well that was fun

a few photos from our vaycay last week. t2 got to wear some very fancy clothes on saturday at a wedding in spokane. il esta beau.
(i don't reccommend spokane by the way. our hotel was absolutely lovely and our friends there are lovely, but the town kinda stinks. literally. the only thing it has going for it is gonzaga basketball.)
now that summer's just about over, i think i'll let my hair grow long. it's going to be a rough couple of months because right now (even though i just had it trimmed) i look like fraulein maria (the hills are aliiiiivvvveeee ...) seriously, put me in some krenlin and an apron, shove a carpet bag in my hand and send me on my way.

babys first blackberry

this is a little absurd, but we gave t2 an old blackberry that tayloe had because he goes bananas everytime he sees his dad's.
we even charged it so it lights up when he punches buttons.
it's silly, but he loves it so much that now whenever he's headed for trouble (which is always) i can say, "where's your phone?" and he immediately drops what he's doing and starts looking for it. i wonder how long that'll last ...
i was trying to catch him on tape pretending like he is talking on it. it really is funny - he holds it up to his ear and babbles. but of course he's like the dancing frog when we actually ask him to do something, so instead this is a video of him standing up on his own. and in the end he looks just like his dad - who frequently stands in the middle of our living room, pecking away as if his life depends on it.

back, gone, back, gone

this is another birthday shot, taken at the cottage in va (that's t2's paternal grandfather) because i've been extra lame about taking pictures lately. to my defense, everytime i take the camera out, t2 dashes toward it and then throws a fit when i won't give it to him.
cabo was very very hot. it was mostly work so i didn't get to see much, but i did realize that tortillas in america are the pits. saturday morning after going to a surf beach we went to a delicious tortillaria. the scene was unreal - it was about 100 degrees at 9 a.m., and these ladies are working in a room that's about 150 degrees because they have to press the tortilla and then toast it on a griddle. the press looks like an iron from 1940s. there were about 5 little mexican girls, all about age 5 or 6, with orders their mothers had sent them down the street with. for a moment at least i felt like i was actually in a different place. you should have heard me trying to tell the woman in spanish that i wanted 12 tortillas in a bag.
i have no idea what makes authentic tortillas so good, but i'm going to take a wild guess and say lard.
we leave tomorrow for seattle and then spokane for a wedding. we'll be back sunday and then most likely are going back to the east coast for a good long while. no flies on us. i'm going to do the best i can to keep up here because it seems like changes are happening every day to t2. he says ball (ba) and banana (na na) and duck (duh) and wants to walk.
actually, he doesn't want to walk so much. it's me who really wants him to walk. he's like carrying around a sack of wet concrete. i didn't walk until i was 16 months, and i'm telling you right now if it takes him that long i think it's only fair that i get a deep tissue massage weekly, starting today.
now that i think about it, i'm not sure what i'm going to do when he does start walking because i can't keep a single pair of shoes on his feet. he yanks and kicks off anything i put on and inevitably one shoe ends up in the middle of the road and i don't notice it until i'm back to the car. the other day he was actually riding a pony at the farmer's market barefooted. we're such rednecks.
anyway, we'll keep you posted ...

adios

this is at our dave rabb gym class, which ended today. boo hoo. they don't open again until after labor day, which seems like forever away.
i'm leaving in the morning for cabo san jose in mexico. i'll be gone for two days working on my women for the world freelance project, mapping out their new web site (by the pool) and filling their web pages with content (with a cig in one hand and a cocktail in the other) and coming up fundraising ideas (after i order lobster).
the tayloes are staying behind on their first solo/overnight/two-day venture together. i sorta wish i could be in two places at once because i'd really like to watch as they whittle away the day together, most likely in their underware/diapers, eating ice cream and watching professional sports.
tayloe's (big) a rock star for staying behind and minding the store, especially when he had the option to come along.
in gratitude i cooked them a big pot of mac and cheese (broccoli added) and made some chicken salad - food that's easy to grab in between 'girls gone wild' and 'america's next top model.'
i think they're really going to enjoy each other, but if i'm wrong and you get a pitiful call from tayloe asking for help, please do what you can (just don't call me).
mr. mom, i love you forever. you're my favorite place.

recall

so mattel announced another toy recall because some of its toys have dangerous parts. but there's a whole other batch of toys that are being recalled because they're made with lead paint.
um. ok. talk about a problem i thought we'd solved, like, 20 years ago.
speaking of toys that should be recalled, tayloe's (little tayloe) uncle geoff gave him an up-up elmo for his birthday. geoff's the guy that gave us the 'my balls are magical' toy and the rolling, talking ball that says 'i'm over here!' when you've been ignoring it for too long.
determined to outdo himself, he delivered elmo with a smile. only much to our delight, t2 hates it. i mean really hates it. he turns and crawls away from it whenever he sees it. and if it starts talking ('elmo wants up-up, up-up elmo,') t2 starts crying. it's even worse if i start playing with it. he'll try to smack it out of my hands, tears streaming down his face as if to say, 'don't do it mommy! it's a bad toy! can't you tell? can't you ... (cry, cry, cry) ... can't you (cry, cry, cry, cry) ... can't you tell it's EVIL???' it's the saddest thing ever.
so i did elmo a favor and put him in 'storage' in a ziplock bag under t2's crib. only i didn't hide him well enough because t2 found him. elmo came alive from the grave, crying 'up, up, elmo wants up up' (i mean, why can't he at least say please?) through the plastic bag. and that was pretty much it for t2. he had a complete meltdown.
as a side note, this kid melts down about very little. last week a balloon popped in his face (he bit it, of course) and he laughed.
anyway, he melted down crying and crying and crying. i took elmo out and tried to show him it was ok, that i hadn't buried him alive, that he was only 'resting' in the plastic bag, but t2 wanted nothing of it. he whacked elmo so hard i dropped the thing on the floor. it fell with a thud and then said, 'thank you' in its stupid elmo voice.
so elmo and his red polyesther 'fur' and his googly eyes and his bad manners are banished to the man room outside.
if he survives that, which i very seriously doubt, i have my own ideas about what to do with him ...

little glimmer of devil

you tell me, what should the thought bubble over his head say?

elliott james lipp

news, news, news! my friend cathy lipp had her baby boy on tuesday! elliott james lipp was born at 11:06 aug. 7 - everyone is happy and healthy.
i would have posted a photo of the little guy if, um, i had it. his slacker parents haven't sent one - you'd think they had a newborn to take care of or something.
meanwhile, tayloe keeps finding new things to get into. it took him 10 minutes to work his way out of this basket.
aren't those cute orange pants he has on? i switched to cloth diapers last week. i know, who does that this late in the game, right? i honestly wish i'd done it sooner. i do a stupid amount of laundry a week anyway, so i haven't really noticed that much difference. i bought some great liners and over pants on sale and already have a bunch of cloth inserts, so it was just a matter of putting it all together.
getting them - or any diaper - on in peaceful manner is something else entirely.
i'm going to make a million dollars inventing a stand-up diaper changing station that you can strap a kid into.
here's what my daily conversations with t2 sound like:
me: stand up and let's change your pants
t2: bababababababa
me: hold still now. still. still. hold still. look!!! a car!! right there!!! in front of you! ooohhh, what a nice car! car! car! red car! your red car! hold still (etc, etc, etc )
t2: aaaahahahaha. bababa. mama mama mama. DADA?
me: dada's working. he's not here. i'm here. hold still.
t2: DADA? DADA? DADADADADADADADA.
me: ok, we're almost done. look! another car! a car! WWWHHEEE! play with that car. (SLAM)
no, we don't throw cars, we roll cars. see (one hand putting diaper on, one hand rolling the car) roll. not throw, roll. roll cars.
t2: DDDDAAAAADDDDAAA? dada? dada? dada? dadadadadada
me: let's work as a team. we're almost done. almost done. almost ...
(t2 sits down and inevitably squishes a turd into any one of our persian rugs. then, he makes a break for it and finds something else to throw.)
me: sigh. (pull out the big guns and put a ball on a nearby table, prompting him to crawl toward it and stand up. 'he can't possibly fall for this again,' i think.)
t2: ba? ba? ba?
me: yes, that's a ball. hhhheeeey, i know! you should get that ball! that's your ball! get the ball! it's over here ...
(sucker ...)
t2: ba. ba. mama? dada? mama? dada? DADA? DADA? DADA?
me: DADADADADA is NOT here. FOCUS, CHILD!
it's cute that he's really attached to tayloe, unless i'm trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do in which case he nearly always screeches for his dad. and here i was believing what everyone said about little boys being ssssssoooooo attached to their mother. hrumph.

the very busy spider

another cute birthday photo.
we have this eric carle book, the very busy spider, that t2 loves. it's his top choice nearly every night. now, i like eric carle. he's good clean fun.
but this one, the very busy spider, makes me mad. here's the deal. it's this spider and she gets blown across a field and lands on a fence post near a farm and starts spinning a web.
as she's making this web, various and assorted farm animals approach her and ask if she wants to play (pig wants her to go roll in the mud with him, the dog wants her to come chase a cat, the cat wants her to take a nap and so on). each time, the spider doesn't answer because 'she's too busy spinning her web.'
at the end of the day, she catches a fly in the web and then she falls asleep. she's so zonked she even misses hearing a compliment from an owl, who (hooo, hooo) says her web is very beautiful. and that's the end.
this spider, she's a pretty boring gal don't ya think? she's so caught up in getting her mundane tasks done that she misses all the fun on the farm. i mean, who wouldn't want to roll in the mud? where's the work-play balance?
that's the lesson i take from it (everytime she doesn't answer, i tell t2 how rude she is and how very boring her day is turning out to be), but i'm not sure that's the lesson the author intended.
i think maybe eric carle has some protestant work ethic hang ups that he hasn't really worked through. i halfway expect the very busy spider to be beamed straight to heaven and take a seat next to the almighty at the end of the book.
that said, if that spider is for hire i'm perfectly willing to hand over my dyson and a bottle of ajax and let her get her protestant work ethic on in my house.

a vaccum that doesn't suck

tayloe surprised me with a new vaccum.
it sounds like the most unromantic gift ever. but it's a dyson - a super slim, super sucking, bagless, headacheless dyson. in fact, one of the very best surprises i've ever gotten.
tuesday morning he left the house on a mystery errand and came home with the new slim model in the car. maybe i've lost my mind, but i think that's really sweet and romantic.
i jumped up and down and i think i cried a little when i saw it.
wolly's hair and baby mess have really started to cake in over the last few months. my 'ol wheezer (the dirt devil) just wasn't getting the job done. it just blew the dog hair around the house. in fact, the dog hair actually ran from it. the thing can't even suck up a cheerio anymore.
and emptying the filter is like setting off an atomic bomb. it billows a plume of dust over our garbage cans that doesn't settle for days.
i ripped into the dyson, put it together in 15 minutes and vaccumed for 2 hours straight. it could suck up the baby, i'm convinced.
it also swivles! and to empty it, you just remove the canister and open the bottom! dump and go! bam!
our rugs look like new and turns out we have wood floors!
thank you tayloe. thank you, thank you, thank you.