Singing Thomas y Counting in Espanol

Here are a few videos of Leo showing off some of his talents—singing the theme song to “Thomas” and counting in Spanish:

 

 

 

Nice place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit

 

 

We really like living near Old Town Roswell. It’s cute, quaint and they have fun restaurants and shops. Frank commented that he liked living near little downtowns, “you know, with boutiques.”

“You don’t like boutiques,” I said.

“But I like to live near them,” he said. “I’m not going to actually shop there.”

“And what about bistros and cafes?” I asked.

“Yes, those too. I don’t want to go to a bistro or café but I like living near them,” he said.

He compared this to living on a golf course: He doesn’t actually enjoy playing golf, but it would be nice to live on a golf course. The view is nice, they keep up the lawns and you don’t have any neighbors behind you.

We then thought of a whole list of things that we’d like to live near but wouldn’t actually use:

The mountains: they’re pretty but do we really want to climb a mountain?

A ski resort: nice scenery, lots of fun, but we probably wouldn’t even get on the lift.

Museum: says you’re in an artsy, upscale part of town. It’s not like we would get a membership though.

The Fresh Market: We actually do live right across the street from this specialty grocery store. “I like living across from Fresh Market,” said Frank. “But it’s way too expensive. I never go there.” I’m so proud of the fact that we live across from this upscale establishment that I often tell people that our neighborhood is, “You know, right across from The Fresh Market…” even though it’s also right next to a Kroger.

Now, the airport is the opposite. We like to travel and we hate having to drive far before and after trips. But live near the airport? No way.

I think Frank would rather shop at boutiques.

Baby Talk

I hear that some kids don’t notice their mom’s pregnant belly. That is not true of Leo at all. He has noticed it from the get-go and LOVES to talk about it!

He hugs it all the time, nuzzles it and either says, “Say Say Mommy” or “See See Mommy.”  I don’t know what this means but it’s cute.

 

 

He has lots of questions like, “Is the baby crying in there?” “What would happen if the baby came out now?”

He’s read up on the subject so there are some things he just says matter-of-fact:

“Babies cry because they want something.”

“Babies wear diapers.”

“Babies can’t walk.”

When I tell him that babies sleep a lot, he says, “I will wake up the baby!” Great.

And this was the sweetest:

Leo: I wish there was a door on your belly.

Me: Why?

Leo: So I could open it and see the baby!

Aw  

 

 

He’s excited to hold the baby and take a bath with him but he will not share his Dinosaur Train with him, he’s informed us.

 

I was explaining to him about how we would go to the hospital and he would stay here with Grandmother and Grandpa Ron. He was listening until I mentioned the grandparents. Then he said, “What will they bring me?”

Orange you surprised…

…that I have no idea how to eat an orange?

 

But if you knew that I was 25 before I tried an apple, you really wouldn’t be that surprised. We were given some fresh, authentic Florida oranges, right out of someone’s backyard.

I was pleased to receive them and planned to eat them. But when I made an attempt, I realized I didn’t know how. In fact, I don’t really remember ever eating an orange. I think maybe I’ve sucked on an orange wedge after a 5K but I’ve never just busted out an orange and done whatever it is you do to it (peel, cut?) and eaten it.

Luckily, there’s really nothing you could type into Google that someone hasn’t asked before. So when I put in “How to eat an orange” I was directed to  this page from WikiHow.

It made me feel much better about my situation for two reasons:

1. It started by explaining that you shouldn’t bite right into the orange peel. Hey, I already knew that!!

2. The bottom said that this page had been viewed over 47,000 times. That’s a lot of people as orange-idiotic as me!

Now I will follow WikiHow’s directions precisely and enjoy my fresh, Florida oranges. Or I might just eat some Clementines. They’re way easier.

A Good Saturday

We had PERFECT weather here in Atlanta today so Leo decided to make the most of it:

He started with a good breakfast while he read about March Madness:

 

 

Then he went to the zoo with John, Etienne and the rest of Atlanta:

After dinner at the Fickle Pickle (sorry, no pics) he took an evening stroll around downtown Roswell and posed with this dog (a species he now claims he likes, although he prefers the “pretend” kind)

He ended the day by watching the end of an exciting basketball game with daddy.

 

Tomorrow he’s got church, the Horns at noon and a birthday party on the agenda. Each day gets better and better when it’s spring time and you’re Leo James!

Almost Big Boy Bed

We plan to move Leo into a real big boy bed in May, a few weeks before the baby comes. But to help with the transition, Frank decided to transition his crib into a partial big boy bed. See, the crib does convert to a bed but we need the crib for the baby. So Leo will get a new bed and Donald Duck will get the crib.

When Leo saw Frank working on this project he said, “I’m going to be daddy’s helper!” and he ran into his play room and got his tools. Frank was very grateful for the help!

 

We told Leo that sleeping in a big boy bed is a big responsibility. If he gets out of his bed before we come in, we will have to change it back to a crib.  (Little does he know it’s not all that easy to change back!)

So Sunday night he slept in his big boy bed and in the morning, when I saw him wake up on the monitor, he stayed put! When I went in, though, he immediately got out of bed so that’s why this is the only picture I could get:

 

Believe it or not, the picture below is actually from today (the next morning) even though everything looks the same—the pajamas, the messy hair, the “get-that-camera-out-of-my-face” look.

 

 

A great advantage of a big boy bed is that I don’t have to lift Leo and put him into his crib. We just sing “Twinkle Twinkle” in his chair and then he walks over and climbs in!  Between big boy underwear and a big boy bed, I’m starting to think maybe, just maybe, Leo is not a baby anymore!

All Aboard the Pillow Train!

Leo has a new game: he takes all of the throw pillows off our couch and chairs and makes them into a train on the living room floor. He then asks us—orders us—to sit on the pillows and ride the train to various places, usually the zoo. Sometimes we go across the ocean to get to the zoo!

He was really into this when Grandmother came to visit so here she is, sitting in her assigned train car. On this particular excursion the train was serving food so that’s why she’s got a snack. (Normally the conductor serves mac and cheese though).

 

If two of us are sitting on the train, he makes us sit right behind the other one, even when there are available pillows—I mean train cars—in other parts of the train. After he punches our imaginary tickets, Leo will say things like, “Okay, folks, we’re going to the zoo!” If you’re really lucky, you get to sit in the “observation car” which is the tan reclining chair. For some reason Frank always gets the observation car while Grandmother (a senior citizen) and me (a pregnant woman) must get up and down off the pillows on the floor.

If you ever ride the pillow train it’s very important that you know not to EVER move one of the train cars, not even a little bit. They must stay “coupled up” or the conductor has a melt down. He has quite a temper (which is understandable considering all the stress he’s under, taking a passengers across the ocean to the zoo and serving them food).

Yesterday Leo made a body pillow into a train. This train actually moved around the house.

 

 

The conductor came to me crying last night accusing Frank of throwing his train (the body pillow). Now I don’t know why Frank would do such a thing but this I do know: he’s gonna lose his spot in the observation car if he’s not careful.

 

And here is just a cute picture of our conductor, ready to go to the train museum yesterday. Yes, his pants are reflective. You gotta be able to see the conductor on the night train!

 

Books for Baby

Leo and I were at The Container Store the other day and we found a basket that looks like the one that holds his books. I said we should get one for the baby and we could put his books in it too. Leo picked out the color (a nice chocolate brown) and then he tried to also carry it through the store. I said, “This is kinda big so why don’t you let mommy carry it?” He said, “How about you carry one side and I carry the other?” I thought this was brilliant 1). Because he used the phrase “how about?” and 2). Because it really was a very good solution! So we each took a handle and carried it through the store.

When we got home I asked Leo if there were any books of his that we could put in the baby’s basket. At first he wasn’t willing to give up any, not even the really babyish board books. But then he finally agreed that he would give the baby “Leo the Late Bloomer.” I was surprised because that’s not only one of his favorites but it’s specifically about LEO. I had the basket in the guest room which will soon be the baby’s room. I told Leo to bring in any books that he thought the baby could have. He ran from his room to the other room, each time with a new book. He was enjoying doing this so much that he was picking up ANY book, even ones that he really likes. Here he is posing after putting books in the basket. (He’s also holding a little stuffed bull the whole time.)

 

 

And while I’m at it, “how about” a video of Leo sharing his books?

 

Nothing says wireless like…

 

Once upon a time I was working at an ad agency and my client was a computer company. They wanted us to make a brochure about all their wireless capabilities but they didn’t like any of the photos we had chosen. They kept asking us to send more photos so we kept pulling stock images and emailing them over. No, no, no. They didn’t like any of them. We were getting desperate and cross-eyed, and I guess in the midst of all these emails, we sent over a picture that looked like this:

 

They didn’t say anything about this particular photo at the time but later, when I was at their offices for a meeting, I saw that one of the clients had this photo taped up to her cube with a big sign over it that said:

NOTHING SAYS WIRELESS LIKE…

They were mocking us!! They were right but still, they were mocking us!

So I couldn’t help thinking about that little incident when I stupidly looked behind our entertainment center today. This piece of furniture houses:

The surround sound system

The cable box

The Blu-ray player

The router

So how many cords and wires do you think would be required to run these four pieces of equipment? Wait, let me first tell you that the Blu-ray player and router are both called “wireless.” So you’d probably assume that the other two had at least one cord, maybe two. So that’s four wires/cords max?

For some reason, it looks like this:

 

I tried to count the wires but I got confused after 22. The surround sound system, come to think of it, is actually called “wireless” too but even it has several wires in the back plus wires coming from two of the speakers!

 

I get so frustrated when I see a picture in a Pottery Barn catalog of a home office:

 

I ask you, WHERE ARE THE WIRES?? Does their laptop have a super battery? Do they not need a printer? A modem? A router? An external hard drive? A mouse?  I’ve never had a home office look that nice because I’ve got wires out the wazoo! And I have a laptop and wireless internet!!

So here’s what I’ve realized: there is no such thing as wireless. In fact, the more wireless things I buy, the more wires I get. I’m gonna call that computer client and tell ‘em that picture was perfect.

Sharing Mommy’s Musical Memories

We were having big probs at bath time. Leo didn’t like to take baths anymore and basically screamed throughout the process. He wouldn’t even sit in the tub, just stood there while we tortured him. It was agonizing for everyone.

So last week I had a “Come to Jesus” talk with him. I said, “What can we do to make bath time go better? Could we add bubbles? Would you prefer to take a shower?” He didn’t like either of those ideas. Then, for some reason I remembered this song I used to listen to on a record when I was little. It was Bert and Ernie in the bath tub singing, “Everybody wash.” I started singing it to Leo and he perked up. I then searched for it on YouTube and showed it to him. This is the first one I found which was good because it had visuals but it wasn’t the exact song I remembered:

 

 

Then I found the actual song that I remembered so vividly. Only it was a video of someone playing it on their 8-track cassette player! (Old alert.) At first Leo didn’t like it because you couldn’t see Bert and Ernie but it grew on him. Now we play each of these videos before bath and bath time is so much more enjoyable! There’s no crying; he loves it again. (He also confessed that he prefers to be washed without a wash rag which has helped the process.) Bert and Ernie are pretty funny if you listen to it, way ahead of their time comically.

 

 

 

Then the other day he wanted a treat for going potty but it was right  before nap and I didn’t want to give him sugar. I said, “Maybe there’s another song that mommy can find…” and I thought of “Moving Right Along” from the Muppet Movie. Now we watch this video at least twice a day, just for fun. I think it’s the catchiest, cutest song and I pretty much remember all the words from my Muppet Movie record! I had a Muppet-themed party for my third birthday so I think it’s perfect that Leo likes them just as he’s about to turn three.

 

 

And here are a few pics of us watching our fun, life-saving videos.

 

Now that I know Leo and I share similar musical taste, I can’t wait to dig up other childhood favorites. I wonder if he’d dig Annie?