“Tell Me”

If you ask Leo a question like, “How old are you?” or “What did you do today?” or “How many muffins did you eat?” He’ll answer with: “TELL ME.”

He even responds this way for things that the asker would not know the answer to.

For instance, “Leo, why are you crying?”

“Tell me.”

Oh, and you have to imagine this in his Georgia accent. It’s more like, “Tail me.”

Every now and then he changes it up a little and says something like, “Mama say it” and shifts the burden of answering to someone else.

And if he’s tired or wants attention, he simply answers, “NO!!”

No matter what, he’s not answering questions. He’d be a terrible witness in a court of law (or maybe a good one, depending on your perspective).

I have no pictures or videos that demonstrate this blog topic so I will just show you photos of our Easter weekend in Austin. Don’t be offended if you live there and we didn’t call. The point of the trip was to attend my sister’s Catholic confirmation. It was a fun, hot and holy weekend!

 

 

 

Bad Sports

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on sports but my dad is, so I’m sure he’ll have opinions on what I’m about to say: I disagree with how many sports are played.

Let’s start with football. For some reason at the end of the game, when one team is up and has the ball and there are just a couple of minutes left, that team is allowed to “take a knee.” This makes no sense. “Hurray! We’re winning! Let’s stop playing so the other team doesn’t have a chance to score.” When this happens, I say, “Oh, great. That team is going to sit on their knees, aren’t they?” If I were running things, I would say they need to PLAY THE GAME until the time runs out.

I often yell, “Just play the game!” during basketball too. At the end of this sport, they’re fouling each other all over the place—on purpose! And this is allowed. In fact, it’s all part of the strategy. So the last few minutes everybody’s just shoving each other and sending players to the foul line. Not only does it seem unfair, it makes for bad television.

When I told Frank I wanted to write about all the sports that I disagree with, he asked, “How do you feel about walking in baseball?”

“I don’t think I like that either!” I said. It’s like a head start. Wouldn’t the batter rather get to first base the regular way, by hitting the ball and running? I mean, who wants to watch someone miss the ball four times and then casually walk over to first base? (Even if it’s more like a jog; it’s still lame.)

My final complaint is about an event that doesn’t really even qualify as a sport: eating contests. To me, an eating contest should be full of people who LIKE TO EAT. And the winner should be determined by who can eat the most food in the way that God intended us to eat food. It would also make a lot more sense if it were filled with fat people (again, because it would show that they enjoy eating). But not only are these events usually won by 90-pound guys who have probably never eaten a Hungry Man TV Dinner, they don’t eat the food in a natural way. When they eat hot dogs, for instance, they dip them in water. Ew. They can’t be enjoying the taste of a soggy hot dog and bun. I want to see an eating contest where the people are hungry and they eat till they’re full. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t really know anything about any other sports which is probably good. But feel free to send me some information about other ones (hockey, lacrosse, ping pong) and I’m sure I could take issue with those too.

Easter Fever

Leo’s already participated in two egg hunts and it’s not even Easter yet! In the first one he scored four eggs (two of which were given to him by another parent) and in another one he got two. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Egg hunt #1:

 

Leo with the Easter Bunny. He told him he wanted candy. Chocolate Candy.

 

Checking out the Easter Bunny with Dawson, Reagan and Anna:

Leo wasn’t sure about him once he stood up:

Baby Ryan says, “Will this guy bring me food? Then I like him!”

 

Egg hunt #2: Goofing around before the event:

Got an Easter egg painted on his face, which he wiped off in about four minutes.

 

 

Look at the crowd, lining up for the hunt!

Frank giving Leo a pre-hunt pep talk:

Competition was tough in the 0-2 age group. We knew Leo was on the edge so we went with the younger group. However, in this group parents were allowed to help. So that was our downfall!

Hunt was over in about one minute. Two eggs, not too bad!

 

Is that lady hiding a basket under her shirt?

Just a cute pic of my view from the kitchen sink:

And a shot of Leo’s baby brother at minus eight weeks to go!

Life after DVR

I knew that having a DVR would change how I watched television; I just didn’t realize it would—not to sound too dramatic—change my life as well.

For instance, people who don’t have DVRs or Tivos think that having one will make them watch MORE TV. I find that to be untrue. When shows are recorded, you only watch the shows that you like. You don’t waste time channel surfing. And best of all, you don’t waste time on commercials. (Frank thinks this is traitor-like of me since I used to work in advertising. I don’t care; I love fast fowarding through them!)

I don’t have to race home so that I don’t miss a show. I remember a friend telling me about how she and her boyfriend were out and about on a Sunday night and it was the season premiere of Sex and the City. They weren’t going to make it home in time so they actually stopped at a hotel that had free HBO, got a room and watched it! They would have saved a lot of money if they had DVRs back then.

When I was going through Catholic classes, I chose the church I went to based on the fact that they had Tuesday night classes. The one closer to my house had Thursday night classes which meant I would have to miss Friends!

There are also some side effects to having a DVR. Are they good or bad? You decide:

It’s pretty much impossible to watch TV in real time ever again: First of all, you realize that there’s never actually anything on. It’s either crap or commercials. It’s so frustrating. So I guess this side effect could be classified as “decreased attention span.”

You never know what night of the week a show is on. This is especially true if you live in Eastern Time. We don’t watch shows the night they air because they start too late. So we just go to the DVR and say, “What do we have?” That also makes us a little behind on stuff so we have to watch out for spoilers.

You want to rewind everything! When you’re watching a show on the DVR and you miss something, you just hit the little rewind button that takes it back about ten seconds. I find myself wanting to rewind the radio and even in-person conversations!

I hope you enjoyed my DVR analysis on this Thursday, a night which used to be known for “Must-See-TV.” Now Thursday doesn’t own me. I’m going out tonight and I’m not gonna miss a thing!

Give this kid a job!

 

All day yesterday Leo’s major complaint was, “I need a job!” Sometimes he would just say it matter-of-fact but other times (lots of times) he would erupt into an epic melt down. He’d cry and scream and just say over and over, “I need a job!”

I kept asking, “What kind of job?” but I couldn’t get a straight answer. So later, when he was just sitting in the car calmly, I asked, “What do you mean when you say you want a job? Do you mean like you want to be like daddy and make chips?”

“No.”

“Do you want to water the plants?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to be an astronaut?”

“No.”

“Do you want to sweep the floor?”

“Yes.”

Okay, so we were making progress. Leo was looking for chores to do, rather than a career.  Well, that is NO problem! I’m thinking of creating a whole chore chart and saying he can get stickers when he does them.  If he gets really good at it, I may even let you hire him from me!

Genie in the Bottle

Frank’s family has this cute tradition where they sing this little diddy at the end of the Happy Birthday song. It goes like this:

“Genie in the bottle. Who’s the happy birthday boy today? LEO!!” (Of course you say ‘girl’ if the honoree is female and you say a name other than Leo if their name happens to be something different.)

It actually was something Granny Jo’s family sang growing up and she says they got it from a TV show. Oh, and the words were really: “Genie in the bottle, what have you to say? Who’s the happy, lucky birthday boy today? Leo!!”

And the most important part: You make circles with your thumb and forefinger, turn your hands upside down and put them over your eyes as you sing.

So we’ve carried the tradition through our family and Leo is very familiar with the song. Lately, he’s been busting out with it at birthday parties and asking later why no one else is doing it. Here he is adding on “Genie in the bottle” to the Happy Birthday song at his best friend John’s party:

 

 

Here is a cute picture of the boys playing at John’s Gymboree party:

 

And Happy 3rd Birthday to John on Wednesday! John told us tonight that he’s not three yet. He said, “I’m just a little guy.”

Couponing Gone Crazy

I haven’t seen the new TLC show “Extreme Couponing” and I don’t plan on it. Still, I think, after reading an article about it and listening to general hearsay, I’m totally in a position to judge.

These people are worse—or at least just as bad—as hoarders!

I cannot relate to them AT ALL. Here are some examples I’ve read about:

One lady has a shower stall in her house filled with 450 rolls of toilet paper and 250 rolls of paper towels. Um, that’s great that you saved $22 on paper products but what happens when you need to take a shower?

Same lady bought 62 bottles of mustard. Her husband told her that he doesn’t even like mustard! So if you go through a bottle a month (which is unlikely), it would take more than FIVE years to ever eat all that mustard.

Another lady said she has so much stuff in her house that it’s like a storage shed. “I feel like the walls are closing in on me.” All for a bargain? Is it worth it?

 

And then there’s the TIME they spend preparing to go to the grocery store—FIVE hours, claims one lady. And in the meantime her kids are probably zombies playing video games, or better yet, tearing up all the toilet paper in that shower stall!

Then they’re excited because a $2,000 bill was only $100. Yes, that would be good news if you ACTUALLY NEEDED 90% OF THE STUFF IN YOUR CART. Oh, silly me. They don’t just use one cart. I’m sure they take up the aisles with at least two or three.

TLC execs say their stars have “figured out how to beat the system.”

That’s good news for the couponers. When they end up locked up in the insane asylum, they’re going to need skills to “beat the system.”

A PSA from Pregnant Women

This may be more appropriate for the expanding blog but I figured since it didn’t feature a cute pic of Leo, I was safe to address it here. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered this topic before but apparently, not everyone remembers so I’m offering this refresher.

I present to you this list of approved and unapproved comments. I think I can safely say that I speak for all women who are pregnant, have ever been pregnant or ever plan to get pregnant:

 

Approved: You look so cute!   Unapproved: You look so huge!

Approved: How much longer? Unapproved: There’s no way you’re going to make it to your due date.

Approved: Are you having a boy or a girl? Unapproved: Are you having twins?

Approved: Aw…   Unapproved: Oh. My. God.

Approved: You don’t even look pregnant from the back! Unapproved: Even your face looks pregnant!

Approved: Congratulations! Unapproved: Was this an accident?

Approved: When are you due? Unapproved: When are you due, yesterday?

Approved: Is it okay if I touch your belly? Unapproved: (Just touching my belly).

Approved: How excited are you? And the all-time unapproved comment, which someone just asked me the other day…

How much weight have you put ON?  

This list isn’t intended to scare you from talking to pregnant women. We like the attention. However, if you’re not sure what to say, simply consult this so you can stick to everything in the approved line.

The person, by the way, who asked me how much weight I’ve put on ALSO asked me if I was due yesterday. I don’t think a list on a blog is gonna be enough for her. Gotta sign her up for the weekend workshop.

 

More Leoisms

Here a few of the cute things Leo has been saying lately:

 

In the car on the way home from Creative Play I asked, “Leo, what did you do at school today?” to which he answered, as he always does, “NO!!!”

I said, “Leo, it’s not nice to scream, ‘NO!’ when someone asks you a question. Try saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

So Leo said, “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

To which I asked, “So what would you like to talk about?”

And Leo replied, “I don’t want to talk about anything! Can we just be quiet?”

Such a man.

He’s noticing that certain words sound like other words. For instance, I told him he were going somewhere with his friend Etienne and Etienne’s mom, Ms. Carrey. Leo said, “Carrey. That’s a funny name.” I wondered why a name like Carrey would be funny to him. A couple of weeks later when her name came up again he said, “Carrey, ha! Does she like to carry things?”

 

The other night I introduced him to pudding. “Pudding. Pudding,” he repeated as he dug into it. “Do you put things in it?”

 

We were all excited when our nephew, Franklin, was born on March 30th to Frank’s sister Julie and her husband Doug. Here is Leo’s newest cousin:

 

 

And here is what Leo had to say about Franklin as we looked at pictures: “Where is Baby Ellie? I want to see Baby Ellie.” I guess he thinks cousins are always together!

I tried to use Franklin’s birth as a way to prepare Leo for his baby brother. “So Franklin was in Aunt Julie’s belly and then they went to the hospital and he came out. That’s what will happen with our baby.” Leo asked, “Will our baby be named Franklin too?”

 

Today at the mall he saw the train but (luckily) it wasn’t ready to go yet and still had a blanket on top of it. Leo said, “The train sleeps standing up, like a horse!”

 

And here are a couple of pics of the family, doing our annual anniversary picture. If you’re not good at counting fingers, it’s eight!