"BOOP" and His Many Talents

QUOTE OF THE DAY: QUITTER

CHANCE: "Mom, have you ever tried to quit anything?  I'm trying to quit the monkey bars (you should see the kid's hands).  You know what Brooks has quit?  He's quit being a baby and now he's a big boy".

Spring Break in A Town

Saturday was Mimi's birthday.  We had originally planned to head to Austin Monday morning for a little post celebration since Chance had weekend baseball obligations, but earlier in the week Chance came up to me in a desperate panic..........Mom, we HAVE to be there for Mimi's birthday, and we HAVE to arrive at her door unannounced, WITH BALLOONS.  So we scratched the baseball practices, loaded the car and headed to Austin Saturday morning to arrive at Mimi's house WITH BALLOONS, "unannounced"

Mimi's a bit like me: Doesn't really like surprises, and likes to have her house clean for guests. 

Next thought in that mind of yours is "Stacey?  Clean house for guests? Have you been to her house lately?"

Let's just say I WISH I could have a clean house for guests. 

But back to the story.  So, to spare Mimi the stress of us seeing how messy her bathroom really gets, and to selfishly ensure us clean sheets, I spilled the beans and we arrived at her door "unannounced" with her pretending not to know we were coming.  Mimi can put on such a fake act, I have to wonder if she often does it to me.  Chance believed the whole thing.  And somehow Ryan never clued in cause a couple days later he was asking me if Mimi was surprised to see us at her door step.  He's been working way too many hours to get anything straight, so we'll give that one to him.

Saturday we had Mimi birthday celebrations over at Uncle Drew and Aunt Andrea's house, with some mandatory tree climbing and walking in this great nature preserve behind their house.

Sunday my cold worsened and took my voice with it, Brooks was struck with a 102.5 fever and basically the rest of the week was down hill from there with regards to our health, putting a blow to any chance of us seeing my grandparents or doing anything worthwhile.  I do have to say it was nice to be in the care of the Mims!

We did get to see Umpa, Lisa and Matthew which is always nice.  The boys enjoyed some good game playing on the balcony:

And later some wrestling on the bed which enabled me for a good shot:

Later in the week, I finally said enough was enough with the darn sickness and so we loaded the boys in the car and checked out the Austin Zoo.  It was so reminiscent of our beloved Knies Kinderzoo at the other side of Lake Zurich.  So small, so manageable in several hours.  Only thing different was that you'd never see this in Switzerland, and these guys weren't playing dress up.  I was chasing them about like a crazy paparazzi, trying to get a shot of these creatures I'm still trying to get used to.  Yee ha.

Other interesting creatures at the zoo included a pair of turkeys:

Another pair of turkeys:

Some giant turtles that actually moved way faster than expecting.  One stuck it's head all the way thru the fence and immediately thought that was a lost finger waiting to happen. 

Clearly my thinking didn't carry me over to the pigpen, where Brooks proceeds to stick his fingers thru the fence and almost gets his hand taken off.  I should have seen the sign.

We went for a little spin on the Zoo train.  Anti-climatic for the boy who went to school on REAL trains for the last 4 years, but pretty darn exciting for the little man who loves CHOO CHOO's.

 

Back at Hotel Mimi, we soaked up the sun and hunted bugs

Chance was so excited to have Drew and Andrea come over that he spent several hours arranging the backyard in to a perfect game haven.

He even created a sign to attract his guests:

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I knew it would just be a matter of time before Chance was smitten again.  He's now in some cloud over the little girl next door.  Last night we were talking about it, and conversation quickly lead to marriage.  He was very concerned that he would have to be the one that would do the asking.

"Mom, did you say yes to Dad when he asked you to marry him?  Did he ask you right away, or did he have to get used to you for awhile?"

BLUE BLUE AND MORE BLUE

Nanny was so proud last Saturday at Chance's basketball game, telling me all about the day or so before when she had babysat Brooks, and she was down right convinced that she had taught the boy the color BLUE. 

We've all been a little worried lately......I mean you can have 2 blocks in your hands, say one YELLOW and one RED......and you can say to the child over and over "this one is yellow, this one is red.  Say yellow Brooks, can you say yellow?"  And we can drill and drill and he'll repeat and repeat basically anything you ask him to, but when it boils down to it: THE CHILD HAS TO BE COLORBLIND.  Or have a learning disability.  I know for a fact by 18 months Chance knew every color there was.  And maybe I'm expecting a little much out of our little man, but COME ON folks.

So Nanny told me that she decided just to work on the color blue when she was babysitting.  And she was convinced that he now knew that color.  Problem was, I think she was only showing him things that were actually blue.  But I didn't know this at the time, so when I went home and put Brooks to the test, I held up something yellow and asked him what color it was. 

And what did he say?  BLUE.  Every thing's BLUE.

So we are sticking with balls I've decided. I mean who needs to learn their colors anyways when you can have a ball. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It's baseball season again, and the one thing I didn't take in to consideration when we started these sports commitments, was that we have GROWING boys.  That means, each season we can't just reuse our stuff, like probably their feet wont fit in their shoes from last season.  Novel idea, but cheap ole me never thought about this.  So, Chance and I were in line to check out with our handful of baseball gear, one size larger.  The line was looooong, and damn those displays near the checkout counters......I swear when I shop with kids in tow, I always spend more money.  Chance was begging for the sunglasses beautifully displayed there.  The lady in front says, "I have a boy about your age.  He got 2 pairs of sunglasses and broke them both, so now he doesn't get any more sunglasses".  Chance was perplexed.....and asks how old her son was.  She proceeds to tell him he was born December 3, 2003 (Chance was born Dec 22, 2003).

Later in the car on the way home, Chance says,

"Mom, I can't believe that boy was 19 days older than me and broke both pairs of his sunglasses.  I mean, how can someone SO MUCH OLDER THAN ME be SOOOOOO irresponsible?"

I'M MELTING

Remember this scene:



Well, you would have thought that was Brooks today as we were walking in to the gym.  He's almost 18 months old, and I think this was his first time ever to experience rain on his face.  And it wasn't even really raining.  It was a nice, gentle mist.  Either it doesn't rain much in Texas, or we just don't get out much.

We got out of the car and had about 100 yards to walk in to the front doors of the gym (we got in to the car in the garage this morning).  Immediately he grabs his face and starts somewhat screaming, somewhat complaining.  And then proceeds to say in his best 18 month old pronunciations......"EYE" (as he points to his eye", "NO!!!!" (for nose), "MOUF!!!!!!" the stress is increasing, "CHEETS" as he points to his cheeks as if they are melting off his face!

We recover and walk inside cause the kids club is so cool it makes even the most distressed toddler forget about rain and delve in to the world of Elmo, and playdough, and blocks, and other toy taking toddlers.  As we were leaving though, he ran out the doors in eager anticipation of picking up rocks as we always do on our way out.....only to stop abbruptly upon picking up one rock, looks up to the sky and bats his eyes at the mist, drops the rock and screams "EYE, CHEETS, MOUF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Mom, does this ever happen to you?  When I start watching a movie like Harry Potter, all I want to do is watch it over and over again, ALL THE TIME, even though it is very INAPPROPRIATE."

Good thing this week the Harry addiction has been replaced with Mickey Mouse.  We digress but at least it's APPROPRIATE.

The Charmer

Brooks turns 17 months on Wednesday.  Boy does time fly.  He is still a walking ball of happiness, his positive energy radiates in everything he does.  This week his new thing is to JUMP.  He yells "ump", bends his knees and throws his arms up above his head and gets absolutely no air what so ever.  But what can you expect from a man of such stature.  I mean the kid just outgrew his coat today and put on Chance's from when he was THREE.  And it fit, less about an inch in the sleeves. 

Being the only girl amongst a household of boys, I've gotta say that I yearn for the day that bodily functions don't come in to play. 

We opened the door tonight to this woman that was buying some DVD's from me, go figure, and Brooks comes trodding up..  The woman sees him, is immediately put under his spell and says, "hey cutie!".  Cutie proceeds to blow air thru his lips making a very loud fart noise and proceeds to say "Toot".  She puts he arm to her chest, takes a gasp backwards and says "oh my, I'm glad my little girl can only say mama". 

So charming.  But this is why we love Brooks, cause he can look so darn cute even saying Toot.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I've mentioned in prior blog posts that I am a selling maniac.  Opposite of those hoarders that I like to watch on TV.  And Chance picks up on this, often making sure that I am not going to sell his bedroom by the time he gets home from school. 

But the other weekend Chance and I had left to run some errands and have some special "mommy-Chance time".  He had been playing in Brooks's room trying to piece together a train track but little fingers kept encroaching on his work and destroying it.  It didn't end well, with Brooks screaming and crying and Chance fuming mad.  We get in the car and he proceeds to tell me:

"Mom, I am VERY VERY VERY SERIOUS about this.  I think it's time that we sell Brooks.  REALLY."