A Visual Catch-Up Guide

To help you cope with my usual delinquency, I have created a visual catch-up guide of the recent history of the Cummings family, covering our three Christmases, and into the new year. 

On the first third of Christmas, I achieved, on the 15th shutter release, a nearly-focused snapshot of my three miniature men about to open their Georgia-based gifts. 

What followed this shot was a verrry leisurely opening, inspecting, assembling and playing of new toys. We took pleasure in the non-carnage of the event. Hours after commencement, gifts sat unopened, as each toy was thoroughly appreciated, leaving our nervous materialism alarms unsprung. P.s. When, and if, I find those evil little loss-prevention gnomes, with their nubby, nimble little fingers meticulously binding toys to hidden crevasses of their packaging, there'd better be some gnome-loss prevention yetis nearby to bind *my* limbs.

Next, we continue to BJs Wholesale Club, where we "wrapped up" some last-minute shopping, and I shrunk Ian back down to pocket-sized.

Everyone, meet Gene Gnome, Dad's birthday Father's Day Christmas present. My free time has made itself somewhat scarce lately.

Finally, the Wednesday before Christmas, Elijah started walking, so in retribution, I packed the car, strapped him  (and his brothers) in the van and drove to Florida.

Everyone began feeling properly spoiled. Isaac and Aunt Ashley pressed cheeks.

Uncle Jack grinned from ear to ear.

Elijah and Grammy shielded their eyes from the glorious Christmas inferno. According to Ian, this is appropriate Christmas decoration, in contrast to my "Christmas shrine" - a table top tree with a token handful of ornaments, stuffed into a corner of the living room. I agree.

On the second third of Christmas, Aunt Ashley and Uncle Adam amuse themselves trying to stuff Elijah into his Santa suit. Elijah amuses himself by masterfully resisting.

Oooh! Dada a do! Do doo!

Starting stocking stuffers.

Grandpa Jim is so funny!

Elijah's first wrapping paper party.

On the third third of Christmas, Ian and Grandpa saw some meat.

Elijah narrates the festivities.

Mr. Isaac looking handsome in his Frosty vest.

Ian rings in the New Year.

Statler and Waldorf give their condiments to the chef.

Chef Boyardee does it again! Perfect pancakes, served with a smile! 

Aunt Kelly reels in amazement as Captain Isaac, Space Ranger, launches to the moon in his new Fatheronium-powered rocket.

Whew. Christmasing is hard work.

 Ian sporting a handsome chocolate 'stache.

 Just a Georgia boy enjoying some old-fashioned Florida orange-pickin'.

 We enjoyed an evening of weenie-roasting and toasting s'mores at grandma's fire pit.

 Catching a movie (and some Zs) with Grammy.

We enjoyed the sweater weather, but Florida quickly lost its coolness.

Meanwhile, the Toys exercised a bit of passive-aggressiveness.

We decided to give Elijah an early birthday party, complete with the traditional birthday pumpkin pie.

 Returning home from two thirds of Christmas requires super-human packing abilities and a long history of Tetris playing.

 On the way home we stopped to admire the manatees and the smoking area.

We returned home just in time to be iced in for the week.

 By the end of the week, we were amusing ourselves by sliding sheets of ice off the "New Van."

 Brian discovered ice petals sliding off of the bushes.

Elijah enjoyed his first snow day, Tupperware-sledding in the back yard.

 During our drive back to Georgia, I tried to play a new book on disk and discovered that our car CD "changer" wasn't working, but it made cents. Twelve cents, to be exact. (Thanks Ian)

After getting somewhat settled at home, the boys went to play with their friend, Luke. They wanted to decorate gingerbread cookies. That lasted about a cookie and a half, leaving mom to do the remaining dozen or so. My impatient grip, paired with a makeshift sandwich-baggie piping bag, resulted in one unsuspecting gingerbread man succumbing to a sweet, red tsunami. In an effort to clean up, most of the gingerbread men ended up with rosy sweaters, crimson jogging suits and bloodshot eyes. That got boring in short order, so I mixed it up a little with the occasional ginger cow and ginger business man.

To bring us up to date, I regret that I have no photo evidence, but I will conclude with today's highlight: Brian applying glue stick to Isaac's lips.

Isaac approached Brian with an opened glue stick, conveniently tinted purple for gluing accuracy, and asked him to put it on his cheek. Brian says, "Don't you mean your lips?" and proceeds to apply it to Isaac's lips. Then, Brian decides to find and inspect the "chap stick" lid and discovers it's glue.I think he missed a fabulous opportunity. In fact, maybe I'll give the "chap stick" trick a crack next time it starts to get a little wild in the house.

Girls can't rock?

So, the story starts with me dancing to a song in the car. Ian says, "You're not a rock star, mom." I asked who, then, could be a rock star. He replied, "Boys are rock stars. Girls sing slow songs." As soon as I got home, I was set on shifting his cute little paradigm with some good ol' Joan Jett. See if you can catch his words at the end:

Galoshes Have Other Uses Too.

Here is a comic strip that really nailed it and I have been giggling at it for a while now. It is Baby Blues from May 30, 2010.

This has been the story of most of the last 3.5 years of my life and counting. Elijah has entered the "acrobatic nursing" stage, now that he's big stuff and can crawl and is starting to cruise. He has 2 top teeth and is cutting a third on the top left. I think there are two cutting on the bottom, but it looks a little odd, so who knows what will show up. He's saying "Dada" and "Hi Dad" and has finally started saying "Mom," though I've been consoling myself with the fact that he often says "Da" from my arms, so, really, I win. I'm straining to find baby genius here, but he was making short "ha" sounds (as in hat), and he grabbed my hair and it changed to a long "ha," like "hair." If I work hard enough, I could probably decode a secret message in his floor pounding, too.

Isaac is enjoying another bout of teething too. Every now and then he pitifully whimpers, "I need mecine for my teef." Teething tablets are great! He is on the verge of being potty trained. I didn't think it was going to stick, but I stuck underwear on him again. If I had asked him if he wanted them, he would say no, but when I brought them to his feet, he stepped in without complaint. That was after leaving his diaper off for a few days and letting him watch lots of TV on his training potty. When he woke up with a start the other morning yelling, "I want big boy underwear on!!" in protest to his night time diaper, I figured we were getting somewhere. We've even ventured out with just our brave little undies on and only filled our rain boots with urine once. The training process has caused, of course, a bit of a fixation on all things potty, above what already existed. Isaac came into the living room and looked at his dump truck that had some mud on it and blared, "My truck has yucky poop on it! I can smell it!" He and Ian play the I'm Pee, You're Poop game and battle it out. Or, on evening walks, they squat every hundred feet or so blasting, "Toooooooot!"

Ian has been practicing defiant refusals, negotiations and fake crying. Sometimes he's baby dad to his little brothers, correcting their "dangerous" behaviors. Last night, he had asked for a bath, but ran off playing and when it was time to crawl in bed, he again asked Brian for a bath. Brian said no and had him lay back down in bed, igniting a grand fit from Ian. After wailing for a while, Ian recounted the situation, "I asked Dad for a bath and he said no, and I cried and cried and Dad pushed me on the bed and said bucket-dipping words and my feelings went down the bathtub drain." Boy, he can lay it on.

Rock Away Owie

In the car the other day, I heard Isaac singing a sweet little tune. Curious, I listened closer to hear him singing, "Stomp on the baby, stomp on the babyyy." Ian followed suit later that day crooning, "Destroy all the books! Destroy all the books!" My house has become Decimation: The Musical.

Last night Ian was riding his bike around the house and he crashed into a wall. Brian tried to consoling as Ian yelped in pain. Brian asked, "Would you like me to kiss your knee?" "No." "Would you like Mom to kiss your knee?" "No," Ian replied as he walked across the room to his toy guitar. "I just need rock 'n roll." [Proceeds to jam]

We're having a blast this weekend. Aunt Ashley is visiting for a couple days before she goes to her NASCAR race. She's the first person they've voluntarily spent the night with. She is Isaac's buddy now. Isaac cries about nap time and says pitifully, "I want Ashwee." That was strange to have enough room to sleep. We drove up to Atlanta and met an out-of-town friend and his bride for lunch, as they were in town for DragonCon. Next I took Ashley and the boys to the new World of Coke, since she hadn't been to the new location. We frightened the boys with 4-D movie experiences and drank ourselves sick on carbonated sugar from around the world. And just for the record, Beverly is not the strangest drink on the list. A number of times I said "ew" more passionately with other flavors.

In the car that evening, Isaac pitifully stated, "I'm nerbous." We asked if it was the movie and he said it was, but he also said it was about dinner and about his sandals, so I think he was just feeling agreeable. He wouldn't take his eyes of the movie earlier, though I did have to surgically excise him from my arm when it was over. I think it was the loud hissing of air that bothered him most.

We tried to take some cute/silly pictures today before Ashley leaves. I'm getting less effective at getting the boys to look at the camera or to smile, not to mention both at the same time. So, we have a collage of shots with Elijah flashing his best GQ and Ian tasting grass, while Isaac showed his lack of amusement.

Actually, we did get a few really cute shots.

I'll Be in the Powder Room

He's crawling! I would probably call it official since Friday. I'm in for it now. They can officially take off in three different directions. Prior to Friday, Elijah was "migrating." By lunging and turning and sitting, he would get around a little bit.

His last chemo visit went well. His blood counts were basically normal and he had another dose of  IVIG. The doctor said his levels were rising enough that he might not need it again.

You'd think I was intentionally averting my attention from my 2 and 3 year old, just to see what interesting thing they'd do, based on the stuff they accomplish. That's tempting on some level, but, no. They have plans ready to execute, the moment I nurse a baby or take a shower. The other day, while I was holding Elijah and folding laundry (doing neither very effectively), Isaac got the baby powder out of  the changing table pocket, and powdered the entire kitchen and himself. I sent him upstairs to play and, planning to clean the kitchen when Brian came in from mowing, I sat down to nurse the poor, famished baby. Ian sneaked in, and thinking Isaac's project hilarious, he snitched the baby oil and painted over top of the powder. I only caught him when he poured the oil all the way to the living room and started shaking it on Elijah's head.

Usually, I'm good about waiting until the last minute to mention plans to the boys, but this time, my mixture of excitement about Disney and wondering if it will thrill or terrify them, has weakened my resolve. Now, every time we pull into a parking lot, Ian asks, "Is this Disney?" Last week, he put on a Handy Manny costume from 2 years ago and vowed to wear it to Disney. After two straight days, I was starting to think he was really going to leave it on until our trip. It wasn't until I got him pirate and fireman pajamas that I convinced him to take it off.

I'd like to take the boys to the Bodies exhibit. I went before and it was really amazing. Since Ian has been asking all about bones and muscles and all, I think he'd really get into it. I tried to get Brian to go last weekend, but he came up with lots of reasons not to. It turns out he just doesn't share my fascination.

Two Steps Cleaner, One Step Disaster

I turned on my computer and Ian announced, "It's time to plaay FAM-il-y Feud!" Am I addicted?

The boys had a lot of fun today, but in the way that mom...well, not so much. While I prepared Elijah's dressing change supplies for the home health nurse, I hear the boys sounding dangerously happy. I entered the kitchen to find Isaac pouring water out of a bottle I had left on the counter and Ian was stomping in the puddle with his galoshes.

While I was preparing some black beans, I saw Ian grab some grapes out of the refrigerator.  I didn't see Isaac grab the strawberries. Now I have a carton full of strawberries with one bite taken from each of them.

The ultimate offense took place as I was putting Elijah down for a nap. I had spent hours folding about two years-worth of laundry and stacking it on the ironing board, my most recent attempt at keeping my folded laundry out of "their" reach. Yes, they dumped it over and were playing Pirate Ship in the pile.

Yesterday, Ian renamed everyone. Of Elijah, he said, "I'll call him Flapjack." Isaac is Captain and Ian is Luckie. That must've been only yesterday's names. I haven't heard them again.

Brian tried to round Isaac up for a change and Isaac ran off bellowing, "You'll never find me now!!"

Elijah is preparing to join the fray. Whilst he cuts teeth 3 and 4 on the bottom, he is trying so hard to crawl. He goes from sitting to reaching out to just barely on his hands and knees before he either returns to sitting or lands on his belly. He's also pulling up on things to his knees or feet. Oh boy, I'm going to be in trouble!

Well, the house is creeping into presentability, in spite of them, and I can't wait for my date on Thursday!

I need a Tuesdayectomy

Apparently the unpublished price of admission for Vacation Bible School is one fever for each participant, to be distributed immediately to said participant's doting mother. Well, I haven't had Ian and Isaac's fever *yet* but I did acquire a sore throat and a certain bleariness. I suppose it was worth it to observe Ian's carefree joyful participation, albeit his own version of participation - mainly consisting of bunny hops and skillful dance moves around his peer group.

Elijah has been working on some sort of rash for a couple of weeks. At first I thought it was a heat rash because he had little red bumps in his elbow and neck creases. However, since then, its covering his whole body and he's itching like crazy, since last Friday night, at least. Not sure if it's an antibiotic allergy, a virus or just dry itchy skin. The skin under his Tegaderm is breaking down and he scratches at that a lot too. We've experimented with different dressings - Bioclusive and now some Duoderm under his Tegaderm.  I've also wrapped his chest in 3" Kling and made little "wife beater" tanks out of some tube gauze to keep it all contained. All wrapped up like that and sporting some socks on his hands to disable the grabbers, he looks just like a little prize fighter.

Between Isaac's fever and Ian's fever, we took our first overnight "micro-cation" since Elijah was born. We drove up to Dalton Saturday night and stayed in a hotel so we could spend the next day in Chattanooga. Ian had been begging us for  weeks to stay in a hotel. We grabbed Chick-Fil-A on the way up and arrived in time to swim in the pool before bed. The indoor pool deck was incredibly slippery and Isaac slipped and fell three times while walking carefully. The last time, he hit his head and we decided we'd had enough of that. We instead went "swimming" in the room. Our room had a giant whirlpool bath in the corner of the room, so the boys splashed in there for a few minutes.  We actually managed to get Ian to sleep in his own bed. When Brian rolled in the spare bed, Ian thought it was the coolest thing ever and immediately claimed it. The boys jumped on it a bit and when Brian said it was bed time, everyone tried to pile into our Queen-sized "King" bed (we were told it was a King, but sure seemed small). We had to resort to the conniving tactic of starting to offer the extra bed to Isaac to engage Ian's jealousy switch. Ian ultimately decided to take the bed and slept there all night, though only under the condition that I draped an arm down over him.

Sunday, we had a non-adventurous brunch at Five Guys, before continuing to Chattanooga. I forgot to mention, we chose Chatt because Brian's dad is doing some work in Murfreesboro, and it was a good halfway point to hang out. However, he, unsurprisingly was quite a bit faster readying himself than our circus of five, so he actually met us at our hotel. In Chatt., we grunkled** into a walking bridge, so we parked at one end of it for $3, loaded every possible contingency item into our stroller and headed for the bridge (**The term grunkle is a word of Skinner-family origin, meaning to fortuitously encounter something while traveling). It was so hot we were afraid we'd been forgotten at the Second Coming.

Near the foot of the bridge was a sign for a glass bridge to the right. I had to experience that. I hefted the stroller up the ramp and onto the bridge. I paused at the apex and told Ian to climb out of the stroller and look down. I wish I could describe all the thoughts his expression conveyed, but he very quickly found and planted his feet on a spot supported by a steel beam. He was intrigued, but cautious. It really was an interesting experience to stand on such an elevated glass floor. I wonder how that Grand Canyon walkway would be.

We went halfway over the walking bridge and decided it was far too miserable to be outside, so we turned back and decided to go to the aquarium nearby. On the way to the aquarium, we collectively tripped and fell into an ice cream shop. While there we asked a local what our boys might like to do and they pointed us to a kids' science center that was in "walking distance." That was "walking distance" like our bed the night before was a "King." It was a cool place though, and the boys had a blast. The first area had some water activities and a play structure and they could have happily stayed there all day.

For dinner, we went out of our way to go to Famous Dave's. It was glorious and amazing BBQ when we ate there in Omaha, but now we see why so many have closed down. Oh well, that's out of my system now.

On our way home, we were reminiscing about our day, and all the fun we had. We asked Isaac if he had fun that weekend and he said, "yes."  We asked him what his favorite part was and he exclaimed, "Chick-Fil-A! Num num num!"

Yesterday went by in a blur. Not often a day goes so quickly. At one point, Ian was keeping Elijah and me company while I nursed Elijah to sleep. Ian told me, "When I growed into a little baby, I had to go to the doctor and he measured my heart beat and I almost didn't need a poke.  Then I camed home and got bigger and growed teeth and now I have 20 jokes and I need to grow down to a little baby again." I'd like to hear the professional analysis of that. Too funny.

Today has more than made up for yesterday's quickness. Last night, not even a good dose of Benadryl gave Elijah a good sleep. It was one of those nights when I question if I got any sleep at all. Isaac is definitely Two. Lots of big Big BIG emotion. Sometimes he starts wailing and I have no idea why and he won't or can't tell me and will only shriek, "hold me hold me hold me." If I set him down so I can do something so selfish as pee, the wailing starts up again and doesn't stop until I pick him up again.  It gets a little hairy when both Isaac and Elijah insist on being held.  This evening, after Isaac woke up from his nap doing his perma-wail, I finally had to "bribe" him with a peanut butter and chocolate (Nutella) sandwich. He quietly breathed "mm hmm," at the suggestion, so I dove into action. I had previously tried to assess the situation to no avail. "Are you scared?" "No." "Are you hurt?" "No." "Are you lonely?" "No." "Are you hungry?" "No." "Tell me what's the matter, sweetie." "No." So, I had to pull the chocolate out of my bag. "Mm hmm."  Yes! A "yes!" Quick! Somebody get me the Nutella!

The anticipation of a gooey chocolate sandwich apparently did some magic, because I'd no sooner put my knife to work when Isaac cracked a giddy smile and said, "You're happy, Mom!" He ate his sandwich in his typical solemn demeanor. I took the opportunity to change Elijah's diaper and as I turned toward the trash can, I stubbed my toe, yelping a little in pain. Isaac exploded in laughter.  Enjoy, Captain Schadenfreude. This one's on me.

Even The Calgon Ran For Cover

Yes, last week was just that scary. If stars could've had a role, they would have completely un-aligned. Murphy's Law nearly bore my namesake. I completely blame the Chiclets - the ones Elijah is pushing through his gums. I'm still waiting to see if the bottom tooth is a new tooth or a piece of a tooth he lost in the hospital. He nursed so much I'm surprised an adhesion didn't form between his lips and my breast. I got this [ ] much sleep and, boy, was I grrrrr-umpy! The grumpier and/or busier I am, the more destruction the older boys bring down on the house and each other.

I went to bed moping with guilt each night for me beastly behavior, hoping the day wasn't burned in their little sponge brains, forever to damage their self-esteem. Isaac woke up crying a couple nights. One night I heard him crying (and I think clicking his ruby slippers),  You're a nice mommy. You're a nice mommy. Ow! He just stuck a spoon in my heart! I made a sniffly, dribbly vow to myself to restrain my delirious grumpies.

The poor boys were scraping and bruising just about every inch of knee and brain case real estate. It didn't help that the floors were thick with a lava of playthings from the daily toy box eruptions. Even Elijah took his first spill. I watch him like a hawk, but this one happened so quickly that if I were able to shake the guilt off of any particular baby bump incident, this would be the one. The boys were hovering around the tub, awaiting a bath. I set Elijah in a swing, close enough that I could turn my body and bend over to scoop up a handful of toys from the tub. In that moment, Isaac gave the swing a hefty push, which I realized only after I heard the scream from the Elijah-sized heap on the tile floor. I dropped the handful of toys back in the tub and offspring-preserving part of my brain sent me dashing out of the bathroom with Elijah to inspect the damage and be out of thwack's reach of Isaac. Surprisingly, it was just a red mark, hardly raised at all. At first, I was relieved, then I recalled a conversation with a nurse, back when Isaac got his infant head bump from Ian, that a bump going out is much better than a bump going inward. That raced around my mind for a minute, then I reasoned out that the swing hovered not even 6 inches off the ground and he probably didn't hit very hard.

I survived that week, and we had a very nice weekend. I can't seem to bring to mind what it was we did, but a certain pleasantness lingers about it. Monday started off nicely, I had almost finished reading the Abs Diet for Women and semi-started compliant eating habits. I was feeling pretty good about what I could do for myself. The day was just starting to fall apart (i.e. the kids were tired of me trying to clean the house) and Brian's dad showed up just as I was about to roll out the door to go grocery shopping. Yay! Here comes the cavalry! That turned out to be one of the smoother shopping trips I'd had in a while and I hardly knew what to do with all the grown-up conversation.

Today....I'm hungry. I'm not supposed to be hungry. I just haven't figured out how to eat. I blew one of my snacks by being awakened at 0530 by a little munchkin who still seems fixated on his teeth. I was ravenous so I ate. So far, using the provided recipes, I've been hungry an hour after eating. That tells me just how much I would have been eating, say, last week. I'll have to find that page where it tells me what the "free" things are so I can stuff my face some more. I've worked through the hunger, though, and tried to drink water instead, and clean the house. And re-clean the house. Why is it still messy?

I feel like I've been playing nap Whac A Mole with the boys. One is down, two are up. Two go down, one gets up. I noticed it was raining, so while the bulldozers sleep, instead of taking sweet advantage of a great opportunity to repair the house, I sat on the porch with Elijah. Ooh. Sitting is nice. I listened to the soft whisper of the gentle rain and cool breeze. I admired the curious tweets of the birds. I picked at some flaky cradle cap. Thinking, Hey, a quiet moment to blog, I deposited Elijah in his cradle and took his Kickin' Coaster out to the porch (Hey, did I ever mention what a cool seat that is?) . I put Elijah in his seat, grabbed my laptop, and plopped down in a plastic chair. As if on cue, the rain stopped, the breeze stopped and the sun banished its cloud cover. Humph.


whac a mole
i want to use my apologize

Cluster Feeding and Flustered Pleading

I think I'm regressing. I dreamed last night about building a really awesome GeoTrax layout. I guess creativity can strike anywhere. What the hay, I went ahead and gave it a shot and it actually was pretty cool.  I barely got it finished before I had to get back to my cluster-feeder.

Elijah surprised me by sleeping all night, two nights in a row and then began his rampage for milk. For the last 3 days and two nights I've rained milk hourly upon that boy. Somebody please send out the dove! If he's not nursing he's crying from exhaustion - no, wait, that's me.  Meanwhile, the house has collapsed and I think I will too. The "big" boys are bouncing off the walls and employing some desperate attention-getting tactics. All the toys are spilled and all the noises are shrill. Gotta love those growth spurts.

Brian made a funny office joke today and I ran with it.

The Cube-liette (The Cubicle Dungeon): Improving productivity through misery.

Two weekends ago we were trying to decide what we wanted to do. We ended up driving to the theater to see the Disney Oceans movie, but by the time we got there, the boys were asleep so we went to Ikea instead. That night Ian was very disappointed to return home without having seen the movie. This weekend we asked Ian what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to go see the fish movie. We were surprised he remembered it (I don't know why we would be surprised - he remembers everything). We took them to the movie Sunday afternoon and it was pretty good. I think Discovery had better narration and cinematography in their Earth and Life programs. What most amused me was listening to Ian's narration. It was an hour and a half of comments like:

That's a sad song. He's lonely for his mommy.
Ian got distracted with some popcorn and I pointed to the screen, saying, "Manatee." "Yes you may," he replied.
That's Nemo! That's lots of Nemos!
That's loud! Then quiet. Then loud. That's scary loud.
Mom, I can't burp real loud.
Two crabbies! That's a happy crabbie.
I want to leave the movie. I'm done now.




Isaac has better diction than Ian, but then again, Isaac is our little Mockingbird. I was changing Isaac and Ian comes up and says, "Hi Igick." Isaac replies, "I-zick. Can you say 'I-zick?'" Isaac enjoys discovering sound effects and thinking of words to say. He will be puttering with a toy and say, "Say 'pillow'." Ian repeats, "piwow." "Say 'pil-LOW.'" "Piwow." "Say, 'business.'" "Igick, I'm building a dangerous house." He babbles so much, it's unfortunately easy to tune out, so Isaac has turned to saying something, waiting a split second and following up with "I tode-ju...!" Sometimes he even talks over himself to say it. For instance, a 1-minute period may go like this: Fire truck fire truck fire truck. Good night ladies. Good night ladies. I'm go'n leave you now. Ring roun da rosie. Pop goes Isaac! Dinosaur is eating man. I'm going to jump. May I jum - I TODE-JU MAY I JUMP?!


Ian is our Thinker-Builder. He makes curtains for his trolley cars.

He makes toilet-paper capes for his cars. He uses his blocks to build houses with couches and TVs and lamps and slides for his little block "people". He is the boy that sits and pats his friend's back while his friend is being disciplined. Instead of talking about what he will do when he grows up, he says, "When I grow down, I will be a little baby and you will 'nuggle me and hold me and I will laugh and cry, 'wahhh' and nurse you and do all the fings I can do. He went to "check" on "Bebe 'Lijah" lying in his Kickin' Coaster (an AWESOME baby seat, by the way) and inspected his toes and said, "This piggy went to market, this piggy stayed with Dad, this piggy laughed, 'ooh hoo ha ha,' [skipping a toe] an' dis piggy runned away."

I've been loving my crazy new birthday shoes.

I actually exchanged these for ones with more foot coverage, but you get the idea. They are called Vibram Five Fingers. I won't go into all the foot-health benefits they claim, but they are fun and about as close to painless barefooting one can get without years of rigorous callous-building. I run around with the boys in the backyard with them and feel a little giddy. I glide (at least in my mind) across the bumps and dips of the terrain and feel agile and sure-footed, unlike the guesswork of running in regular shoes. We went to Line Creek last weekend and I tromped seamlessly from rocky-rooty trail to slipery-cool streambed. I couldn't resist sneaking out of the water for a moment to hit a creek-side trail like a swift ninja. Nevermind the 32-year-old mommy-body bounding down the path with more undulation than typically present in a ninja. That was somebody else.

Ian's Happy Birthweek

Ohh, but it's been a while.  Last Friday, I ended up finishing Ian's cake. It said "Happy Brrrthday."

I sent Brian a picture of it and we got ourselves all hyped-up and decided to celebrate that evening, instead of waiting until Sunday.  Even Sunday would have been early, because his birthday is on Tuesday (today), but we were going to spend Sunday spoiling him so we could have a whole day.  Brian brought home "balloons and silly hats" (as Thomas the Tank Engine had in his birthday story).  Ian carried around his "honker" most of the evening.

He finally got to dig into his "snowy house" cake that he'd been drooling over for days.  Notice how he helps his lips to blow out the candles.

Probably his favorite toy was the set of Automoblox Minis cars we got him - little cars he can build and take apart.  They really are very awesome.  He definitely needs more of them!

Saturday night, we took him to The Rock Ranch, Truett Cathy's (of Chick-Fil-A) totally awesome ranch wonderland, to their free Journey to the Manger program.  It was incredible.  When we arrived, we filled out our 'census' papers and received our 'tax money' coins and hopped on a bus (which the boys could have ridden all night and been thrilled), which took us to the main gathering area.  We got some chili dogs and chili-cheese fries and hot chocolate.  It was fu-reeezing out!  When it was our turn to board the hay-ride-esqe wagon, pulled by a tractor (again, another thing the boys could have enjoyed all night), Ian shot off ahead and boarded, with no apparent use for the parental units.  We caught up and took our seats next to him and off into the night we rode.  We stopped next to an encampment of Wise Men, who told us about their star-studying findings.  Ian stood up and asked them if they saw the school bus.  Then he told them he was going to the manger, and that he had on his mittens.  Sure, he will cower behind our legs when we ask him to say hi to a friend at church, but he'll stand up in a wagon-load of strangers and chat up some oddly-dressed Wise Men below.  

Next we proceeded to the edge of a corn field, where we were escorted off by some Roman soldiers and directed down a torch-lit path through the corn-field.  As we entered the town of Bethlehem, we were directed to turn in our census papers and tax money. Ian faithfully coughed up the gold.  Inside was quite a spectacle.  Rows of trade booths, in probably-accurate biblical detail, lined a small clearing in the field.  There were carpenters, potters, people peddling wares of cloth and bread, people selling animals for sacrifice (that the kids got to pet), and soldiers stomping around impatiently barking orders. All along, Ian kept asking where Baby Jesus was, and so we kept up our search. As we continued down another path, we came to the Inn, which of course had no vacancy, but we were permitted a tour.  From there we followed the path to an encampment of shepherds, with their sheep in a corral.  They told us their story and pointed us in the direction of a star, bright over the corn field.  It led us to a sweet little manger scene.  The boys stood in awe, from a safe distance, and yelled "hi" to Baby Jesus. Then they yelled "bye" and "congratulations" and proceeded down the path to where a poor red-eyed fella told us a synopsis of Jesus life & sacrifice.  We hopped on another tractor ride back, listened to a sermonette, and then Ian tried to offer up a competing prayer over top the speaker's.

We returned to the gathering area, checked out the gift shop, and warmed up again to some hot chocolate before another exciting bus ride back to the van.  The boys couldn't stop talking about the school bus, but when asked what his favorite part was, Ian said he saw Baby Jesus.

Sunday arrived after a quick night and we decided to continue the spoiling (instead we earned yet another Horrible Parent of the Year award).  We took Ian to an Italian restaurant (?!) for breakfast.  He ate his favorite breakfast of banana pancakes, while Isaac scarfed his favorite -- cheesy eggs. Someone asked if we were going next door to a movie afterwards. I took the boys to several kids movies during the free summer showings and they loved it, so we thought that was a great idea.  Brian had a co-worker tell him he thought Ian would really get into the new Christmas Carol movie, so we got tickets for that.  Later, I asked Brian if his co-worker has any children and he sheepishly admitted he (obviously) didn't.  Long story short, what, in our fanciful imaginations, we thought would be a fun family holiday movie was probably terrifying for the little guy. He did hop into my lap, and I did cover his eyes a few times, and he did comment afterwards that the guy (scrooge) was scared and sad and wanted his mommy. Otherwise, he didn't seem traumatized, but I knew those images could stick with him. That night he said, "There's noooo monsters here."  Brian talked to him a bit and tried to explain the concept of "pretend" and promised to gobble up any monsters, if any were to exist. Ian seemed content with that and fell right asleep and had a calm night. But, yeah, we hang our heads and humbly accept our not-so-genius parenting award.  The next morning at breakfast, Ian said "Daddy gobbled up all the monsters."  I think he'll survive.

Sunday evening, we had a leaf-raking party and a beautiful sunset.

 

Today is his actual birthday.  It's a rainy day, so we're stuck tearing the house apart.  We are expecting a grandparents' gift in the mail, and he gets to open some cards, take some phone calls and there's still a few walls of the "snowy house" left, so there's still some celebrating to do.  We plan to take him out for ice cream, too, and that always makes his day.

This morning, Isaac woke up, grabbed my hand and started rubbing his leg with it (as to demonstrate) and said, "Get going." Ian said that last night Grandma was a giant and was mad at him.  Ian later balanced his body in "flying position" on his Sit 'n Spin handle and said he was a "golden flying horse." I think we'll find plenty to do today.