YouOK?

This is James' latest saying. When I thought about it, I realized that I ask him this question probably a few times every hour. When we're driving somewhere, if he's been quiet for a few mins, I ask "are you ok?", when I hear a bump or a whine that's not immediately followed by wailing, I ask, "are you ok?". So earlier today, when he wasn't sure if he was done with lunch or not, and threw a mini-fit (ie: VERY fake crying), mommy imitated him to show him how silly he looked, and he immediately stopped, looked at me and asked, "Are you ok?". I guess my reaction to this showed him just how funny of a question that was, because he's been asking it all day. As we drove down the road to get a haircut, he asked, "yaokay? Yaokay? Momma, MAMA! yaokay?" until I responded, "Yes, James, I'm ok. thank you for asking". He responded with a polite little, "yawuhcome!", and that was the end of that round!
He also got a haircut that was sorely overdue, and I captured the process on camera for the first time. He's a GREAT little haircut customer. He just sits there and watches, and every now and then he giggles when "it tickews!" He got lots of compliments from the ladies for being so darned cute, polite, and well-behaved. What a doll!
Check out Spring 2006 in the Photo Collection for pics of the haircut!

Toddler Times Two

Tonight we watched Keaton so that Stacy and Ben could go out to dinner sans son for the FIRST TIME SINCE HIS BIRTH (can you STAND it!?). Just knowing that made me even more appreciative (not sure I could have been) of our parents' proximaty and willingness to watch the boy on a whim! Anyhoo, those two little rugrats had a BLAST! Of course, they always do, but it was just a funny as ever. They played in the "fort", drew, watched Steve Irwin (CRIKEY! Shaaahks! Keaton's favorite new water-bound animal) and ran around like crack monkeys. We got some pretty funny pics, they're in Spring 2006 in the Photo Collection. There's no substitute for being there, but the pics are close runner up. Maybe someday we'll splurge on a new camera that can take VIDEOS!

CloppCloppClopp

James loves "Mr Brown Can Moo" by Dr. Suess. He can make all of the animal noises, as well as some extras. He seems to be quite taken with animals of all kinds lately, and tonight we watched Animal Planet, which just sucked him in! They showed elephants drinking in a river, and he went from snuggling quietly to up on all fours, "drinking" like an elephant. He moved his head up and down and made slurping noises. Sterling and I nearly fell off the bed laughing! So far he's only pretended to be a doggy (crawls around on all fours and likes to get patted on the head), but now we've added elephant to the repetoire!

Down the drain

Recently, James has become fascinated with the water going down the drain in the tub. I thought most kids were afraid of this, but he will lie there on his tummy the entire time the tub is draining (and a few mins after, if I let him), and watch in awe. He likes to wait for the little "tornado" to form and then he tries, unsuccessfully of course, to grab it. When it's all gone he looks down the hole and says, "all gone, water!". Then he stands up, acts like he's in the middle of an arctic tundra, and squeels and fake shivers until I bundle him up in a towel. From scientist to silly in 1.2 seconds.

Caveman Toddler

James remain neutral about his feelings towards utensils. There are some occassions in which he acknowledges the need, such as a spoon for cereal. Finger-able food, however, makes forks unneccessary. Tonight he refused to use his to eat his macaroni and cheese. We tried to cajole him, "James, watch Daddy use his fork! Mmmm.. I LOVE my fork!", but to no avail. If you speared a few noodles (yeah, I called 'em noodles.. deal with it, Dave!), he'd accept it, eat them off of the fork, and then put the fork back down and continue two-handing the remaining noodles into his mouth one-by-one. I finally got him to hold the fork, but then he just used the one free hand to shove noodles into his mouth. At one point Sterling said, "look, James, Mommy and Daddy don't eat like animals.". Nothing doing, though...I guess you have to pick your battles.

Happy Easter!

Well, this year James was old enough to kinda "get" Easter. We've been honing our egg-hunting skills for a few weeks now, and he's an old pro!

Karey and Dave hosted a lovely Easter lunch/dinner for a small handful of friends, and it was just perfect. AWESOME food (Karey has clearly been enjoying some kitchen puttering), good company, an no real schedule.. just a relaxing afternoon. We did hide some eggs for James, who thoroughly enjoyed finding them. It didn't hurt one bit that Karey filled them with mini Teddy Grahams! James loved hanging out with his buddy Dave (c'mon, Dase!), and wore us all down to a nub! Parents of 10-mth-old Ryan, Ken and Susan, thought that James had just had alot of sugar... we educated them that, no... he REALLY IS just THAT busy! Their little one isn't sleeping thru the night yet (yikes! I would DIE), but he's also very mello. We all agreed that life just kinda balances out.. James sleeps through the night, but there's a very good reason for it! Either you pay at night or during the day, but everyone pays! LOL.

One of the fun little treats that Karey made were these egg/cookie things. Apparently Dave's mom makes them, and Karey thought they were cool. Think of a "support our troops" ribbon like you see on the back of cars.. the little loop at the top with the two tails at the bottom. The cookies were like that, with a dyed hard-boiled egg in the loop, and the whole thing was drizzled w/ icing. They were super yummy, but you really couldn't eat the egg. Dave said, "yes, it's a long-standing family tradition in my house to waste an entire case of eggs at Easter!".

Thanks, Kagey and Guff! We had an awesome time!

A message from the great beyond..

I'm blogging from beyond the grave.. at least that's how I feel. MY WORD! I think the boy's finally done me in this time. This morning James and I went to the Museum of Art (one of our favorite weekend jaunts) to check out some new art that they'd added to the greenway trail. James' favorite, btw, is "Trail Heads".. in the pics above, it's the thing that looks like a huge pile of sticks. It's actually branches woven around live trees to form a bent twig sculpture which looks like big heads looking over the trail. The "bodies" form tunnels, sort of like an on-the-ground treehouse.. it's VERY cool. We also saw the new "Crossroads" sculpture, which James thought looked like a rocket! We walked down (and UP) the trail and finally made it to the pedestrian bridge over I-40, which James LOVED.. we watched cars go under, and every now and again someone would honk at him. On the way back, we discovered a much shorter-cut from Trail Heads to the ped. bridge which would have saved us alot of walking.. dang. Anyhoo, we were out there for about 2 hrs. Whew!
So then we went to Bear Rock for lunch (mmmmm) and home for a nap. Shockingly, he actually napped for less than 2 hrs.. seriously, I was stunned! We then went to Pullen Park to say hi to Uncle Mark, ride the carousel, and the choo choo. Then we decided it was VERY hot, and we left to find something to do in air conditioning... that something, as always, was Target. On the way over, James went through two cups of water, for which I was thankful because he was looking a little red in the face. While pushing around Target, James said, "mama, poops".. thinking he had a dirty diaper, I picked him up to check his pants... and saw that they and the cart seat were soaked! Clearly, the rehydration effort on the way over was successful.. perhaps too much! So, we paid, we left, we changed.
The little butterbean's in bed, Mommy's finished blogging, and a wonderful day comes to a close...

Big shoes to fill...

At least this time he's trying on Sterling's shoes, not mommy's..

Dining al fresco

Ok, seriously, how cute are these boys? Daddy thought it would be cool to have a little picnic-esque lunch out-of-doors. Nice Daddy.

Time for a little smackerel of something

Upon waking from his nap and deciding that he was hungry, James ran/toddled down the hall towards the stairs wailing, "ceereal! ceereal! ceeeeeeereaaaaaaAAAALL?!?!?!", and then proceeded to sob when told, "no, not right now". Hm.. I get that way over chocolate, but cereal???

Field Trip

A fit of allergies and a busy weekend made for Monday Dred. So, since my calendar was pretty clear anyway, I opted to take a vacation day to hang out with my peeps. We checked the website first (this time!) and decided that it was a beautiful day to go to the Durham Museum of Life and Science. The weather ROCKED and so did our trip! Although we initially balked at the price of admission, we soon agreed that it was worth it. There's the weather center, with a mini-tornado that you can watch form, and then reach out a touch. There's a basin full of clouds that you can play in, and a bunch of other cool climate/weather-related stuff. Then there's SPACE.. James got to climb into a command module, dock the shuttle with an orbiting satellite, and see lots of EARTHS! Little Science is an area specifically geared towards the little ones, and we spent quite some time there. In the pics, it's the area where it looks like James is in a treehouse. But WAIT.. that's not all! In addition to the inside stuff, there's a friggin' complex on the outside. There's a very cool playground, a farmyard, a munchie pavillion (just vending machines right now.. soon to be an actual snackbar, I think), and the Butterfly Pavillion. There's a train around there somewhere, too, but we just didn't have time and didn't find it. I cannot tell you how tired we were when we left here, and much like Biltmore, you'd really need a FULL day to see and appreciate the whole museum. Fortunately, it's closer and cheaper than Biltmore, and you can climb on stuff here. Check out the new album in the photo collection, and take a trip yourself sometime soon! I think James had a good time.

A little sprinkle'l do ya

So today we had Ben and Stacy's baby sprinkle. A "sprinkle", for those of you not in the know (like me, before it was explained) is when you sprinkle the expectant parents with little necessities vs. showering with bigger "first baby" stuff. Things like diapers, wipes, lotions, etc. So the shower was a success.. good food, guys didn't get estrogen overload, and everyone seems to have had a good time. My two favorite quotes of the evening (both from expectant dad, Ben) were during gift opening:

• When opening a big box of 400 wipes, "wow, can you believe they fit 400 of these in this box? I'd forgotten how small these are! Now you get about 30 in a box this big!"... I said, "Ben, those are WIPES, not diapers".
• Stacy received a gift certificate to get a picture of her pg tummy.. a belly shot. It was clear that Ben had been carrying on a different conversation because when she said, "honey, have you ever seen belly shots?", he replied, "uh.. maybe in college?".

A good time for good friends who are about to welcome an awesome little bundle into their lives!

There's a frog in my throat

Valarie said that yesterday James was eating lunch when he let out a big ol' belch, and then just started laughing hysterically. She said they were big hearty laughs, and he went on for about a minute. At first she thought, oh my... he thinks burps are funny. But then when he finished his giggle fit and caught his breath, he said, "that tickles!"

When he takes a bath, we use a little sprinker can to rinse off, and tonight while he was getting his bath, I used it to rinse his back. He did the same thing.. giggled like a schoolgirl and said "it tickles!". I should also point out that when we're rinsing more... er.. critical areas.. he does the same thing... giggles and squirms like a nut. That's not funny, though, so much as just wierd.

Beware what you wish for

So many mornings when James woke us up between 5-6am we asked, "why won't he sleep later??". We brought him back to bed with us to get him to sleep for another hour or so, and hopefully ourselves as well (although it typically wasn't good sleep, because the boy will NOT hold still). Wish granted... he now lazes around in bed, arising between 7-8am (closer to 8 with this week's time change). But now I miss those morning snuggles. I wake up before him, and although I'm grateful for the extra few minutes to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, walk the dog...I'm also sad because when my little boy does wake up, he's ready to go. He's not interested in an extra snuggle. In fact, if we do bring him back to bed with us, he'll lay there for about 2 minutes, then start begging for "ceeerreeeal!!!" (his favorite food in the world) and trying to get down. Be careful what you wish for.. you may have to pay for it with a lack of snuggles.

On a completely unrelated topic, James continues to get better and better at amusing himself, which is rather nice. Last night, we both laid down on the bed together and read our own books.. here's James "reading" his SpongeBob coloring book.

We're TWINS!

Well, we visited Grandma Sis and Samantha this weekend. What a blast those kids had! Samantha is just too funny these days. She came over with her hair in a ponytail and I said, "wow, Samantha, your hair looks really cute!", to which she replied, "it sure does". She and James played with the contents of her Easter basket, blew bubbles, rode around in the wagon (with me pulling, of course), hung out in front of the house because the weather was AWESOME, and just had a good time. Samantha's new thing is that if two people have any matching traits, then they're TWINS! She and James were both wearing green, so they're TWINS! She and I both had the same .. I dunno, something, so we were tWINS! How silly.

Also, James' new thing is calling out to you prefaced by an "oh", as in, "ooooh, Daaadaaa?" in this little sing songy voice. It's a hoot. Then if he can't find the sought-after person, he asks, "is he hiding? where is he?". he has sucha personality.

On the MOVE

This morning I was snuggling w/ James in bed when he started to squirm a little. I said "do you want to get up?", and he shook his head. So I asked, "do you want to snuggle?", and he replied, "snuggle.". So I leaned over to give him a quick smooch and put my head next to his on the pillow. He reached his little hand over, placed it on my cheek, and pushed... "move.".

Also, James has learned to get out of his crib, as long as the side is down. It's pretty clever, really. He kinda does a push-up, and then backs one leg over the rail at a time so that he's sortof doing a plank position with hs feet over the side, then he backs up until he can let himself drop. We've begun to revisit the topic of upgrading to the big boy bed!

Oh yes, and Happy Birthday Mom!

Cheers, chums!

We switched up the ol' Beer Wed routine and threw the gauntlet to the Kleys to chose tonight's theme. We went with Fish 'n' Chips, and it was bloody brilliant! Jolly good choice, Kleys, cheers to you!

Quirky little man

Our little fella is just so funny and quirkly. He really does have a great sense of humor and a real sense of funny / silliness. Several funnies from recent days...

Honey Socks:
Honey gave James 2 pairs of red socks for Valentine's Day. For whatever reason, we started referring to them as his Honey Socks. The other day I was trying to get him dressed for daycare, and initially picked out his Honey Socks, because I was going to dress him in a red shirt. Well, we decided against the red shirt, so I switched socks. As soon as he saw the non-HS on his feet, he threw a fit and told me "HONEY SOCKS!! HONEY SOCKS!!!"... basically demanding that I switch back! I took off the offensive socks, and replaced them with his beloved Honey Socks, to which he responded reverently with a little smirk, "Honey Sooocks..."

Nooooo!
We have a silly little game we play, where I ask him a silly question, to which he knows the answer is "no", and he'll reply in a silly voice, "NNoooooo!". Like, "does a doggy say 'meow'?", and he'll say "noooo!" and we'll do this until I get to the right answer.
Yesterday he came home with a little toy truck. I wasn't sure where it came from, and figured it must belong to one of his daycare buddies and it got sent home with us by mistake. I said "whose truck is this? is it Cole's?", and he said, "NOOoooo!", I asked, "Is it Nick's?", and he said, "Nooooo!", and I said, "well, whose is it?", and he said, "Abbie". I thought, that was weird, but maybe it is hers.
I asked Val this morning, she said sure enough, Abbie gave it to him yesterday. How funny.. technically he told me about his day!

The color Mommy
Those of you who know me know that I've taken to wearing several orange articles of clothing recently. It's fallish / wintery,and I just like it. I have about 3 different orange shirts, and at least 1 or 2 make it into the weekly wardrobe roundup. Well, I guess it's pretty frequent, because James now associates this color with me. If he sees another woman wearing orange, he points to her and says, "Momma". If you point to anything orange and ask him what color it is (he correctly names all other colors, btw), he says, "momma"... so I'm officially a color now.

Asheville pics posted

I posted the pics from our trip to Asheville.. check out the photo collection!

Asheville, Day 2

What a day! We are totally pooped. We started the day off with breakfast at the hotel (not too shabby, kudos to you, Hampton Inn), and headed out around 10ish. We figured we'd spend an hour or so at the Biltmore, check out downtown, and then head back for our wine stuff. Well! It took us TWO HOURS to make it through the house. It was very cool, though. The package we bought included the audio tour. Sterling thought we looked like huge touristy dorks with our little headsets and cell phone-looking thingies hanging around our necks, but we're both glad we did it.. it really enhanced the tour. When you get to the banquet hall, there are about 4 little "extra / bonus" tracks you can listen to with details of meals and celebrations. One of them talks about what they'd eat there. Sterling had his play a few seconds after me, and I was listening to a guy re-enacting what a chef would have served... he described how he loved to serve brains! "I just love brains, I love them in everything! I love brains in puff pastry..." blah blah. I looked at Sterling, who was just listening and wondering why I had a funny look on face.. all of a sudden he got the same look..blech! We toured 4 floors and the basement, and were eventually disgorged (like a champagne cork.. read more) by the courtyard which has been turned into a little mini-mall.
We had lunch at the Stable Cafe, which used to be... uh..the stable! Very cool, very YUM, not cheap. But then, nothing is... they know a captive audience when they see one!
We got to check out the gardens a little bit before we had to hop on the shuttle back to the parking lot and jet over to the Winery. We ran into the main entrance along with another couple who was also running late.. glad it wasn't just us! They turned out to be really nice, and we chatted with them quite a bit during this and the later tour.
Before I go any further, let me point out that there are 3 tours / sessions you can sign up for for no additional fee... you get even more to drink, and they're just really great.. you cannot miss, I would highly recommend these!
We took the behind-the-scenes tour that showed us where/how the crush the grapes, how they ferment, where they store the barrels, bottle, and how they make champagne. Sterling said it looks like alot like the brewery, just with different bottles. If you've never seen how champagne is made, you need to. You will never complain about the price again.. holy CRAP it's a labor-intensive process!
Since we had an hour to kill before the next session, we NATURALLY spent some of it in the tasting room (again) to round out with the ones we couldn't taste yesterday (you only get 5 after you try the 4 they push on ya!), and then we moved on to try the high end wines for a small fee. Actually, at $7 for 3 samples (all of which were nearly full-sized portions), I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth! Especially considering that one of the wines I tried costs about $50 / bottle.. soooooo goood, though!
While chatting with the other fun little couple we met, we discovered that they are from, well, kinda all over. They're staying in TN at one of their parents' timeshare. We mentioned yesterday's smoke to them, and they said "OH! What was that?". He'd told her maybe that's why they called it the Smoky Mountains, because it looked smokey up there (LOL!), and she said, "Uh, Yeah, but it SMELLS smokey, too!". We all chuckled over that one! They'd also signed up for the red wine / chocolate session, and we made a pact that if either couple was late, the other would cover for them! Sure enough, we were the ones who were late (we took a potty break, and the lady at the desk TOLD us they'd wait for us!).
So, the RWC session took us down to the cellar again, to the party room. Apparently, if you have $5K you're willing to part with, you can rent this out for parties. It's basically just a cool room down in the basement where the guy (who was pretty darn funny!) serves you two red wines and some yummy chocolate, and explains why they pair well together, throws in s'more very good little wine tidbits, and you get to see how well RW and C go together (I already knew that they rocked). What I didn't know was that certain percentages of chocolate go better with some red wines than others.. there are optimal pairings. We had a 58% cocoa chocolate which was best-suited for the Reserve Merlot.. the other wine we tried, the Cardinal's Crest, would be better suited for a 55% chocolate.
We strolled over to the farm, looked it over, and then headed out for some grub. The Grove Arcade, sort of an indoor marketplace (think Post Office Pavillion or Union Station in D. C.) to find some food, forgetting that it was 6pm on a Sunday.. el closed-o. So we settled for.. are you ready? KRYSTAL! That's right... we ate Krystal burgers in the car on the way back to the hotel. Dave, you should know that they server something called a "Steamer Sack", which is basically a bag of 24 burgers... Steamers. Nothing tops off a day of culture, wine and history like eating something called a steamer.

Awesome Asheville

What a beautiful day! We woke up this morning to the soothing strains of our son's wailing (nothing new). Daddy went in to say hi, and James immediately demanded "momma!". Well, momma came in, and then he demanded Grandaddy.. and didn't give a hoot about momma. We got ready, and hit the road around 9ish.
Our first stop was at Ray-Len vineyards to sample their wares. Yum! Awesome wine, super-nice people, beautiful vineyard, and they make furniture out of their old wine barrels that's bee-ay-ootiful. We may have to pick something up.
We then headed onto Asheville, and arrived around 3ish. We checked in, and decided to check out Biltmore. The house was closed for the day, but the winery was still open. The line moved pretty quickly, there was a 6 min video, and then it was a self-guided tour of the winery itself. At the end was a HEE-YOOGE tasting room, where we could sample like 3 or 4 of the wines they chose, then 5 more of our choosing. Needless to say, we've sampled ALOT of wine today. We're chatting it over tonight to figure out what we want to buy when we go back.
Dinner was at a cool little place in downtown Asheville called Barley's Taproom and Grill. We had some very good beer, and some rockin' pizza! We're now stuffed to the gills, pooped, and chilling in the hotel room.
A tip: the package deal we booked through the Biltmore website included 2 nights at the hotel and admittance to the Biltmore estate for the duration of our stay.. 3 days. When you consider how much wine they let you sample, and how much it normally costs just for 1 day, it's a total steal! Thus far, we recommend it highly! Bonus: Hampton Inn has hot chocolate and cookies at night!
Loves to everyone, and thanks to Honey and Grandaddy for watching the boy (man are YOU going to be pooped after this weekend!)
I should also mention that after we got here (when we drove back over to Biltmore), we noticed that it looked very hazy and we smelled smoke. When we tried to come here 5 yrs or so ago, we got snowed out (a very long story, but basically we stayed overnight then fled the next morning to avoid being snowbound), and all we could think when we saw the smoke was "crap.. NOW the place is on FIRE!". Turns out they were doing a controlled burn in TN in the woods.. the smoke just travelled quite a bit. Whew!

Thank heaven for little boys.. but I miss my baby

I took a half day today to ease myself into our vacation weekend.. we're going to Biltmore Estate! Anyway, I took advantage of the free time to clean up James' room a bit, and put away some of his baby things in preparation for the ongoing migration to Big Boy Room. As I got to his drawers to see what could be weeded out, I realized that we still had all of his receiving blankets and little baby blankets in there. They're so small! I held them for a minute and remembered how tiny he was, and how much I loved to snuggle up with him before he ran everywhere at a mile a minute! I realized that in my excitement surrounding the emergence of Little Boy, I'd nearly forgotten that this meant the departure of Baby Boy. And no, before you ask, it doesn't get me thinking about another one.. it just makes me nostalgic for the one I have/had. I'm sure that more experienced moms are already hip to this feeling... it made me a little sad.

More pics!

Thanks to Keaton's Mommy and Daddy, Stacy and Ben Kley, for providing more awesome pics of James' birthday! They've been added to the collection. Check out the "2nd Birthday" album..enjoy!

The icing on the cake

What a wonderful party we had! We talked about it for hours afterwards, and just couldn't get over what a great turnout we had, and how happy we got to see so many people we don't get to see as often as we'd like! We had nearly 20 grown-ups, and about 7 kids in and around our house AT ONE TIME! We now accept that our house is simply NOT designed for parties. You'll see in the pictures that at one point, I just blew up a bunch of balloons for the kids to toss around.. 7 kids doesn't *sound* like a lot, but when they are bouncing off of the walls and one another while throwing around balloons, it's like having 100 kids! It was so funny to watch, though, and strangely enough, it wasn't stressful or anything, just crazy and fun. Kudos to mah main, Sterling, for his mad cooking skillz! Nicely done on the burgers and dogs, and the cole slaw was gone before you could say "hot dog!". In spite of the fact that it was his first time cooking and army-sized batch of mac and cheese, it too, was a success.
James received so many nice things from such thoughtful friends, and we spent several hours last night taking things out of the packages, and I'm sure we'll be doing some assembly for the next few days! I prefer to think of it as a trial run for Christmas this year! Everyone seemed to LOVE their goody bags, and the squishy water tubes were the hit of the party (as I predicted!).
Everyone said they had a wonderful time. Jamye said she actually hopped online this morning to catch the post here (so flattering!). Dave said he'd been looking forward to it all week, and was not disappointed. All in all, a wonderfully exhausting but super-fun and successful birthday party! Here's to another year!

Oh yeah... new pics in the Photo Collection, but we're depending on the kindness of others who will hope will share theirs.. we were a little too busy to snap a bunch ourselves! Ta ta!

So proud and so..uh....hmmm...

So James came to me for the first time this morning and said "Momma, poops", letting me know that he had a dirty diaper! Wow... what a HUGE breakthrough. This is a boy you normally only know needs to be changed when it hits you in the face (specifically, the nose). He does not care one bit about carrying around a little extra weight, and he will run away from you if you ask him if he needs to be changed. So for him to TELL me and let me change him is HUGE! So proud, and I told him this.
So, with my proud-momma-high lingering, we headed out to face the day. It was BEAUTIFUL.. sunny skies, slight breeze, 70s.. the kind of day that puts you in a good mood. Mind you, as this story unfolds, the day never really gets bad, it's just funny.
We're walking through Target (wow.. ever notice how many of my entries are set in this scene.. I think I've got a problem), James is in the cart and we're looking at toddler clothes. I step over one rack and he says "momma! momma!", I walk back over and say "yes?" and he says "pee pee!!!", and I realize that his hand is crammed down his pants all the way up to his elbow. For any of you thinking, "oh, another breakthrough.. now he's telling you he's wet", you're wrong. He was telling me that he'd found his little buddy and was having a blast. Niiiiiice. Mommy tried the ol' "pee pee's going night night right now.. take your hand out of your pants and tell pee pee night night"... he did, but then he'd look at me, wait to catch my eye, grin, and start to hitch up his shirt and head his hand down south again. I guess I gave it away... I let him know that I didnt' want him to do that instead of playing it cool, all "aw, it's all cool.. play with it if you want, Mommy doesnt' care"... reverse psychology only works if you don't cave and meet the behavior with a "What the heck are you doing in PUBLIC!?" kind of face. Dang.

Hunh?

Sometimes (ok, often) toddlers do and say things that just make you go "hunh? what?" and you just wonder what's going through their busy, silly little minds. This morning, James opened up the top drawer of our bedside table, sniffed, and said "smells good!". What?!?!

Happy 2nd Birthday

Happy Birthday to my favorite little man! I can't believe how much he's grown in the last two years... or that's it's BEEN TWO YEARS! Holy cow! James, when you read this years from now, know that we just think you are so funny, smart, sweet, personable, and all-around awesome. You are loved by many, especially your mommy and daddy. I watched you walk down to the bustop today, holding Natalie's hand as you just looked at me and said "bye bye!" and I realized just how big you're getting. It blows my mind, and it makes me a little sad, but kinda proud, too... we must be doing something right for you to be as great as you are. We love you, buddy!

Spirits help us!

So I'm taking a 5 min breather because James is downstairs screaming his head off and it's really hard to concentrate. It seems he's been especially prone to grouchy periods lately.. we're not sure if it's the onset of the twoseys or just a rough patch of crank. At any rate, I went to check the ParentsPlace March 2004 babies chat board to see if this was normal and found this quiz: http://quiz.ivillage.com/parenting/tests/whisper.htm
Turns out (shocker!) that James fits the following description...well DUH!

Spirited Toddler

The Spirited Toddler is extremely active physically, often willful, and may be prone to temper tantrums. She is very social and curious and will point to objects and reach out for them and for other kids early on. This child is the consummate adventurer; she will have a go at anything and is very determined. She displays a great sense of achievement when she accomplishes something. At the same time, she needs very clear boundaries so that she doesn't act like a steamroller, trampling anyone or anything in her path. Once they start crying, Spirited Toddlers have stamina and staying power, so you're in for a long haul if you don't have a good routine going. Given good guidance and an outlet for her energy, however, a Spirited Toddler can become a leader and very accomplished in whatever area interests her.

Ba-set-baaaawwww

James' new word is "basetbawl" for Basketball. Now we're pretty darned proud of the fact that he's mastered a three-syllable word...but the reason he's mastered it is because it is now his FAVORITE word. He kept calling it something else that we knew meant basketball but didn't sound anything like it, so we worked with him this weekend on pronouncing "basketball", and started walking around the house singing "baaa-seeeet-baaaawwl" over and over and over. He did this for about a good 2 hrs the first day, and then for a few mins at a time intermittantly since then.
When he says "momma" and waits for me to say "james", and we do that back and forth in varying voices, it's cute, it's funny, it's not annoying at all. Hearing "basetbawl" for the umpteenth time might be enough to make me stick and icepick in my ears.. no eardrums, no "basetbawl". :-)

There IS a silver lining!

You know, as crazy as our scheduled are right now, and as much as we both hate that Sterling is on his current schedule (not griping, there's just nothing to be done about it at the moment), one of the things it's done is to force James and I to get out of the house every weekend. Granted, some days this is easier said than done, but we now have standing Saturday morning playdates with Keaton and Stacy, which is really so much fun. We've had to find alot of interesting things to do, and as hectic as it can be, it's also really cool and I hope that James will remember how much fun we have.
We started a little early today (mommy did some planning.. can you stand it?) and did a Target run, followed by a trip to the new Brier Creek Chick Fil A for some free Chicken Minis (thanks, new CFA!).. which btw, ROCK! We then sat at the airport Observation Park (no planes coming OR going.. ??) while we munched. We then swung on over to the Kleys to pile into the Kley-mobile to head on over to the J C Raulston Arboretum near State. If you haven't been, you need to. Not only is it just a beautiful spot (and it's HUGE), but toddlers can pretty run wild.. and they did. Mommies can plan their yards or try to identify what's already growing (what's that mystery shrub near the driveway?) while kids can hide behind trees, follow trails, see fish, and just have a blast. I added the pics to the photo collection. A few things of note:

• The first pic is of James and I eating our breakfast.. just in case you were wondering.
  
• Those of you without toddlers might wonder why some pics are repeated.. those of you WITH won't.
• Those of you with will wonder how in the heck we got so many good ones.. see note #1, and also, luck.
• My favorite is the one where they're peeking through the holes in the fence. In the first one, they're both facing the camera. In #2, one of them is facing the other, then in #3 it's the other, then they're both facing the front again for the last one. What you don't see is me holding them up! (not important, just kinda funny)
• Jamye and Stacy Grose, that plant in Stacy's yard is a Chaenomeles: japonica "Atsuya Hamada". I thought it was a flowering quince.. that's close, right? Although.. check out this link, 'cause I *might* still be right..."Japanese quince: n. A common name for Chaenomeles speciosa" YEAH, baby!
  

Enjoy.. we certainly did!

Silly girls

A good friend of mine once said, "The best playdates are often the unplanned ones" (ok, it was Jamye, and she said that a few hours ago). We went to a pancake supper at her church tonight, where the theme was kinda Mardi Gras, kinda wierd hat. So we wore wierd hats, ate pancakes, and chased silly kids. On the way out, we decided to let the little ones tear around on the playground for a bit, and they had a blast. You can see from the ridiculous picture that the mommies did, too.

What Not to Wear

Oatmeal...good for your heart, good for your skin, NOT good for a toddler to feed himself. Just passing along the info.

We spent yesterday morning with Keaton and Keaton's mommy, Stacy. We had a good ol' time at Triangle Town Center, the new mall in Raleigh. It was frrrreeezing outside and we needed somewhere warm to play. They have a toddler playground called Discovery Creek, which has all kinds of stuff to climb on, slide down, and run around. Needless to say, they had a blast. If you click on Woodruffs Photo Collection, the pics are in the "Feb / Mar 2006" album.
Post-workout, we planned to grab pretzel while we waited for the stores to open, but the pretzel place wasn't open yet, and we had to settle for Cinnabon. Darn.

It was right before / around this point when the mommies needed a potty break. On the way out, Keaton took the opportunity to yank his hand out of Stacy's and run into the men's room! Stacy wasn't quite sure what to do at first, so she stood in the doorway yelling "Keaton! Keaton you come back here!". After about 30 seconds, he did...crisis averted!

While shopping in PBK, James decided it was time for his morning consitutional. So, right after our purchase, we headed BACK to the ladie's room for a change. Well, someone was feeling squirmy, which was icing on the already not-so-fragrant cake (James is on antibiotics at the moment... peeeyew!). After cleaning up the eye-burner of a diaper and setting him down, I figured since I'd just used the last wipe, and forgotten a diaper-disposing bag, I'd stuff the diaper into the wipe bag to throw it away. It was while I was trying to do this that I heard a splish splash, and glanced over to see my son up to his armpits in the MALL TOILET. This resulted in a very loud "OH JAMES.. NO!!!" at which point I inadvertantly shoved my thumb straight into the disgusting diaper right up to my knuckle. The next comment was something like "OH COME ON!! JAMES STOP IT!". Stacy helped corral the youngsters while I scrubbed my hand and disposed of the diaper, much to the amusement of the other two ladies that were also in the bathroom at the time (who I'm sure went home and made damn sure they were current on their birth control!). We got James cleaned up, and headed back down the mall. Both mommies were VERY ready for a nap after THIS playdate.

Oh yeah, and if you were wondering about the title, "what not to wear".. the answers are:

• oatmeal
• mall toilet water
  
• poop (on your thumb)
  

Blogging buddies

We've been friends for over 10 years, Preggo Pals, and now we're Blogging Buddies! Please welcome my friend Jamye to the world of blogging.. the link to her new site is down below, along with my other favorites. Enjoy! (she's a better writer than I am... you WILL enjoy it!)

In other completely unrelated news... James has named his.. uh.. equipment. He actually did this a few weeks ago, I just forgot to share. While au natural on the changing table, he looked down, as he often does, and suddenly a little light went on in his head and he said "Saturn!". Mommy said "what?", and he repeated "Saturn" and pointed to what we'd previously referred to simply as "peepee". I looked for a sec and realized, ok, it's round, it kinda has a ring around it... oh my. I'm proud of him for being so creative, but really.. is it normal to name it when you're this young? I don't think I even have to ask is that's a normal name for it!

RocketMan

Ok, I not-so-secretly loves that James seems to be as big a nerd as me! I've been putting together favor bags for James' space-themed birthday party, and one of the favors is a rocket-shaped bottle of bubbles. James LOVES his little hand-held rocket (a pocket rocket, if you will), and took it to daycare with him yesterday. Valarie said that he napped with it, and at one point he woke up and looked around like he needed to find something (which is typically when he misplaces Lion), and he wanted the ROCKET! Who the heck snuggles with a rocket? My child, the future astronaut.

Life is precious.. but sometimes it stinks

Our friends, the Groses, have suffered the worst loss one can imagine this past week. They lost their wonderful 4-yr old boy, Devin. It was very sudden, and we're all pretty much in shock. If you know them and haven't already done so, please pass along your thoughts and prayers.. they certainly need it. Also, take a moment to hug, kiss, or call your friends and family, because life is precious and you need to steal every second of if! Sometimes, though, like right now, it just plain stinks.

Happy Birthday, Zack!

Today we went to Zack's birthday party at Pump it Up. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, as I was, it's a room the size of a school gymnasium with several huge moonwalks and inflatable slides. There's music, and balls and lots of stuff to jump on. I have no pictures because I was solo mom for the day and had my hands full.. just a pick of James wearing one of his party favors! It was so much fun, and I am so whipped!
When we first arrived, James was FREAKED OUT. Then he saw basketballs, and that was cool for about a good 30 mins or so. We then managed to get on the slide, which he loved. We did that a few times before he saw basketballs IN one of the jumpy things... so we moved in there, and he decided it wasn't so freaky after all! I had to drag him away when we moved off for snacks and cupcakes! We had a wonderful, and it looks like Zack had a great one, too.. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Keaton (and a shout-out to Auntie E)

Today we went to Keaton's 2nd birthday party, and my hat is off to expectant mommy Stacy Kley, who threw a fabulous bash (yes, Ben, you did a good job grilling, and I'm sure Stacy gave you some todos in prep for the party, too!). All of the kids had a wonderful time, and it's hard to believe how big they're getting, so quickly!
Our shout-out to Auntie E is in reference to our first opportunity to wear James' little-man-sweater that she bought him for Christmas. He looked quite dashing and got several compliments!
Lastly, just an interesting little tidbit that James, you might find cool (or incredibly boring by then) when you get older.. here's something from today's headlines:
"Along with these services, space tourism businesses hope to send customers into suborbital space at a cost of $25,000 to $250,000 a person, far less than the $20 million businessman Gregory Olsen paid Russia last fall for a ride to the International Space Station. Richard Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, already has 100 people who have paid $200,000 apiece for flights, which the company has said it hopes to begin in 2008."
By the time you're a grown man, this might be old hat.. the way computers are now. I'm sure if someone told me when I was growing up that everyone would have a computer by the time I was an adult, I'd have gone "wow!". Just like now, I see this and think, "wow.. spaceflight for the common man". 20 yrs from now, people will just say "well, DUH! it's just like a computer.. everybody has one!". Interesting times we live in.

The elusive double-toddler pic

After months of failed attempts, I FINALLY managed to snag a picture of Keaton and James in the same shot, both looking at the camera and smiling.. amazing! I challenge any sports photographer to do better!

New pics

New pics posted.. click on Woodruff Photo Collection, they're in the Winter 2005/2006 photo album.

Garrulous Guy

What a wonderful Valentine's Day(s). Yesterday, I took the day off to hang out with my favorite guys. We intended to go to the Durham Museum of Life and Science, but it's closed MONDAYS ONLY through.. yesterday! Dang! We did, however, take some fun pics in front of the rocket they have out front.. James LOVED it. At first he was a little freaked out, but he got over it! Pics in the collection. We then went to the mall to let James tear around Discovery Creek with the other little ones.. he ran and screeched and had a blast for something between 1/2 - 1 hour. .. and he left under protest. All in all, it was a wonderful day.
Today, I got beautiful red tulips and a very sweet card (Sterling is VERY good at picking our cards.. always!), and then my littlest Valentine surprised me again with chocolate and another wonderful card. I'm a lucky lady!
Tonight James was running around like a goofball. He grabbed a bottle of water in one hand, and bubbles in the other, and walked around the house (basically doing laps) saying "buuubbbleees.... buuuubbbllles".. I swear he did this for about 20 mins. (which gave us time to eat, so cool).
Speaking of being chatty, here's an excerpt from James' conversation with Sterling on the way home from daycare today:
"Dada? dada? Cars. Cars...more cars! Hi, Cars! Caaarrss. Sun! Hot! HotSun! Red.. cots (stop)! Gooooo..geenliihhh! Cars Cars . HOT! Sun, Hot! Dada? Daaadaaaa. DADA! DADA! Cars, hi, Cars!" and so it continues.. it's about a 10 min trip home. :-)

Flashbacks to days of youth

James is reverting to his childhood. Lately, when you have something he wants, instead of saying "I want it", or just "please" and pointing, he says, "ga ga ga GA GA?" while pointing. It is the funniest thing to hear, because that two-letter word, "ga", used several times in a "sentence" is spoken with such a tone that he really does convey the idea, "gee, whatever that is that you've got looks terrific and I sure would like a bit / sip / nibble". We've no idea why he's chosen that phrase to express this sentiment, but it sure is funny.

We all continue to miss Moose (btw, thank you to everyone who posted something nice in the Moosey Memorial entry!). James asks about him once in a while, but it's not as bad as we thought it would be (well, I don't know if I can speak for Sterling, but speaking for myself...), it's nice that he remembers him and wants him, but also good that he doesn't really get what happened so he can't be as sad about it as we were... so he's just left with fond memories of his pal who, for some reason, doesn't come around any more.
He has started to get a little chummier with Becky, and she's tolerating it fairly well. He's always loved to fill up the dog bowl in the morning, and now when it's full, he chases her with it yelling "Beeeccky". He kissed her tonight, he tried to hug her, and he's nicer about petting her. I think she's happy to get a little more attention, and he's happy to have someone to give all of this love to.. even if she only wants a little at a time!

Somebody has a crummy bedside manner

.. and it's not me. As we've probably mentioned before, the Prince likes to stir at about 5:30 - 6:30am. He'll cry and bounce until we come get him, but if we take him back to bed with us, he'll sometimes sleep in with us for another hour or so (Ferber fans, yes.. we know we probably need to revisit the whole "Cry it out" thing). Even if we're ready to get up, we all typically hang out and snuggle for a little while before officially Getting Up. So anyhoo, Daddy was at work the night before last, so it was just mommy and her moppet sleeping in. James got up, leaned over and gave me a face press (kinda like a hug with your cheeks) to wake me up, and went "Hi!... hi!". Then he started to PUSH and said, "Move.". Frankly, I can think of more tactful ways to greet the morn.. we'll be working on morning manners, I suppose.

Ain't Gonna Sing No Mo'

James has just gotten over (well, in the final stages of), his THIRD cold / virus / disease of the year. Naturally, while he was still in the throes of diseasedom, he was a CRANKPOT!! The other night he was clearly exhausted, but fighting bedtime. Typically he's great about it, but not interested THIS time! I was trying to rock him to calm him down, and he kept wiggling and saying "down! down!". I told him "no, you're not getting down.. you can either rock, or get in bed. Which is it?". He sat still, so I figured, ok, the answer is "rock". So, we're rocking, I'm singing to him, and about halfway through the song he sits up in my lap, turns to me with a very serious expression and said "hush.". Flabbergasted, I naturally paused for a moment to process the fact that I'd been hushed as if I were the dog. I thought, "hmm.. perhaps he's using it out of context.. he just likes to say it and doesn't really mean for me to stop singing...".. so I continued. He looked at me more sternly, shook his head and said "hmm-nnn!". It was at this point that I deduced that he must be super-tired to refuse the soothing strains of my voice, so I plunked his little tush in bed and that was that! (nobody likes a critic)

Bed head

Not much to report, just wanted to post some incredibly funny pictures... as you can see, James functions just as poorly as the rest of us without coffee...

More missing Moose

Whew... crying takes alot out of you. We're both pretty pooped out these days. I feel kinda like we're in limbo, and things just don't feel very normal. It's like we're in this temporary state that doesn't quite feel right. It felt alot like this when James was in the NICU that first week and we travelled back and forth.. like life was on hold for a little bit. Since I moved down here, there has not been life without Moose. We keep coming down the stairs and expecting to see him quietly sitting by the couch, looking out the living room window (or sneakily hanging out ON the sofa!). When I walk Becky, it's wierd for Moose to not be there, scratching at the door for his turn. And Becky no longer has to howl when he gets his turn and she's stuck watching at the door.. it's all about her. It's wierdly boring. The power guy changed our meter yesterday and we lost power for a sec, the phones all bleeped, and I was sad, realizing that Moose wouldn't come cowering over to sit under the desk on my feet for the next half hour because he thought we'd lost power again. I miss that little *sigh* when he'd settle into a good spot, and I miss James saying "Moose!" when he sees him. I used to get frazzled sometimes when they both needed something at once, and now it seems so boring and wrong to not have that anymore.
We picked up his ashes yesterday, and I can't believe that someone so full of life, and who seemed so heavy when I carried him home the day I thought he had heatstroke* had turned into something so small and light... it doesn't seem possible that this is all that's left of him. I want him back. and now I'm sobbing again. We still haven't figured out what to do with him. Sterling said "I know his soul must be tortured right now to know that he's in that tiny little box!" (Moose HATED boxes, bags, and the open end of bottles.. but not Becky or the Boy... he was quite eccentric). Well, I started thinking, Oh man, he WOULD hate that, and that started me sobbing yet again. How long is this going to last? I guess we need to figure something out. For now, he's on his blanket on Sterling's workbench in the garage. He's at least under the roof again, and he's with his girlfriend.. guess that will get his soul by for the moment.

*Back when we lived in the apt near Olde Raleigh Village, I was walking Moose and Becky around the circle. Moose found a shady spot of grass and dropped down on his back and started to make this little snuffle noise while squirming around on his back. He'd flop around for a bit, then lay still and pant. I thought for sure he was overheating (it was summer), so I picked him up (while still holding Becky's leash) and carried him back to the apt.. probably about a quarter mile or so. When I got home, Sterling told me that, oh yeah, that was normal.. Moose likes to roll around in shady grass when it's hot out.. he just does it because it feels good. Sometimes you just need a good roll. Maybe I should go try that.. might make me feel better? If you drive by and see me making an ass of myself.. just keep driving.

Ode to Moose 

Ode to Moose

Moose Woodruff
May 23, 1994 - Jan 25, 2006

From the mouths of babes.. to quote James, "Oh, Moose.". Twelve years should be enough time to have with a rockin' dog like Moosey, but it wasn't. We feel gyped. An unfortunate snack choice led to the demise of someone we held very dear, and that just sucks. Moose held on for about a week after inexplicably eating CARPET (WTF?!?!), and had a good prognosis yesterday, but apparently slipped off this morning to that big Dog Park in the sky.. let's hope it rains Iams biscuits and there are lots of rabbits and squirrels to chase. A big thanks to Dr.s Gordon and Wages at the Oberlin Road Animal Hospital, where Moose and Becky have been patients for years.. they did wonderful work, but I guess our tough little guy was just too tired.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Chronicles of Moose, he was actually a gift for me from Sterling before I moved down here. He was the cutest puppy, and was quirky from day 1. He lived with Sterling and Scott for a year until I moved down, and by then, the Boys Club was unwilling to break up, so I got Becky and Moose stayed on with the men. He was Sterling's first dog. He tippy-toed through or jumped over puddles, he didn't like to get his feet dirty. He had to be touching something when he laid down.. either a pillow, a person, or whatever furniture he wasn't supposed to be on. He'd do anything for a biscuit, or love. He liked to sit in front of you while you were watching TV and stare at you until it creeped you out! He was the most patient, loving dog, and from the moment we brought James home, he was by his side. James loved him, and learned the word "Moose" very early. Most of all, he was our dog, and we loved him, and we already miss him. Alot.

The Earth doesn't revolve around Mommy

It may have at one point, but James knows that it revolves around the Sun, along with Jupiter, Mars (or "stop") and Saturn.. and all of this is way cooler than Mommy. When bedtime rolled around, I asked "are you ready to get in bed and see your planets?", and he got ALL excited and practically jumped into bed. I received a very token kiss and hug, and then he hopped in all atwitter. I asked "lights?", and he said "Go!". I asked if he loved his planets, and he said "mmmm-mm!" (which is his huggy noise), then he told me "see ya!", and he was done with me. He had his universe, and Mommy has been squeezed out a bit in favor of some balls of rock and gas.

The Solar System, and planet STOP!

James' new love is the solar system.. all things space! He simply can't get enough of it. Everything round is a potential earth, and he asks for planets, stars, moon, by name. If there's a crayon nearby, he'll hand it to you and beg you to draw him a moooon. During a trip to the museum last week, we bought him the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets, and he's just in heaven (literally!). He can identify the following (and here are his translations):
Earth: "erf"
Saturn: "sanuhn"
Jupiter: "juhjuaah", or "spot" (Daddy's idea)
Mars: "Mahs", he actually says this quite well when he sees it, but if you ask him what's the red planet? he says "stop!"
Sun: "Sunh"
Stars: "Sahs"
Moon: "Mooehn"

Pretty good, eh? Not that we're bragging or anything, but does YOUR kid know astronomy?

New pics

Click on Woodruff Photo Collection down on the left, and then go into the Winter 2005 album... new pics! Happy New Year!

Take a number ladies...

this boy likes SHOPPING and SHOES! James is a huge fan of Harris Teeter, our local grocery store. It has nothing to do with the fact that they offer free balloons and cookies. When we pull up into the parking lot, James yells, "Teetie! Teetie!". He is also escorts mommy on many occassions to the local Target (Tarjay, to those of you more familiar with that nomenclature). I'm slightly embarassed to admit that I probably visit Target about 4 times a week. Anyway, James can now identify "Target" when we pull in, too! The icing on the cake is this.. the boy loves shoes. You heard me. This has actually been one of his words for quite some time now, and he'll tell you when he wants to put on his shoes. We recently got him 2 new pairs and figured we'd wrap them up for Christmas just to give him more stuff to open...he was THRILLED!
On a quasi-related note, he also now says, "Oh, " about lots of things. "Oh, Moose" is his favorite, and he says this at random times. When he loses a shoe, though (which is often, because he's squirmy as the day is long), he goes "oh, shoe.", like he's chastising it for falling off! Such a cutie.

On the mend, the post-holiday glow

James is on the mend, and he didn't let any crummy old cold put too much of a damper on his Christmas! What a blast he had (and he totally racked up.. like that was ever in doubt!). We had Liz and Jim xmas on Friday, hung out on Saturday (actually, James and mommy had to get out of the house all day so that Daddy could sleep!), and then we had Woodruff family xmas Sunday morning. Sterling then *tried* to sleep Saturday morning, but Germy James was totally off of his scheduled due to the Christmas Croup, and a very cranky Woodruff family drove down to Clayton for Cooley/Pyne/DeMauro Christmas. James ran around like a nutcase, snatching candy canes off of the tree, and playing with his stash. Favorites: keyboard and mike combo, SpongeBob ball, and Harley Davidson Big Wheel.
Monday was Woodruff Christmas with a still not-fully-recovered James who was still totally off of his normal schedule. After his overdue nap, we opened gifts and hung out. James received an awesome easel (he's very into drawing!) which now graces the family room, and some super-cute new clothes!
The rest of the week was busy, but uneventful. Sterling still had to work, so mommy and James had to get out of the house every day to let him sleep.. thank GOODNESS the weather was nice.. was in the high 50s/low 60s every day! Newest discovery: the greenway trail at the Museum of Art. There's a trail that goes around the museum with artwork, benches, fields, just very cool for a high-energy toddler! Whew! I think I'm actually ready to go back to work for a break!

A tradition continues...

As his daddy and auntie did so many years ago, James attended the Roanoke Rapids Christmas parade with his GPs... although he's obviously enjoying an afternoon of entertainment and leisurely snacking, I think it's clear who's REALLY enjoying the afternoon!

MessyFingerPaints, 1 CanofDin, and a Partriiidge ina Pear Treee!

Thanks, Auntie E, for giving our child a bucket of noise and stuff to redecorate our house with.. finger paints and markers! How long did you say before you two are going to have on of your own? Because we're going to start shopping now... ! Hahaha.. I kid. Actually, Auntie E scored big with her selection of Toddler treats! She bought him the Bee Bop Band (aka "Can o' Noise"), and Crayola finger paints and markers that ONLY WORK ON SPECIAL PAPER! Yahoo! It took him a few mins because the colors don't show up immediately.. takes a few seconds and his attention span isn't quite that long! Once he realized how it worked, though, he loved it! To show his appreciation, he serenaded Auntie E with a drum solo... and then plonked her square in the face with both sticks! It was actually kinda funny, because although the entire thing took all of 5 seconds, you could see him look at the sticks, look at her, and the wheels in his little head started to grind and he just "boop!" thwaked her right in the eye and on the nose. You can't say he doesn't have good hand-eye coordiniation!

Crouptacular Holiday

Yet another milestone achieved.. first case of croup. For those of you unfamiliar with the condition, it pretty much means that you get some kind of cold or respiratory virus, but for some reason, it causes the vocal cords to swell which results in a barking, wheezing cough. It only happens in little kids because their little throats are so small. Once again, the end result was not just illness, but a wicked guilt trip! Liz and Jim had come over for Christmas, and James went down early for bed (craaaaanky!!). After they left, I realized that the jumping I'd been ignoring (which he normally does when he doesn't know that he wants to go to bed) was actually accompanied by this tiny little barking noise which was all he could get out! Poor bug! I whisked him into the bathroom and steamed it up quickly to help out (THANK YOU, Jamye, for telling me about croup nearly a year ago!!!). I then called Sterling to confab (naturally, this happened on a night he was working!!), and I looked it up in the book while we were on the phone. We paged the on-call ped, who confirmed that it was croup and phoned in a prescrip for steroids to reduce the swelling. On a good note, this is how we discovered that there is a 24-hour pharmacy in town! Poor little thing... he's doing a bit better, but his nose is like a faucet and you can tell he just feels like poop! Merry Christmas!

LookatthoseLIGHTS!

Ahh...the stuff that traditions and memories are made of! Tonight we went to the Chick Fil-A Celebration of Lights at The Pavilion Formerly Known As Walnut Creek (it's now the All-Tel Pavilion). Although we suffered a bit of sticker shock, and thanked our lucky stars for the extra change I carry in my wallet...$15 frickin' bucks! AND, there's a bunch of crap for sale in "Santa's Village".. I remember when this was $5, and you had to walk there uphill, both ways! ...but I digress. Anyway, we took James to see the lights, and he LOVED it! I was posolutely frreeezzing, but we still got out and stomped around Santa's Overpriced Village (perhaps next year we'll bring more than the $15 entrance fee and a handful of change, and actually ride the little choo choo!). We then got back in the car and had hot chocolate and mommy's chocolate chip cookies. It was an awesome night!

Not without my HAT!!!

Wow, toddlers are wierd. Every night before bed, James and I hang out in our room and watch a little bit of TV, then we play and roll around on the bed, and read some books. Well, tonight James started to say "hat! hat!", and I asked, "do you want your hat?". He started on his little desperate/relieved giggle he makes when he wants something really bad and he's so excited that you figured it out! I went into his room and brought him his hat, which he put on while he jumped around on the bed. It got closer to bedtime, and I said, "ok, let's take off your hat"... nothing doing! He started to fuss and protest and said "HAT! HAT!", so I put it back on. I brough him into his room and got ready to put him in bed and started to take it off, and again, he protested..vehemnantly! "HAT!!! HAT!!!"... so he went to sleep wearing his hat, just as happy as a lark. What a wierdo.

New pics

New pics posted! Click on "The Woodruffs Photo Collection" down on the left.

Nature vs. Nurture

This just in: it's genetic. Men are predisposed to fart jokes and base humor. Perhaps with alot of conditioning they can overcome it, but I really have my doubts. We were getting James ready for his bath on Friday, and I realized that the lotion dispenser was running low (I like the pump kind!). So I started to squeeze one of the new lotion bottles into the dispenser bottle, and every few seconds it would go "scqullerrtppht" and make a rather flatulent sound. James just stood there and cracked up every time, like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard! Mind, you, we are not the type of family who sits around making such noises or laughing at them... so I must conclude that it's in the genes. Pre-programmed. A part of the man he will someday be... a man who will belch and laugh at farts, not because he wants to be a pig, but because he just can't help it.

What a ham

Christmas comes early...

Daddy was away at the club today, which left Mommy and James home on a rainy day. While this might normally have me quaking in my New Balances, today it was.. an AWESOME day! James has learned to entertain himself.. for a looong time! Yay for everyone! He sat at his little toy cabinet downstairs this morning just playing with toys, then he'd move one out of the way when finished, then pull out the next one. So quiet, so good! He then sat there in the chair in the FROG reading some new books.. four in row. He'd quietly look at the page, point out a few things, then turn the page and keep "reading". He was so quiet I didn't even realize that it was naptime. Wow.

We also had two wonderful Turkey Days. Neither of us can believe that there was zero stress.. we're waiting for something to happen still! TG was at Liz's, and we just brough pies and collards (mind you, none of her yankee in-laws NOR HER would touch the stuff! And before you even get started, I think that being in the South for 10 years makes me a naturalized Southerner... so I can get away with calling people Yankees.. plus I just think it's funny). So no clean-up, no hassle (pies and greens made the night before), and home we went with full bellies!

TGII was Sat with the Floridians and my parents. Also very stress-free. Most of the stuff was cooked before everyone got there, so you didn't have that milling around while trying to cook thing (MAWTC). Ok, slight tangent here: we do NOT have a large kitchen, and while our house is decent-sized, it has a very traditional layout (read: not open), and everyone knows that when you have company, no matter how comfy and welcoming you've tried to make your living room (note: it ROCKS), everyone will find there way into the kitchen where they will stand DIRECTLY in the path of the cook, who's already grumpy because the food's not done, and general chaos will ensue. NONE OF THAT on Saturday. James was in a fabulous mood, the food was incredible (fried turkey, ALWAYS good!), and everyone was happy.

Also (sorry.. catching up on a BIG blogging backlog.. a backblog! haha), James has tasted the temptation that is Daddy's guitar. Here are a few quick pics of the boys strumming some catgut (it's really just wire) in the family room. Soooo cute!

What's in a name?

When you think of a new baby entering your lives, the kinds of questions that come to mind are:

• Will I be a good parent?
• How will I raise my child?
• Is my house childproofed?
• Can I afford this? What do I need to buy?

... unless you're a grandmom, then you ask

• What do I want this kid to call me?

Hehehe... that was the burning question on both grandmom's minds. As I'm sure is the norm around the world, the child has decided for himself how he'll address the ladies who spoil him so.

While staying with the Woodruffs during the week of Thanksgiving, he obviously noticed that Grandaddy referred to his wife as "honey", and that's what he's dubbed GM Woodruff.. Honey.

GM Cooley goes by "Sis" to all other members of the family. We were shooting for "GrandmaSis", but that's quite a mouthful, so James has settled for "Sis".. just like everyone else.

So his GMs are "Sis" and "Honey"... could he be any cuter?

James' new smile

So the other day I was filming James with the camcorder, when I noticed he stopped and grimaced at me twice. I thought, "wtf?", then I realized, it wasn't a grimace, it was a smile.. he was cheesing for the camera! What a total ham! Here're a few pics of what James thinks smiling is!

Play-Doh tastes good

.. if you are a toddler. Mind you, the colors it comes in these days will definitely keep ME from tasting them, but James.. quite a fan! He was introduced to Play-doh this week in an effort by Mommy to placate him while shopping in Tarjay. I figured the cool container it came in would keep him busy while we finished, but then we got home and I thought, "man, I haven't played with this in FOREVER...let's break it out!", and we did. It now comes in very cool colors! James mostly squished and sampled it, and really enjoyed pulling apart whatever I made for him. I did get several requests to make mooehns, which I did. You can see the pics of his first forays into this time-honored tradition in our photo albums.. check out the new link for Photo Collections, and select the Fall 2005 album.

Moon over my little man

James first discovered the moon while we were at the beach, and Grams took him out on the deck at night. Well, it has become his new obsession. Every night we have to go out to look for the moon. In the middle of the day, he'll walk around saying, "mooo-ooon?", "where's the moon?". It's so cute, because in his little voice it sounds like "mooehn" (like he's from Wisconsin.. and hey, the moon is MADE of cheese... coincidence?). He now looks for it everywhere, and thinks anything that looks REMOTELY like the moon (picture of a pearl, the sun, white linoleum circles on the floor of Harris Teeter) must also be moons. Ah, to be so easily amused again...

The little lion who wouldn't

You may recall from last year's halloween pics that we'd purchased a lion costume for James. It was selected in honor of Daddy's favorite beer, Carolina Brewing Company, whose mascot is a lion. Well, last year's search for a costume yielded only a 2T-sized one, so we just figured he'd be one again this year. Nothing doing! We'd attempted a test run several weeks ago, during which he pretty flipped the %*&(# out . Sooo, I opted not to try again until Halloween, hoping he'd have blocked out this bad memory. Well, I guess toddler's memories are better than we give them credit for. He mostly pretty much hated the hood. Apparently, having fuzzy crap around your face and your head ensconced in the same thing is not fun. And Daddy was working. And Mommy got stuck on a conference call until just before T.or.T started and was already flustered. Sooo... SuperResourcefulMommy went with Backup Plan B. I grabbed a long-sleeved shirt that happened to have a number on the front (thanks Grams!), TRIED to put on some sneakers (decided it wasn't worth it), and plopped him on the bathroom counter to throw some eyeline under his eyes to try to make him look like a football player. I guess that did the trick.. everyone knew what he was supposed to be, and he was comfy!

The Trick or Treating experience itself still hasn't really hit home with James. I tried to set down the candy on our front step while he and I went around to a few houses, and he just wanted to go back to get it! So, threw some in his pumpkin and tried to get him to carry it, but he just put it down and started rummaging through it! Next, I tried to carry it myself and walk with him, but he just wanted to go back home to get the candy. SO, Mommy ended up CARRYING him to the front walks just to get away from our house, walked up to the front door, and got him to knock. Then I handed him his pumpkin , but by the time the door was open, he was heads down in the pumpkin again rummaging for candy. He did say "trick or treat", though "dee dah dee". We hit about 5 houses, and then went back to hand our "cahneee". Here's the little sugarmonger dipping into the stash. A note to anyone who reads this: I expect hearty kudos for my quick costume-change.. give props where they're due! (.. and don't get me started on the contributions to his good looks.. that just goes without saying!)