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!

 

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?