Boobawy Saturday: By Elijah

I like the day Mommy and Daddy call Saturday.  I hang out in my crib until the sun is up and then when I yell to Mommy that the sun is up she comes and gets me.  Then she lets me watch Momo (Mommy translation: Elmo) or Pooh in her bed with her.  I think she needs help staying awake though so I have to pat her every 5 minutes to wake up.  Daddy then makes yummy breakfast today we had boo bawy (blueberry) pancakes. 

Boobawys are my favorite.  I ate a nana (banana) and 2 pancakes.  I'm a bit messy. 

Then we went to Mawmaw's (grandma) and Pawpaw's (grandpa's) to meet cousin Landon. 

Mommy said Landon is a baby and he is my baby cousin.  I could not tell the difference between a cousin baby and the other babies at daycare.  I liked Landon, he was a good baby, he has some real cool toys. 

Daddy, Peter and Jason all helped me make a giant train set, however, they stopped paying attention and the tracks all fell apart.

It is okay though because all I wanted was the choo choo nunnl (train tunnel) and a choo choo. 

I like the day Mommy and Daddy call Saturday.

No nap

Today I picked up my precious child from daycare to find out he decided not to nap today.  That meant my evening was going to be awesome because Elijah would be way beyond sleepy from the start. 

Boy was I right.  It first took him over 45 minutes to eat.  For anyone who knows my child they will know this is super abnormal, typically he can eat any amount of food placed before him in under 20 minutes.  Once we finally were done eating we had to get our PJ's on.  That too was super fun.  Then we had to calm down long enough to actually fall asleep.  The poor little guy.  He seems to be coming down with something which is not good but he also woke up an hour after being put to bed with uncontrollable crying.  It might be a long night.  Ugh!

Fun things I do at work

1. Happy dance with the running man.
2. Caught chewed up cantaloupe before it hits the carpet.
3. Chewed with my mouth open.
4. Sang at the top of my lungs Wheels-on-the-Bus even if it was by myself.
5. Matched blue, red, yellow and green animals.
6. Played the ice cream game 10 times in a week and only won 4 of them or so.
7. Colored some pictures.
8. Fed a pig his veggies and a knife.
9.  Had the same pig clean up a game and be put down for a nap.
10. Smashed as many peas as I could in a minute. 

IT'S BAAACK

Do you remember the dead animal at work?  (If not read this)  All winter I have been watching the lake, actually the spot where I knew the animal was laying, frozen, below the surface.  I don't know if it was out of utter curiosity but I kept looking to see if it would surface.  After the first of December it stayed really cold and the pond/lake thing never thawed out.  There was one day sometime in January that I thought we would get close to seeing it again but I never did.  Then there was the blizzard and I knew I wouldn't see it for a while.  Last week, temperatures reached the low 60's (which is VERY warm for the mid west) and all the blizzard snow started to melt.  It did such a good job melting the first 2-3 feet of shore line melted too.  I am now super curious and drawn to the window at every open moment and it finally resurfaced.  THE DEAD THING.  However, now it doesn't look like it did in early December, now it looks more like an opossum, which we also have determined are the most ugly animals on earth alive, just imagine what it looks like.

Grandpa's Birthday

On Sunday BJ's mom and dad came over to watch the Daytona 500 and chill for Bill's birthday.  I fell asleep because car racing does that to me, that and baseball, oh and football, and maybe golf but I never put that on the TV.  After our afternoon naps we made lunch and chilled for a while with toys and cars and fun stuff.  Oh and lots of books. 

King's Speech

Being a Speech Language Pathologist I was very intrigued by this movie before it was nominated for 100 movie awards.  Last Friday I was able to be a grown up with no kids and went to the movies with my Hubbie and the neighbors.  We obviously saw The King's Speech.  Very good movie.  I also enjoy European history so this was a great movie in my mind.  BJ enjoyed it and I wanted him to see it in the theater with me because I knew he wouldn't stay awake if we waited until it came out on DVD.  I also really enjoyed the movie because I recently added a new kid to my caseload who stutters and hopefully he will eventually be able to  manage his fluency to be what ever he likes when he grows up.  I can hope!

He remembers!!!

Being 60 ish degrees today there were several things that happend that have not happend in a while.  One of which looks like the grass is back out.  Looks a bit brown but non-the-less it is back.  I was able to see water on the retention pond (on top of the ice) as well as seagulls looking for fish (sorry they are still stuck below the ice.

Elijah was able to see GEESE again.  It has been quite awhile since he has seen the geese but when we saw one this morning he was very excited and kept looking for more.  When we got home we stood in our garage for almost 20 minutes calling to the geese and watching them fly over our house.  When it got too dark and too cold to stay out there any longer we went in.  I was very happy our child remembered what the things were after 5 months of no geese or even talk about geese. 

Things I learned today

I have a very large fear of electricity.  Yes, I know, this is a good thing but I never really knew how fearful I was of electricity until I was changing the outlet covers in my office.  I actually sat there and thought about turning off the electricity because I didn't want to DIE.  I never did turn off the power and I am still alive but from now on if anything with electricity needs to be done around the office I am not volunteering. 

Some people think we wouldn't notice an entire pane of glass in a 2 pane window missing.  Or the fact that the method in which they were transporting the glass ruined the object.  I mean come on.  We are a business that works with kids.  We know accidents happen but when you try to hide the fact from us it makes us a bit angry.  At least we know it wasn't our staff. 

Elijah does not like root beer.  If I knew what face he was going to make I would have had a camera ready.  He made the funniest face we all laughed for about 5 minutes.  We couldn't even get him to take a second sip because he didn't like it that much.  He was all about the water the rest of the night. 

Snow take 2

Over the weekend it started getting warm enough to venture to the outside without having to worry about lost appendages or death (words from weather men).  After nap on Sunday we suited up and headed outside.  After about 15 minutes of chasing Elijah around the house trying to get different pieces of clothing on him, I was really happy he was still in diapers.  I would have been really annoyed if we went through all that and I heard him say, I have to pee. 

I had very minimal expectations due to all the past experiences we have had with snow this winter so when we lasted almost 5 minutes with no crying I was thinking we possibly had success.  BJ made a family of snow men

and then we took the dog for a walk and found neighbor friends building a huge snowman.  Then we came home and took some snow pictures.  We were trying to teach Elijah that you could eat snow but in order to keep it clean snow we had him eating the snowmen.  It was like a giant Popsicle for him. 

Then we rolled around a bit and Elijah thought he would try dirt snow.  He didn't like it. 

3rd Annual Auto Show

It started when I was pregnant and BJ and I spent Valentines day at the Chicago Auto show (2010).  Last year we brought our baby and our neighbors and spent the day before Valentines day at the Auto show.  This year BJ, Elijah and I all went back to the show.  This year was different from the past few years with less "look at this car that will never be made" and more "look at this car with all the options that you will never get."  We had a good day together and Elijah did great.  I let him bring his blanket and Mambo puppy (typically they do not leave his bed) so hopefully he would be able to sleep while we were there. 

We were successful and left with what we went in with (WAHOO!).  Elijah got to drive in Grandma's car.

Half way through the day Elijah took a break and played chase with Daddy which turned in to full contact ring-around-the-rosy. 

Then he fell asleep (success) and slept for almost the whole second half of the show.

This year there were a lot more test tracks than in the past few years.  And the crazy part was they all had a TON of dirt.  I would hate to be the person that would have to clean that place.  How did it even get in there?  Do they take the same dirt to all the different car shows or do they they get new dirt each time?  So many questions.

During Elijah's nap we went to the Ford exhibit and BJ was joking around with one of the sales people about how to get in the car that was straped to the Dyno and the guy told him to answer a question correctly after they do the infomercial.  BJ was so cute, he was on cloud nine, but I couldn't get very close becuase I had a sleeping baby in a very large stroller, but we went back later for a picture with the boys and the cars. 

Elijah picked out his next car...Please Grandma!

Then we watched the water fountains in the lobby.

All in all it was a good day!  Yeah, and I don't know what that face is that Elijah keeps making in all the pictures.  I think he might be teething but it makes for some weird pictures.

Always expect the unexpected

After a fun family day to our 3rd annual Valentine's Day weekend Chicago Auto show (blog to follow) we come home and have a bit of chaos.  I am not one that likes to live on the edge.  My son takes after me and loves predictability and masters routines and schedules quickly.  As I'm about to begin our evening routine to get him to bed I look up and notice a spot on the ceiling.  That wasn't there before, at least I don't think it was.  I frantically call BJ in to take a peak and realize there are two other spots smaller and not as dark on either side of the one I had found.  Then I see the bubble, no bigger than a grape on the opposite wall but in the same line as the first three spots, of sagging paint/drywall.  NOT GOOD.  It is never good to see the ceiling (that leads to your attic) wet.  Especially when you were present at the time of building and know with 100% certainty that there are no pipes in the ceiling.  We then climb up to the attic and find several cups of snow mixed in with our installation.  HMMM, wonder how long that has been there.  After removing as much snow as possible and poking a hole in the ceiling we called our association, which again, am really happy I pay them large amounts of money every month to deal with things that our not our problem.  Now someone will come out take a look at our attic and our ceiling and fix  the 4 areas (meaning cut out the drywall and patch it) but not paint.  We just had all of our ceiling's painted 2 years ago and now we get to have that one done again.  BOOOOOO!!!

The Evelution of "Sleeping in"

Over the last 11 years the meaning of "sleeping in" has changed dramatically. 
2004- Senior in College- Typical sleeping in meant sometime between 10:30 and 11:30.
Early 2006- Living at home with my mom- Some time between 9:00 and 10:00, she didn't want us to waste the day.
Late 2006- After I was married- Between 8:00 and 9:00, BJ didn't like to sleep in so he always woke me up because he was board.
2009- Sleep?  Sleep in what?  I don't think I slept for any of 2009, first 6 months it was due to being pregnant then the last 6 months it was thanks to my little man.
Early 2010- 6:30, That made me happy.
Current day- 7:30 and That makes me very Happy.  If you would have told me 6 years ago I would be so grateful for waking up at 7:30 I would have thought you were CRAZY!

Oregon Trail

I was doing really good about almost doing a post a day.  Then for some odd reason (maybe seeing 8 kids over the course of 10 hours) I was really sleepy Wednesday night.  I practical, now wait, I did fall asleep while one the computer several times before BJ finally encouraged me to go upstairs.  Then Thursday night I found the old game Oregon Trail on Facebook.  I know, I don't spend enough time at night playing useless/pointless games so I found another one to add to my list that I play.  It all started with Treasure Island, then Puppy Training, then Solitaire, now Oregon Trail.  It took me a while to figure it all out and on my first trip from Missouri to Oregon I took my Hubby and my siblings.  I haven't killed anyone yet which is better than when I was in grade school, however, all three of my siblings were bitten by a snack (not the good kind) and have had a fever.  I also learned I can't float my wagon down the river with out crashing into rocks and the shore, but I have killed a couple of bears, a buffalo knocked me out for a bit which was bad.  But I'm having fun.  And that is why I have not been creating posts the last few nights.

All Natural

I'm not big on antibiotics.  I take them when I have to but I don't like it.  They really mess up my system and the last time I took them I ended up getting sick with other things for the next 3 months.  I was really sick of being sick.  I have several co-workers who are into natural remedies so I started talking to them.  Most of them are very cautious about what they eat and what they use on there skin.  I started talking to them about this and after careful consideration thought there is no way I can afford all organic shopping, but I might look into natural pain and other type of medical remedies.  The only problem is that there is no real direction to go with them. For example, you feel sick take this one thing until you feel better.  Really I like exact science, you would think I would like cooking because of that, however, natural medicine is not an exact science. So I'm trying this natural route before going back to a doctor.  I think BJ is doing enough doctor visits for the whole family so I am going to try and stay healthy. 

Who keeps asking for snow?

Last Tuesday the snow started.  We had about 20 some inches of snow.  It was shoveled and moved, come Sunday we had an additional 1-2 inches.  Today we had another 2-3. 

Dear God, 
I know I said I really like the white and clean look of new snow, however, I did not mean that you should keep refreshing the ground covering.  I feel bad for the snow removal crew.  After they finally finished plowing 2-3 days strait of clearing the snow you make it snow again.  They must be getting really sick and tired of clearing the same darn area of snow.  It's just like how I hate doing laundry, because as soon as I am done, there are more dirty clothes.  And if you you are looking for a good place to go sledding, the Midwest is not the place for you to do so.  I guess if you want to go cross country skiing (literally) you are getting really close to being able to do so.  Only a few more states need snow and then you will be good.  I also hope you are sharing all our lovely snow with the Polar Bears.  That way I don't have to worry about them becoming extinct before I save up the 5-6 thousand dollars to see them in the wild. 
Amen.

My life starts after 7:00pm

This whole weekend I had things that started after 7:00.  Friday night after 7:00 I had dinner with a bunch of old co-workers.  It was real nice to see people that I haven't seen in ages.

Saturday night we had dinner reservations for our New Years get together at 7:00.  You would think that if you would screw up someones dinner and evening and then turn around and offer an "I'm sorry," you would work your hardest to get it right.  Well we had a 7:00 reservation, that after lots of angry sounding words, we finally were sat at 7:30.  We had to get up and ask for menu's, at 8:00 we finally placed our drink orders, at 8:30 we got our drinks and placed our food order.  Our chef finally showed up to cook our food at 8:45 ish.  In that time, Elijah completely melted down because it was an hour plus past his bed time and the last time he had really eaten was at 12:00.  It was bad.  I don't think we will be going back there again.  GRRR.

Sunday we had the Super Bowl but that started at 5:30, even though I really wanted to see Glee at 9:30.  So I am staying up to watch. 

Snow

Even though I really don't like snow and I am way done with winter and ready for my flip flops and short sleeve shirts I do have to admit all the fresh clean snow is really pretty.  I mean the un-shoveled, un-driven on, un-peed on, and un-walked on snow.  It's pretty and very relaxing.  As I drove to work today and looked out my passenger window I looked directly into a wall of snow.  And it wasn't like I have a small car.  NOPE, I joined the mom club and now have an SUV (semi useless vehicle, but it is useful in weather like this) and am higher off the ground then ever before.  Plus there is so much snow that typical 4-5 lane roads only have a bout 1.5 lanes plowed so the lanes are small and comfy. 

Trust me, when I have to to plow all this snow by myself and as soon as I finish shoveling and a plow comes through and reburies my driveway, I will probably have a different feeling toward all this snow.  But I am living in the moment and loving the snow we  have.  In 2-3 days time all this crisp white snow will turn brown/gray, bumpy and icky. 

Snow Day

It all started Tuesday afternoon.  The snow started falling and the wind started blowing.  By the end of the night it was crazy outside.  It made some crazy awesome designs on the doors and windows.

 Wednesday morning we decided that it was to dangerous for BJ to head to work and it was decided the night before that I wouldn't have to go to work until at least 12.  So we stayed in bed until the little guy woke us up at 7:30.  I took the dog out to pee because the snow in the backyard was up to her ears.  We went for our walk and stayed in the middle of the street because there were no cars or anything out there.  It was fun! Then we had breakfast in our PJs.

 After breakfast we got our snow gear on and went out so Elijah could experience "the snow of the century!"  Daddy even blew up Elijah's sled and he thought he would help and blow up his sippy cup.  It was funny to watch the little man copy his daddy.

 

 

Once we had all our snow gear on we took the little man out in the snow.  He was not happy about it AT ALL!  he cried for the majority of the time.  But I still took a few pictures.  If you look closely in one of the pictures you can see the 40 MPH winds.  Yes, I am such a great parent I took my child out in crazy wind chill.

 Once Elijah had had enough we took a couple of pictures on what it looked like around.  Our poor neighbor put off clearing out their garage and look what happened to her car.  It took BJ and Tristan only about 15 min to dig the poor car out.  And yes the snow bank really is taller than me, and this was one of the smallest ones around, just the only one we could take a picture of from our front door.

 

 

 We went inside and quickly took off our snow gear.  Elijah decided that his new sled would make a great chair.  He also decided that he wanted to be pulled around the house.  Really?  We couldn't do this outside?  That lasted about 10 minutes before I was done.  Then he just sat there.

 

Then it was time for lunch. Elijah wanted to save some on his face. 

 When we were done eating BJ decided it was time to did the dog a path.  As he was making his way from the front door to the back I watched a cop drive into a snow pile.  I told BJ to go help him so off he went to dig out the cop.  We have to suck up to them as much as possible since summer is just around the corner and we probably will be calling them A LOT! Right behind the cop was the snow plow.  Great timing!

 

 Once BJ had a good path for the dog out they went.  I took some good action pictures of Rescue.  We almost lost her once or twice in the snow drifts. 

 

Then the entire house took a 2-3 hour nap.  Very productive day.  By the time we woke up we needed to get out of the house, however, the options were very limited so we ended up at Wally world. Apparently, every one and their cousin were there.  But the parking lot had some good pictures.