Happy 2nd Birthday Christian!

Today is my favorite little man's birthday. R and I took the day off from work and spent it with Christian, letting him do whatever he wanted (ok, so how is that different from any other day?...ha ha).

In the morning, Cman woke up and found a big ol' present on his bed. I gave him the little monster doll that I had bought him. He liked hugging it, but I refrained from giving him the markers that came with it (you're supposed to doodle stuff on the monster and then it washes right off). I didn't want him to think that he could go around writing on anything and everything in sight.

We spent the morning at home and then in the afternoon we went to Pinecrest Gardens (where the old Parrot Jungle used to be). Cristy had been raving about if for some time now, but I hadn't really gone to see all it had to offer. I'm really glad we finally listened to her because the place was so nice; I'm a fool for not having gone before!

First we walked through this beautiful and lush nature trail. After that we took Chris to a cute splash zone with lots of fountains for kids to splash in (for $3). Once he had his fill of getting wet, we took another lovely stroll through the grounds and ran into many of the iguanas that call that place home. I'd never seen so many of them in one place! The park also had a little playground with tons of slides, a butterfly exhibit (with 1 butterfly that kept trying to get out...I guess he was lonely), and a petting zoo. I was scared that the animals were going to hurt Chris in some way because he kept on running up to them. Two year olds aren't exactly gentle when it comes to approaching or petting animals. They had pot-bellied pigs and goats and some bunnies in some cages. We had a wonderful time and I look forward to going back there again. Of course I took a thousand and one pictures, but I haven't uploaded them yet, so I'll update this post with a link to the pictures later. Trust me, there's too many to even do my usual linky dink posts.

After our little outing, we headed to my parents house to cut a (cup)cake and sign Happy Birthday to him. He loved it when we all sang to him and really had fun trying to blow the candle out. It was quite funny because once we stopped singing and the candle was blown out he kept saying "happy happy happy" because he wanted us to sing again. Of course, like the suckers that we are, we would do it all over again. I think we probably sang to him about 8 times before we decided we'd had enough.

I'm happy that he had a wonderful time today, but I'm a little sad because I worry that he's going to miss me for the next 5 days. I leave to California tomorrow at 6am, so I won't get to say bye to my little boy before I leave. This reminds me of how sad I got on the plane when I went to NY last year....

I'll see you guys in a week!

The little camera that could

All last week I hemmed and hawed and paced and fretted over the stupid weather forecast for Saturday. Thirty percent chance of rain, then 40, then 50, then 60. I was seeing Christian's pool party birthday celebration start to unravel as the day got closer. On Thursday we even considered moving it two weeks back, but we stuck with it and decided to play it by ear. Wow, and what a great decision that ended up being. The day looked gloomy at first, but by 11 am the sun was out and there was no rain in sight until later that evening.

For Cman's second birthday celebration I decided on a luau theme since we were doing the whole pool party again. This time though we made it a double birthday party. Sophia's birthday is 12 days after Cman's, so we combined their parties into one. Because of this, we tried to keep it small and limited it to just family and a handful of friends with children, but it was still quite a production (at least it felt that way to me). I don't know how parents do it when they have these huge parties with jillions of people. I guess I'll learn along the way huh?

Anyway, the party was great. Some people went in the pool, some didn't, some wish they had since the party room was so hot (the doors were often left open so the a/c escaped). I didn't go in the pool this time, but my digital camera did (which explains the lack of extensive picture links). Yes, I pulled the floating camera out of the pool. They say you're not supposed to turn it on and what was the first thing I did? That's right, I turned it on. Needless to say it didn't work. I put it on a table and left it to dry there for the rest of the party. The good news is that I just put the batteries back in it and turned it on. The beautiful gadget sprung back to life and the pictures are there. Yay! A link infested picture post will be coming up soon, but I'm waiting to get everyone else's pictures first.

Stay tuned...

Von, Two, Tree letters...ha ha ha ha

My little parrot boy is copying and learning new words more and more these days. I'm constantly amazed at all the words he repeats and learns on a daily basis. I guess now I have to watch my mouth more since he may repeat something at the most inopportune time.

I'm trying to teach him to say his name when someone asks him, and to say his age. Unfortunately now that he's got the hang of showing his single finger (no, not that finger) and saying one...it's almost time to learn two, so I've been working on that instead. Please realize though, he doesn't do any of these things on command, only when he feels like it. Ren and I call him the WB frog because he only does his "tricks" when no one (or camera) is around to witness them, so of course we look like we're crazy.

For a long time now, he's loved for me to read him books with alphabet letters. I always point to each letter and tell him the name of the letter and/or the sound that it makes. He never repeated me, just took it all in. One day while I was straightening out his room (and he thought I wasn't paying attention), he grabbed the book and started turning the pages while saying the letter on each page "Ay, Buh, Duh, Eee, Ef, Guh, Ai, Kay, Em, O...". I was freaking out because I didn't even know that he knew any of them! I went to get the camera and tried to get him to do it again and no such luck. Until yesterday that is...Ha ha!

Check out the video I got last night. He was distracted watching Elmo, so he didn't really pay attention to the camera. I had to shorten the video, but he can recognize and name the following letters (or their sounds): A,B,D,E,F,G,I,J,K,M,O,S and V. Hey, that's half the alphabet right there! Way to go little man!
I do have to give credit where credit is due though, he also learns about letters at his daycare, so I guess the double exposure is having an effect on him.



Speaking of Elmo, when I first bought that DVD, I thought "wow, that is the best $5 I've ever spent" because he never used to watch TV before, but this one, he liked to watch. Oh boy, unfortunately, I've created a monster. Now, all I ever hear is Elmo, Elmo, Elmo. He watches it every.... freakin.... day. He says the lines of the muppets before they even say them. My favorite part though is when the Count counts and then laughs...Christian does a little Count immitation and laughs too "Ha ha ha ha".

Arrr..what be your pirate name matey?

Ahoy! fuzzy peeps. It's that time o' year again. Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you're not quite aye how t' do it then go here for a nifty English-to-Pirate translator tool. We be gettin' ahead o' ourselves though because first you need t' have a pirate name if you expect t' talk like a pirate. What's your pirate name matey?"

There be five different name generators, so have fun with it. These be t' ones I came up with:
Black Charity Flint
Dread Pirate Vane
Capn Bertha
Frownin' Jen Napier
Bloody Sophie McPhearson

I especially love Capn Bertha because that's me grandmother's name (without the Capn part o' course...her pirate days are over).

And just when you've had enough name generator fun...here's one more...afterall, if you're goin' t' be a pirate, you have t' have a ship.

So long pirate buckos, I'm off t' sail on t' Hateful Knave!

Halloween Lunch Run

Oh my God people...have you SEEN the Halloween stuff at Target yet?

I went to Tarjay during my lunch hour today and was completely mesmerized by the Halloween aisles. I think the next time I go, I'm going to go to the camping department and get a tent so I can set it up in the Halloween department and sleep there. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do.

I bought a couple of goodies for Cman's birthday (in 2 weeks)....but we all know they're really for me right? (snicker snicker)...By the way, I paid only $5 for each of those toys.

Bwaahaha... I love finding bargains!

Just like that

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with one of my neighbors. She has two boys, one is about four and the other is two and a half. She mentioned to me that the youngest one "finally" got potty trained. "Finally?" I asked. "I was under the impression that boys tended to potty train later. I thought you weren't supposed to even start potty training until they were two and a half. She said "the older one was trained by the age of two". Oh. Wow.


So that of course put a bug in my brain that perhaps I was missing out on precious potty training time. A couple of days later I was perusing the selection of potty chairs online. You'd be amazed how many different styles there are. There's the one that plays a tune when you sit on it, one that talks to you, one that sings to you when you do your business, one with stickers, one that turns into a stool (the stepping on kind...although that would be a weird trick), one that tickles your butt (just kidding), one that looks like a giraffe, and one that gives new meaning to "sitting on the throne". With so many options I just did what any sensible person would do...I chose the one that did the most stuff. Actually, I chose this number from my local store (what can I say...it's got STICKERS!).


My plan of action was to just put it in the bathroom so that he could get used to its presence. No pressure to sit on it or go in it. It's just going to be there, so that when he's ready it won't be some weird foreign item to him. Look Christian...the big potty for mom and dad and the little potty is for you.


Right before bath time, I took his clothes off and showed him the potty. As soon as he saw it, he wanted to sit on it. He had fun sitting down and standing up. It was next to the toilet paper roll, so he sat on the toilet and then ripped a piece of paper off the roll. He wiped himself and then threw the paper in the potty. Aw how cute....yeah, but then he took the paper out and started wiping the walls with it....and then the floor. That could've gotten messy if he had actually gone in the potty chair.


So our potty routine was set. During bath time he would sit on the potty while I or Ren filled the tub with water. This was a good time because he was already naked and because he had peed on the floor twice before while waiting for us to fill his bath, so I was hoping to avoid that. Then two Saturdays ago, while I was getting his clothes ready in the other room this happened:


Ren: "good job Christian, pipi in the potty".

Me: "WHAT?". I came back to the bathroom and said "what happened?".

Ren:"he peed in the potty".

Me: "And it didn't go flying everywhere?" (we took the urine guard off).

Ren: "No"

Me: "and he didn't try to stand up mid-stream?"

Ren: "No"

Me: "and he didn't wipe the walls with the toilet paper?"

Ren: "No. I just told him 'ok Chris time to do pipi' and then he did it"


How do you like that?...I'm the one getting him ready for the potty and I end up missing the first performance.

Looky what I found

At Walgreens... for $9.99...



Christian will demonstrate for you:



Good thing I didn't pay almost $40 bucks for it.


Just in case you haven't noticed, here's a little warning for my readers...from now until early November, most of my posts will be Halloween related, so I apologize to all three of you in advance.


Anyway I don't know if you can tell in the video, but I've got my halloween bins out from the garage. I am currently in the middle of cleaning out the bins and categorizing the stuff I have. This goes in the trash, this is for the yard sale, this will be used this year, this will be put away...etc. Christian is totally loving it because he gets to play with all my toys and disguises. He loves the zombie and he loves this doll too (good thing I didn't pay $50 bucks for that). I put away an especially creepy skull wall sign because I didn't want to freak him out, but he found it anyway and started poking its eyes and showing me the teeth. I guess it just goes to show you that kids think things are scary if you teach them that they are scary. Or perhaps he's too young to be afraid of them. Or perhaps he just takes after his mama.