Z gets glasses; M gets silly

Here is the first of two pairs of glasses Miss Z got today:

It was really hard to find glasses that fit her & looked good. All the frames made for kids her age looked ridiculous on her. Her face shape is so round -- or maybe it's square? -- anyway, they sort of just sat there in the middle of her face. She looked like a little owl. Most of the frames for bigger kids were too big for her face (these are a tiny bit big, but won't be for very long at the rate she's growing). And anything light-colored really didn't look good on her. They just sort of disappeared into her face. These two pairs (I'm saving the second pair for tomorrow) were really the ONLY two I liked.

Now if we could just figure out a way to keep them on her. Even with the special ear pieces that loop almost all the way around her ear, she rips them off every time I look away, or even if I merely blink. I'm especially worried about keeping them on her at preschool, since that's the place she's really most likely to do something to hurt her eye. If anyone knows any magic tricks for keeping glasses on an 18 month-old, let me know! Duct tape? Staples, maybe?

While B & I were walking around the block last night (which took nearly an hour, partly because I was barefoot, and partly because we kept stopping to talk to neighbors), M and Z seized the digital and took a self-portrait:

I must say, I'm a tiny bit jealous that Z can wear bright orange and lime green so well. She really looks stunning in both. I, on the other hand, would look either orange or lime green in these two outfits.

PS - Thank you Nana!

2 parties and a hike

Hiking is one of my absolute favorite things to do, and it makes me so happy that one of my favorite people, my B, is beginning to like hiking too. The two of us took a quick one-mile hike yesterday evening. We ran a lot, climbed on rocks, waved sticks around, threw rocks in a stream, and picked apart seed pods. It was divine. Now I just need to get him to move faster than a mile an hour, so we can do some "real" hiking. Maybe by next summer.

And when we got back home, M had made dinner for us all! He even did the dishes afterward. I definitely married the right guy, didn't I?

On Saturday morning, we went to a birthday party for B's friend Brooke. She is one of the few girls he will admit to liking. It was fun, and B can't think of anything better than cake in the morning.

The hat in the hiking pictures was a favor from this party. I told him he looked like a Jayhawk with that hat on, and he rolled his eyes at me and told me Jayhawks don't have orange tongues. I asked him how he knew that, and when he'd seen a Jayhawk's tongue, and got a big sigh and some four year-old sass in return.

Today, we had my parents, my grandfather, and my brother and his family over. Today was my dad's birthday, and my mom's was 10 days ago. She was out of town for her birthday, so we celebrated it today too. With more cake, of course. Wow, what a weekend for B -- two cakes!

And I'll leave you with this picture of Kenai, who has the mistaken belief that he is a lap dog. He was aiming for B's lap here, but the smart B got out of the way just before that 95 pound hunk of puppy love landed in his 35 pound lap. We still don't know what Kenai is, by the way. The test results should be here any day, and you'll know as soon as I do. The votes seem to favor lab + greyhound so far, and several neighbors who know him agree. He's certainly lazy like a greyhound.

Attack of the killer geese

Yesterday we went to the park to feed the ducks. It was me, B, Z in her stroller, and my friend Laurieann. Apparently word got around really fast that we were there with food, and the geese came over and chased off the ducks. The geese started getting rather aggressive, and we actually got scared. We started to run -- me pushing Z in the stroller, holding onto the bag of bread, my purse, and the camera, and Laurieann (who I should mention is four months pregnant and was wearing high heels) carrying B. We were laughing so hard it was actually a real challenge to get away, a challenge compounded by one particularly persistent and fast goose. I kept turning around & trying to snap his picture before he got close enough to bite me. This is the only one that really turned out. Notice his blurry feet -- that vicious monster is running right at me!

Thank goodness we all managed to escape without being bitten.

Spring at last

Yesterday was a near-perfect day -- 70 degrees, sunny, and no wind. It was also a free day at the botanic gardens, so Z and I went while B was in preschool. Apparently every other mom in the city had the same idea, because it was a stroller traffic jam by 10am. Fortunately, we arrived at 9am when they opened, and were hightailing it out the front gates as the mayhem ensued. Here are some pictures of the lovely Z at the gardens:

After preschool, both kids rode their bikes on the driveway. It was Z's first try. She wore B's old helmet, which was a little big and kept tipping down over her eyes. Believe it or not, that didn't slow her down a bit. She rode her little motorcycle all the way to the end of the driveway, by herself, twice. B rode in circles around her while she did this. Fortunately, there were no crashes and no injuries to report.

B got ahold of the camera again last night, and he and his daddy took a self-portrait:

Have you ever visited mycathatesyou.com? If not, you should drop by sometime. It's pretty funny. I don't need to visit a website though; I'm living it. I took the cats in for their shots last weekend, and they both hate me now. Lulu actually hisses at me; Kitten just avoids me. Lulu also took a chunk out of the back of my calf yesterday. She claimed it was an accident, but I don't believe it. Maybe she was just getting even for the lion Halloween costume we put on her last year:

Two months

February 17, 2008

March 18, 2008

April 19, 2008

Stinky butt

That's what my darling, sweet B called me this morning. What a way to start the day.

Some photos of springtime in Colorado, taken yesterday evening. Oh, and the day before yesterday it was in the 80s. Today it's back up into the 40s and the snow is almost melted.

Do you see the robin in the last picture? The snow must have brought out the worms, because B & I counted seven of the fattest robins I've ever seen in the front yard at one time.

Did you ever do this?

I can't believe I forgot to tell this story here. This actually happened almost two weeks ago. B, Z and I were baking some bread, and after I put it in the oven, I put the kids at the table and gave them a snack. B had fruit snacks. They're smaller than your average fruit snack, diamond-shaped and probably about 1/4" long on each side. Well, about two minutes into the snack, B suddenly started screaming hysterically.

I rushed over to see what was wrong. "I put a fwuit snack in my nose, and now it won't come out! Waaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!" I stifled my laughter, and laid him down on the floor. I shone a flashlight up his nose; no sign of a fruit snack. Then I did what our friend Michael said their pediatrician told them to do when their son stuck a bean up his nose (they didn't find out until his breath started to stink & they took him to the doctor to find out why): plug the nostril without the fruit snack in it, and blow in his mouth. I did this hoping a fruit snack would shoot out the other nostril, but no such luck. So I called the pediatrician.

As soon as the bread was out of the oven, we shuttled over to the pediatrician's office, just five minutes away. She looked up there with a light and didn't see anything. By this time I was beginning to doubt the existence of a fruit snack in his nose, but I kept mum. The pediatrician said it was better to be safe than sorry, and sent us upstairs to an ear, nose and throat specialist. He looked up B's nose with all sorts of fancy instruments, and reported that there was no fruit snack in that nose. After all that drama, it was too late to cook dinner, so we hit the OK Coyote for burritos and a nice big margarita for Mommy.

I must admit, when I was around his age (4), I once stuck a Kraft mac-n-cheese noodle up my nose, just to see what would happen. After a panicky few moments during which I realized it's hard to get a noodle out of your nose just by blowing (the air goes right through the tube!), I got it out without notifying the babysitter. I believe that was the last time I stuck anything up my nose. In fact, I'm pretty sure of it.

How about you? What did you put in your nose when you were little, and how did you get it out? Now remember, this is a family-friendly blog, so I don't want to hear about anything you might have put in your nose in your teens or twenties!

Part boy, part monkey

B has been taking a rock-climbing class at one of the city rec centers. I've thought for a long time that he'd love this class, but I couldn't get him to it because it's only held on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, when normally I'm at work. I'm taking advantage of my maternity leave to finally get him into this class.

Last week was the first class, and he was awesome! He climbed so high, his feet were above his teacher's head. This week he wasn't so into it for some reason. He's been struggling a lot these past few days with not being an only child anymore (more on that in another post, maybe later this week), and I think all of that may have dampened his enthusiasm some. Or maybe he was just feeling more boy than monkey today.

In the picture below, he was playing Animal Rescue. There's a stuffed cow on the handhold above his head, and his job was to climb up there and rescue the cow. I thought this was a very creative way to encourage kids to learn to climb. (I just love that tuft of hair that sticks out of the back of his head. Some mornings I try to wet it and comb it down, but most of the time I just leave it. It's the perfect look for a four year-old boy.)

And of course, as always, Z wanted to be just like her ga-ga:

Me and my B

First off, I'm so glad my "What is Kenai?" post got more comments than the lice post. It bothered me that my grossest post of all time was apparently the most popular.

Second, a word about lurkers. Hi! A couple people calling themselves "long-time lurkers" signed in to leave comments last week. I love that! And I think that sentiment is universally true of most "mommy bloggers" and those of us in the adoption community. We like to hear from you. And really, it's the best way to feel like you're a part of the community. If you comment on someone's blog, chances are good that they will then visit your blog, as will others who see your comment. I've made some wonderful friends online, which was something I didn't expect at all when I started blogging almost a year ago. So speak up! As long as you're nice (and all my readers are), you're welcome here and we like hearing what you have to say.

Third, and I really should have put this first, ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!

KU rolled right over North Carolina on Saturday night like they weren't even there. Take that, Roy Williams! We'll teach you to be a traitor! The national championship is tonight, Kansas vs. Memphis, 7pm MDT on CBS. Don't miss it. You can be sure I'll be glued to the TV, wishing I was there.

I'm a big dork and didn't take any pictures this weekend. Sorry. It was mostly uneventful. The highpoint for me was getting to spend Sunday morning with B. I've been really missing the time I used to spend with him alone on B-Mommy Super Fun Days (aka Fridays). I don't think we've gotten to do anything fun with just the two of us since before we went to China. But this Sunday, B and I went to the park. We played on the playground, walked around the lake, threw rocks in the water, picked up cattails, played hide-n-seek (his giggles give him away the instant I say "ready or not, here I come"), played on the playground some more, played hide-n-seek on the playground, invited a new friend to play hide-n-seek on the playground with us, and then got donuts on the way home. It was awesome. He's such a sweet, affectionate, fun kid to be around, and I totally enjoyed our morning.

I think it was good for him too. He needed a little undivided Mommy attention. It's hard learning to be a big brother, and seeing your baby sister get attention from your parents. His struggle with it has been coming out at bedtime, with him doing a lot of screaming and crying, pulling every trick he's got out of his hat to get us back into his room, and has ended up with him claiming to be afraid of his room. Last night at bedtime, we looked under the bed together, and in both of his closets. We pushed his bookshelves up right next to his bed so the "scary side" of the bed had a solid side rather than a scary dark crack between the bed and the shelves. We also left his lamp on until after he went to sleep. It worked beautifully at bedtime -- he went right to sleep without any hissies -- but he still woke me up three times during the night to tell me he was scared. We'll have to refine our strategy tonight to find a way to end that.

What is Kenai?

Yes, he's a dog. That much we know. But what KIND of dog do you think he is?

Before you guess, go back and review my sister's post about her dog Moo. A just-for-fun genetic test revealed that she (Moo, not my sister) was mostly miniature pinscher, with measurable amounts of poodle, miniature schnauzer and german shepherd in the mix.

Well, my sister sent me an extra genetic testing kit they had, and we're going to test Kenai. I'm taking guesses on what he'll turn out to be.

Some key facts about Kenai to help you in your analysis:

1. He's huge: 95 pounds of puppy love, with very long legs.

2. In spite of his size, he's very sweet and gentle. He's wonderfully tolerant and patient with the kids.

3. He's smart. M would argue with me on this, but Kenai has been very trainable. He learned to heel in about a day, and he'll go into a down-stay while we're eating and rarely try to get up until I tell him OK. Dumb dogs aren't easily trained, in my opinion.

4. He's lazy. That dog sleeps all the time, and you eventually end up dragging him on hikes and runs.

And some more pictures of Kenai:

Our best guess on Kenai has always been mostly labrador, with maybe some german shepherd thrown in. The shape of his head and his perky & expressive ears are what make me think shepherd. But given Moo's heritage, maybe Kenai is something entirely different.

I'm going to guess chihuahua and poodle. Would that be a choodle? Or maybe a chihuapoo? Or a poohuahua perhaps? Poohuahua. That fits his personality best I think.

What do you think he is? The first person to correctly guess wins temporary custody of Kenai while we're back east this summer. Just kidding. There's no prize, other than the smug knowledge that you know much more about dog breeds than the rest of us.

The world through the eyes of a 4 year-old

B took possession of the digital camera last weekend, and these were his best shots:

Images from the weekend

Final Four, baby!

Happy Cat and Jay (a Lego sculpture by M)

Cutest KU fan EVER

Final Four? Rock chalk Jayhawk!

Playing cooperative patty-cake:

Blurry, but too sweet to delete

Spring is right around the corner

The view from our front yard, looking straight up

Mustache Madness

**********BREAKING NEWS**********

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blogcast to bring you this breaking news: M won "best overall mustache" in the Mustache Madness 2008 competition. Way to grow facial hair, dude. You da man. And collectively they raised $1,000 for their charity, double what they raised last time around.

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This is something that started at M's old job, two or three years ago. Everyone has scattered to different companies now, but the tradition lives on. For the month of March, he and all his buddies grow beards. Then on the 31st, everyone shows up at work with just a mustache, and there's a contest with various prizes. It's actually a fundraiser for Trips for Kids -- each entrant has to pay $20, and each vote is $5. Some people go for crazy mustaches, and there are always a few fakes too (usually sported by the female entrants), but M always goes for an ordinary old, Magnum PI-style 'stache. He figures that few 30-something men go for that look, so it'll make people wonder. Oh, it makes people wonder, all right. Even he called it the "molestache." I'm happy to report that he came downstairs clean-shaven last night, now that Mustache Madness 2008 has ended.

Before: Grizzly Adams

After: Molestache