HIP-HOP

Me: Peanut, do you know what a record is?

Peanut: Yeah mom, its those things you use to make hip hop with.

THE BIG NUMBER 1!

Here are a few photos from brother's first birthday bash. We had a great time at the park. Brother really enjoyed his first birthday cake....although I think some of the guests had more fun "decorating" him than he did eating the cake. But that's ok. Cousin O really enjoyed singing Happy Birthday to Brother and I really enjoyed that Cousin C kept trying to hand Brother a fork for his cake.

I can't believe how fast this year has gone. With Peanut, I remember feeling so much pressure to get through all those firsts - rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking. (Of course, she went through those things so quickly too -she was walking before Brother was crawling...) But with Brother, its just been so different. I feel like getting to that first birthday is such a milestone but it makes me look back and go - wow! Where did that whole year go? Does it get faster with each baby????

Overheard in the Backseat

Peanut: Okay N, let's play I Spy...

N: Okay, I go first.

Peanut: Okay N, you go first. What do you spy?

N: I spy something brown.

Peanut: No, that's too hard. Tell me more.

N: I spy something brown and big.

Peanut: No, N, but what is it?

N (frustrated): I spy something that's brown and big and square and there's a tree in front of it and its on that side of the car and there's words on it and there's someone walking inside the door and its..

Peanut: Oh just forget it, that's too long. Let's play rocket ship.

Girls Rule, Boys Drool

Peanut has three friends who live a few doors down from us that she calls her "little friends". Her little friends are over fairly often and when they are, I spend much of my afternoon coming up with ways to entertain all of them. On a recent visit, I wasn't feeling too creative so I gave them some paint and paper and told them to create. They were hard at work for quite awhile and then asked me to inspect their work. There, hanging on the front gate was a large painted sign reading "GIRLS ONLY".

"It's the girls club, mom. That means no boys allowed."

And so far, she's been surprisingly strict about that rule. Rico was granted passage, as were B, Uncle Jim and the cousins. Grandpa and Poppa were also allowed to pass through. But the part I love the most is that they are only granted passage from the gate to the front door. No stopping, no loitering, just proceed as directed. Apparently our little "area" in front of the condo is now a boy-free zone. How long do you think before Brother is banished from her room and that sign goes up on her door??

I am a brave woman

I just returned from a week in Colorado. I went to lend a hand to Eliey who had just had her new little baby girl two weeks earlier. Unfortunately, Rico wasn't able to get the time off work , so I headed out there with my two little ones in tow. I think it worked out okay, though I wasn't as much help as I probably would have liked. At any rate, this was my first experience travelling with both kids by myself. I was a little nervous about how it would work out, especially since I had a flight change in Phoenix on both ways of the trip. Surprisingly, the kids were AMAZING and made my job a whole lot easier. And, despite the airlines best try at making my life hell, I actually found that things went fairly smoothly. The worst part of the trip was that I had to change seats on three of the four flights I took. First there was the exit row they sat me in. I realized right away that this arrangement would not work since my hands were already full and in the event of an emergency I would be of no use. Of course, the flight attendant was a HUGE help when she told me to move up a row and just tell those people that they would need to move (of course, this began the game of airline seat-jenga because it broke up a party who then had to switch with other people ahead of them and move another single man over to an empty seat). Then, on the way back, they sat me on the wrong side of the plane on the flight between Colorado and Phoenix (did you know that they only have oxygen masks on one side of the plane for infants)? But the last straw was really on the way home from Phoenix. First of all, I was seated two rows away from Peanut. Clearly, this is not going to work. So I headed up to the counter to see what we could do. I got up to about 10 yards away when the so-called customer service person put his hand up in "talk to the hand" fashion, and said, "if you're coming up to get your seats changed, don't bother, this flight is already full". I proceeded to tell him that my seats would be changed as I was flying with a 5 year old who was not about to sit on her own and that if my seat could not be changed, he would need to pay for another flight. He said there was nothing he could do. This argument went on for a few minutes until such time as he finally checked his computer and told me the only seat he had available was in row seven. Just as I was about to explode (that would have put us about 10 instead of 2 rows apart), an angel appeared behind me. Apparently she had been listening to this exchange and was as appalled with the "customer service" I was receiving as I was....AND she just happened to be seated in row 7. A few clicks of the keyboard and all was right with the world again...until I boarded the plane. Mind you I have a backpack on, a diaper bag over my shoulder, a hand on the stroller containing my son, another one on my five year old and I am also juggling a jacket and our boarding passes. I manager to get down to the gate check for the stroller, juggle things around enough to get Brother out of the stroller and proceed on to the plane when I hear the gate attendant barking at me to fold my stroller. Sure pal. Needless to say, the point was made clear that folding was not an option. Thankfully my kids were amazing on the plane or I might have lost it by the time we arrived home. But all is well that ends well, and brother really seemed to enjoy his first airplane ride (unfortunately the two year old sitting beside us did not....)

Photography Skills

So, upon returning home from our recent trip to Colorado (more about that later), I decided to download the photos I had taken and see if I had been able to catch any cute moments. I started browsing through the files and realized that there were about 30 photos of various places in the Thomason bathroom. I briefly wondered why I had taken these...until the culprit revealed herself in the telling bathroom mirror shot....here is a sampling of the very artistic shots of the comode as taken by Peanut...

Oh No He Didn't!

So, SOMEONE wasn't watching him closely enough. I say SOMEONE because the subject is widely up for debate and as of yet, nobody has been willing to accept responsibility for the incident. HOWEVER, clearly, someone wasn't watching him. And really, its far too late to figure out the culprit because after its been in the mouth, down the throat, and fully digested only to reappear in the diaper, who knows who is to blame when the baby eats a lego?

Oh yes, you read that right. Don't be too alarmed. It wasn't one of the larger rectangular pieces or even anything square. It was a teeny, tiny, little circular piece. And truthfully, nobody may have noticed had it not come out, as it went down, lime green. Gross, I know. (I apologize for the details here but if you've read my sister-in-law's blog regarding O's boogers, you would understand that once you become a parent your gross-out reflex suddenly vanishes...and if you think that's gross, imagine how GG feels since she's the one who actually found it...)

At any rate, of course, I was a little distraught at the incident. What kind of parent leaves their baby unattended somewhere lego-accessible? And then it hit me. I am not to blame at all. I mean, who is the genius who created these toys in the first place? I mean, I'm fine with the megablocks, even the duplos. But the legos. Look at them - the shapes, the colors, the teeny-tiny-ness of them - they're just begging to be popped in your mouth like a tic tac. And don't even try to tell me that they are not meant for babies because my answer to that would be that I witnessed my nine year old niece swallow one just a month or two ago.

But it doesn't end there. The toy industry as a whole just seems to have a lot of really bad ideas. Let's see. Just in Peanut's toy collection alone are the Pollys with their little plastic dresses and shoes, and OH those magnetic outfits that were recalled for kids choking on the magnets. The Dora house with its possible toxic levels of lead (thankfully ours was not purchased in the recall period). The little pet shop and their itty-bitty bobble heads AND the countless ridiculously tiny accessories. The Barbies and their choking hazard purses and the outfits that are so tight I can't even get them on, nevermind my five year old. Again I ask - who's idea was this stuff?

And don't even get me started on the Moonsand. Not only is it SAND, its also slightly STICKY and REPELS WATER. Do you see where I'm going with this?

And do I even need to mention the fact that every single toy both of my kids own sings a song, makes a noise or has a siren attached and is loud enough that no level of volume on the television can drown them out? Clearly, these people do not bring parents of young children in on their focus groups.

Any parents out there seen Magnetix? Not only is it a choking hazard, but they also can apparently stick together in your abdomen, creating a huge blockage requiring surgery. That's an idea right up there with the never-quite-made-it-to-the-shelves-because-they-contain-the-date-rape-drug AquaDots that Peanut still asks me for to this day.

So in conclusion, although I fully blame the lego manufacturers for creating a toy that can be so easily devoured by young children, I also commend them for making them small enough to pass through my child without doing any damage. Brother's digestive tract thanks you.