Rett Walking

Rett is becoming a walking expert. He loves it! He walks much more than he crawls now and he still thinks it is so funny :) We finally got a video of it.

It still surprises us to see him walking around the house and I love watching his chubby legs moving. Before we know it he will be running!

Life with James

As spirited, strong-willed, emotional, determined, and exasperating as James can be, life is never boring with him around. We are usually either wanting to pull our hair out or laugh out loud, but it is never dull :)

Since he talks nonstop from the moment he wakes up until bedtime, there are so many moments throughout the day when he says such funny things! Here are a few recently:

-While I was strapping him in his car seat, he looked at me and said, "Santa is weird". I said, "why do you say that? He brings you presents and he is nice!". He replied, "yeaaaah. But sitting in his lap is so weeeeird!" I didn't know what to say to that one. I never thought about it before, but I guess it is kind of weird. I mean, we never make him sit in anyone else's lap and ask for presents.

-One afternoon James kept coming out his room during quiet time to say he needed to go potty and would then just play in the bathroom until I made him go back to his room. A few minutes later he would say he needed to go and the cycle would start all over again. After about the fourth time, he came out of the bathroom with no pants or underwear on and just wandered around the room. I said, "Hey buddy! Did you go potty? Do you need to wipe?". He cocked his head to the side and said, "weeeeelll...it's a mystery," and walked out of the room. 

-One morning James came into our room and gave me a stern look. He said, "Mommy. I don't want you to be in here. I want you to be out there! (Pointing to the living room)" As we were walking out of the room, he gave me another frown and said, "I'm gonna have to send you to Grandma!".

-As we were driving in the car James informed me that, "tomorrow I am going to a band. I'm bringing my guitar and my piano and my stool. Tomorrow. Ok?"

-Rett was sick and had a high fever so we took him to get his ears checked. James likes to take the instruments and look in ears and eyes, and he insisted on looking in my eyes. He looked through the scope and said, "yep. blue."

-We were watching a Gator football game and James had lots of opinions about it: "Sometimes the red ones and the white ones don't have any more energy. That's why they fall." Then a few minutes later, "Mommy, those guys don't need underwear. They just don't."

-After seeing 3 different almost-crashes in the grocery store parking lot because of people not paying attention and driving WAY too fast, I started ranting in the car about people and their careless driving. After a few minutes, James asked me, "So Mommy. You gonna cry now or not?"

-James is a master negotiator. He has an argument for everything and will not stop until you have heard his entire reason or explanation. We had a box of miniature Oreos and James decided that he needed some. He came up to me and said, "Can I have a cookie?". I thought about it for a little bit and said, "No, I don't think so". Undeterred, James said, "Can I have just one cookie?". They are so small I caved and said, "Ok, I guess you can have one". Immediately James came back with, "Can I have three?" (holding up his three fingers). I said, "No!! I just said you can only have one!". He replied, "Ok, how about two?"

-Since James graduated to a twin sized bed, we have made it part of our bedtime routine to lie down with him right before he goes to sleep. After stories, prayers, and brushing teeth, we climb into bed and set the timer on our phone for a few minutes. When the timer goes off we give him a last kiss and hug and get up to leave. Every time James will wrap his arms around our neck in a big bear hug and make a machine noise out of his nose. He has told us that this is the sound of his "lock" locking so that we can't leave. Then we have to tickle him to "unlock" it so we can leave.

We sure do love our cute, funny, unique little boy!

Rett's first steps!

Last night Rett took his first steps!! He has been standing up on his own for a long time now, but when he wants to get somewhere he always drops down and starts to crawl. Yesterday we were playing with puzzles on the floor and I decided to try to get him to walk. I helped him get his balance and held my hands out for him and he just started to walk forward like it was no big deal! I couldn't believe it! James was right next to me on the floor and was just as excited as I was. I got Rett to do it one more time and we were all clapping and cheering for him. The third time, he immediately sat right back down on his bottom and James laughed and laughed. Of course, that got Rett laughing, so now he thinks that is what he is supposed to do :) Every time I try to get him to balance and walk toward me, he immediately drops down on his bottom, smiles, and waits for you to laugh. Little stinker!

 He is still working on his 4th tooth, one of the top front ones. He only has one on the top that is fully in and it makes his smile so funny :)

 He also really likes the swings.

Yesterday he also waved for the first time (or least the first time we noticed). Compared to James he seems like such a baby to me, that I never expect him to do things like waving. Then Anthony tells me all the stuff that he should be doing and I don't believe him. He will be a little baby for forever!!

People tell me all the time what a calm and happy baby he is, and that is still true. He is really happy and easy going, except when it comes to denying him food. This boy enjoys his meals! He has also started to get a little more vocal when James is around, and will cry more often and louder when James messes with him. I think he is building up his defense mechanisms! He has also started to be a really social laugher and will copy anybody laughing at any time. Sometimes if you just start laughing for no reason, he will laugh and laugh until he gets the hiccups.

He is still attached to me, but not as much as he used to be. He doesn't cry when I leave him at home or at the daycare at the gym, but if someone is holding him and he sees me, he will reach and lean over towards me until I take him. He has gotten so wiggly that he doesn't cuddle nearly as much, but when he is tired he will melt into you. When strangers come up to him, he will smile, but he puts his face in my shoulder at the same time. 

He is such an easy going, sweet, funny, goofy, squishy little boy and we love him to pieces!

Trip to Grandma's Day 3

Saturday morning we had a lot planned. We moved the car seats to Daniel's car and drove into Gainesville. James loves Daniel's car. It is black, sleek, and has tons of buttons. After we got both boys strapped in and we were ready to go, James was laughing and saying, "It's like a rocket ship!". As we were pulling out of the driveway he said, "3,2,1 blastoff!"

Our first stop was to a thrift store that looked fun to browse. They had so much stuff! Daniel found some old computer keyboards and James found a small gumball machine and a toy race car. I thought it was so funny that he has no idea that it is a gumball machine, he says that is a machine for marbles. In fact, it is in his marble run box right now, full of marbles :)

Once we got into Gainesville, we drove around Shands and UF for awhile to see all the new buildings that have gone up. It has grown so much in 5 years! We stopped at the football stadium to get out and show James where the Gators play. He was mostly excited for the steps, he really enjoyed going up and down the steps at the game the night before. The access door to the field was unlocked, so we got to run around on the field and make pretend touchdowns. Technically I don't think you are allowed to play on the field, but we couldn't resist :)

 James wanted to check out the other side of the stadium, so my mom and Daniel took Rett back towards the car. Of course they had to get a picture of him on the bull gator! (The goldfish was already in his mouth when they got there. My mom said she made sure to not show Rett otherwise he would eat them up. My smush loves to eat!)

 James and I went around to the other side of the stadium and went through the opposite exit. There is a smaller gator on that side, so James got to check one out too!

After the football stadium, we explored the natural history museum and their discovery play area. James mostly wanted to check out the fountain outside, so we made sure to visit it when we left. We gave him a few pennies to throw in and make a wish. He wished for a cupcake and tried to hit the water spray with his penny.

Next we met up with my brother Alex for lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. We were all starving! James ate 2 baskets of the free chips, was relatively calm, and didn't run around the entire restaurant, which tells you just how tired he was! Rett ate pretty much everything I had in the diaper bag for him. I don't think he has a full setting :) After we were all stuffed, we got back in the car and headed towards home. We had to make a quick stop at a playground James had his heart set on playing in, but we were all so tired and cold that he didn't argue about leaving after 10 minutes or so. Rett fell fast asleep almost as soon as he was strapped in his car seat.

When we got home, James had quiet time in his room while Rett finished napping so that we could all recharge and get ready for trick or treating! There were so many houses with fun Halloween decorations and we were excited about visiting them. When I was packing I couldn't find all of the parts of Rett's Incredibles costume, so I brought a Tigger one for him. James was excited to be an Incredible again, but he also wanted his jacket zipped up all the way so I don't think many people realized what he was. Either way, he was still cute!

 In their neighborhood, if you are handing out candy, you sit outside with it, so we never even rang a doorbell or knocked on a door. Our first stop was this guy sitting in his car with his dog.

 Our next stop was one James had been looking forward to because of all of their spider decorations. He kept reminding us to "be careful and don't get caught in their sticky web!". After he got his candy, he wanted to go inside their house and see more decorations. He was disappointed when I told him that we weren't going inside.

 This guy had a pretty scary mask on while handing out candy, so I wasn't sure if James would go up to him or not, but he wasn't scared at all! He actually thought it was kind of funny!

At one of the houses, we walked up and the lady immediately recognized us. She said, "I know you guys! I was sitting behind you at the football game!". She looked down at James and said, "James right?". It was so funny! We said James' name soooo many times that night, trying to make sure he didn't run away or get in anyone's face. I'm sure his name is seared into her brain :)

This is just one picture of one street of trick or treaters. There were seriously so many people!! You could barely walk down the street without bumping into someone and there were lines when you went up to someone's house to get candy. It was fun to see all the costumes. We counted 11 different Elsa's from Frozen :)

 This was just one of the houses' decorations. Spooky!

James lasted about an hour and then he was done. He couldn't even keep walking, he cried and cried until I agreed to carry him the rest of the way home. Once we got back to my mom's house I left to go pick up dinner and came back to find him with tired, glassy eyes, in the same position I left him in, halfway through a blowpop, with red sticky candy juice all over his face. He was partied out!

The next day we went to church in the morning and then came home and packed up the car. I was sooo sleepy on the drive home, but thankfully so was Rett. He slept most of the way! I did get to see a black bear when we were driving through the national forest, so that was really neat. The best part of the day though was making it home in time for Anthony to feed the boys dinner and get them ready for bed. It was a fun, but very exhausting trip!

Trip to Grandma's Day 1 & 2

For Halloween weekend I decided to take the boys to my mom's house for a little change of scenery and for some hard core trick or treating. This is James' first year of going door to door and my mom's town is so small, that everyone in the county drives in to her neighborhood. It makes trick or treating so much more fun to see everyone participating! We were gone for four days and Anthony stayed home to work and fish :) He said he was going to miss us, but he was also looking forward to spending all of his free time fishing and working on his aquarium. (Although truthfully, that doesn't look that much different from normal everyday life for him...)

My car had been acting strange a week before the trip, so we borrowed Anthony's parents' car while we got it fixed. It was so fun to drive around a different/newer car! James loved it too, he was sad when we had to give it back. It only took a few days for them to fix the long list of things that were wrong with it and it cost us $900 (!) but hopefully that will last us for the next few years. This was our first time doing any kind of repair on it since we bought it 5 years ago, so it was time. I was a little nervous about the 3 hour drive to my mom's house with both boys, but at least I felt secure that the car wouldn't act up (or so I thought, but I will get to that later).

Thursday morning I loaded up the car with all of our stuff and hit the road. Poor Rett is still in a rear-facing car seat so he got sun in his eyes for a lot of the drive and was crying. James was actually really sweet with him. He would try to get him to laugh and then say, "See Retty? It is funny to have sun in your eyes!" We only had to stop once when James had to pee. He drank 3 cups of milk before we even left the house, but flat out refused to use the bathroom before we left. Sure enough, 1 hour in he piped up from the back seat, "Mommy? Does Grandma's house have a potty? Cause I need to go". We were in the middle of nowhere driving through the Ocala National Forest, so I had to just pull over and let him pee in the grass on the side of the road. Oh well. What are you going to do?

Friday morning I went to Zumba with my mom while my brother Daniel watched the boys. Then we came home, changed, and went to lunch with one of my mom's friends. James was pretty antsy during lunch and I could tell he wanted to run around and play, so after lunch we went to the library where I thought he would like this really cool wooden train display they had. He was excited about it at first, but then got really mad that it wasn't a real train you can get in and drive. So we got out of there and went to the park. We played for a long time at the park and he had a great time until he slipped in a puddle and hit his head :( He was so hysterical that it was definitely time to go home. We got into the car and it wouldn't start!!! Can you believe it? I called Daniel to come check it out and thankfully it turned out to be an old lose cable on my brand new battery that needed to be replaced. Jiggling the cable got it to start up again and Daniel volunteered to replace the cable and do some other tuning up to my car.

I was so happy to not have to worry about my car and just let someone else take care of it, so I went inside the house. A little while later, Daniel came inside with this strange look on his face. He said, "Soooo, when your car is running it automatically locks when you close the door?". Yep. He accidentally locked the keys in the car, with the car running. Anthony had the spare key in Edgewater, so we were stuck. First we spent a good 45 minutes trying to nudge the lock with a coat hanger, but it is much harder than it looks in the movies!

Finally we broke down and called AAA and an hour and a half later, the locksmith showed up. At this point my car had been running for about 2 hours! Even the locksmith had a little trouble getting it unlocked.

 After a couple of different tries, he finally got a hold of a window button on the drivers side and lowered the back window. Success!

While we were outside waiting for the locksmith, we also realized that my tires looked low on air. After we got the car turned off, Daniel checked them and they only had half as much air as they were supposed to! We pumped my tires up right away. We also discovered that while we were trying to unlock the door with the coat hanger, we disconnected the lock on the driver's side door so that the key didn't work in the door. Luckily Daniel was able to take off the door panel and reconnect it. It was a rough day for my car!

Even though Friday night was Halloween, it was also the day of the town's high school football game. High school football is such a big deal there that they rescheduled trick or treating for Saturday! Of course, I wanted to check out the football game and see what all the fuss was about. It was really fun, but also really cold. It was in the 40's!

Their mascot is a tiger and James loved watching him dance around and try to get the crowd going. He even got to give him a high five! We also had a good time watching the team come out on the field through a cloud of fog and listening to the fun music that they play for different things (fouls, touchdowns, time outs, etc...). James played on the bleacher steps and ran around by the field most of the time. We made it through the half-time show before we decided it was too late and cold to be out there. After we got home and I got both boys in bed, I stayed up late watching cooking shows on food network with my mom and Daniel. I hardly ever miss cable, but I miss the food network!