Kid Speak

I know I've been posting a lot about all of the neat things that J says, but it just keeps getting better. For example:

Me: Do you want a red balloon or a blue balloon?
J: Blue balloon. NOT red balloon.
Of course. Not the red balloon.
These statements are so funny because they happen so often now. If I ask him what he wants for lunch, he says, "Not sweet potatoes" and things like that.

We are taking care of our neighbor's dog this week. We take Hunter walking on a greenbelt not too far from our house. I walk with J in the backpack.

Me: Okay, we are going to go to the greenbelt now that we have Hunter on his leash.
J: Mommy, J, Hunter go seatbelts.
Me: No, not seatbelts. We use seatbelts in the car. This is the greenbelt. We walk here.
J: Seatbelt car. Walk Greenbelt Hunter seatbelt.

On the way to our gym there are a bunch of office buildings. Each of the buildings has a letter in a top corner. J recognizes the H and the Z. The building with the Z is called Zimmer.
J: Hello H. Bye Bye H. Hello Z! Zimmer! (It's as if they're old friends when he says this) Bye Bye Z Zimmer. Zimmer again soon. Turn around. See Zimmer again.
It pains him to leave the Zimmer building.

On the way home from the gym...
J: Mommy fat chicken.
Me: What?
J: Mommy fat chicken.

I am dumbfounded by this one. I can't translate this into anything without digging myself into a hole. Does my son think I'm fat? A fat chicken? Why would he think I am a fat chicken?
We've never talked about things being fat. Where would he come up with a fat chicken?

When we were back at the neighbor's house and were walking out of their yard, J spotted something and said, "There. fat chicken mommy." Sure enough there was a large ceramic hen in one of the garden beds. Phew. Okay. That makes sense now. I'm glad I'm not the fat chicken after all.

Make Your Choice

I never watch tv in the morning, but I turned it on to find out if it was going to rain and be cold for a fourth day in a row (the answer was yes). I also tuned in to The Today Show at just the right time to see a segment about what to do with all of those unwanted catalogs.

There is a site called Catalog Choice. If you go to their website, you can browse through tons of catalogs that you unwantingly receive and ask to be removed from their mailing lists. The site will take care of contacting the company. You just have to click a few buttons. I was so excited about this because the previous owners of this house subscribed to every mail-in catalog known to man. I think her full time job was ordering from catalogs. Unfortunately you have to register on this site, so I can't put her name down falsely and keep the catalogs from coming here. I hope eventually they get the point and will stop sending them. We get about 6 a day. Do you think she'd ever know if I did create an account in her name at my address?

Anyway, the site was obviously inundated with hits after being on national tv, so it took awhile for me to get my registration confirmation. It will also take a bit of time to scroll through all of the catalog titles, but it will be worth it. Less production is good in the long run, right?

We have been so bored here over the past few days. As I said earlier, the weather has been awful. I can't seem to get warm, Jonah has been whiny because it's too wet, cold, and rainy that he can't play in the yard. I took some time to organize his closet this morning and put away a bunch of clothes that are too small for him. There was a dry spell for about 30 minutes this afternoon, so we raced outside in our hats and scarves and played on the swings for a bit. He hadn't been on a swing in about two weeks, so he was very excited.

There's not much else to report here. J is talking consistently in 4-5 word sentences now. He has something to say about everything. His favorite thing to say right now is, "Grandma Pam fix red blanket in couple weeks. Grab cake." Translation: Grandma Pam is going to fix the red, blue, yellow and orange blanket she made him when she comes to visit for his birthday. That's when he gets to grab cake." I don't know if he remembers his birthday last year when he got to dig into a cake, or if he is referring to grabbing the lemon cake off of the counter. Either way, he associates Grandma's visit with his blanket and cake. Works for me. And he's very excited about it because he says, "Couple weeks" at the most random times, such as when he's in his high chair, or when we're driving somewhere in the car. To even out the Grandma love, he also keeps saying, "Nummi hold tractor." That's because we picked up a really cool tractor tricycle at a consignment shop while we visited the farm. If you ask me it makes the farm complete.

Are You a Pigeon or a Statue?

I used to work with a guy who had a sign outside his office that read, "Some days you're the pigeon, other days the statue." I always chuckled when I saw this sign, but I could never quite remember the phrase when I wanted to mention it to someone. Yesterday, it came back very clearly. Yesterday I was a statue.

We were in the grocery store stocking up after returning from our trip. I wanted to make one last scan down the dairy aisle to look at the label of some yogurt they were offering for free with a cereal purchase. I read the label and put the yogurt in the cart. As I did that, I scanned up at J because I realized he had been awfully quiet. And any other mama out there knows that quiet is toddler code for trouble.

The trouble came in the form of two eggs. He had already cracked one over himself and was contemplating what to do with the next one. I asked, "J what are you doing?!" in my not so happy mommy tone and muttered/whispered "Oh crap" under my breath as I looked up to heaven. This was just great. J heard my mutter (he hears EVERYTHING!) and yelled, "Crap, crap, crap crap! Crap eggs!" What he meant to say was "cracked eggs" but it wasn't coming out right. I learned that later when he was retelling the story to me.

We quickly went to find a place to wipe off (I didn't know where the bathroom was since I don't make it a habit of knowing where they are in grocery stores.) One of the sample ladies gave us all her napkins and some wet paper towels. I cleaned him up as he continued to tell everyone, "Crap eggs." Nobody really seemed to notice what he was saying because I was hushing him a bunch, but I am sure somebody told my story to their spouse at dinner last night and commented on my parenting skills.

Yes, I am laughing about this after the fact. Yes, it was another innocent moment of exploration. My dad said it's all my fault because I actually talk to my kid and explain everything to him so he probably remembered cracking some eggs with me into some cookie mix or something and thought it would be fun to do it himself.

The part of the story will make you say, "Awwww" came when we were in the car. I was buckling J into his carseat and reminding him not to put his hands in his mouth until we could wash them at home. He said, "Mommy-mad- at- J." I said, "Well, mommy was not too happy this happened. But I know it was an accident and you are sorry." He said, "I-so-dee- Mommy." Ok, I'll gladly be the statue again for such sweetness.

Here's hoping that you have more time as pigeons (not that you should do what pigeons do to anyone; I think it just means they are a happy bird in the metaphor) and less time as statues this weekend!

Huh?

I am a bit of a punctuation/grammar snob and it always bugs me when apostrophes are in the wrong place. It also annoys me when signs don't make sense. Take the one I got in the mail as an example:



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I just thought this was funny. B just said, "Whatever." He does not share my passion for the crusade. We're off to CA tomorrow. J needs to learn about snow. He also needs to visit his goat and sheep buddies on the farm. We'll be back late next week.

The Baby Primary

Check out these baby pics with all the presidential candidates. Who would you vote for based on how they hold her?

http://www.slate.com/id/2181495

And for those interested, I posted some pictures from Tucson. Yes, there are some baby L pics there!

The Kid Just Keeps on Reaching

Here's an image for you to start your Monday. Remember a few posts back when I told you about how J grabbed the lemon cake off the island and started eating it and how I was amazed at his reach?

Yesterday B was using a pair of scissors to open a package. B placed said scissors in the middle of the island. J grabbed scissors. I walked into the kitchen to witness my son holding the scissors and jamming them in an up and down motion against the wood on the side of the island. Gash, gash, gash. I screamed since I didn't know what was worse-- the fact that he had the scissors, or what he was doing with them. Thankfully we got them in time and there are only a few little scratches.

Our safe places get smaller as he gets taller.

Arizona Potty Mouth

Happy New Year! We took a trip to Tucson last weekend through New Year's Day to spend time with Feathernester and family. J loved meeting his new cousin and was very concerned about her happiness. If she cried, he suggested she needed milk. If he didn't know, he said, "Baby fine." He tried as hard as he could to stay out of the baby swing, and he did a good job, but you could tell it was killing him to not be able to ride in it.
J and Chewy try to settle a territorial dispute

We took J on a field trip to the Sonoran Desert Museum, which he loved. He really enjoyed the javelinas, coyotes, and sea otters. He's been talking about the otters ever since and I always think he's saying, "All done". I guess their swimming and diving really made an impression.

L graces us with some beautiful smiles

But that was not the highlight of our trip. The highlight was the fabulous vocabulary J added to his repertoire. Before we left I was carrying a load of laundry upstairs and I wanted him to come up with me. He was taking forever so I said, "Come on, J, you're as slow as molasses." He cracked up at the word molasses. Then he made the sign for more and said asses. More asses. He said it over and over and over. We tried not to laugh. Uncle D thought it would be funny to add to the fun...

D: J, say pimp.
J: Pimp
D: Say J pimp
J: J pimp
D:Say Ladies molasses
J: Ladies more asses
D: Say J pimp ladies molasses
J: J pimp ladies more asses

It was funny the first time and even the second and third time. But when he started to randomly say it to try to get us laugh we knew we had to stop. Even today we stopped for some lunch and he made the sign for more and said it again. I think I need to get a bottle of molasses and show him what it is.

J gives L a kiss, which L is not quite sure about

Our flight home was intersting because it departed at 7:30 pm, which is J's bedtime. Everyone told us that he would probably sleep and we thought that this would happen because it would be dark. Well, we had seats in the bulkhead, so every noise in the galley caused J to lift up his head in interest. Then there were the fasten seatbelt lights and the lavatory sign-- all which probably went on and off about 10 times. The poor child tried and tried to sleep. His eyes were so glazed over, but it never happened. He finally snoozed in the car on the way back from the airport at around 11:30. And then he only slept until 8 the next morning. Oh well, it didn't kill him and he seems to have adjusted just fine.

I'll try to post some pics tomorrow. Sorry I didn't today, but we were busy putting away Christmas decorations and the camera was never close by.

Brothers with fancy eyebrows