Cheesecake...

The breakfast of champions (sorry Wheaties)! I'm so glad I work in an office with a female to male ratio of 20:6. I swear we must all be on the same cycle because it cannot be coincidence that we all want chocolate at the same time of the month!

After a Long Christmas Weekend...

A nap is in order. Unless of course, you're doing the driving, in which case you munch on sunflower seeds while listening to Monty Python albums on your MP3 player (and try to keep it between the lines whilst you point your digital camera into the backseat).

Book of the month - Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton

You know you've read a book one too many times when you can recite it by heart AT WORK. Great, now I can't get this outta my head...

Colter's new fave:

The moon is up
It’s getting late
Let’s get ready to celebrate!

It’s pajama time!

Pull on the bottoms
Put on the top
Get yourself set to pajama-de-bop

It’s pajama time!
Oooh yes, it’s pajama time!

Some are old
And some are new
Some are red
And some are blue

Some are fuzzy
Some are not

But we can all pajammy in whatever we’ve got
It’s pajama time!

Pajammy to the left
Pajammy to the right
(jamma, jamma, jamma, jamma, P.J.!)

Everybody’s wearing them for dancing tonight
It’s pajama time!

(jamma, jamma, jamma, jamma, P.J.!)

All around the room
In one big line
Wearing our pajamas and looking so fine

It’s pajama time!

Hop into bed
Turn out the light
You can have a party in your dreams tonight

It’s pajama time!
(Hush. Hush.)

It’s pajama time!
(Hush. Hush)

It’s pajama time!
(shhhhhh)

good night
sleep tight

Quote of the week

"It's like playing catch with a parapalegic"

-Brian playing catch with Colter (Colter has yet to realize if you put your arms out you can catch the ball)

Mime in Training

Communication is becoming a little easier for Colter these days, at least on his part. He knows what he wants to say, Mama and Dada just don't understand what it is he's trying to tell us. It all sounds like gibberish to us. Verbally, he's still stuck on "mama, dada, quack-quack, dis, dat" and the ever constant babbling. He'll look at us, babble as if he's reciting the Constitution and wait for a response. Fortunately for us he's figured out a backup method. He communicates via signs and expression. He's mastered "no," naturally, by furrowing his brow and shaking his head "no." He'll grab ahold of your shirt or miscellaneous body part and pull to indicate "take me here, I want it now" or "let me show you something." He also signs for brushing his teeth (circular motion by his mouth with his finger) and taking a bath (rubs his tummy).

Don't get me wrong, the signing is cute and all but Mommy and Daddy are anxious to hear our little man's voice. We still melt at the sound of "mama" and "da da da da da" but adding another word to the repitoire would help us out a lot.

Oh please don't let it be "why." I just know it's going to be "why."

John Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980)

John Lennon – Beautiful Boy(Darling Boy)

Close your eyes,
Have no fear,
The monsters gone,
He's on the run and your daddy's here,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Before you go to sleep,
Say a little prayer,
Every day in every way,
It's getting better and better,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,

Out on the ocean sailing away,
I can hardly wait,
To see you to come of age,
But I guess we'll both,
Just have to be patient,
Yes it's a long way to go,
But in the meantime,

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand,
Life is just what happens to you,
While your busy making other plans,

Beautiful,
Beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful Boy,
Darling,
Darling,
Darling Sean.

The Incredible In-Edible Egg

Daddy made his first egg for Colter today. No big deal, you say, right? WRONG. To you, it's as simple as putting the egg in a cup, pour in a little milk, lay it into a little butter in a frying pan and fry it up, right? WRONG. To me, it's about the same as taking a dog turd that's been sitting in the sun a few hours so it's still soft, putting some butter in a pan and frying it up. I HATES EGGS! God, I hope he doesn't remember that I know how to make this for him. To make matters worse, he spit out the first mouthful I gave him. I thought, "you'd better eat this unborn chicken, cuz it's damn sure the last time I fry one up for you!" But, happily, he did down almost all of it along with a small pancake for breakfast this morning.

What did we learn today?
FLAMING DOG TURD = FRIED EGG.

(Gramma Jane can appreciate what I'm saying)

Sixteenth Month

Sixteen months already. What did I ever do with my time before I had Colter? Everything is about him and 100% of my time revolves around him. I’m not complaining. As a matter of fact, I cannot imagine life without him.

Colter is at a really fun stage. He doesn’t talk much, Mama, Dada, car car, this, that and go is pretty much the extent of his vocabulary but he tells us what he wants or needs in different ways. He says “c’mon, let’s go” by tugging on my shirt and dragging me to where he wants me to go. Usually this is the kitchen to get raisins or his spoons. Yes, I said spoons. For some reason or another spoons are the most exciting toy at this stage. In the cup, out of the cup and in a very OCD kind of order. The spoon handle must be the part in the cup and the head must be sticking out of the cup. Each spoon must go in one at a time or all together, not two or three at a time. If more than one accidentally falls in the cup the whole process must start over.

He wants to know what every letter is. He’ll point to anything that has letters and will say, “dis.” He can distinguish differences between letters. For example, we’ll be reading a Dr. Seuss book and he’ll point to all of the “A’s” on the page. If you ask him to point to the “T,” he’ll scan the page and point to the “T.”

Colter’s down to maybe one nap a day which can be a challenge some days. Fortunately when he does sleep it’s usually at a 1-2 hour stretch. At night he’s usually in bed by 8:00 after bath time and “brushy, brushy the teeth” and up by 7:30 the next morning.

He understands comands; “let’s change your pants, time for a bath, can you pick your cup up?” What’s really cute is how he’ll give hugs and kisses and “snuggle up” when asked. The other day he came over to me while I was cleaning out the sink and yelled, “mama, mama” and put his arms up, signaling pick me up, and gave me a hug. I melted into the linoleum.

Favorite things:
Puzzles
Teletubbies
Jo Jo’s circus
Wiggles
Spoons
Bugs
Running

Can I Buy Your Magic Bus?

I want it,
I want it,
I want it,
I want it!

You can't have it!

Happy Halloween! (less gross version)

Colter's Gramma Jane sent a damn cute costume for him so we thought he ought to have an opportunity to show it off. What better venue than the Mall of America. We went to Camp Snoopy Friday night and Colter got his first taste of Trick or Treating. It took him a few stops on the "TorT" trail to figure out just what the hell those people were trying to do to his pumpkin bucket. Plus, I'm sure he was confused by his Daddy trailing along beside him saying "dibs" when the Salted Nut Roll and Double Bubble were dropped into the pail. Can't wait til he gets bigger and we can go to Valley Fair, he sure likes the rides. The only one he didn't seem to care about was the carousel. Not enough action!

Happy Halloween!

For those of you that have seen "The Grudge," you get the reference (the font is from the zombie movie "28 Days Later"). For anyone who hasn't this is just one damn creepy photo taken of our son earlier this evening.

(For the record, there was no Photoshop trickery done with this photo other than fiddling with the colors. His eyes truly are that huge adding to the frightening quality of the shot.)

Kiss Good Night, Colter

We have a book that Colter enjoys called "Kiss Good Night." It tells the story of a little bear named Sam who goes through his nightly rituals with his Mommy; book, blanket, friends, milk. Sam's nightly rituals are basically the same as Colter's; book, bath, milk, friends.

After Mommy bear has read a book, tucked Sam in, gathered his friends and drank warm milk, she asks "Are you ready now Sam?" He replies, "oh no, I'm waiting." This goes on for a while until Mommy bear realizes Sam is waiting for his kiss good night. I love reading this book to Colter. Not because of the story but because Colter does certain things when I read certain lines in the book. When Sam says "oh no, I'm waiting" Colter will shake his head no and smile. When Mommy bear finally realizes Sam is waiting for his kiss good night she "bends way down, kissing Sam once, then twice, then twice more." This is where Mommy (me Mommy) melts into a million pieces. Colter will bow his head and push it toward my mouth waiting for his kiss good night. I could read this book a hundred times just to freeze this moment.

Now I understand “no touch”

Mommy and Daddy are always saying “don’t touch the stove, hot, no touch.” But dearest Mother and Father there is a light switch on the stove that I must click on and off. I can’t help myself. And at night when I’m getting my jammies on and that darn Pooh light is calling my name at the end of the changing table I can’t help but look under the lamp shade and stare directly into the light. It facinates me. I try to grab the light but all I hear is “don’t touch the light, hot, no touch.” I beat Mommy to the punch last night and touched the light. Yeeeeeoooooow. What the heck just happened. Oh god, it hurts. I’m crying. Hold me. Why do my fingers hurt? Now I understand “no touch!” Evil lights. Oooooh, I love the cold water.

Mommy is happy to report all is well with Colter’s fingers.

And the fork ran away with the spoon

Today was quite a day. Colter stabbed his wild rice meatball (yes, I said wild rice) by himself and put it in his mouth. You would have thought he just scored the winning goal of the Stanley Cup. Mommy and Daddy cheered and clapped and Colter looked at us like, “What? It’s only a meatball and I’ve been feeding myself with this thing for a while now.”

(Almost) 3 Feet High and Rising, or Curious George goes to the vet.

Colter had his 15 month appointment on Wednesday, October 5th. For the first time he freaked out when we walked into the clinic. He saw the receptionist and grabbed onto me and climbed me like a monkey going up a tree. He then proceeded to cry the entire time he was being weighed and measured. It was a very unusual day. Once the nurse left the room it was business as usual. Colter started moving the chairs and tried to open all of the locked drawers. After a few rounds of “this-itis,” someone knocked on the door. It was the Nurse Practitioner (cue the lights and harp music) ready to assess our screaming monkey. I swear, Colter must think this lady is an angel from above because everytime he gets to see her he’s mezmorized by her calming voice. He just stood there and stared at her. After a few moments of poking and prodding and checking for “bunnies” in his ears the development portion of the program was about to begin.

“Colter, can you see the light (he looks up at the lights on the ceiling and points) on my hand?”

“Colter, can you sit (he squats to the ground) on Mommys lap while I check your ears (touches his ears)?”

This is where we had to explain he’s too smart for his own good and knows that “light” is up, “sit” means down and can point to various body parts when asked. She then asked us what else he can do. We told her he knows “up” and “down” (squats and stands when we say “up, down”), runs to the bathroom door and pounds on it when asked, “ready for a bath?”, can undress himself with help, feed himself with a fork, stack blocks (canned goods, actually), can point to animals (“where’s the duck”) or objects (“where’s the little boy”)in a book when asked and put the puzzle pieces in the puzzle. Apparently we have a two year old but no one bothered to tell us.

Stats from the Dr. visit:
33 ¼” tall
25 lbs

Who's your MAMA? That's right, me!

It's finally happened. I'm MAMA!!!! For about 15 minutes last night, while I was trying to eat, naturally, Colter walked around me shouting "MA MA MA MA MA MA." I replied, "MAMA? Who's MAMA?" And he pointed right to me. My heart just melted. I'm officially MAMA! I'm going to cherish this day because I know there will come a day when he's 13 or so and use the same word to tell me he hates me. I know he won't mean it but I better be prepared. I can hear it now, "but why? God Mom, I hate you." Ahhh, cherish today.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Colter,

Please, for the love of God and my sanity, stop touching...

the hot stove
touching and licking the garbage can lid
the dishwasher dial
the dvd's
the cd's
anything of Daddy's
any and all remote controls
unraveling and eating the toilet paper

I would appreciate your cooperation in this matter.

Love,

Mommy

Seriously...

Where the hell are the rest of your teeth?!? You barely had one in April, and you still only have those same cute little four front teeth and two bottoms. You holdin' out on us? Let's see some more chiclets! It's already autumn!

Check, check, check...1, 2, 3

Now that you’ve accomplished walking, running and climbing and added “bat (bath)” to your repertoire, it’s time to conquer the fork. I’ve been giving you the fork to play with while you’re eating for some time now. You love the fact that I’ll say “stab,” then playfully stab the fruit or stabable object and hand you the fork to put said object in mouth. You’re actually quite good at aiming for your mouth. You still have both eyes after all.

Last night was a turning point for you. You actually wanted to stab the fruit yourself and put it in your mouth! Unfortunately the fruit was a bit slippery and hard to stab, thus the frustration set in. Don’t worry little man, we’ll try again.

Favorite foods this week:
Peas, peas, peas
Raisins, raisins, rasins

New skills:
Putting the puzzle pieces in and screaming at the decibel of an airplane
Putting shapes into the shape sorter

Katrina, that bitch...

(The picture on the left was stolen from USA Today. The Bay St. Louis area was where the largest recorded surge hit at 22 feet. The cursor I inserted just to the right is where Mom's house is. You can find the entire map here at USA Today. Click map to make it bigger.)


Katrina, that bitch...at least, that's how Mom refers to her. Mom and Jim's house sits near a bay on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. They bought it in April of 2005, looking for someplace to stay for half of the year. We visited her in April by flying into New Orleans, which is about 60 miles west of where Mom lives. She's in a little division called Diamond Head right off of I-10, just across from the bay where Katrina hit shore. The town of Bay St. Louis is said to be 100% gone. Not too far from Mom, a few miles. They're in Bismarck right now taking their time headed south. Not much to hurry home to, much less a home.

Mom's preference right now is to get back, find nothing but the concrete slab on the ground, have the insurance pay off the mortgage and turn around and start somewhere else. Of course, no matter where you go, you run into the chance of something like this happening again. Florida? Too many old people and more hurrincanes. Arizona? There's already one giant meteor crater there, who's to say another one won't strike? The pacific northwest? Volcanoes. How about Montana? Earthquakes here and here (Google Satellite map of Hebgen Lake Earthquake).

Here's what the house used to look like:

Bay St. Louis is behind the house, across I-10 and only a mile or two away. With all the reports of the surge hitting up to five miles inland, don't think there'll be much left whenever they're allowed back in.

Oh yeah, they were just down there the 14th through the 20th getting some new furniture for the bedroom. Great timing for the looters...