Best Daddy EVAH!

Look what Daddy made for his little man... who now, btw, thinks Daddy is the coolest person on the planet! The last pic is my favorite.. d'ya think he likes it? He's so hard to read...

Whispering not-so-sweet nothings...

As always, James crawled into bed this morning to snuggle. As always "snuggling" with James (or trying to take a nap with him) is very similar to what I imagine it would feel like if you were thrown into a sack full of angry monkeys, and someone were to shake the bag.. vigorously. Seriously, it's part aerobic exercise, part physical torture. Yet I digress..
After some light tossing and turning, he whispers, "Monny.. it's morning time.", and I get my obligatory good morning kiss. He then whispers, "Monny... I'm weawwy hongwy. I want a cereal bar". I reply, "Tell Daddy". He then tells me, "he's sleeping". Guess what, Einstein, so was Monny until she got pummelled awake!

Where can he be?

I heard, "Mooonnnny!! Find me!" .. and this is what I found, "hiding"...

Feels like a hundred bucks!

Toddlers have such an interesting way of interpreting things. As I sit here typing, James walks up and says, "MONNY! I uh thirty saommgublu HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!". To which I naturally reply "hunh?". Sterling interpreted for me.. "he's thirty eight and a half inches tall.. we just measured him". So yeah, like he said.. HUNDRED DOLLARS!

I didn't realize we were on a first name basis...

While making breakfast for His Highness this morning, Sterling burned his hand on the toaster. Naturally, he yelped and gave the impression of having just acquired an owie. James replied, "What's wrong, Sterling?"... and I had to leave the room to go laugh.

And so it begins....

I wondered how long we'd get away with not dealing with the "whys". They've begun. Not so much in a "why is the sky blue?" kind of way, but in a "James, stop doing that", ".. but Why?" kind of way (vs. "pleeeease?!"). The funny thing is, he actually prefaces with "but".. "but, why?".

He's also started to ask, at random intervals, and typically when you're in plain sight, "what are you doing?". As we drove to grab some dinner last night, Sterling and I were each asked about 3 or 4 times each, "Mommy / Daddy, what are you doing?" from the boy in the back seat... who could see us both... as we sat in the same seats in the same care all the way to Jersey Mike's. My new weapon is "what do you think....". James: Mommy, what are you doing? Mommy: James, what do you think Mommy's doing? James: You reading a book. Mommy: That's right, very good! If he's going to ask obvious questions, he's going to work for a response as hard as I am!

Inappropriate requests

James has very good manners. He consistently says "please", "thank you", "may I..", "excuse me".. very nice. Unfortunately, he thinks that manners = getting what you ask for. Like they're some form of currency that can buy you whatever you'd like. Thus he frequently pleads for completely inappropriate things:
Mommy: James, pls stop kicking the back of mommy's seat (in the car)
James: pleeeaase?
WTF!! Who begs for permission to kick a freakin' seat? He does this with all kinds of naughty / mischievous behavior... does it, and when asked to stop simply replies "please?", like we'll say, "oh, alrighty then, my bad... beat mommy over the head with that toy all you want. Don't let me stop you!".

Spelling Champ

James has a little wooden puzzle with the alphabet that he loves to put together then shake to bits. He asked me to help him with it, so naturally I decided to make it an educational opportunity. I started to use the letters to spell short words. I spelled H A T. We said each of the letters, and then their sounds... or tried to
Mommy: What letter is this?
James: H! Huuuh!
Mommy: Good! What's the next letter?
James: A! Ah!
Mommy: Great, this one?
James: T!! Teh!
Mommy: very good, now let's say just the sounds and see what it spells...
James: It spells JAMES! Jumpy James!
Mommy: Sweetie, no, let's do the sounds. *points to H*
James: Huh
*mommy points to A*
James: Ah
*mommy points to T*
James: Teh
Mommy: good, now let's say them faster...
James: Jumpy James! It spells Jumpy James!

the world may not revolve around him, but I"m not sure he's grasped that yet...

AWESOME Weekend

So wow, we had a totally awesome weekend. Gotta work now, so more later, but I couldn't wait to share at least one or two pics. Also, Elizabeth has started a blog! The link is over on the left with my other favorite sites, and it's adorable.. love the template she used! That's all for now! Happy Monday!

It's all in how you say it.

I do believe I've been remiss in mentioning that we've recently taken a technological step forward and begin using a DVR. For the family members reading this who have no idea what that is, it's like TIVO but it doesn't pick stuff out for you (digital recorder... like a VCR but all digital and no tapes).
When we first switched to digital phones (vs. cell) I made it a point to say "mobile" vs. "cell" phone.. because it's incorrect. Other than that, I don't guess I'm especially picky about things like that. Unlike my DH (dear hubby).
There used to be one thing that would set Sterling's blood to boiling. If you said, "hey, I'm going to the store, want to go with"... he was absolutely just refuse to answer. No acknowledgment whatsoever, because I'd left off the final noun so the sentence must not be finished.. therefore no answer yet required! (kindof annoying).
So now he has two grammatical pet peeves. The going with, and inappropriate terminology with regards to the DVR. For the first few weeks, if I asked him to "tape" something for me, he would just ignore the request... we no longer "tape". I had to specify that I wanted him to RECORD something for me. Whatever, I just learned to program the danmed thing myself.

Birth of a mutant

Holy crap! I get weekly emails from various parenting sites, and one of them had a cool "predict your child's height" calculator. Now I've seen variations on this before where they basically say that if it's a boy, take the parents' avg heights and add an inch, or something like that... but check THIS out!

Height Predictor

Thanks for using our calculator!

Your son will likely be 6 feet, 6 inches tall at age 18.

This prediction is a "best guess" but it's still just that -- a guess. Based on the formula we used,* there's a 58 percent chance your son's full-grown height will be within 1 inch (above or below) of this prediction, an 85 percent chance it will be within 2 inches, and an 96 percent chance it will be within 3 inches.


The fine print:

This method relies on where your son falls on the Centers for Disease Control's growth charts, and it assumes that he'll remain in the same percentile until he reaches his adult height. The accuracy of the prediction varies because some children will fall into different percentiles throughout childhood.

Trash Talk

My straight-to-the-point, mince-no-words husband has a few favorite expressions he relies on when setting our son straight during times of naughtiness. They are, "don't make me get with your britches" (which we've had yet to act on) and "James, if you do x, it's going to get ugly up in here". James has gotten at least one of these warnings downpat. While I was travelling last week, Sterling was reminding James that he wasn't supposed to do one of the myriad of naughty things that we always find him doing, and said, "James, if you don't stop doing that right now.." to which James replied, "I know, Daddy, it going get ugly up in here"... at which point I'm sure Sterling had to leave the room before James realized how funny he was. Whatever he was doing, I'm sure it was forgotten.
This is now his stock response, even if it's not the answer you're looking for. For example, James likes to ride around the downstairs loop on this little car like a maniac. Once he gets up a good head of steam, he likes to chase Becky, which he KNOWS (doesn't stop him) he's not supposed to do. What happens when he does this? Mommy takes the car away.. that's a given. But when I ask him "what happens when you chase Becky?", his first instinct is to reply "it going get ugly up here".

Happy Easter, ya'll!

Yeah, ok, Easter was like 2 weeks ago.. sorry! I don't even have any fabulously witty things to say today, just a quick update to let you know that Easter pics are posted in the Photo Collection. Here's a teaser....

Must.... have..... waaaaterrrr

James is mastering the adjective. He routinely throws around "very" and "really" (or bewry and weally). We were walking through BJs today, and James informed us that he was weally fiwrsty. I told him he could have some water as soon as we got in the car.. we were headed towards the checkout anyway. Apparently we weren't headed fast enough. We were then treated to a very plaintive "Monny... I'm BEWRY FIWRSTY.... *cough* *cough*... I need water.. pleeease??" So I told him we'd go to the water fountain and get some now. Still, I did not move fast enough for the likes of his highness, and I got a coughing act all the way.
One AT the water fountain, James always insists on drinking from each one.. typically there are 2 side by side. So, he drank from each, each sip followed by "Aaaaaahhh!" as if he'd just crawled out of the desert. He's bewry dwamatic.

Methinks he doth protest too much

Yes, I should have known better. Surely the open house wore his little tush out, but I wanted lunch, and on many occasions we've grabbed something to go and eaten it at the airport observation field. So, I agreed, and we went. BUT.. he didn't really want to sit and eat, he wanted to play. Mind you, we were still dressed somewhat warmly.. jeans and such, because we left the house at 9am when it was still a tad chilly. Well, the field is in the sun, ya know, airport and all! So he played, and I got him to take bites in between climbs, and eventually we just got to the point where I was hot, and I'd put no sunscreen on him, and decided it was time to go. Clearly this was at odds with HIS plan!
So we drove home amidst sobs of protest and much pleading to return to the airport. It was quite apparent that the child was desperately in need of a NAP. Sadly, he refused to accept my logical conclusion, and then the wearies settled in. Ya know, when you've already crammed too much into the day, even though there's alot of day left? Yeah.. those! After alot of fussing (on both of our parts), he took a good hard nap, and the day proceeded nicely from there.
The point is, here are s'more cute pics from the airport..

Barnyard Fun

Every year NC State's Vet School has their open house, and it's quite cool! If you've ever wondered about those plugs in the sides of some of those cows, this is where you can see them up-close and have them explained (found an article here that explains it pretty well). There are lots of live animals, you can milk a cow, watch animals being spayed/neutered (you can't really see much, but you can see the dr's working with tools on something mostly under surgical cloths), you can bring stuffed animals with boo boos to have the vet students sew them back up. It's just an awesome day AND it's educational! James LOVED it. Here are some pics!
He petted: a police horse, 1 small turtle, 1 large turtle (scared the pickles out of him when he popped out of his shell!), 2 rabbits, 1 cow. We tried to get him to milk the cow, but I think the cow was getting a little cranky and it was freaking James out a bit.. so no milking, just a very cautious pat.

Pictures POSTED!

Can it be true? Have I really found 5 mins in which to post some pics? YES! I have! Great Wolf Lodge is out there, as is James' birthday. Check 'em out, enjoy!

Sppprrrriiinggg!

*Sigh* Spring has finally sprung, and it's about time! Naturally, because we live in N.C., it went immediately from the 50s to the 80s! But who's complaining! We hung outside quite a bit today, and I convinced James to actually hold still long enough for me to snap some photos. We "caught" bubbles with his butterfly net, and then hung out in the grass, just enjoying the nice evening!

Great Wolf Lodge

If you've never heard of or been to Great Wolf Lodge, you are missing out on a good time! The Woodruffs treated us to an overnight trip to the one in Williamsburg the weekend of James' 3rd birthday. So, following the insanely busy Saturday birthday party, James went home with Honey and Grandaddy, and we packed in order to get up bright and ugly the next day.. which we did. We drove to the rapids, where we all piled into the mini and drove a few hours up to VA. We did get to ride the ferry across the James River. Mind you, it was CHILLY, and James wanted to stand outside the van to watch the water. I asked him if we could get back in the car, and he said, "no, want to stay on the BOAT". I tried to explain that we'd still be ON the boat, just inside a warm vehicle, but he didn't quite grasp that!
Anyhoo, we eventually arrived, and let me tell you.. I have never seen such a line to check in at a hotel! Check-in isn't until 4pm, but on your day of arrival, you can pre-check-in, get your wristbands, and head on over to the pool. So that's what we did! We played HARD until a little after 4, and then decided to head to the room. It wasn't quite ready, so Mom W Wanda-ed her way into an upgrade and free breakfast for all of us! We munched, unpacked, and went BACK DOWN for more pool fun!
The next day, breakfast, pool, munch, more pool, then a long drive home. Holy crap, what a busy weekend. Pics posted in the photo collection, and here are some of my favs to entice you!

Birthday Bash

Whew! Cramming 30 people (nearly half of them age 5 and under) into our house is madness... sheer madness! Thank heavens it was a beautiful day, because most folks ended up out on the back deck, and the kids ran around the yard like little lunatics. One of James' gifts (which were opened in shifts... too much going on!) was a bubble blower (similar to this one), which we broke out shortly after round 1 of the gift opening broke down, and the kids ran around like they were on the Lawrence Welk show. I'll be posting more pics, but here are a few for now to keep ya interested!