Swimming

Since we are surrounded by water here in Florida, R and I found it increasingly necessary that Cman learn how to swim as soon as possible (in other words NOW). Seeing as how I have a child that isn't too adventurous and is scared of all things new, I thought, what better activity to schedule him in than swimming lessons every week? That way he can scream and cry and cling on to us and we can pay money for this to go on for 9 weeks in a row...Yippee!! Yes, I don't know what I was thinking either. I should've listened to Meredith is all I can say. Cristy brought Sophie to the classes too, but (unlike me) she's actually getting her money's worth.

Cman has gone to two classes so far. The first one went better than the second one (I guess he knew what he was in for the second time around). It's a mommy-and-me class, but R got in the pool with him both times. For the first class all the toddlers and their parents got in a little circle and played games and sang songs and passed toys around. Then just when they had let their guards down, the underwater diving began (from DAY 1! These people don't mess around). R put Chris underwater and I totally missed the Kodak moment because I was not expecting that to happen (I'm guessing Cman wasn't either). He didn't cry or freak out though (oddly enough); I guess he was too shocked to know what to do. After that, they put the toddlers on the ledge and played the humpty dumpty sat on the wall game where they pull them off the ledge and under the water towards the parent (it's not as bad as it sounds..see video below). Chris didn't like that one too much, but he tolerated it a couple of times. Not bad for the first class!

The second class was last Wednesday and boy was he crabby. It didn't help that he had only had one nap that day, in fact I think that's the reason why the second class didn't go that well. A tired, cranky baby is no fun in the water. For this class they had set up a little table inside the water so that the little kids could walk on it or climb on the rail. All the kids took to it quite quickly except for well...guess who. Did you ever hear that song on Sesame Street that went "one of these things is not like the others" (or something like that)? Well, yeah, these pictures remind me of that song...for some reason.

Oh well, at least Sophie's enjoying the classes (she throws herself underwater as often as possible...whether Cristy's ready for it or not). To hear me tell it, you'd think the class is a total waste of time for Chris, but it really isn't. He goes underwater alot and doesn't complain about it too much. I'm sure he's getting something out of them.

Pass the Depends

Everyday it's a new surprise; I found this gem in my inbox today.

Ok this is really starting to freak me out now...It's as if they're in my head!(I also wrote about this in the survey by the way). You know, if they want me to give them ideas for Halloween Horror Nights, they should just come out and ask me. There's really no need to disguise it with a survey and all.

Note to self: prepare resume...

EEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!

It is quite possible I might pee myself from the excitement of it all:

I don't know who I said this to, but I definitely recall saying (or thinking) Wow, a Dead Silence haunted house would be awesome. They could have dummies (wooden americans?) all over the place and have the scary lady Mary Shaw come out at you in different areas and people could be walking around with their tongues ripped out. Yeaaaaah, that would be so cool.
In case you were wondering, yes, I have these sorts of thoughts and conversations on a regular basis.

Universal sent me an online survey about Halloween Horror Nights some months ago. There was a section that asked for ideas or things that you would like to see in coming years; perhaps I wrote about it there. If that's the case, I need to start charging for my ideas. Those peeps at Universal need to hire me pronto!

Summer lovin'

Summer and it's nasty stick humidy has fallen upon us. I feel like the wicked witch of the west whenever I go outside..."I'm melting...I"m melting..I'm meellllllttttiiiiinnnnng". Yes, it's THAT bad. If it were up to me, I would stay inside my air-conditioned home and never leave, but unfortunately, Cman LOVES to be outside and of course he won't take no for an answer.

His favorite outdoor activities thus far consist of picking up girls (summer lovin') ,

drinking from the garden hose,

getting up close and personal with the flowers (he's trying to smell them...I guess he really does take the time to stop and smell the roses),

and observing the wildlife (I spy a lizard).

The Best Dad Ever

Christian is lucky to have such a wonderful and caring dad. Ren goes above and beyond the call of his fatherly duties. He's got the morning shift, so every day, R gets up at the crack of dawn (or at the crack of Christian, which ever comes first), prepares his morning milk bottle and changes his diaper (Christian's diaper, not his own) and clothes.

On weekends, he keeps Chris entertained so mommy can "sleep in" until 7:30am. Ren spends most weekday mornings with Christian, giving him his breakfast and playing with him until around noon (when he drops him off at my mom's house). In the evenings when he's not working, R bathes Chris and gets him in his PJ's, ready for bed. Wednesdays are Ren's days off from work, so they spend the whole day together. He takes Christian to the park, to the lake and for a ride around the neighborhood in his little car. Ren loves spending time with Chris and Chris loves his daddy to pieces. It is very evident who the favorite parent in this house is and it's definitely not me.
Thank you for being such a great father Ren, I am blessed to have you as my husband and parenting partner. Christian and I love you very much!

Here are some pictures from Father's Day this past weekend. We went to my parent's house for lunch and then (after the rainstorm) went to R's parent's house. I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day!

Traveling Head

In my last post I asked for ideas for places to take my little out of town friend (say hello to my little friend) and nobody responded (I'd like to think that it was because blogger was having issues...yes, that is what I'd LIKE to think happened), but that's OK cause the weather was crappy, so I couldn't go anywhere anyway. You're probably wondering who my mystery friend is by now. Well, it's not really a person, but an item. When I got home on Wednesday last week I found this lovely package on my front porch. I love finding packages on my front porch and I love it even more when I haven't even bought anything, unless the package is ticking, in which case, I don't love it too much. As soon as I saw the label that said "Toby's Traveling Skull" I stopped dialing the bomb squad number and hung up the phone. How fun! A skull!... and a traveling one at that! We Halloween folk are excited by things like these you see.

Two years ago (when I was child-free and obviously didn't have enough things to do with my time) I signed up to be a part of this traveling skull adventure. I had totally forgotten about it and figured it had fallen by the wayside, but alas, there was the skull, right on my front porch. I thought to myself: Wow, the skull is here, now I have to go out and do fun and adventurous things so that I can take pictures with the skull and write about all the wonderful things that we did while he was with me. Pressure!

Unfortunately for those of you paying attention to the weather here in Miami (which you should all be, yes, even those of you from MA should pay attention to the weather here), you might have noticed that last week's weather was completely crappy. It rained almost every day; so much for taking mr. skull to South Beach to pick up girls (he likes the bony types). Instead, mr. skull had to make due with sitting on my bar for a couple of days. I am getting ahead of myself though; when I first took him out the box, he was all the rage. The doggies were sniffing and Christian was patting him on the head. I told mr. skull that that was a universal toddler gesture of acceptance.

On Sunday, we got dressed up and went over to my mom's house to celebrate Father's Day (Do we look like the Adams family or what? da da da dum snap snap). On Monday, mr. skull got to go shopping and on Tuesday, it was "Take your skull to work day" (you're probably asking doesn't everybody take their skull to work everyday?...well, sometimes I wonder), so mr. skull came to work with me and sat in my office for the day.

It was quite a fun task even though I received numerous strange looks throughout the week. Some people thought it was weird that I was carrying around a skull, but others thought the project was pretty neat. I can't wait to see what happens at the end of his trip around the US (in about 3 years). I hope the folks who put this together will make a little webpage with all the pictures and stories from his journey. It will be fun to see all the people and places he's seen. I guess we'll have to wait and see. For now, I must pass on the torch. Yesterday, I packed mr. skull back in his box and sent him off to the next person. Have fun in Texas mr. skull and don't forget to write!

Toe-Biter

No, Christian hasn't picked up the habit of biting his (or our) toes yet.

Toe-Biter is the alias of the little fucker the curious bug that I found on Tuesday. His real name is the Giant Water Bug (well, his real bug name anyway because his real real name, I really don't know...it could be Pedro or Esteban or some other hispanic name, after all, we are in Miami...that is assuming it's a boy and not a girl in which case, her name is probably Lissette) and he/she is classified as a "true bug", so I guess the title of my post was correct. In my research I also found out that they DO fly, so I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that it didn't decide to take flight mid-picture and land on my face because that would have traumatized me for life. I also found out that they give nasty bites, so I am also glad that I didn't put my hand in the picture for scale.

On a separate and unrelated note, I have a question for the Miami folks (or for those familiar with Miami): If you had an out of town guest staying with you and you could only take them to three places in Miami, where would you take them? An additional tidbit of info to keep in mind before you answer is that the goal of this guest is to take (and be in) "the quintessential Miami picture". I will explain what this is all about later on.

Thanks for your help and watch out where you step with those open-toed shoes!

Balls, slides and automobiles

Sophia (and her parents) came over on Saturday for a quick playdate. Chris and Sophie had a blast (more Sophie than Christian) playing in the ball pit. Whereas Cman was content to just sit in the little pit, Sophie had a more energetic reaction and dove into it several times. Cristy and I thought she was hitting herself pretty hard sometimes, but Sophie didn't seem to care. Pain be damned, I'm jumping in. Geronimooooooooooooo!
Every time she jumped in the balls would go flying all over the room (notice the pool, before and after).

Once the ball pit was empty, they rode around in cars for a little while and then we headed over to the playground across the street for some outdoor fun. Sophie loved for her mom to push her high on the swing, but Mr. Cman who is a bit more of a scaredy cat delicate, didn't like it too much. He preferred going on the monkey bars and loved the slide races. Ready. Set. Go!

A bug's life

Can anyone tell me what this is? I saw it on my way to the office as I was returning from lunch. It was just sitting there on the wall and I said to Amanda "WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?". She looked to see what I was pointing at and she was instantly 10 feet further away; I don't blame her. It looks like a giant roach. Gross!

I ran upstairs to get my camera from my office and let me tell you, I've never been more afraid to take a picture of something in my life. I thought for sure the thing was going to jump or fly on to me. Can you picture me running around and jumping up and down screaming "AAAAAIIIIEEEE!!! IT'S ON ME! IT'S ON ME! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!!!"?

Stop laughing. I didn't happen (thank God). I used the extra powerful zoom function on my camera (after all, that's what it's there for right? to take pictures of nasty bugs that you don't want to get too close to) so I could share my experience with you all.

I know I'm supposed to put something in the picture so that you can tell what size this thing is, but due to the aforementioned reasons, there was NO WAY I was going to put my hand close to this thing. Let's just say it was at least 3 inches long. URGH!

I'm looking it up on What's that bug, but I haven't had any luck so far.

In other non-bug news, I've got pictures from this weekend to post, but I'm super duper busy these days, so it may be a while.

Happy bug hunting!

Surprise!

This past Sunday Cman got to go to his very first surprise party. No the party wasn't for him, it was for my friend Amanda. We were celebrating the fact that she graduated with her Bachelor degree. Yay! Go Manders! It was a big deal because she (like myself) had to go to school part time, at night, in order to complete her degree, but (unlike myself) she had two children in the process. It took much dedication and commitment on her part to get the job done, but she finished it and we are all proud of her for doing so. I told her that now that's she's done with that, she can start on her Masters degree, after all...what's another 13 years right?

So of course there are going to be gratuitous Cman shots to share, so brace yourselves. Dylan was there with his mom and dad and (after he got over his jealousy) Cman was quite fascinated with him and kept getting all up in his face. I think he probably wanted to poke those beautiful blue eyes. They had fun playing monkey see-monkey do and banging on the chairs.

When it was time for us to hide (behind the large house plant) because the surprise girl was about to walk through the door, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly when Cman decides to start screaming. I don't think he's going to get invited to any more surprise parties; he's not good at doing that whole, let's hide and be quiet thing.


P.S. You likey the shirtey? It was made by yours truly on Cafepress. You can get it here.

Movie meme answers

I finally got to go see Pirates part 3 this past weekend. Amanda and I went to a local diner for dinner (say that 10 times fast) and then we caught the late late show. Unfortunately I didn't know the movie was three hours long. Either way, it was great, but I did forget to bring my pirate hat and pirate patch to wear during the movie. I wear glasses when I go to the movies, so that would've been a little difficult though. Do I put the patch over the glasses? under the glasses? Ah...the perils of being a near-sighted pirate.

Anyway, here are the answers to my movie meme from last week (or was it the week before last? I forget).

#1 AUSTIN POWERS
Gadget Car / Beautiful Woman / Judo / Reverse Footage / Breaking The Fourth Wall

#2 ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS
Spying / Talking Through Buttocks / Raccoon / Africa / Monkey Actor

#3 ANNIE
New York City / Based On Musical / Broadway Musical / Based On Adaptation / Billionaire

#4 NEVER BEEN KISSED
First Love / Chicago Illinois / Editor / Affection / Nerd

#5 13 GOING ON 30
Childhood Friend / Whimsical / Teenage Girl / Aging / Time Travel Romance

#6 THE HOT CHICK
Volkswagen Beetle / Bully / Vomit Scene / Gay Kiss / Slacker

#7 ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS
Guillotine / Spoof / Chastity Belt / Arrow / Bow And Arrow

#8 DIRTY DANCING
Bittersweet / Class System / Coming Of Age / Gentle / Family Vacation

#9 FRIDAY THE 13TH
Slit Throat / Stabbed In Stomach / 1970s / Gore / Slasher Flick

#10 HALLOWEEN
Premarital Sex / Good Versus Evil / Haunted House / Stalking / Suburbs

As you can see, I have quite a distinguished and discriminating taste in movies (yeah right). It looks like Amanda won the contest....what did she win you say? A pat on the back. Yay Amanda!

13 More

I've been a bad blogger...I enticed you to stop by this weekend with promises of posts galore and then I didn't deliver the goods. Bad. bad. But here they are now. Better late than never right?

Anyway, mister parrot has been repeating and using words like crazy. Like I said in my last post, he said seven new words in one day!

bobo = globo = balloon
vevo = huevo = egg (as in plastic Easter eggs, one of his fav toys)
ma = mas = more
ya = now
ma! ya! = mas! ya! = more! now! (his first two word combination and it was an order...how nice)
done
Pooh
eeya = eeyore
ow = owl
foofy = goofy
fohr = flor = flower
teteta = galleta = cookie
ota = otra = another one

He likes to say "done" now all the time. If he's done eating (two bites) or if he's done playing with a toy. Ever since he learned to say "Pooh", he points to all the Poohs in his room (and there are alot of them). He can recognize Mickey and point to him, but he can't say it yet. He helps me count things by pointing to them as I say the number (because he can't say the numbers), but he recognizes some of them. Last but not least, he likes to give me eskimo kisses and rub noses. It's cute, although sometimes I feel like he's trying to bite my nose because he opens his mouth. Here's your kiss mom....chomp.

...and knowing is half the battle

Cman saw a pediatric G.I. Joe specialist yesterday. It's so nice when a doctor actually agrees with you and sees that there's a problem. It's so nice when they listen to you about things that don't work and give you other options. It's so nice when they don't keep on suggesting the same thing over and over. It's so nice when they don't make you feel like it's your fault that your child won't eat sold food. So nice.

So I guess you can gather that the visit went well and that we really liked the doctor (as opposed to the pediatrician who wouldn't listen and kept pushing the solid food, when it obviously was not getting eaten by no fault of our own). Cman was weighed and measured. He lost another pound again since he's been sick for 10 days (cough, runny nose), so he's at 21.1 pounds (32.5 inches tall). He's 20 months old, so this put him in the 3% range, which I'm lead to believe is OK if your child has always been in that range. It is not OK however when the child has fallen down to that level after having been in a higher range most of the time.

The doc agreed that Chris was underweight and that something else had to be done. He told us that if he didn't want to eat solid food then we should go back to the pureed food (if that's what he liked to eat). He said he knew 3 year olds that still ate pureed food and there was nothing wrong with that. The point was to make him gain weight. He asked us to do the following things:

-Make his food with more fat. When cooking meat leave the fat in, when cooking chicken leave the skin on (it can be removed prior to pureeing it). After the meal has been cooked, add a tablespoon of (real) butter or olive oil to it. (It looks like my mom's healthy cooking habits are good for adults, but not good for growing toddlers that need more fat in their diets).

-Cut down on the fruits, let him get full on just the fatty food. Before we were giving him a bite of food and then a bite of fruit so that he wouldn't get bored of the same thing over and over, but the Dr. said to give him the fruit last if he still wants it.

- Give him one bottle of Pediasure per day (he liked it the first time he tried it, but now...not so much) in addition to the whole milk that he drinks.

- When he's full don't force him. If he wants to eat every three hours, then that's fine, but give him fatty snacks...perhaps some bread with butter.

-No juices (he doesn't like juice, so he doesn't really drink any).

I think that's about it. The doctor will also run the usual blood and poop tests to see if there is an underlying cause other than not enough fat in the meals. He will see him again in 8 weeks. Let's see how it goes!

I still owe you the answers from the movie meme and Chris said seven new words yesterday...SEVEN! So stay tuned for more posts this weekend.