Photogenic

And then she went and sent some more pictures! Darn him for being so cute :)

A Visit from Aunt Teri and Uncle Jon

Aunt Teri and Uncle Jon were in for the weekend and spent a lot of time with Mr. B! On Friday we went to the zoo with Aunt Teri. We saw all of the monkeys. The zoo volunteers were a bit aggressive, but we had fun anyway. They were pretty insistent that Brian should call the apes "apes" and not "monkeys." Whatever! He's TWO. One friendly volunteer shared his binoculars with Brian, which was entertaining. He kept holding them to his eyes and saying "cheese!"

On Saturday, Uncle Jon and Aunt Teri babysat. From the pictures Teri sent me, it looks like Uncle Jon got treated to a game of "tickle monster" in our bed.

This is one of Brian's favorite games. They also got the pleasure of watching Brian eat...I mean devour pizza.
Always an adventure! And apparently they golfed with Itz at Nana's. Notice the mismatched clothing and missing shoe. His shirt was a casualty of the pizza earlier in the evening. Can't speak for the shoe, but he's not been a fan of them lately, so chances are he removed it!

Mission Accomplished

We have poo. It's at the lab being evaluated. We will know the results Monday.

Um, let me just tell you that scooping poo out of a diaper with a plastic spoon and trying to get it into a tube is not a fun task. Not.At.All.

Anything for my baby boy though.

The Will of a Two Year Old

Sorry it's been a week since I've posted. Some little boy has been sick. We had lots of poo last week. Then on Thursday we had projectile vomit. Awesome.

Friday we visited the doctor who diagnosed a virus. Longest virus ever IMHO. Anywho, the doc said to call for a collection cup if he wasn't better by Monday. Really?! Awesome.

The weekend was better, but tonight he filled his diaper with the mother load. This was slightly before he opened a "child proof" bottle of children's zyrtec and dumped it all over my kitchen floor. Do you have any idea how sticky my kitchen floor is now? I will be mopping tomorrow. And collecting poo. Awesome.

With the sickies comes the stubborn. Tantrums galore. Brain has what Shawn calls "Gandhi style" tantrums. He goes completely limp, lays down where ever he is, and refuses to move. Last week he did it in a parking lot while we were trying to get Max a hair cut. The ladies inside (once we finally got inside) asked if he was taking a nap out there. I said, "No, he was being TWO out there." Awesome.

And do you know why he was throwing the tantrum in the first place? Because he has this crazy fetish where he MUST take something with him when he leaves a place. In this case we were leaving the car, and I wouldn't let him take a DVD into the hair salon with us. Not the player, just the disc. I am a mean mommy.

We can't leave last night out though because it was by far the most awesome. Brian decided he did not want to wear a diaper after his diaper change. Absolutely refused and then dug through his drawers until he found the new underwear we bought. After rummaging through the bag, he settled on a pair of Wall-E underwear. (You know from the Pixar movie that Brian has never even seen.)

We compromised. He wore a diaper. And the under wear on top. He refused to ruin the look by putting on shorts. So I called mom to check and see if she thought it would be offensive to bring him to meet them at Panera that way. She advised me to let him win one. So to Panera we went. And I took lots of pictures. Because some day, little man, you will regret driving your mama batty!

Summer Time Fun

Just two random pics from today.

Yum ice cream!

Our last day with Max before school starts...

More Leah Time

We had another day with sweet baby Leah yesterday. Brian shared better for the most part. He wasn't too excited about sharing Mommy though! Luckily, Max was here and helped out a lot as he always does. Shawn got to spend some time with Leah after work too. She even took a nap on his shoulder. Below are some pictures from our day.

The water table....a huge hit!

Even Ruben liked it!

The tunnel...another crowd favorite!

Trying to figure out those pesky peddles!

Cozy as can be!

What to Wear, What to Wear?

We had a late night at Uncle Billy and Aunt Bibber's last night and Mr. Brian woke up with a bit of a 'tude this morning. I think he's getting a little bit sick. His nose started to run yesterday. We'll see. Anyway, we had our first melt down this morning over what to wear. He just could not make up his mind between his "choo-choo shirts" and his "Elno shirts."

At first he thought he would just make one of the shirts into a pair of shorts.

But he quickly realized that wouldn't work. (Notice the over sized Abercrombie shirt he is wearing in the picture. His clothes were so sweaty from playing at the farm, Mari loaned him a shirt to wear home. He was so tired when we made it home, that we just let him sleep in it!)
Then he thought he'd go with the layered look. He's wearing 3 shirts in the picture below.
Given that it's 90 degrees (or more) today, he decided that would not be comfy and eventually decided on his blue Thomas shirt.Unfortunately, we had another wardrobe malfunction a little bit later. Apparently Mommy didn't put his diaper on correctly. He peed right through his jean shorts and onto the kitchen floor. Upon inspection, I realized his little boy part was not even in the diaper. Nice one, Mom!

The crankiness was worth it though because he had a blast yesterday. We met up with Brooke and Joe at the dog park and got to play with their cute puppies! They were visiting from out of town and wanted to meet up somewhere they could bring the dogs. It was blazing HOT, but Brian ran in circles pretty much the whole time anyway. He was a sweaty mess!

Then, as I mentioned, we were at Bibber and Billy's last night. But what I didn't mention was that they have a new baby goat named Flower and she's freaking adorable!!


Brian was pretty excited about the goats when we first arrived, but lost interest when he remembered that they have a pool. Mommy's swim suit was dirty, so we decided not to bring swim suits for anyone. Big mistake.

No worries though because at Aunt Bibber's anything goes, so Bib took Brian skinny dipping. Well, he went skinny dipping. She got in with all her clothes on!

My boys taking one last look at the goats...

P.S. I apologize to the future Brian for posting pics of your tushie. It's so cute though!!!

High School Play Date

Michelle, Maureen, Jen, me, Ellen and baby Mary

Today we had a big group of girls from high school and their kiddos over for a play date/lunch date. It was so much fun!

We had SIX kids under 3, my Max of course and 5 adults! There were very few fights or tantrums and everyone enjoyed munching on LaRosa's Pizza and Graeter's Ice Cream. Jen no longer lives in NoKy, so she requested the Cincy foods!
We even managed to get all of the kids to sit on the couch without crying for a few pictures. And for the most part, they were ALL looking at the camera! Now that's something, I tell ya!

Annie, Mary, Brian, Elaina, Ben, Alex and Max

Can't wait to do it again!

Much to Blog About

And really nothing in particular...

We went to the Children's Museum on Saturday. It's fun for kids of all ages!




Sunday was the Hall of Fame game. The Bengals lost. Blah. But Brian was excited to see some football! He really was, don't let the picture fool you. I already said the Bengals lost. His expression was one of extreme annoyance. But, he still enjoyed the idea that football was on in early August!


I prepped him by taking him to training camp last Thursday. SO FUN! He actually sat and enjoyed the action for a whole hour. Pretty good for a 2 year old. And you should hear him yell at the players! He certainly has an opinion about how the game should be played.


Brian learned a new trick. He can now DUMP his toy bins out. Awesome. That boy is strong!

And we had a visit from Leah this week. OMG she is SOOOO STINKING CUTE! We get her next Monday too!!

Brian quickly established the ground rules. He handed her his Curious George monkey as soon as she arrived. Then he picked up baby monkey and yelled, "MINE!." I guess we know which monkey rates in this house.

Things We've Learned This Week

Settling back in at home since our trip has been interesting. Brian's language has really exploded and some days I think I should keep a running list of all the things he says so Shawn can read it when it gets home. He's been quite the little monster this week as well.

One day this week, I heard him cackling from the bathroom. When I asked him what he had done, he said, "Mama, choo-choo in the water." That would be toilet water to be exact. Yup. He flushed a toy train. Just in case you were wondering you can stick your arm into a toilet really far. Luckily it was me and not a professional plumber who retrieved Molly the train.

Lesson 1: NO CHOO CHOOS IN THE WATER!

Brian has turned into a coloring machine lately. He LOVES to color. In fact, on the same day as the train in the toilet incident, I found Brian coloring on the kitchen wall. And later he colored (with a pencil) on the laundry room floor. And don't even get me started on the "ishies" he drew all over the sheet at the Holiday Inn (in pen) on our trip back through Asheville. (I was in the shower and poor Shawn dosed off.)

Lesson 2: WE COLOR ON PAPER!

Tomorrow is only Friday. I wonder what we'll learn...

Welcome to Holland

A dear friend of mine sent me the above title today after coming across an old post on here. I googled it and found a wonderful story that fits my feelings perfectly. There's also a follow up story, "Celebrating Holland, I'm Home." Both put everything into words in a way that I am not able to.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Some Favorites

Alright, I'm tired, but I want to get these pictures up, so I am just going to post some more of my favorite pictures from vacation. Here goes...

Whitney and Garret had Brian riled up at Whit's new apartment! Garret was teaching Brian how to do "head balls" with Whit's beach volley ball. Hysterical! Brian definitely caught Garret by surprise with a kiss goodbye!

The boy ran circles in the sand the last two days! He also enjoyed diving head first into the surf. The life guard was even amused!

More waves, more giggles! (And no creep looking over his shoulder, Jon!)

And a shadow picture! I love these!