends, handstands, and the like just as well as the other kids! He was a little spacey since it was a birthday, an already busy fun-filled day, and he was obviously very tired. I welled up with pride as I watched him, and I even teared up a time or two... our little man is growing up!

In the two videos below he is basically doing the same move. The first was taken February 18, his last day of preschool class (where you'll notice it's mostly girls). The second is from his new class on February 21. It was also neat to watch him do actual boys' events for a change... the parallel bars and the rings. They were even down doing situps and pushups. I can also tell Ian likes his new coach, Mike, so I think this will be an exciting new stage in our little gymnastics adventure.