BUZZZZZZZ

This morning I took this mop-haired child:

And traded him in for this buzz-cut child:

I'm not sure I like this child any better than the first one - he's been complaining this morning that he has an owie on his tummy, and he's been kind of grumpy and whiny. Although he did happily go splash in the stream at the park, and chased a "ki-kee" all over the pet store. He was sad the kitty ran away.

Right now I'm thinking, dude, if you don't feel well, kiddo, you should damn well GO TO SLEEP. Napping has been crap all week, and I can't figure it out.

How was the haircut, you ask? It was actually pretty damn good, considering clippers were used for a vast majority of the time (nice quiet ones, though) and the barber blasted him with the hair drier twice, even after I told her he doesn't do loud noises. Like, for example, hair driers. We took our magic bag of M&M's, and the barber turned on Dora the Explorer for him to watch on TV. And we all survived with only minimal crying and fussing. The little man - he's-a growing up!

I texted John a picture of the newly shorn child and he said he looks like a totally different kid. And that Dexter now looks like him. Lucky boy!

Four in a Row!

I know! You can't believe it! Four days of blog posts! IN A ROW! I amaze even myself.

I realized that I neglected to include one of my favorite cooking photos of John and Dexter:

This is pretty much how the boy helps. Pulls up a chair. Might stir eggs for a second before saying "Mama do it." Tells you over and over that you have to add cheese to the eggs. Puts about three pieces of cheese in the frying pan. Grabs an enormous handful of cheese to put on the counter. Spends the rest of his "helping" time shoving said cheese in to his mouth. Tells you when the toast pops up. Also fairly handy at sprinkling "cimmanin" on his toast with butter. I think that's how he says it. Or maybe "cimmamin." If you're lucky you can also get him to help carry plates over to the table. He concentrates so hard, and says to himself "Hold it up," as we tell him all the time so the food on the plate doesn't slide off in to Buddy's open, waiting mouth.

He's a very helpful boy, that one. And Buddy is proving his usefulness, too. I had Buddy at dog obedience school today and John managed to step on a meatball on the floor, and track it in to the dining room. Surely that would not have happened if Buddy had been home. I still have to vacuum more than I used to - damn dog sheds like mad. But I am vacuuming up dog hair, not food on the floor. Good boy, Buddy.

Gems

I've had a running list on the white board for a couple weeks, of things that Dexter says that crack me up. Because my brain is weak these days, and I will otherwise forget all the cuteness. The things that make an impression on this child, and the things he remembers, and the associations he makes, and the imagination I can see developing - it's all really pretty amazing. Was I this cool when I was 2? I mean, I'm sure I was. It's just a bummer I can't remember those days.

Oh - I am typing this on a brandy-new laptop computer, which is pretty awesome. It's taking me a while to get used to the touch pad for a mouse. But it's HD and wide screen and I don't have any pictures on the computer yet but I just watched some video and IT. LOOKS. AWESOME.

So, here we go with the Dexter-isms:

Dex is pretty adept at finding our car in the parking lot. I usually ask him if that's our car, and he'll say no. Is that our car? No. How about that grey car - it that our car? YES. Now, if I forget to do the asking, he just asks himself. So we walk through the parking lot with Dexter talking to himself: "Dat our car? No. Dat our car? No. Dat our car? No. Dat our car? YES."

Dexter has graduated to a new sippy cup, with no spout and no straw and no valve. So it spills, just a little, if it falls over. We're on our way, in a year or so, to an actual, real person cup. But the new cup has been very exciting for a couple weeks, as he has been able to drink "Milk with a new cup!" And every now and then he turns the cup so the drinking "hole" is facing up, instead of in his mouth. And he'll say to himself "No dis (turns cup), no dis (turns cup), yes DIS." as he finds the proper location from which to drink.

Dex was sick last week - just his typical monthly cold. So we were taking his temperature a lot. And the thermometer beeps when it has hit a constant temperature. So we wait for the beep. And Dexter decided that the thermometer was "Just like beep-beep-beep all done french fries. Daddy like french fries." Do you have no idea what I am talking about? It's from our local hamburger place, Jakes (think Five Guys, but not as yummy). There you can hear the beep of the fry cooker, so we told him that the beeping meant the fries were all done. So for a couple months now, Jakes has been called beep-beep-beep all done french fries. Dexter applied that to the thermometer, adding the part about Daddy liking french fries, because he and Daddy went there last weekend and, apparently, Dex learned that Daddy does, indeed, enjoy some french fries. Got to be careful what you say around the child these days.

Dex LOVES to help cook. Especially if there is cheese involved. He helps makes breakfast every morning. Trots in to the kitchen, sees me cooking, declares "You can help me," pulls up a chair, and helps. Some. Last week he was holding his star when he came in, so he said "You can help me with a star." This whole not understanding the proper use of pronouns thing is kind of a killer - basically he's saying, hey - Mom, I can help you. AND, bonus! I have a star! This past week when he was sick and we were trying to get him to blow his nose, he learned what boogers were. So he was standing on a chair, helping me make breakfast a few days ago. And I was doing something, not looking. And he says, "No want dis." I went to turn around to take whatever thing he didn't want (usually like the skin of a hot dog, or a piece of cheese that's not cut straight) and he says "No want dis booger." And hands over his booger. Thanks, little man. Just what I've always wanted!

I cleaned out Dexter's book shelf a few weeks ago, and put a pile in our room - books that are now too young for him, books that we hate reading because they are annoying. Dex saw the pile and grabbed the Itsy Bitsy Spider book out of it. Which was in the pile in the first place because it's ridiculously long, and also it sucks. But Dexter loves it. John was sitting on the floor, and Dex walked right over to him, sat down, held up his book, and said, "Read Itsbee Bitsbee Pider." So, damn it, the Itsbee Bitsbee Spider book is back on his book shelf. I'll try to hide it again later.

Just heard over the monitor "You get UP!" so it sounds like Dexter's clock is yellow and his nap is over. I'll be back...

Dex has been all about numbers and letters recently. He was playing with a ball that we had written our last name on, and stopped abruptly to say the letters. "N-O-R-M-A-N." Yes, I said, do you know what that is? That's your name. Norman. He tried it out a few times, and now when you ask him his name he might well tell you "Dexter Norman." He's also finally got "244 Owenwood" down pat when you ask him where he lives. So if he gets lost, there's like a 3 percent chance now that someone might understand him and be able to get him back to us.

Dex learned how to count to 20 a couple weeks ago, when Miss Lisa was here for early intervention. He's had counting to 12 under control for a while, because those numbers are on his clock. But 13 - 20 were new for him. He was practicing his counting - eighteen, nineteen, ten-teen, eleven-teen, twelve-teen. Hee-hee! You count just like your grandpa, Dex.

And, finally, swimming has been on the forefront of pretty much any conversation you have with Dex. What'd you do today, Dex? Go swimming with Miss Eliza, he says. Even if we did that five days ago. So we were reading a book with worms in it, and the worms were in the ground. Dex decided the worms were swimming in green water. When he was eating his crackers and hummus the other day, he decided that his hummus was water (it had a deep end and a shallow end, even) and his crackers were swimming. One cracker was swimming with Miss Eliza, and it wasn't crying. One cracker was swimming with Mama. When he was done with his snack, he licked the hummus off and declared the crackers "Ahl Done Fwimming."

Speaking of swimming with Miss Eliza - I've been leaving entirely the past two weeks, and this past week was Dexter's best lesson yet. Miss Eliza sang to him for a while as they were swimming, and she said he stopped crying for many minutes. Fabulous! Maybe next week he'll freak out less when I hand him over. We'll see...

When all else fails, add bacon

We joined a CSA this year, in an attempt to try some new things, maybe save some money, and mostly to support local agriculture. This week was a "come meet us and try out some stuff for free" week, so Dex and I went - first to the playground near there, and then to the farm.

The playground was at Nottingham County Park, which is pretty awesome. Huge trees. Shaded playgrounds. Ten trillion pavilions. A pond with geese and a little covered bridge. But, alas, no basketball hoops. Dex was a bit dismayed. What park, I ask, has NO basketball hoops? Insanity. I think the baby geese were a decent consolation prize, though.

After driving the whole park in search of basketball hoops, we cruised off to the farm. And the farm had CHICKENS! And HORSES! And kids playing with toy dump trucks, which Dex could steal and play with! And - AND!! A HOT FIREPLACE! That was ON! And had ORANGE COMING OUT! Which led to teaching moment of the day - yes, fire is orange. Yes, fire is hot. NO, we do not touch the hot fire. We only look. We managed to escape unscathed.

So I came home with two bags of a whole bunch of greens that I 1) have no idea the names of and 2) have no idea what to do with. And some asparagus, green onion, spinach, and radish. I at least can identify those, and can do something with them. Except radish. What the hell does one do with 10 radishes?

The basic instructions from the nice CSA woman who picked all these greens for me, fresh from the garden, was to chop them up and saute them in olive oil and some garlic. I went one step further, added a bunch of green onions, and sauted the stuff up in bacon grease. Because if you have no idea what you're eating, you at least know it tastes awesome in some bacon grease, right? I do believe that, in similar fashion to M&M's, bacon grease makes everything all better. As does bacon. On some yummy burgers. With some cheese. Hold the bun.

So how was it, you're asking? I know you're DYING to know how the unidentified chopped up green stuff cooked in bacon grease turned out. And, you know? It was pretty tasty. I kept trying it as I was cooking it, and was unimpressed. So I added salt and pepper. And balsamic vinegar. And, finally, parmesan cheese. That. That right there was what took it from edible to downright good. John even went back for seconds, and said it was really good. Which, I dunno. He says that about everything I make. I think he just wants to be sure I don't stop cooking for him...

PS - Animal Kingdom just lost the Preakness by a length. To the horse he just barely beat in the Derby. Dex and I went to Fair Hill Training Center last week to see him train. Somewhere, in someone's archive, there's video of that horse galloping last Friday, with my son in the background chattering away: "Horses go REALLY fast! Watch horses go past that train crossing. Go over there and watch horses go past THAT train crossing. Horses go REALLY REALLY fast." I'm sure the owner of the horse, who somehow ended up on the rail directly next to us, was impressed with Dexter's color commentary...

There's Animal Kingdom, checking out the scenery before his gallop. He's the chestnut horse all the way to the right. And WAY over to the right is the "train crossing" that Dexter was so excited about.

There's the owner dude, right next to us. Hi, owner dude! My child never stops talking!

And there's Animal Kingdom walking back to the barn after his gallop. Yeah, the scenery sucks at Fair Hill, eh? You'd think I'd have a picture or two of the horse actually galloping but, no. I thought I was actually video taping it, in which case you could hear the chatter box commentary. But I got home and, nope. No video on the camera. I must not have pushed the button.

And here's some photos from this morning:

Dex shows Daddy how to make a fuzzy F

It's the old "What hand is the ball in" game. That Daddy is one hell of a magician...

Baby Happy, Baby Sad

Just now, at nap time, Dex and I were reading "Baby Happy, Baby Sad." We had some nice discussions about why the baby might be sad, as Dex thinks everybody is sad because they have to go to time out. Seriously. The kid doesn't even go to time out very much any more, but apparently his time outs make him very sad, and it makes a huge impression on him. So we talked about why else the baby was sad - because the kitty ran away, because his ice cream fell on the ground and now Buddy will eat it, because his sister was not sharing the toys, because he fell down and got an owie. And because Daddy went away. But then Daddy came back in the morning, and the baby was happy.

And then I put him in his bed and got ready to sing some Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Before I could open my mouth Dex said "Mama be here in the morning." And I said that of course I would be here in the morning. I would always be here. And then I cried my eyes out. Because, what if I'm not? What if some day I can't be here in the morning? And, how completely sweet is it that my baby boy wants me to be here in the morning?

I, of course, can't really tell him any of this. You can't really tell a two-year-old about death, so much, can you? And I don't really WANT to - there's no imminent reason to make him think that Mama and Daddy won't just... be here. Forever. Of course we'll always be here, sweetie. Absolutely we will. Even when you don't want us to be here any more, we'll still be here bothering you.

I'm not looking forward to that day. That day when somebody or something in our lives dies. I'd rather we just all be here. I'd like to keep the Baby Happy.

My guess is, in retrospect, that John told this phrase to Dex last night when he was putting him to bed. And I was playing volleyball, so I wasn't there to give him a hug and a kiss goodnight. That didn't really seem like a sentence he would make up. So, probably I shouldn't continue to cry my eyes out. And yet, the pile of tissues next to me is far too big right now...

Aunt Maria, Picture Style

Aunt Maria came to visit for the weekend. Which has been WAAAY too long in the making. I mean, this is the first time she's been to our house! Aunt Maria will, I am sure, be delighted when school is done and she can come see her cute nephew more often.

Here's what we did all weekend. Fun! Come back soon, Aunt Maria!

We spent Saturday morning at Longwood. Cuz it's awesome there. This is the very same bed of flowers that was filled with daffodils on Easter morning. Now completely and totally different. Part of the why I love this place.

The tulips were still fabulous

I like these pointy ones a whole lot (hint for husband looking for Mother's Day ideas - I LIKE TULIPS. POINTY ENDS ON FLOWERS ARE A BONUS)

In our never-ending search for water fountains, we came across this cute little one

Whatcha doin, Dex? Oh, nothin. Just sitting on a bench, looking cute.

Dex, can you give Aunt Maria a hug? Nooooooooo. Silly Mama.

Denied the hug. In a cute manner, though. It took Saturday morning for Dex to warm up to Aunt Maria. After that, life was wonderful.

Feeding fishes

WAAAAY over on the far right side you'll see a little dot. That's John and Dex, checking out the fountains from a new vantage point.

Damn duts are too bold. This bastard climbed out of the water and took a piece of bread OUT OF DEXTER'S HAND. Dex? A little more wary of duts now. Thanks a lot, damn dut.

Off to find more fountains

YAY! Fountain!

More pointy tulips, hint hint.

What are these tall-ass things called? Fox gloves? Tall-ass flowers? Something.

Here, Daddy. Have a raisin.

A series of Aunt Maria looking cute, for potential use in a newsletter for work. We got several, as she is inherently cute.

Xylophone playing. And I think here he is saying "Dis one bwoken." John tried it out and it appears the child was entirely correct. That one WAS broken.

Dueling chimes.

What's the matter, Dex? Water hit you directly in the eye?

This is a fun fountain.

Taking a splash break with Aunt Maria

Just his size

The patchwork quilt of tulips.

We ended out visit watching the water go WAY UP.

The child was delighted

Still enthralled. And wondering the whole time when the water will go WAY DOWN.

Buddy and Wiley Bird lived in a state of mild harmony over the weekend. Buddy really wanted to take a tiny taste of Wiley. Wiley really wanted to eat Buddy's nose off. It worked out well for both parties.

Dexter spent a vast majority of our time at home looking at Wiley Bird, showing him all his cars and stars and books and flashlights. Poor Wiley is going to need all week to recover from all the excitement.

Went to a birthday party at My Gym on Sunday morning. Which - YAY! My Gym rocks! Wish we had one close to us here.

Birthday party kids. Some of whom we have known since Dex was just days old. It's crazy to see how big they are now.

Balloons!

Mmmmm. Cake.

Only a mild green frosting mess on his face.

Dex was hoarding all the balls

Loads of fun in the ball pit. I expect sickness, puking, fever, snotty nose from Dexter pretty much any second now.

Post-bath, pre-bed car riding.

Aunt Maria was looking lonely in there...

So Dexter joined her...

And brought a few friends

Readying himself for the big step down

Garbage trucks rock.

Hey, Wiley Bird! Check out my car!

Wiley did actually seem mildly amused by the small one. Thanks, Wiley. You were good entertainment. Thanks, Aunt Maria, for coming to visit. Come see us again soon!