Versitility of the Boppy

Did you know that a Boppy pillow isn't only great for nursing?  It also works beautifully as a laptop pillow with nice comfy arm rests.

Inappropriate observations

We're at the doctor's office for Alex's two year checkup.  The doctor comes in, hugely pregnant.  Alex loves his doctor and is very comfortable with her.  He crawls up into her lap and starts poking her belly.  "Belly button" he says to her.  "There's a baby in my belly" she tells him.  He rubs her belly gently and says "baby".  Then, out of nowhere he pokes her in the boob and declares "BOOBIES!  Big Boobies!"

"He's been learning about body parts" I say, embarassed

"I love my job" she tells me, laughing.

Alex, two years in "official" pictures

I like to have an "official" picture for every big age. 

We had the official newborn

We had the official three months (which I unfortunately have misplaced the CD containing the larger versions of these pictures):

The official six months:

The official nine months:

And the official one year:

I have to admit, I've never been completely satisfied with any of his official portraits.  I took him to a popular children's portrait studio hoping they'd be able to finesse a smile out of him, being professionals and all, and, strictly speaking, they did, albeit a fake smile.  My overall feeling of these pictures is he looks like a bit of a dork.  A cute dork, mind you, but still a dork.  Which is a shame because I dropped at least $200 for a sitting and prints for each one.  His one year photo is the only one I really like.

This year I decided I would do my best to capture an "official" portrait of two year old Alex myself.  This task proved harder than I anticipated as all I've been able to take pictures of lately is the back of his head as he runs away.  But I was on a mission.  I dressed him up and took him out to the International Peace Gardens and spent an hour and a half chasing him around and tried to coax a real smile out of him.   By the end of our adventure, he and I were covered in dirt and I'm pretty sure he'd eaten about a half dozen pebbles, but we got this:

I had it printed out at Inkleys (by far the best when it comes to printing digital photos) and hung it up on our wall.  I love it.  He's cute, he's smiling, and it only cost me $15 to print out 2-8x10's, 3-5x7's and a 4x6. 

To see the other pictures from our adventures in toddler portrait photography, go here:

Happy Second Birthday!

Dear Alex,

I wanted to write you a mushy letter to tell you how wonderful you are.  I wanted to write all about how you amaze me every day.  I wanted to tell you how proud I am to be your mom.  How every single day you're changing and growing and learning and how lucky I feel to get to see it first hand.  I want to write about how every night when you, me and Daddy are cuddling before bed, you make sure to point to all our body parts; nose, eyes, ears, hair, chin, elbow, knee, boobies, bellybutton... just to make sure we know that you know what they all are. 

But all that will have to wait because you're squatting right next to me and doing the "poop grunt" and it's beginning to stink in here.

I love you Monkey.  Happy Birthday!

Indecent exposure

Alex and I are at Kid to Kid and Alex is in the back playroom while I'm browsing.  Finding nothing I want to buy, I go to the back to get him and find a pile of clothes in the middle of the room, a used diaper flung in a corner and my son buck nekkid playing with a little piano while two other (fully clothed) toddlers dance along to the music.

Buried under mound of toys...Send help!

Alex had his second birthday party yesterday.  I'd planned to have just a family party.  Wanted to keep it casual and small.  What I didn't count on is the fact that John and my families mission appears to be to spoil my son completely rotten.  It's like a toy bomb went off in our house and we're still trying to find the floor in the living room (aka "Ground Zero" for present opening).

Everyone was incredibly generous and Alex, who prior to yesterday was only slightly spoiled, is now spoiled beyond reason.

As always, his personal paparazzi captured the whole day.  See my Flickr set here.  And Grandma Jen's here.

Kids say the darndest things

We're driving around in our van with our friends and their three year old daughter when she pipes up and says "I love you John!"
John:  "Well thanks Regan, I think you're great too!"
Regan:  "It's dark out"
John:  "You're right, it is dark"
Regan:  "It's dark like your soul"
John: ...

My weekend

As the parasite invaded both my husband and my son the last few weeks, I began to get downright cocky about the fact that I hadn't so much as burped yet.  I was sure that it wouldn't get me.  I was religious about washing my hands after changing Alex's diapers, and when both the boys started to get better and I still hadn't manifested any symptoms, I really believed I was free and clear.

Then it got me.  Saturday morning I woke up nauseated, by afternoon I had debilitating stomach cramps requiring me to make use of the Lamaze breathing that had seemed so useless during Alex's delivery.  By Saturday night I'd thrown up everything I'd eaten all day.  I spent all day Sunday either in the bathroom or lying in bed clutching my bottle of Pepto Bismol and moaning about how miserable I was.  I also apologized profusely to John for having made fun of his being a wimp when he had the bug.  I didn't know it felt like this!

Today, thanks to Imodium and witch hazel pads, I'm feeling much better.  My tummy is still very, very angry, but I am mobile and it seems, on the mend.  I hope. 

What happens when you let a 2 year old pick out his own outfit

This isn't bad, but we're missing a crucial part of the ensemble, pants:

And this gem, consists of nothing but socks and babylegs.  Very creative!

Because I couldn't train him to say "twenty three and one half months"

Coming to terms with the mini van

There it is.  Our new car.

No, you're not seeing things, it's a mini van.

Oh.
My.
God.

I drive a mini van!

Even worse?  I LOVE IT!

We've been talking for a long time, at least two years, about getting a new (used) car.  Both our cars were still in fairly good condition, but were getting old, and our Mazda Protege in particular was beginning to feel very cramped since we had Alex.  This wasn't really a problem until John broke his hand and could no longer drive a stick shift, forcing Alex and me out of my lovely Dodge Stratus and into the itsy bitsy teeny weeny Protege full time. 

I've wanted a Toyota Prius for years now, we even went so far as to go look at them with intentions to buy, but chickened out at the price tag.  I swore up and down my next car would be a hybrid of some sort and I'd never, ever, ever, ever drive a gas guzzling SUV.  But then I realized that another sedan would just give me as much room as our Protege or Stratus.  We borrowed our sister-in-law's  Rav4 when we went to San Diego and discovered that a small SUV isn't going to give us much more cabin space either.  I began to do some casual research on smaller SUV's with third row seats, but found that the third row of seats don't offer much, if any, leg room for passengers forced to sit in the back and also, when we have a second child and subsequently, a second car seat, it would have to be completely removed in order to allow people to climb back there.  That's when we started to notice mini vans. 

I'd never considered a mini van.  Mini vans are for families with lots of kids.  Mini vans are for Mormons.  Mini vans are... well, they're dorky and big and the exact opposite of anything that could be considered hip and young.  Then it occurred to me.  Neither John nor I are hip and we're most certainly not getting any younger.  We are in fact, a little dorky and big.  We have a family that will eventually expand, maybe not to Mormon proportions, but almost definitely to two kids.  Maybe a mini van is what we need.  So, I did some research.  Guess what?  Mini vans are cheaper than SUV's.  Mini vans get better gas mileage.  Mini vans are roomier and have more versatile seating options.  Mini vans are... kinda cool!

I began to get a little discouraged however, because I couldn't find any style mini van in our price range that didn't look like a road barge.  I tried to visualize myself zooming around town in a Dodge Grand Caravan, and I got a little sad.  Then I found it.  It was without a doubt a mini van, but it was smaller, shorter, more compact.  It was almost cute even.  Best yet, it was the right price.  It was a Mazda MPV. 

We found a potential candidate for sale on line and went to test drive it.  I sat in the middle seat with Alex and John drove.  It was comfortable. It was roomy.  It had a smooth drive.  All three of us fell in love.  We traded in John's Protege and came home the proud new owners of a silver 2004 Mazda MPV.