Austin's work

A day in the life of Austin's "work."

He works in Helelena which is 30 minutes away. He's been working there all the day, for 20 days. He has a microwave at his work. There are toys at his work to play with. He works at a destruction site. Papa is there and all of his friends. Papa is on the backhoe. And Dede and Nea and Nonna are all on a bulldozer. And DeDe is on a front-end loader. All of his friends watch the destruction mans work.

Hermey

An elf came to visit us last year at Christmas named Hermey. Hermey did many mischievous things while staying with us. One night he pulled all of the pillows off the couches and he was sitting in the middle of the pile in the living room. Another night, he snuck into Austin's room and pulled all his underwear and socks out of his drawer and threw them around the room.

Hermey also wrote Austin a few letters. With the arrival of Andrew, I figured now was a great time for Austin to receive some mail from the North Pole. In the letter, Hermey told Austin how he had heard he had a new baby brother and that he was going to have to ask Santa for something for Andrew since he can't talk yet. He also told Austin that he should be good at home and at school because Santa is always watching him.

Hey, it's not to early to start playing the Santa card. I'm looking forward to Hermey's visit this year. I wonder what he'll get into!

Big kahunas

My good friend from high school, Chea, bought the boys matching pajamas. Since Andrew is so big (and now wearing 6-9 month onesies), I figured I should go ahead and let him wear these and take a picture of the boys.

Sittin' pretty

Andrew sitting in his Bumbo...

Just a little syrup

What do you get when you let the 4 year old put syrup on his pancakes?

This...

Pool-side ghost

Minie moe

Every night at dinner we go around the table and talk about our day. At first, it was just asking Austin about his day and what he did at school. It has evolved into us all taking turns telling the specifics of our days.

Tonight, Austin said he was going to do "minie moe." He went around the table doing minie moe, leaving out the enie meenie parts, to figure out who was going to go first telling about their day. Austin's version includes the ice cream truck.

Old man noises

Andrew makes old man noises. He grunts, snorts, farts. And for no particular reason. Just thought I'd share.

Team cheer

Recently, Austin has taken to repeating everything that we say. And I mean everything.

Tonight, Gene wanted to have a little fun with it. So, he asked Austin to repeat after him. He said, "Go Dawgs! Sick 'em!" and then barked. Austin repeated, "Go Dawgs! Sick them! Woof, woof, woof." Of course, I told him to repeat "Roll Tide Roll" and he did. Gene said, "Go Blazers!" and then made what was supposed to be a dragon breathing fire noise. Austin repeated "Go Blazers!" and then made a noise that sounded more like the devil than a dragon. Not quite the perfect team cheers, but pretty close.

Goodies

Tonight, Austin and I were sitting in the recliner watching the women's marathon on the Olympics. Austin asked me, "Why are they not wearing shirts?" I told him that they were wearing shirts. They were really wearing something like a tank top or their bathing suit. He said, "I see their goodies!" I asked him what he was talking about. He lifted his shirt and, while pointing to his belly button, he said, "Their goodies."

Of course

Sometimes Austin will say words or phrases in context that we had no idea he knew.

Tonight at dinner, Austin was telling Gene what we'd been doing while he was gone at night this week, watching the Olympics. Gene asked him, "Do you like the swimming?" Austin said, "Of course." Gene asked him, "Do you like the gymnastics?" Austin said, "Of course."

8 ounces

People are shocked when I tell them that Andrew eats as much as he does for such a young baby. And that was when I told them he takes 7 ounces of milk in one sitting. Last night, he ate cereal, drank a 7 ounce bottle, and then nursed a little before conking out for the night. Now, that's some eating.

Today, I fixed 8 ounce bottles for him. He sucked them all dry. He will more than likely be the one that eats me out of house and home when he's a teenager. Austin, on the other hand...

Stage 1 bananas

Yesterday, after Andrew's first day of day care (school as I like to call it as to not feel so guilty about working), we all came home. Gene was at band camp late so I had both boys. Alone. It's hard enough to get things done after a full day of work with just one child much less two.

Anyway, it was time for Andrew's cereal. I came at him with the bib in one hand, bowl in the other and he grinned from ear to ear. Maybe he was grinning at me, happy to see me. But I think he was smiling at the food. I fed him the cereal and when we were done, I took the bib off. He freaked, I think at the thought that there was no more to eat. So, I gave me a little spoon full of stage 1 bananas. He seemed to enjoy them.

I mixed a little in his cereal tonight and he gobbled it all up.

Rain drops

I remember as a kid staring out the car window on a rainy day. I would watch all the rain drops run together on the window and see which drop made it to the bottom the fastest.

Today, it rained. Heavily. On the way home, Austin and Andrew were in the backseat and Austin was looking out the window, watching the rain drops. All of a sudden he said, "Go get 'em, guys." I knew exactly what he was doing. He was watching the rain drops race each other and he was cheering one drop on to beat the others. Funny how little things like that remind you of something from your childhood.

Let's roll!

Andrew's been rolling from his tummy to back for a few weeks now. Every day or every other day he'll roll from tummy to back.

Today, he has rolled twice from his back to his tummy! He's been working on rolling over for the past week or so. He's been rolling onto his side and he'll get 1/2 way rolled over but would stop there. Today, he finally did it!

Favorite thing

"My favorite thing in the whole world...my strongest contest."

Contest is pronounced more like conquest. This "strong contest" includes picking up and throwing his Pottery Barn Kids chair across the room, running at full speed into said chair and knocking it over, talking to oneself saying "Everybody ready for my strongest conquest."

Put the feed bag on

Andrew loves to gaze at people, but mostly me. (I don't quite remember Austin loving to look at me as much as Andrew does.) He smiles and coos and laughs out loud these days about all sorts of things. The ceiling fan, tickling under his chin, doing patty-cake with his hands.

But perhaps his most favorite thing to do is (surprise!) eat. His thighs are about as big around as my forearm. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but they are pretty big. As for solid food, he's only eating rice cereal. He does fairly well with the spoon and only spits a little bit out. We'll start other solids when he's 4 months old when "they" say that he should start solid food. If he gets excited over a bottle, I can't imagine how overjoyed he will be when he gets to eat "real" food!

Does this match? Not quite.

Prior to our outing this morning, we sent Austin upstairs to get dressed. I knew something was up when he went to his room and shut the door. About 5 minutes later, he emerged. Wearing this.

No, it didn't match. AT ALL! I couldn't even argue that there was red in the shirt so the shorts sort of went with the shirt. But, that was a battle Gene and I didn't want to fight. So, we took this child to public places sporting a T-shirt that reads "My favorite color is camo" and red shorts. I'm sure we got all sorts of looks. But, unless you're a parent, you don't know that, when it comes to the independent 4 year old who constantly says "I can do it all by myself," it's best to let him take pride in the fact that he picked out his own clothes and got dressed all by himself.

Boys versus girls

We went out today to do a little shopping before Gene starts band camp next week. We ran to Academy and WalMart. As with most shopping trips, it all starts with reviewing the rules with Austin. No running, no climbing on things, no touching things we're not supposed to, stay with Mommy/Daddy at all times, no acting like a wild man in the store. Seems like there are a lot of "No's" in our house. If rules are not reviewed on a regular basis, Austin just runs wild. Is this being 4? Is this being a boy? Or both? Anyway...

While we were at Academy, we were looking at sunglasses for Gene and Austin saw the nice watches in the case. Of course, he wanted one. I told him those were for really big boys and that, if he followed the rules, we could get a watch especially for him.

At the end of the trip, he was quick to point out that he'd been a good boy. So, we picked out our new watch. He chose Spider Man. In the car he put it on and said, "Boys like Spider Man. Girls like princesses."

What grown ups do

Sitting at the dinner table tonight, Austin started asking questions about what we do after he goes to bed at night. We told him that we each take baths/showers and brush our teeth and go to bed just like him. He said, "Grown ups stay up all night in the crazy and spooky downstairs."