Ocean Shores...from August

For some reason only half of the pictures from our August trip downloaded and obviously I haven't gotten around to attempting a second download, so for now here are a few of the pictures from our amazingly relaxing family vacation!

 

We didn't let a little rain & fog stop Parker from wading in the ocean for the first time.



Brian & Parker getting chased by the waves

Running from the waves

Cold but loved every minute of it!



wading

The beautiful house we stayed at had a refrigerator drawer labeled "for deer" and a bag of deer food in the garage!

"Spike" came around several times a day for his feedings

Bedding down in the neighbor's yard



Dr. Parker to the rescue

Yesterday, Parker decided I needed to wear his wooden shape sorting box as a hat. He hit me so hard I saw stars. After a few minutes I was able to wipe my eyes and tell him he hurt me and needed to be more gentle. With a very concerned look he kissed my owies and determined I needed “ice! ice!” Then he ran around the living room collecting his thawed out teething rings (when he is sick or teething he asks for his frozen teethers) and placed them on my head! Dr. Parker fixed me up good as new!

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

School starts tomorrow, ready or not here they come!

Kids are so literal

Asked Parker to finish chewing and wait to talk until his mouth wasn't full. He grabbed my hand, flipped it palm side up and proceeded to spit out every bite of carrot into my hand, so he could tell me we have 2 dogs.
Maybe talking with your mouth full isn't so bad.

Olympic Bound

Brian: Parker, are you going to be in the Olympics some day?
Parker: Yeah!
Brian: What sport?
Parker: Um, ball.

Yo mama's so dumb

Parker: "Fwrirtwrk!"

Me: "Um, what?"

Parker: "Fwrirtwrk!"

Me: "Say it again?"

Parker: "Fwrirtwrk!"

Me: "Can you say it one more time?"

Parker: "FWRIRTWRK!"

Me: "I'm sorry honey, I just don't understand what you're trying to say."

Parker: sighs and says, "Whoo whoo whoo!"

Me: "Oh, fire truck! Yes, that was a fire truck, good job!"

Cartoons

I'm 6ish months into the world of PBS cartoons.  Parker and I snuggle up in our bed first thing in the morning, he watches cartoons or Sesame Street and I doze in and out trying to grab a few extra moments of sleep.  When I am sick or he is sick, cranky, or being a general pain in the ass; cartoons let him zone out and forget he feels icky and I usually get lots of snuggle time.  We only watch PBS, and if desperate Sprout.  I refuse to let him watch cartoons that are violent or fast moving because...

If you turn to an old airing of Sesame Street, the camera stays in one place with a head-on angle and relative slow-moving action. Now, however, cartoons change frames a mile a minute, with bright colors and rapid movements. It's easy to see how spending many hours in front of a television could significantly effect the way a child's brain develops. Article

In other words TV, specifically fast moving shows, can lead to an increased chance of developing hyperactivity disorders. Limiting Parker to PBS does not always ensure the cartoons are top quality or have a theme song that won't annoy the piss out of me when it gets stuck in my head for the next 12 hours. 

Here are a few cartoon reviews for all you new parents out there:

Dinosaur Train:  I actually really like this show, but if Buddy says 'I have a hypothesis' one more time I'm going to punch him in his T-Rex snout. 

Thomas the Train: One of Parker's favorites. I don't really mind watching this one, except every single show has the same plot.  An engine is given a very important task and a certain amount of time to complete it.  Said engine screws up the task and makes Sir Tophum Hatt 'very cross'.  The engine goes back, tries to fix his screw-up, says sorry and everything is forgiven.  So kids. When your parents tell you to do something; don't do it, say sorry and you'll probably get a pony.  I thoroughly enjoy the episodes with Victor the engine.  He sounds like the Dos Equis guy and says 'my friends' a lot!

The Cat in the Hat:  How has CPS not investigated Nick and Sally's moms?  Most of the time they ask to go on some crazy adventure and the disembodied mom voice always says yes.  Do they ever actually check the backyard and notice their children have disappeared? 
     I'm also convinced Nick and Sally are brother and sister and have two moms.  Sure Nick is African American? Hispanic? really tan?, Sally is in need of some sun, and their mom's match their respective skin colors, but: A) there are no dads or mention of dads. B) the backyard and house never change, they just rotate the mom voices in and out.  Come on PBS don't ask don't tell has been repealed.  Let Nick and Sally's moms come out of the closet already!

Bob the Builder: Tim Taylor of the cartoon construction world.  Well actually, Bob is more like Al and all his helpers screw-up the building projects.  I think Brian tries to avoid this show because it reminds him too much of the people that work for him.

The Wiggles: How do you say 'what the fuck' in Australian?  Four grown men running around in Telletubby colored outfits, dancing around with a bunch of kids. How has To Catch a Predator not nailed these guys?

It has been a busy few weeks around here...not much time or energy to post something witty so instead I will leave you with a few pictures of the cutest two year old I know!

Parker helping me read



Visit to the Blue Willow Lavender Farm in Gig Harbor



Stopping to smell the roses lavender

Wanted: Better Role Models

Parker was helping me unload the dishwasher and I caught him licking several dishes! I'm guessing he learned this technique from the dogs. For the record, the dogs are totally uninterested in clean dishes, but I have to fight them off when loading it...especially if I have just made Parker a PB&J.

4th of July

Dear Neighbors,

     Happy Independence Day! The 4th of July is a great time to reflect on the freedoms bestowed upon us by our forefathers. While I am sure any good lawyer could argue your right to "blow shit up" is covered under the Bill of Rights, I believe my family and I also have a right to more than 4 hours of sleep a night. As I assume you are busy recovering from a 2 day hangover and worrying about permanent hearing loss; let me quickly summarize the basis of many, many US Supreme Court arguments. Basically, if the expression of your rights and freedoms infringes on my rights and freedoms, we can throw down.

    Every year, I watch you, your friends, and family sit in your garage, guzzling beers bathed in the soft red glow of your neon beer sign. I assume you carefully save these aluminum beer cans in the hopes that someday you will have chugged and saved enough to supplement your expensive illegal fireworks habit. Based on your window rattling pyrotechnic display over the past 2 days I would assume your 2012 goal was to:

A) Not remember any Friday or Saturday nights from July 2011-July 2012 and

B) Buy 1000's of dollars worth of the loudest and brightest fireworks your 5th grader could possibly set off.

  Please consider this letter a friendly warning. Tonight, should you continue, what has become a nightly barrage of the neighborhood; I will be forced to take action and forever be known as that crazy bitch that lives 2 doors down.


Sincerely,

Amy


P.S. Just in case I am unable to come within 500 feet of your residence later this year, please refer to this letter when planning your New Year's celebration.

Toddler Play

Trying to play with a toddler is like trying to play with a Schizophrenic...

Toddler pulls out his giant bin of cars and dumps them on the ground. Mommy grabs the race track and puts it together. Toddler races 3 cars, crashes 2 together then runs off to cook something in his kitchen.

Toddler wants to wear his apron while cooking. Mommy ties apron on toddler as he races to his tool bench.

Drill and hammer are used for 2.5 nanoseconds, then tossed aside to run around the living room dragging a stuffed dog on a leash.

Dog gets abandoned as the contents of the book shelf are emptied on to the floor. Toddler scoffs when it is suggested we could read one of the 50 books scattered across the floor.

Flashcards are spotted and tossed around like flower petals at a wedding.

Mommy collapses on the floor as Hurricane Parker finishes destroying the living room.

Two!

We have been trying to get Parker to say two and hold up two fingers when people ask him how old he is, but haven't had much luck.

Last night, after getting home an hour after bedtime, Parker was fighting the usual bedtime routine. I told him it was bedtime and we were going to brush teeth, get into pj's, and read one book. That little booger furrowed his brows, held up two fingers and said, "Two!"

And sure enough, we read two books before bed.

I learned it by watching you!

Parker is really starting to voice his opinions and is more than happy to let you know when you piss him off. If you happen to be sitting where he wants to sit, blocking his path, or standing with you foot over the shower drain when he is trying to pour a cup of water down said drain; he will furrow his brow, pout his lips, yell "mooooove!" and try to push you out of the way.

As you can imagine, I am not happy with the mooooove rudeness. I have been trying to correct the behavior and telling him "you don't need to be rude!" This has been going on for a few weeks and I haven't been able to break him of this terrible habit.  Last night, I asked him "who taught you to act like this!?" Then, this morning while trying to get ready, the dogs were following me around and seemed to always be in my way. Frustrated, I yelled "move!" and tried to push Ike out of the way.

Well shit, the incredibly rude bad influence appears to be me.

Awesome, now I have to remember to say please and thank you to two slobbering dogs!

Husbands say the darndest things

Last Monday I was a train wreck! Parker headbutted me and gave me a fat lip. Then I smashed my toe, and for my grand finale; I kicked up a rock with the lawnmower and it hit squarely in my left eye (fine now, but was blurry for about a day). That night, when I told Brian about my day, he told me I was the toughest woman he knew! Then said if I worked for him, he would have to find a way to fire me because I was such a liability. When I told him I had also worked on the vegetable garden, but skipped sewing because my eye was blurry he told me I was exactly like Laura Ingalls. Thanks, I think...

Then, A few days ago I told Brian we; joined a co-op, reactivated our CSA account, and reminded him that I was going to the Mother Earth News Fair on Saturday. He said okay, then asked if I still owned razors and planned to keep shaving!

Back off ladies, this smooth talker is taken!

A is for Ansel Adams

We have a Ansel Adams print hanging above the couch.  A few weeks ago Parker was standing on the couch (Mom calm down I was sitting right next to him) with a paintbrush, "painting" the picture and chanting, "a-a-a-a-a!" I realized he was tapping one of the A's in the name Ansel Adams.  I asked him to point to the letter A again just to be sure and he pointed to the S, so I figured he was still talking about the apple (he says a or app) we had shared earlier. 
Then yesterday, he started pointing again and chanting, "a-a-a-a-a!" This time, he pointed to all 3 A's every time I asked him to find the letter A.
One down, 25 letters to go!

All by myself

Last week, Parker grabbed a cup and wanted some water. I told him he could play with the cup, but I wasn't going to put any water in it. Usually he would throw a tantrum and then play with something else. A few minutes later I realized he had been in the kitchen for a while. This is what I found when I checked on him...

He pull one of his chairs over to the sink

Luckily he can't reach the handle

Pweez, can I have some water?

Pwity, pweez?

I asked him to smile for the camera

Can You Hear Me Now?

Trying to understand a toddler is like trying to talk to someone with bad cell reception.

Parker: Mam--dis--booook--up 

Me: You want to sit on my lap and read a book?

Parker: Yeah!

Me: Can you say yes please?

Parker: Yesh

Me: Okay so say yes please

Parker: Meez!

Me: Can you say yes please?

Parker: Meez!!!! (shouts, throws the book at me and tries to climb up in my lap)

So Sleepy

In the last few weeks, Parker has started waking up much, much earlier.  I usually bring him into bed with me, turn on channel 9, and he happily watches cartoons while I go back to sleep.  I must be pushing the sleeping in thing a little too far. Yesterday, he pointed at the hallway and started to climb off the bed.  I drowsily told him we would get up after Elmo's World.  He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV and stomped down the hallway!

Trying out some of his new toys

Fixing up his house

Putting the hammer back in his tool belt

Here Mom, you can help

New tool bench

Motorized front-loader

Grandpa & Grandma M. gave Parker a "dress me" doll. 
Parker decided he wanted to try on the clothes. Notice the shoes?

Half dressed doll, half dressed toddler.
The blue thing on his head is the doll's hooded sweatshirt

He got really made when I took the shoes off to change his diaper

Party!

We had great weather for the party and hung out in the backyard the entire time.
I could have left the house a total mess and no one would have noticed!

The adorable Lawson

We couldn't keep Josie and Parker out of the pool.



These two are going to be thick as thieves and double trouble!

Josie showing off her dance moves and entertaining the crowd

 

Jack and Josie playing chase. 
I have no idea how I managed to only take pictures of the back of Josie's head!

Matching smiles

All smiles, these two must be related!

Four! A proper golf set from Grandpa Dave & Grandma Vicki.

The cake! I managed to get Parker to try some frosting, then he completely ignored the cake and ate raspberries.  Someone must have convinced him to eat some cake because the next day he stole bite after bite from my plate.

Blowing out the candles

Cannonball!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last summer, Parker was pretty timid when it came to playing in water.  He would hold our hands and need help getting in and out of his little kiddie pool, he didn't like the water to be very deep and would usually lose interest after about 15 minutes.  What a difference a year makes! I didn't have time to take his clothes and diaper off before he literally, dove head first into the water! He kept rolling around, kicking and splashing like he was trying to swim.



Practicing his backstroke

Notice the potty chair in the background? Wishful thinking! After I took his clothes off he peed in the pool.Then while my back was turned, he pooped in the grass, managed to get poop on both of his shoes and roll his wagon through it.
But it gets worse...............lets just say the dogs hope he plays without a diaper more often!

Man I love this kid

Two cute stories from tonight:

30 minutes before bed Parker got the hiccups.  We tried drinking water but that didn't work, so we got ready for bed as usual.  I was rocking Parker and after awhile I realized his hiccups were gone.  A few minutes later he sat up grinning, threw his hands in the air and yelled, "All done!"

Every night when I lay Parker in his crib, I tuck him under his blanket and give him a kiss goodnight.  After I kissed him tonight, he popped his head up and handed me his doll.  I gave the doll a kiss and handed it back to him.  I couldn't tell in the dark, but I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes. Then he tucked his doll in under his blanket and drifted off to sleep.

Singing & Dancing

Parker hasn't had much exposure to music. I'm 110% sure I'm tone deaf, so I rarely sing around other people.  Because of this, I sang very few lullabies to Parker when he was an infant.  The first time I sang to him, I couldn't remember any songs so Parker's first lullaby was the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song!  Last year, in preparation for traveling to and from Moscow; I bought a 3-disc set of what can only be described as 101 ear bleeding children's tunes and have avoided all kid music since then. Lately, though, music has started to make a come back.

Parker had been super squirmy when I rock him before bed. Out of frustration one night, I started singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  When I sang he stopped moving and just listened!  I've done this a handful of times and it works every time.  Parker's interest in singing made me rethink my ban on kid's music. So last week, I decided to give "kid music" another try. 

I found a great blog written by a Dad who was sick of all the horrible kid music, and set out to honestly review children's albums and weed out the crap. I checkout out a few albums and bought The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band.  Last Friday, we headed to a friend's house for dinner and a play date, so I used the 45 minute ride to test out the new tunes.  Parker really liked it! The songs are easy to sing along to and who wouldn't like a song about people w/ animals on their heads?  This weekend we listened to Laurie Berkner, but I also threw in some Adele and a little country.  I sang and drummed along with Adele and Parker clapped and drummed by stomping his feet on the back of the passenger seat.  I even got him to dance in his car seat!  Nothing cuter than a kid in a 5-point harness trying to shake his booty and move his shoulders! He even claps and cheers at the end of each song.

I thought the clapping and cheering was pretty cute until the other night, when I received a standing ovation at the end of Twinkle Twinkle. So much for singing calming him down before bed!

Parker only rocks out when the car is moving, so here is a video of P dancing in his highchair, enjoy!

The Clean Up Crew

Ike and Turner do this several times a day. Yes it is gross, but there is not much I can do about it.  Have you ever tried to keep two 95 pound labs away from food?

(Sarah, we will buy you a new slobber-free highchair for your next kid)

Likin' the ladies

I think it is only a matter of time before I find a Playboy under Parker's crib mattress.  Every time I leave a magazine out he seems to find at least one picture of a woman in a bikini. He walks around intensely staring at the picture, pointing and saying oh!

Just a little taste

We took advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend. We played at the zoo, BBQ'ed, chased Dad and dogs in the backyard and now, Parker is hooked on backyard sunshine. This guy craves it morning, noon, and night.

Last night I had to drag his crying, stomping, dirt caked butt inside for dinner. He scarfed down his food then started pounding on the sliding glass door, chanting "otside! otside!"

This morning he ran straight for the slider, I thought because he wanted the dogs to come in. Nope, he tried to push past the dogs and run out the door in his pj's and socks!

As I type this he is staring longingly out the sliding glass door. I am not looking forward to the next few days of rain and toddler vitamin D withdrawals.

Freud Would have a Field Day

I'm just going to say it, Parker is fascinated by his penis.  Which leads me to say things I never thought I would ever have to say...

"Parker, don't put your wiener in the shower marker cap, please."

"Parker, your wiener does not belong in the empty toilet paper roll."

"It's not going anywhere, quit holding it so much!"

"Parker, we don't stick our hands down our pants/diaper in public."

"Parker, we don't stick our hands down our pants/diaper at the dinner table."

"I need to fasten your diaper, hands off the merchandise."

"Parker! Quit pinching your wiener with my hair straightener!"

"Dude! I don't have one, but if you keep pulling that hard, I'm not 100% sure it won't fall off."

"I don't think you're going to be happy when you hit that with a hammer."

Zoo

Tired of pictures and posts from the zoo? Too bad. We have a membership.

We took advantage of the beautiful weather on Sunday and spent a few hours at the zoo.

We didn't realize there was a tropical reef section of the aquarium until a few weeks ago. 
It has become one of Parker's favorite spots to visit 

He squeals with delight every time a fish swims up to the glass.

This fish is the size of Parker!

6 week old Clouded Leopard cub

Climbing the spider web



He wouldn't crawl through the log, but had a lot of fun shoving the recycled tire mulch through the knot holes

Peeka-boo!

Not sure what to call this move