Carving the pumpkin

Our second year of doing a pumpkin for Halloween, and once again Colin did not want to stick his hand into the pumpkin to scoop out all the stuff! "That's yucky" he says. I did get him to reach into the pumpkin to get the pieces that I cut out for the mouth, nose and eyes.

Bob's main interest in pumpkins is to collect the pumpkin seeds and roast them for eating. Yum yum yum!

International day

Colin borrowed a friend's china boy outfit for Montessori's International Day Celebration. He made a really cute china boy!

New treehouse / sandbox

Colin and Nathan finally have a sandbox complete with a tree house on top of it ... and they could not be happier!

The first day, all Nathan wanted to do was climb to the top of the tree house, and then he couldn't get down. He has finally stopped climbing to the top.

Now all I have to do is convince Colin not to take the sand out of the sandbox.

Potty training?

Nathan went pee in the potty last night!! He is only 21 months old and already showing an interest in the potty. He does see Colin using the toilet all the time and won't leave Colin alone in the bathroom! So last night, after Colin went to the bathroom, Nathan said "ppah" and tried to take his shirt off. I don't know what the thing is with the shirt. I guess it just represents getting changed. So I put him on the little potty, and there was pee when he got up. Not a lot, but he gets the idea!

Even this morning, Nathan was saying "ppah" and lifting his shirt up, then he became what we call a "stinky boy". If I wasn't so tired and had a little more initiative, I think I could've got Nathan to go number two in the potty.

However, I don't think that this means we can start thinking about buying less diapers. It's just really nice that he is taking an interest in it so early. Maybe Nathan will surprise me ... that would be great!

Monster spray

So I mentioned in the last post about Colin and monsters. At the end of the summer, he started showing a serious interest in "scary stories" before bed. Like having us make up a scary story for him. You know it's really hard to come up with a scary story for your 3-year-old that's not going to traumatize him.

Then one night a couple of weeks ago, Bob was putting Colin to bed and said that Colin was complaining about monsters in his room. I don't know where it came from but immediately I had an idea! I took some of my body spray into his room and told him it was "Monster Spray"! That monsters didn't like the spray so all we had to do was spray the room and where ever the monsters were and they would go away. He went to bed after that. I was really surprised I only had to do it one night.

But then the other night, as we were walking home from the Candler Park Fall Fest in the dark. Colin was saying stuff about monsters and how they like the dark and we might see some monsters on the way home but I was there so it was okay. The whole time I was telling him that there are no monsters. Didn't realize I was contradicting myself, because first I use monster spray to keep the monsters away, then I say that there are no monsters.

The monster spray definitely worked better than just telling him that there are no monsters. But I don't know how comfortable I am with encouraging the monster idea. Although, he seems to like the idea of monsters and being a little afraid. I mean he is not petrified or irrational about them or anything. I should try to be a little more consistent though.

Candler park fall fest

New Hats from Fall Fest

My goal was to go to the Candler Park Fall Fest before Nathan's nap today. Dad is still on his 2-week trip to Asia, and I just wanted to get out of the house with the kids, because if I spend too much time with them in the house, I get a little ... let's just say cranky, although pyscho might be a better word. Well, plans don't always work out the way you want.

It started with Nathan waking up at 6am. I would like to blame the change of plans on the contractor that was suppose to be here in the morning and didn't come until after lunch, but that would not be fair. The festival didn't open until noon, and Nathan was really ready for his nap by 1pm. That doesn't leave a lot of time to walk to the festival which is a little over one-mile from our house, do lunch and walk back. So the plan was modified to go after Nathan's 3-hour nap. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that I need to work on being more flexible with the plan, and I hope I accomplished this a little better today. Still room for a lot of improvement though.

So Nathan woke from his nap and before I know it, it's 1.5 hours later, man it takes a long time to get out of the house with 2 kids (phone call from the in-laws does not help either). Finally we are on our way to the festival! Which I mentioned is over one-mile away, and I'm walking a double stroller, and Colin wants to walk at the beginning. Talk about a long walk. But we made it and bought some tye-dye hats for Colin and Nathan, www.dyelaughing.com. Other vendors that I talked to and want to make note of:
* sandra meyer gallery, www.sandrameyergallery.com , who have a son almost Colin's age exactly -- Noah turns four in December. Sandra has amazing landscape/abstract like almost asian-like oils that I really want to get!
* Cherokee Creations, http://webpages.charter.net/delmoody/Del/ , Del Moody is a Metal Artist that creates really cool trees that I could really see on our fence outside. Need to ask him if the artwork can be hung outside.
* Jennifer Hyatt, Metal Art, Whimsical Iron Design, no website. Her card has a phone number 901-458-7446, but I don't know how realistic it is that I would be calling. Well, her stuff would look really good on the fence outside as well. There was a great seahorse and a sun/moon sculpture.
* Emma Jane Antiques, emmajaneantiques@gmail.com but no website. They have a large warehouse of antique stained glass windows in Marietta. Call Ed for an appointment, 678-907-4008.
* Operation Boot Camp, www.operationbootcamp.com, not art but for me to get into shape.

Anyway, we headed out of the festival really late, so it was dark by the time we got home. Colin talked about monsters the whole way home. I kept telling him that monsters were not real, but being he is 3 1/2 years old, I think it's a hard concept for him. I will blog more on that subject!

We are going to try and go to the festival again tomorrow.

Putting Nathan to bed

So Bob went on a 2-week trip to Asia, and I'm at home with the kids. The last time he went on an international trip, I had my mom fly down to Atlanta so I wouldn't kill the kids! That was only for one week. This time I am more confident with my abilities -- I hope! We also found a part-time nanny that is helping out a lot too!

So Bob left last Tuesday morning and the nanny came Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week during the day while I went into the office. The most major issue that I've had during that time was putting Nathan to bed, although this started even before Bob left. Every night Nathan would cry for almost an hour. I couldn't do anything to get him to lay down. This was Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night. Thursday night, the nanny put Nathan to bed because I had a Festival meeting and everything went fine, of course! The nanny mentioned that she couldn't find his night light so she left the light on. We have a dimmer light, so that's not a big deal, but it got me thinking, we usually turn the light off when we leave. Could be that Nathan has gotton to a point in his development that he is now aware of the light being turned off and does not like it. So Friday night, after spending the day with him because I did not go into the office for the first time in three days, I got a night light for Nathan and left the light on a little bit, and he went to bed for me with little trouble. He did start crying about 45 minutes after putting him to bed, but it only took me 10 minutes or so to get him settled down. Yahoo! I was so excited. Then tonight, it was even easier!

We will see how things go Tuesday night when the nanny comes back. However, next week she is only doing two days, not three days, which I think will be better.

Colin eats something green

Okay, call me a bad mom, but Colin does not eat anything green anymore. Sure when he was a baby, he started out on vegetables and actually preferred veggie baby food to the fruits. That was baby food though. Then when he switched to table food (which was at about 16 months or so!), he would go through phases. There was the bean stage where he lived off of beans -- mostly Moe's black beans. Then the cheese stage where is was smoked gouda all the time. He has always been a yogurt addict. Although when Nathan was born, he decided that Yobaby Yogurt (a brand of yogurt that he preferred) was for babies, so he didn't eat that anymore. He still eats yogurt, just not Yobaby yogurt.

So now Colin does mostly carbs, very little fruit (an occasional apple), no veggies, and much to Bob's delight, has started meats. Colin loves steak. He will eat wings too. But not a cheeseburger.

Anyway, last night we went to Doc Chey's, our favorite noodle place. The kids both do really well eating at Chinese, I think it's the chop sticks that makes it fun for them. And Doc Chey's has this special way of making chop sticks with "training wheels". They take the sticks and rubber band them together with a piece of rolled up paper so it acts like a spring and makes the sticks real easy to use.

Bob ordered edamame for an appetizer, which is steamed soy beans. Once upon a time Colin ate this and called them 'squeeze beans'. So we start eating the 'squeeze beans' and Colin wants to try them. He ate so many, it was great! Gives me hope about our finicky little eater.