Uncle Sandwich

At our house, we call this an Uncle Sandwich with AJ in the middle.


And this is a Little Guy Sandwich with Uncle John in the middle. The cute little slice of bread on the right is my nephew, Johnny.

Superheros to the rescue!

AJ and David received these awesome superhero jammies from Gigi and Maikler, longtime family friends. They get very excited when they find these jammies in the clean laundry and insist that they must be worn that very night. AJ has recently asked me several times what Batman and Spiderman do with all of the bad guys. I told him that they put the bad guys in jail, of course. When he asked for the fifth time on day, I said I thought Batman gave the bad guys a good kapow! AJ thought about this for a while and seemed to be confused that a good guy could do some punching.

Bathing Beauty

Here is a picture of Julia getting out of her bath. The adorable hot pink kitty cat bathrobe is a present from her nanny, Linda, who loves to give babies a bath. Julia enjoys her bath but has a funny little quirk of wailing when she has her back washed. We can't quite figure out why.

The Enforcer

AJ's latest is that he is very interested in the rules and making sure everyone follows them. Everyone else, that is. Especially Davey. AJ listens carefully to rules that I make up, like everyone can take one book to bed to look at while they fall asleep, and treats them as if they were written on a stone tablet and brought down from the mountain. If Davey has two books in his bed, AJ ferrets him out like he had national secrets or evidence of a murder in there. AJ immediately appoints himself chief of the brother police squad and tries to seize the extra book. If that doesn't work, he tries brother police brutality and attempts to beat Davey into submission. When all else fails, AJ then tries to alert the highest authority (mom) of the infraction that needs to be remedied and looks at me expectantly like "Well, aren't you going to do something about it??? He has an extra book in his bed!" The horror. This keeps me on my toes, as I have to remember what random rules I have made up and be consistent on enforcing them. (My recent favorite: There is a rule in this house that we don't smear peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the sliding glass door!) I am guessing AJ either has a career in the military/law enforcement or this is a normal stage of development. Davey is hoping it is just a phase.

Privacy, Please

I am in that phase of life as a mom where I have no privacy in the bathroom. I feel like Erma Bombeck. Whenever I run in to try to use the facilities, there is someone following me in, trying to pull all of the paper off the roll or standing at the locked door banging to get in. Once AJ and David even followed me in dragging their little potty chairs and we had a little potty party. But lately I have been trying to teach them that they stay on the outside of the door to give mom some privacy, please.

The other day I caught AJ sitting on the potty and playing with his umbrella. Shortly after I started taking pictures, he put up his umbrella to shield himself from my prying camera. It was as if he was trying to say yo, mom, can I get some privacy, please?

Pretty in Purple

I was looking back over blog posts this morning and realized that I haven't posted nearly enough pictures of the baby eye candy that you all probably want to see. Who doesn't love a cute baby picture? Here is one of Julia from about a month ago. A longer post on her last three months is in the works as well.

Miracle Ear

Julia is done with her ear molding and had the devices removed right before Christmas Eve. She still has to have her ears taped most of the time until she is three months old, but we are almost completely done with the process. It is amazing how different her left ear looks after the Ear Wells came off. Without further ado, (cue drumroll...)

Before



and After

Shots = Icky

We took Davey for his two year check up recently where he needed one booster immunization. He seemed to have a lot of teething pain back when he was a baby, and after I happened to read an article about redheads experiencing more pain than other people, I have a theory that he may fall into this camp. As a result, I offered him my cell phone during the appointment so that he could play a Thomas the Tank engine game I have stored on there for emergencies such as restaurants, lines at the post office and when I get a business call on my blackberry while running errands with one of the boys. David was happy to get an uninterrupted turn with Thomas and when the shot was delivered he only diverted his attention from the game long enough to look at the spot on his leg and say "icky" before going back to playing. If any doctors out there want to do a study on cell phones as rain relievers for the two year-old set, I think I have one volunteer to participate in the clinical trial. As long as the cell phone game involved is a Thomas game.

David Dubs

AJ's preschool class is working on first and last names, so the other night at dinner I tried to casually quiz AJ on his. Having a nickname made up of initials from his first and middle name definitely confuses the issue a bit, but he is starting to understand that his nickname is AJ and his "real name" is "Andrew John". When we were working on last names, though, I asked him what David's last name was, and AJ said "Dubs!" quickly and with confidence that he had nailed this one. I laughed, because "David Dubs" is what their Papa calls Davey as a nickname for David William (David W) so that the family won't get our Davey confused with his Uncle David or Uncle William, who he is named for. I can't say I blame AJ for getting confused with all of our nicknames around here.

The W is for Wow!

Davey definitely has a new favorite word, which is wow, or to try to visually represent his pronunciation, WOAOW! He manages to stretch it out to get at least two additional vowels in there. Anything that is awesome, exciting, or novel gets a WOAOW!, including little things like curly ribbon on a birthday gift, a new toothbrush and discovering that the grocery store carries the same yogurt we have in our refrigerator at home (imagine that!) But the thing that gets the most reliable, consistent WOAOWs! is the commercial that Fisher Price has been running incessantly on the Sprout cartoon channel for its new Racin' Ramps car ramp that it is pushing as THE holiday gift for the toddler boy set. He sees it every morning when we watch Thomas the Tank Engine cartoons. The audience for Thomas is obviously the target audience for this type of toy, and we have a couple of sitting ducks on our couch every morning. If the advertising agency that developed this commercial could only see Davey's reaction, it would warm the hearts of those copy editors who cranked this idea out. Davey's nanny, Linda, was kind enough to find this toy for him for his Christmas gift, and the joy and WOAOW in seeing the real thing unwrapped in person in his living room made me happy I was there to witness it.

Davey's use of his signature catch phrase has led me to decide that the W in his middle name really stands for Wow. If it didn't involve so much paperwork, I think I would file application with the Social Security Administration to change David William to David WOAOW!

My Yes! Man

Davey is into a yes phase lately, which needless to say is a welcome change at our house. At first he pronounced it "yesh!" but now he has mastered a clear yes! I use the exclamation point with it because Davey always says it with enthusiasm. Typically it is used when he makes a request for something ("imean? imean?") and I successfully interpret the request ("you want ice cream, Davey?") and am rewarded with a yes! Based on the delighted, relieved look on his face when he is understood, I think if his verbal skills were more advanced he would say something like "yes! you people are finally understanding what I have been trying to tell you for months!"

Aunt Ali

Here is a great pic of Aunt Ali with Julia.  Love those bright eyes (and Ali's new haircut!)

Winter Jammies

What is it about footie pajamas that makes them so fabulous? As a mom, I love that there are built-in socks that can't be pulled off in the night. As kids, they seem to love the fuzziness of what I am guessing is probably a polyester blend. Double happiness.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our friends and family. After a great time visiting with family from far (Texas) and even farther (Chile), I have some blogging catching up to do. Many new posts to come, but in the meantime, best wishes to all for a happy 2011.