Old Friends

I was trying to remember what toys Dexter was playing with at this age, because it seemed like Erin was getting bored with her baby toys.  My point of reference for this age is always Dexter at the Adirondacks.  He was seven months old then, and I can actually summon some vague memories from that week.  And it seemed like I took more than just baby toys there for him to play with.

So I looked in the basement in the two boxes of "Young Toddler Toys" I have.  Each toy I pulled out brought the thought of "Hey!  I completely forgot we had this toy!"  And maybe a couple "Oh, crap!  We still have this toy..."

Both kids were excited.  Dex was so psyched about a tower of stacking stars that plays music that he brought it out to the swing set and decorated the swing set with stars.  And then he decorated the table with stars at dinner time.  Goofy kid.

Not a new toy, just a new location.  I tossed Erin and her exersaucer out in the garage with Dex one day while I was making dinner.

John thought I was crazy, but the kids were entertained

Erin LOVED this letter spinning thing

I'm pretty sure Dex never tried to eat it, though

Dex was delighted to discover his old favorite toy, this godforsaken loud obnoxious steering wheel thing that I hate with a passion.  It's still loud and obnoxious and I still would like to remember who gave it to us so I can go put it in THEIR house, with a one year old boy pushing all the buttons.

And I finally dug out our backpack.  Erin was, as you can see, thrilled.  (She actually was fine when I was walking.  Not so fine when standing still)

He gets his drawing skills from me

Tonight, after Dexter went potty and brushed his teeth with his very cool tickly toothbrush (he now brushes his teeth like seven times a day) he wanted to dance in his room.  He likes a dance party, and he especially likes telling people what to do.  So we all were instructed to DANCE!  And KICK!  And JUMP!  And KICK!  And then DANCE NORMAL!  And he proceeded to dance, Dave Telesco-style, hands flapping, butt out, and legs shuffling a million miles an hour.  We were a sight, because "dance normal" in our house is not "normal" in anyone else's house.  We're excellent dancers...

A couple months ago I bought a whole series of "Pony Pals" chapter books, used, for like 5 bucks.  I pulled one off the shelf for the first time the other night.  It turns out that might be the best five bucks I ever spent.  He is now obsessed, and John rolled his eyes and sighed when Dexter declared last night that he "LOVED Pony Pals."  John thinks it's a grand conspiracy, and shall now counter with some terrible motorcycle chapter books, or maybe race cars.

The fabulous thing that came from this was the Pony Pals Journal, where Dexter was to write or draw pictures of various things.  Dex isn't a big drawer, but he's been drawing more in the past month or so.  Mostly train tracks, and maybe a train or two.  And he drew some "No Smoking" signs on our dry erase board, to ensure that nobody smokes in our house.  Because, MAN, were we worried about THAT.  But in the Pony Pals Journal he expanded his horizons a bit, and I am so very proud of him.  I drew a bit, too, and it's quite obvious he gets his excellent drawing skills from me.

I was impressed with the hands he drew for his teacher

Here's a car, with a headlight, and a turn signal, and a tail light, and someone driving

On the left is a riding ring, with some brown dirt.  On the right is Dexter's horse.  After he drew this one, he asked me to draw a horse, because his wasn't very good.  Which, really, kind of broke my heart.  I adore his horse drawing.

So I drew a horse.  I'm an excellent drawer.  Dex added a ring around my horse, and drew some blood in its belly.  He also wrote "horse/pony" at the top.  And I think that's supposed to be a horse he drew, on the right.  After I drew my horse, Dexter said "Mama, can you draw a better horse now?"  Ummmmm.  No, actually.  I can't.  That's all I got, kiddo.

The left page says "no horses" and the right is Dexter's horse.  I can't remember why he said his horse had a sad face.

Then we moved on to cars.  I drew the car on the left, Dex drew the car on the right.

Here's another one of my cars.  "Mama, why does your car have triangle windows?"  Just mixin' it up, son.

One more of Dexter's cars.  With very little wheels.

Now we're moving on to trains.  Mine is on the left, Dexter's on the right.

And, finally, another train from Dex.  Complete with tracks.  He signed his name and everything.

Too Cute to Cut

I think I downloaded 250 pictures from my camera today.  I went through and deleted a good number of them (never enough, in John's mind.  I never delete enough).  I still have oodles of pictures on the computer, though.  But, seriously.  When your pictures are this cute, how are you supposed to delete them?

First picture of the day.  BAM!  Could have stopped right there, right?

Huh?  What's this cool thing?  Our rhododendron are really quite spectacular this year.

Just a matter of time before one of these ends up in her mouth...

As I said

We've moved over to a different bush

Dex came home from school and joined the photo shoot.  The kids are watching the neighbors across the street, I think.

See Dexter's eye?  Yeah, he fell out of a chair yesterday.  Not a kitchen chair.  One of the tall deck chairs.  It actually looks way better than I thought it would look today.

Dex is too grumpy.  We'll just keep taking pictures of the happy baby

Buddy in the front yard, watching the traffic

Cute baby belly

Aaaaaand, we're done

Good thing she's cute

Good thing this baby is cute, cuz HOLY MAN is she ever grumpy today.  Now, in her defense, she had a fever this afternoon, and took a nice long nap after she got some medicine.  But, wow.  Grumpy, grumpy.

Here's a video from a few days ago.  Erin was chillin on the floor after I wiped dinner off her entire body.  She had been, before I grabbed the camera, leaning over and putting her mouth on the rug, just to see how it tasted.  John was jealous, as he hasn't been able to do that for, oh, about 39.5 years.

Erin had a check-up the other day.  She's 27.6 inches long (86th %) and 16.2 lbs (37th %).  Everything looks great and she'll have another check-up in a few months.

Here's Erin eating steak on John's birthday

And here she is chomping on some avocado.  Thus, why Buddy loves licking the baby off when I set her on the floor...

Shutterbug

The drawer under the TV was open the other day, and Dexter saw his camera - a kid's camera from Nonna and Grandpa, which is great except that it burns through batteries like nobody's business.  He wanted to use it.  It had dead batteries.  We had an extra Canon Powershot sitting around not getting used.  Ta-da!  Dexter now has a camera.

He actually has a pretty decent eye for photos.  And he giggles the entire damn time.  It's fun to watch him photograph, but MAN does it take seven times as long to go for a walk when he is taking pictures.  He takes a LOT of pictures.  "Hmmmm.  Wonder where he gets that from?" muses John...

So, yeah.  We need a bigger hard drive.

Here's a very, very small sampling of Dexter's portfolio.  Totally un-edited.