Notes from the crib

We just got back from a week at Disney World and I'm quickly going through pictures so I can post. In the meanwhile, here's a video of George talking to himself in the hotel room mirror. He was very chatty on our visit and has started repeating the last word of almost every sentence I say to him. I must be careful with my language!

He didn't nap most of the trip, but he'd crash when we'd get back to the room. We'd put him in the hotel's Pack and Play crib, turn off all the room lights and George would babble for about five minutes and then fall asleep. Those five minutes were fairly entertaining to DH and I. George would talk about his day "Bus! Bus! Train! Mickey, Mickey, Mickey!" DH and I would try hard not to giggle at him but sometimes we'd start laughing because he was just so cute and funny. One night we were giggling quietly at our son and George burst out with "What?" as in "What is so funny? What are you giggling at?" We'd not known him to even know the word "What?" let alone be able to use it so eloquently. Needless to say, we started laughing so hard tears were running down our faces.

George's birthday isn't until October, but we held a little birthday party for him today at the neighborhood pool, since this is the last weekend for the pool season. We invited a few of his friends and their mommies and daddies. DH made his famous North Carolina style pulled pork sandwiches and homemade sauce. I made George a monkey shaped cake and some really good homemade lemonade. The water was a little cold this year, but everyone seemed to have a good time. We had pool floats and little animal shaped balls for favors and those seemed to be a hit!

George has some teeth coming in and wasn't as social as he could be. His guests were all little girls and instead of cavorting in the pool with the bathing beauties, he spent a lot of time climbing in and under the pool chairs. He didn't really like the attention lavished on him and he burst into tears when everyone sang "Happy Birthday"!

He dried his tears when I gave him some cake.

George was very disinterested in the large burnt orange bovine, but the stairs gave us 10 full minutes of entertainment as he climbed up and down them.

A printer at the office stopped working and I needed to go in during off hours to replace it. George tagged along and was quite the helper. At times, he climbed in and out of the giant boxes, making sure I removed all the parts and instruction manuals.

I think we have a little sleep walker on our hands.

The other night I check on George about two hours after he'd gone to bed. He was hanging with his legs off the bed and when I opened the door he quickly climbed back in. He nuzzled his head into the bed and looked asleep. I quietly whispered "Night, night, mommy loves you" and he lifted his head up, grinned and me, and went right back to sleep.

The next night I checked on him about four hours after he went to sleep. He was up and standing next to his giant teddy bear. He quickly walked over to his bed, climbed in, and put his head down. He was out!

Then we had a few days of what I expected to find when I did my nightly checks. George fast asleep in his bed.

Tonight I opened the door for a check about three hours after bedtime. I went over to the bed and there was no George. I looked at the teddy bear corner and there was no George there either. Next I peeked by the window - nope, no George. Then I wondered if perhaps I'd hit him with the door when I opened it and he was stuck behind the door. Nope, not there either. I started to panic a little bit at this point and picked up the blanket on the bed to make sure he wasn't hiding under it. Nope, not there. Then I noticed a little foot peeking out from under the bed. For the first time that we know of, George had crawled under the bed and he was fast asleep. I had to wake him a little to get him back out and enlisted DH's help to lift up the bed while I tugged, since George's head barely made clearance. Then we gave him a hug and tucked him back in.

I had to take a picture first, before we got him out though. And yes, our son does sleep with a plastic strainer. It's one of his favorite toys.

Some recent conversations with George:

* A couple weeks ago he and I were running several hours worth of errands. I discovered I had left the diaper bag at home, so we bought some diapers and wipes. The easiest way to change him was to set him in the trunk, so I did. He thought that was great fun! So now every time we get to the car while we are out, he'll say "Diaper! Diaper!" because he wants to play in the trunk some more. He never really needs a change, so my response is always, "You don't need a diaper right now." Well, today he outsmarted me. He must realize that the "Diaper! Diaper!" requests were not effective. So today when we got in the car he said "Stinky! Poo! Stinky! Poo!" I fell for it and let him into the trunk to change him. And he giggled when I discovered that his diaper was complete clean and dry.

* DH has been ordering lots of toys with his birthday money and the first one arrived today wrapped in bubble wrap. DH showed George how to jump on and pop the bubbles. When they were done, DH picked up the wrap, crumpled it and put it in the box to throw away. Apparently George wasn't quite done and started emphatically telling us "Not trash! Not trash! Not trash!" until we realized that he wanted the bubble wrap back. He played with it for a few more minutes, then handed it back to DH this time with the description "Trash".

Quite the smart one we have.

George and I happened to hit up Old Navy on a day when their baby clothes were 40% off. We went a little wild. I ended up bringing home four different Halloween outfits. While I love Halloween, I think four outfits (not even costumes, just clothing items) is a little much. Especially considering they are long sleeved, long pants styles and it may not get cold enough by Halloween to be wearing anything with long sleeves.

So I have to make a decision on which items to take back to the store. But they are all so cute. This afternoon we played "fashion show" and George tried them all on so I could see which ones fit, hoping that some wouldn't fit and that would make the decision easier. But, alas, they all fit and all have their own charms. So feel free to vote on which ones should stay and which ones should be returned.

Black one piece romper, reads "Mummy Loves Me"

Heather Gray one piece romper, reads "I Want Candy"

Onesie with ghost saying "Boo", matching stripey pants

Onesie with pumpkin holding hotdog and straw cup, reads "Snack-O-Lantern", same stripey pants

We've been doing some minor hurricane preparations today. Most likely we won't be affected except for the deadlocked traffic that comes with coastal evacuees coming into town. Forecasts range from us getting 0-19 inches of rain. Both Dolly and Edouard have passed us by this season with not even a droplet of rain. I'd love some rain from Ike, but I'm going to guess that it will turn and miss us.

During Rita, we had no hurricane action at all and in fact it was a record breaking, dry scorching weekend with temps over 110 degrees. However, we were affected with food shortages during Rita with the combination of people rushing to the store to stock up on food, coastal evacuees coming to stay, and many non-perishables having been bought and sent to Katrina survivors a few weeks prior to Rita. During that time a few years ago, we couldn't buy peanut butter for six weeks. This must have made an impression on both DH and I. Yesterday George and I did our weekly grocery shopping and I picked up a two-pack of peanut butter. DH stopped on the way home to pick up a few perishables that George and I had neglected to buy and he added to our supplies by purchasing two jars of peanut butter himself, not knowing that I'd already gotten some. So our house now contains five jars of peanut butter - the four recent purchases and the one we already had. Good thing we all like PB&J sandwiches!

George's socks have been disappearing. This morning DH could only find one pair, so that pair dictated the outfit for the day. At least that made dressing him easy.

We thought maybe George had put all his socks in the dirty clothes bin. Both the socks and the dirty clothes bin are daily toys for George. He pulls out items, trys them on, and then puts them back. So it wasn't a huge leap to think maybe all the socks were put into the hamper whether or not they were dirty.

This afternoon I started a load of laundry of George's items and was determined to find his socks. I was surprised to not see them in the laundry load. So I asked George if he could go find his socks and where they might be. He ran into his room, waved and said "All gone. Bye, bye, socks!" That wasn't very helpful. So I crawled around on the floor and looked into and underneath everything is his room while he giggled and repeated "Bye bye socks." I finally found them behind his bed. I wonder if he dropped them there all at once or over a period of days?

Grandfather D. was in the state this week and came to visit for a few hours on Saturday. He brought with him a gift for George, a John Deere tractor and wagon. George really liked these presents and spent the rest of the day playing with them. His favorite thing to do is to put them on the couch and then try to sit on them. Not very safe, but sure lots of fun.

Not tall enough.

What about this other one?

Hmm.. why doesn't the step help?

Success!

Today George and I had a snack at a local restaurant since we were out running errands most of the early afternoon. One of George's favorite things to do in restaurants is test out the limits of the high chairs. His favorite chairs are those that have wheels. He pushes himself back from the table and then flings his body back and forth to get the chair to return back to its original space. I love how he's figuring out physics at such a young age! Sorry the video quality is so poor - it's taken with my low-quality cell phone.

We went grocery shopping today after work. We were able to get the car cart for the first time and George was very well behaved driving the cart around the store. As we neared the checkout stand, a store employee gave George a balloon to play with which kept him quiet and entertained at checkout. Sorry for the poor quality, the video was taken with my low-quality cell phone.

We had much fun at the circus on Sunday. Grandpa M. knows the person who runs the circus train and was able to get us free tickets! George was entranced with the circus performers, especially those who dangled from the ceiling or flew through the air. We were able to go a little bit early and were allowed onto the floor to see an elephant painting and meet a clown. We would have gone even earlier, but for once George was taking an afternoon nap and I wasn't about to disturb that!

We had great seats, with a railing in front of us which gave George lots of room to wander around. He was great for the first half and then kind of wiggly during the second half of the show. I broke out the snacks then and that kept him contained.

We bought a snow cone in an elephant souvenir bowl while we were there and George used the bowl the next day for his goldfish cracker snack.

Today was a busy, busy day. I had check-in for a triathlon, I had a open house for my stamping business, and George had two birthday party invitations. We ended up making it to everything, although we were running late to most of them.

Both parties were for little girls and I ended up making them the same things for their gifts. I embroidered their names on little chef hats and those coordinated with little aprons I found. Then I made some felt pasta and sauce which was packed in a plastic strainer. George has one of those strainers himself and he sleeps with it every night. I didn't realize strainers could be so much fun. I forgot to take pictures of the presents and had to quickly snap a shot, sorry it's not better quality.

George discovered the water spigot at one of the houses and entertained himself with drinking from it!

Tomorrow we have a slower day - just a triathlon in the morning and a trip to the circus in the afternoon.

George went down his first water slide today. The video cuts off because I rushed over to make sure he was okay - by the time I got to him he'd already sat up. He climbed out of the slide and ran around to do it again!

George and I attended his first concert today. We'd never heard this particular artist before (he's local), but we really liked him. George was overwhelmed with all the children and noise and sat in my lap with his back pressed up against me for support for the first half of the concert. He warmed up eventually and even jumped to a few songs, before trying to take off running around the room. I ended up having to use the monkey backpack/leash to keep him from disappearing in the commotion.

We bought a CD of music while we were there and even got it autographed for George. He was less than enthused standing in the autograph line.

George and I just completed a summer series of music classes. Here's what a typical class was like. First we'd arrive, take off our shoes, put on name tags, and then go find a spot on the center rug. George would pick at my name tag until he pried it off my shirt and then he'd stick it to the window. Next he'd hang out in the corner.

He'd then spent the next half of class just running around the perimeter of the room. Most of the other kids and their mommies were in a circle in the middle on the carpet, singing, dancing, and playing music games. And George was running laps, either by himself or with other renegades. At some point musical instruments would be brought out and George would grab something and run off with it (in the picture it's some bells).

Sometimes he'd come into the middle of the room to either flop on the floor on his back and stare at everyone, or actually even participate for awhile.

At the end of class we'd sing a goodbye song and every child would get a turn to strum the teacher's guitar. George was terrified of the guitar for the first month and would hide behind my legs. But he warmed up eventually and by the last class he was trying to strum that guitar for the entire song. I'd have to restrain him in order to let the other kids have their turns.