Big Boy

I took David with me today to a cookout that one of my work friends was holding, and several of my work colleagues were really amazed at how big David is for his age. One friend could not get over his huge thighs. They are quite gigantic. I am going to have to take a picture to post here. His size is lost on me most days because he is just my little guy, but when I take him out in public and meet new people, I am reminded again that he is likely to be a candidate for a Big Ten football team in 2027.

What's Dat Sound?

This morning Joe was running late for the airport and couldn't catch a cab, so he talked me into quickly loading the kids in the car and driving him. As we were pulling into the airport, AJ called out excitedly, "What's dat?!?" An airplane, I told him absentmindedly, assuming that he must be jazzed about the huge planes everywhere. A few seconds passed and AJ said impatiently "What's dat sound??!?" I realized he was talking about the rumble strips that warn drivers to slow down. This is one of the many things that are just taken in on autopilot by my thirtysomething mind as I think about piles of laundry and getting breakfast. AJ made me realize again how funny rumble strips can be. Every time we drove over a set (and there were at least a dozen more), he giggled and said "Rumble strips! Bzzzt! Bzzzt! Funny!"

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

We have been getting together more frequently with AJ's buddy, J., and his mom and baby sister who is a month or so younger than David. J's dad travels during the week and Joe often works late, so it is nice for the moms to get together, order pizza, have a glass of wine and get through the crazy dinner hour with the kids. J is a fun little guy who loves Barney, wants his toast and eggs for breakfast and whips through the climbing steps at the playground with ease and no apparent fear. AJ is a fan of this little playhouse in J's backyard that has a mailbox, doorbell and a phone on the wall. Shortly after this picture was taken, both boys managed to flip their plates over onto the floor of the playhouse and were delightedly trying to pick the pizza up off the ground while shouting "ants! ants!" They both had obviously heard every mother's mantra about food on the floor attracting ants, although I think they were more into inviting the ants into the playhouse than keeping them out.

I One the Sandbox

AJ had an all-star weekend recently when he got to build a sandbox with his Papa. When I heard about the plans to build a sandbox, I figured that it would be an all summer thing with little spurts of working here and there. I was impressed when these two tool lovers got it done in two weekends (one to buy the supplies, the next to build and paint the box.) The week between the initial trip to the hardware store when they bought the supplies and the next weekend when the sandbox was built was like the week before Christmas for AJ. Every day he would wake up and tell me "Build sandbox! Papa! Saturday!" And I would say yes, in five days or four days or three days you will get to build that sandbox. When sandbox weekend arrived, things got off to a bit of a rough start when AJ, who was hopped up on tool junkie adrenaline, was running with a couple of tools in his hands and got clotheslined in the eye area by two boards resting on the sawhorses waiting for cutting. It was like watching a roadrunner and coyote cartoon. But after a kiss from mommy he recovered and spent the rest of the day blissfully handing papa tools and assisting with the cutting, pounding, etc.

The pictures above are of Little Dave, the union supervisor for this project, and then Papa and AJ in all their glory using a handsaw.

Spring Cleaning

We have been busy around our place this year with the traditional spring cleaning tasks--gutters, windows, and yard. This means hours of fun for AJ as he gets to watch some new guys use different tools. We hired a couple of guys with tall ladders to do the windows, and this was pure enjoyment for a couple of hours for AJ as he ran around the house observing the guys and giving them pointers on how to do their job. He was *thrilled* when one of the guys borrowed his step stool to reach the upper part of the inside of the windows. "Guy! AJ's step stool!!!" You could practically see his chest puff out as he said it. Above is a picture of AJ orchestrating the window washing.

Table for Two

We now have two children eating solid foods in our family, or semi-solid foods in David's case. So far he has tried rice cereal (eh) and avacado (slightly more palatable than rice cereal). I will start a win and loss column again like I did when AJ started solids to record the hits and misses. In the meantime, this has started a game of musical chairs at our house as to where David can sit and where AJ wants to sit. AJ is unsure whether he wants to give up his high chair to move to the booster seat or let David sit in the big boy booster seat so that AJ can stay in his beloved high chair. As is usually the case with kids, AJ typically wants the seat that his brother is in at the moment.

(Note to my mom: think of that object on AJ's tray as a brown rice patty with organic raisins. It could be.)

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day my request to Joe was to take a picture of me with my boys. Joe is generally not a photographer, so there are not a lot of photos of me with the kids. The fact that he agreed to do this was a definite nonverbal "I love you" from him for Mother's Day. When I first saw the pictures posted above, I groaned because there are no really good shots where everyone is looking at the camera. And despite my coaching to keep them out of the picture, Joe managed to get the two dead bushes in front of our house in each shot. But now that I look at the pictures again, they are growing on me because they capture what life is like with an almost two year old and a baby. It is hard to get everyone dressed and fed in the morning, let alone to get them to smile and look at the camera at the same time. We are lucky that no one had egg residue from breakfast on their shirt. And there certainly is not time to figure out why those darn bushes in front of the house have managed to die off in the year since we bought the place. So these pictures do a pretty good job of capturing my second Mother's Day at this time and place in my life. I am so thankful for these two little boys.

Klem Kadiddlehopper Day

A happy coincidence of our Iowa trip was that it coincided with the annual cleanup day in my mom's town, which is fondly referred to by our family as Klem Kadiddlehopper Day. It is the one day of the year when people who live in the town can put anything except toxic chemicals out on the curb and the city will come haul it away. Anything and everything does appear on the curb, and before the city garbage trucks get there, the loot gets picked over by dozens of people who make good on that old saying that one person's trash is another person's treasure. And it is fascinating to see both what your neighbors throw out and what the people who drive around in old pickup trucks--the Klem Kadiddlehoppers--find worthy of picking up. This year we were Klem Kadiddlehoppers ourselves and picked up some Tonka dump trucks out of a neighbor's pile on the curb for AJ to play with at Grandma's house when we visit. There seemed to be more people driving around picking things up this year, which may be a sign of the economy. I also noticed more minivans and station wagons than in past years when it was mainly old pickup trucks. We saw a ping-pong table, a washer-dryer set and several armchairs go by. I also noticed that there were a lot of scrappers who would stop to strip any available metal from the items left on the curb. One guy very efficiently dismantled a neighbor's office chair to get the metal legs off the bottom. He was obviously an expert scrapper.

As a side note on the Klem Kadiddlehopper Day title, this was just the phrase that my mom has used for years to describe this day. In my mind, the label Klem Kadiddlehopper Day conjured up a mental picture of a handy guy driving an old jalopy. As I went to draft this post, I started to wonder where that terminology came from and Googled it. Turns out that Klem Kadiddlehopper was a "very funny but slow-witted" character who was part of the comedian Red Skeleton's repetoire. Red Skeleton was from my Minnesota grandfather's era, so it makes sense that this phrase made its way into our family's language. I don't mean to use it offensively at all and in my mind the character is not slow-witted.

In the pictures above, AJ is helping my mom select items out of her garage to take to the curb, including an old patio umbrella.

Donuts + Chocolate Milk = Happy Kid

Our Iowa trip also involved a visit to the home of Pops and Susan, a.k.a. the house of donuts and chocolate milk. My dad gave AJ a powdered donut the last time we visited, and in the two months between that visit and this one, AJ would from time to time ask me hopefully "Go see Pops and Susan?...Donut?!?" My dad and Susan graciously babysat for AJ while Joe and I took David to Omaha for the day to attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder's meeting. And by attend the meeting, I mean that Joe went to the meeting and David and I hit the art museum, farmer's market and a cafe with a friend of ours who lives in Omaha. While we were gone, Pops treated AJ to the donut of his many daydreams, as well as to a glass of chocolate milk. Needless to say, AJ didn't seem to mind being left behind from the Omaha trip at all. AJ also got to watch the Big Dig project that was going on at my dad's neighbor's place, which involved pouring and stamping concrete. Or as AJ described it, "BIG trucks! Pour! Tools! Loud noise! ZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZ!"

Pops also let AJ wander around his yard quite a bit, and when I got home and saw him climbing on the retaining walls and running around, I realized that AJ is probably capable of much more physically than I typically do with him. It was helpful for me to see him in a different environment doing different things. And I think being around Pops and Susan in a new environment made him more adventurous.

I was excited for my dad to see AJ again, because Joe and I both think that AJ has a remarkable resemblance to my dad. I will try to get some of my dad's baby pictures from my grandma and get them up here. AJ has a certain way he raises his eyebrows that looks exactly like my dad and led Joe to start calling AJ "Little Doug".

Mr. Peacock

We had a good weeklong visit to Iowa in late April and early May. One of the highlights of the stay was a trip to the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines with Grammy Julie. Outings to the zoo were rare and special when I was a kid. I think there were three total in my childhood, and that includes a visit to the Omaha zoo with my dad and sister when I was 17. AJ on the other hand has been to three different zoos just this summer and has probably been on at least a dozen zoo outings in his life and he is not even 2. I worry a little bit that going often will take some of the magic out of it for him, but so far he is still a highly enthusiastic participant. "Zoo! Animals! See monkeys! Oo, oo, ee, ee (imitation of monkey noises)!"

Going with my mom made me appreciate again how contagious her great enthusiasm for life can be. When I go to the zoo with the boys in Chicago, I zip around to see the highlights--tiger, lion, elephant, polar bear--check, check, check...lunch and okay, let's hurry home in time for our nap. I don't even pay attention to little exhibits on things like insects, tiny lizards, etc. When we got to the Blank Park Zoo with my mom, one of the first rooms we went through had two ducks and some turtles on a pond. She excitedly pointed them out to AJ and went nuts, and he quickly picked up on her enthusiasm. This continued throughout the day with other little things that I might not have paid attention to on my own, like the koi pond and the trumpeting swans. There was even a hissing cockroach that we stopped to admire. Sample of the audio from Grammy Julie at the swan pond: "AJ! Do you hear that? Have you ever heard anything so fascinating?!? Listen! They're trumpeting!!! Now I know why they are called trumpet swans!" AJ was just as delighted as my mom was at the absurdity of the crazy noise that those swans made. The reaction shot of Grandma & Grandson are posted above.

A close second on the highlight of the day was my mom's amazement and delight at the sight of a peacock in all his glory. The peacock is not caged and just wanders around the zoo, and we came upon him just past the seal tank strutting around in all of his glory in the dried brown leaves from last year's Midwest fall.

Where to Begin?

We are back in business! Joe's Uncle Roger, or Uncle Driver as AJ refers to him, was incredibly helpful in helping us diagnose our computer problem and replacing the hard drive. I realize that it has been almost a month since my last post and don't know quite where to begin, so I think I will go chronologically and start with our visit to Iowa from three weeks ago. In the meantime while I start writing, I will share my latest favorite picture of David, or Mr. Blue Eyes as his Grandma Francie calls him.

Computer Update

I apologize for my lack of posts here for weeks. Our computer hard drive completely melted down, and after lots of phone calls to Dell, we broke down and bought a new one that should be delivered on Friday. I have about 20 posts written in my head and promise to post frequently once the computer arrives to make up for my recent silence. Thanks for hanging in here with me.