Last Weekend.

I Spy. . . one focused Mommy, one very happy JJ holding Grandpa's hand, and one VERY touristy Grandma!

Finally the elephants!

I swear there's a baby giraffe behind that hat : )

We had a great weekend with my parents. JJ had swim lessons Saturday morning with his girlfriend, Avery. He did pretty well for about the first 20 minutes and then hit a wall and was ready to be out of the pool. Luckily the lesson was only 30 minutes! The lessons are at the Y which is fun and the instructors love singing songs during lessons. While JJ was in gymnastics there he hated the songs and swim lessons are no different. For some reason, he HATES the "hokey pokey"! He literally cried and screamed and completely refused to participate! Maybe this weeks lessons will go better, if they don't sing any songs which is unlikely!

Sunday we went to church in the morning, then headed to the zoo after JJ's nap. It was a really nice afternoon and my mom said it was the perfect pace being with a toddler! We let JJ walk pretty much the whole time, other than when my dad was carrying him (per JJ's request). We had told him that we would see elephants so he started saying "I want elephant, elephant, elephant now, elephant now" from the time we walked through the gate. We finally got to them and he could have stayed there for days! Brian forced us to move on after awhile and we got to see baby flamingos and huge turtles for my mom on the way out of the park. All in all, it was a very nice weekend : )

Unfortunately this week, I'm working and commuting. Brian and I don't like the new schedule, but JJ is excited because he gets to spend the days with his "friends" again where he was while I was in school. I really wish that I could still be with him all day, but he doesn't seem to mind. He's had a good week playing, but we're looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend.

Snail Hunting!

One of JJ's favorite activities is snail hunting (well, I guess it isn't technically "hunting" since he never kills the snails)! He started this once when Krista and the boys were down and now every time we go outside our house, we have to look for snails. He's such a boy : )

Catching Up.

We've had a nice week. Last Saturday, Brian and I took JJ to a ceramic painting place to make a Father's Day present for Brian and one for my dad. In case you were thinking of ever doing that activity with a 21-month-old very active and opinionated toddler, DON'T DO IT!!! All the pottery items were at his level and he kept trying to carry them around, so we were chasing him around so that he wouldn't break everything in the store! He also started yelling at some other girls that came in to paint their own items, yelling to them that all the items in the store were his! He threw a few huge tantrums before finally sitting and "helping" to paint. My dad's mug actually turned out not too bad and JJ enjoyed painted the mug and then his shirt : ( Father's Day was a relaxed day, but for some reason JJ just wanted me all day, so I don't think Brian felt very "fatherly."

My parents came into town on Wednesday and we've had a nice time with them. JJ loves to play trains with grandpa and read books with grandma. His "mine" phase is a little tiresome though. He's always telling us that the chair, couch, cars, trains, pretty much every single thing in the world is "his"! Yesterday my mom was leaning against a chair with her feet on the carpet and JJ started pushing on her feet and yelling at her, "mine, mine, mine." I'm still not sure why she wasn't allowed to have her feet on the carpet!

Favorite new word - "okay." He actually uses it appropriately and it's really cute the way he says it.

Totally random - JJ's new favorite TV show is Shaun the Sheep. It's a really quirky British claymation show that I found on Netflix streaming. There's no talking, but he loves it. If you have Netflix and kids, you should check it out : )

Randomness.

GFA - Here is the Goose that Mom referred to; I had emailed her the picture. JJ and the goose were the same size, but JJ scared him : )

JJ's been a little under the weather still. We went to the doctor and he has a double ear infection which is no fun for any of us. It means that JJ doesn't feel good and I am going stir crazy inside all day! He's been "helping" me with unloading the dishwasher and cooking. It's actually nice that he'll now sit on the counter so that I don't have to either hold him or let him stand there and scream at me while I'm cooking.

We've also been having some bedtime issues. He's been going to bed at "normal" time but then will whine and cry for about 45 minutes. He will start whining, "mommy, mommy, daddy, daddy" just trying to get one of us to come upstairs which eventually we do. At this point we're not sure if it's because he's sick, or we should push his bedtime back, or he's just a toddler! Hopefully we'll figure it out within the next few weeks, but only time will or won't tell!

Fun, Fun, Fun, Crash.

Airplanes fly over our new favorite park all the time and every time JJ shrieks and screams "airplane"! It's like every time is the first time he's seeing one!

JJ's new table : )

Notice the shoe switch! Avery loves to trade shoes and JJ always loves to drive his dad nuts : ) Yep, he's wearing pink shoes!

We've had a great week with lots of fun and activity followed by a fun Saturday. Our friend Mary and her 14-month old came down from LA yesterday to spend the weekend which is always lots of fun. The boys did really well together with JJ only saying about a million times to Riley, "mine, mine, mine." I think Riley got the hint. Sharing isn't coming naturally to JJ. Also last night, we babysat JJ's girlfriend, Avery. We were still on a one-to-one adult to child ratio, so it actually went remarkably well. JJ and Avery always love playing together and it's so much fun to watch them start to play more together and not just "parallel play."

JJ's been fighting a cough for over a month now and he just can't seem to shake it. He's been sounding croupie again, so it may be getting worse. And after a fun week, it all came crashing down this afternoon : ( When we got home from church, JJ just kept crying and refused to eat anything for lunch. I knew that when he refused juice and wouldn't eat even one blueberry, he really wasn't feeling well, so I put him down for a nap. He ended up sleeping for about 3.5 hours which was also a tell-tale sign that he wasn't feeling well. He ended up having a really high fever when he woke up and sat with me most of the afternoon.

He had an hour surge of energy this evening followed by a refusal to eat dinner and just wanted to lay on my lap and cuddle while I ate dinner. Tonight he still had a fever and just wanted to read books and lay on my lap. As I sang to him and rocked him to sleep for the first time in who knows how long, I tried to remember rocking him as a newborn. It's crazy how time flies. In some ways it feels like it was just yesterday that he would let me rock him all the time, but it also feels like a lifetime ago!

We were supposed to go to a birthday party this afternoon, which we weren't able to do. I secretly feel guilty because I didn't really want to go. Brian is on duty today and I was going to have to small talk with Navy wives that I don't really know, so I wasn't looking forward to it. Maybe JJ and I are just so tuned in that he got sick so I could avoid the party!!! Hopefully he feels better soon since we already had to cancel one play date this upcoming week : (

More Fun with Cousins.

Chasing some ducks last week in a cute outfit from GFA : )

Brian was gone this week and Michael was out late every night for a work conference, so JJ and I headed up to LA for a few days. The boys were crazy the first day, but much more well behaved the second day. They go through spurts of playing nicely, then yelling at each other and hitting. I guess just typical toddler boy stuff! We went to the beach and the park which was a lot of fun. The park had a fence around it which was great because Krista and I could actually relax a little because we knew the boys couldn't get out!

The first day we got there, JJ did not end up taking a nap. His pack and play was set up in Michael and Krista's room right next to their bed which was apparently too appealing. I put him down for a nap and about 2 minutes later I heard him calling for me from the living room! After about the 5th time putting him back in the pack and play and him crawling out, I let him just stay up and play with Tristan.

JJ's new words of the week that I'm enjoying are "Mommy" and "Daddy." He's been saying "Momma" and "Dadda" for a long time now, but he seems to be moving on from that : ) I think it's cute because it comes out more like "Mawmmeee" and "Daddeee."

Cousins.

Meeting Uncle Brian for the first time!

Brian's sister Dana, her husband Jon, and their 7.5 month old son Sawyer came down from Washington for a few days and we had a great time. Sawyer is super cute and such a "good" baby (I still don't really understand why babies are called "good" or "bad" but he really is a "good" baby!)!

It was fun to watch JJ interact with his younger cousin and they did pretty well together with only 1 hitting incident (JJ hit Sawyer on the head with a toy when it was way past his nap time) and only a few melt-downs on each of their parts : ) Sawyer was watching JJ with the same excitement that JJ has towards Tristan, so that was really fun to see.

As JJ talks more and more it's interesting to hear how language develops. He puts together some phrases into one word, i.e. - "carryyou." I realized that I always put these words together when I talk to him, "Do you want me to carry you?" so now he thinks it's one word. He will look at you, put his hands up and say "carryyou." It's pretty funny. He also thinks "seeyoulater" is one word. I think Brian and I did the fake-out of pretending to leave JJ when we want to leave by saying, bye bye, see you later, since now JJ will start walking away from us and say the same thing; bye bye, seeyoulater! It's funny that as his language develops I learn more about my language!