We Done Got Us an Above Ground Covered Pool!!

It is a hot and humid Memorial Day weekend here in the 'ville. This afternoon, Bryan decided we would do nakey bath phase two, this time planning ahead enough to fill the pool with water two hours in advance, thus making for a nice and toasty cleansing experience for Jonathan. The only problem was, however, that we have zero shade in our backyard and, as Jonathan was going to bathe at 2:30 p.m., shade was a must. After much discussion, Bryan came up with the ingenious idea to put the card table over the pool, not only creating a lot of shade, but also inventing a whole new play experience for Jonathan. As you can see, he had no trouble making himself at home:



Bryan, who was a precious lamb and did the yard work, enjoyed some relaxing time while Jonathan splashed in the pool:



Apparently, bathing is a tiring experience so he had to lay down:



And with that naked baby butt, I wish all of you a great Memorial Day weekend!!

When Pizza and Yogurt Attack!

Tonight, right as I was getting Jonathan's dinner out of the microwave, my sister called. Bryan was home already so he graciously let me retire to the living room to talk to her and said he could take care of dinner. Imagine my surprise when I saw what occurred:





Obviously they had a great time and Bryan tells me he actually ate a decent amount. Add to that the fact that tonight was a bath night and it was pretty much perfect timing on Bryan's part!

A Woman with a Plan

For those of you who know me in "real life," I LOVE to plan and organize things. Which is one of the numerous reasons why it's great to be a mother--birthday parties! Although Jonathan's second birthday is not until July 2, I have, sadly, been thinking about it since February. I LOVE that Jonathan has a summer birthday because, as a Capricorn, I always had the indoor winter birthday where the whim of the weather could completely ruin a birthday party. So last year, even though it was a billion degrees outside, I was thrilled when July 1 rolled around and we got to grill out with family and godparents for Jonathan's birthday.

This year's party should be substantially similar. Same guest list essentially--I don't see any reason to invite his school friends until he actually KNOWS what a birthday is, which will be sometime the next year or two from what I'm told. Pretty much same food, too, but for BBQ rather than grilling out. I recently, however, developed a theme. I had some free time last week and decided to go shopping for Jonathan's birthday outfit. There is a really great local children's clothing boutique called JB & Me. They have the most ADORABLE things, even for boys, which is definitely a rarity. As soon as I saw this, I knew it was perfect:



You can't tell from the picture, but it actually reverses to solid green with a yellow embroidered chick applique. This outfit inspired me to to go with a fish theme, and, to that end, I found these invitations. I adore stationary, so this was truly a happy moment for me. I am truly a nerd, I know. Now I just have to take my cake decorating class where I am sure I will learn enough to put some sort of fish on a cake. At least I hope so...

As you can probably tell from the commentary above, not a whole lot has been going on around here, which is actually OK with me. We had a great weekend with Jonathan--we went to the zoo again and had a lot of time outside, particularly in the boo-box (aka--sandbox. I have no idea where he got this word!). As I agree with Heather that blogs are naked without pictures, I leave you with one from this evening taken while we "payed" outside before bed:

A New Hobby...Maybe

I was supposed to take the beginner's Wilton's cake decorating class this month, but the day before the first class, the teacher called and said she had to have some procedure done and so had to postpone the class until June. Not a huge deal, but I was pretty bummed about it since it's something I've wanted to do for a while now and I FINALLY got signed up (thanks, hubby!) and now it's not for a few weeks. It will, however, still be in time for me to (hopefully) do a cake for Jonathan's birthday, so all is not lost.

This postponement left me with a misdirected creative spirit. A few months ago, my wonderful mother in law bought us a sewing machine. I am honestly pretty intimidated by it (so happy you feel me here, Kara), but, during a sale at a local fabric store a while back, I decided to buy a simple pattern so I could try to make Jonathan some pyjamas. I thought pyjamas would be good because he'll just wear them around the house and to bed, so if they aren't perfect, they will at least still be wearable. I bought the pattern as well as enough fabric to make two pairs.

Tonight, I finally got the pattern out and read over everything. I believe the folks at Simplicity define "easy" differently than I do as this whole thing seems pretty complicated to me. As you will see from the picture below, however, it very clearly says that it's "easy to sew."



Not that I've gotten to sewing yet. First, I have to cut out a gazillion pieces in order to make what I thought would be a simple set of shorts pajamas. This next picture is the carnage I created with the pattern and scissors. It's actually only five pieces that I had to cut out, but it seemed like A LOT more.



And this last one is me trying to concentrate on cutting everything out properly. Hubby, knowing that I would blog about this (because I'm a big ol' dork), thought it would be fun to snap my picture.



I only got as far as cutting out the pieces, ironing them and determining which layout diagram I needed. That took me an hour and then I was starving for dinner. I'm not sure how well this is going to go, but I hope to be able to post a picture in the next two months (that's not too ambitious, is it?) of Jonathan wearing my homemade pyjamas. Even if they are hideous and the shorts only have one leg hole, I promise to post the results. Wish me luck...

The Great Outdoors

Jonathan has an endearing thing that he does recently. He likes to say "night, night" and lay down, rather stiffly, wherever he happens to be at the time and "go to sleep." Sometimes it's while he's sitting on the couch, sometimes it's while he's in the bathtub and sometimes, shockingly, it's while he's in his crib (where he actually DOES go to sleep).

Most recently, however, it's been while he is playing in the sandbox. He has the Step 2 sandbox, courtesy of my oh-so-generous sister, Laura, that is shaped like a frog. For the uninitiated, this picture should give you an idea (of course, the top with the actual frog face has been removed for play purposes):



Today was a beautiful day in the 'ville and Jonathan desperately wanted to play outdoors. After fairly extended shopping trips to Target and Costco, he'd definitely earned outdoor privileges and straight to the sandbox he went. He played in it for a LONG time and there were several "night, nights" to be had, the end result being the he desperately needed a bath as his hair and half of his face was caked with sand. He was too saturated in sand to actually cross the threshold into the house so Bryan and I had the ingenious idea to give him a bath in the back yard in the kiddie pool. It is something we'd joked about before but never actually put into practice. Tonight, however, we decided to go for it and Jonathan LOVED it, to say the least. We brought out the soap, the rubber duckie, the hooded towel, etc. According to Bryan, J-Man fulfilled a secret desire every man has of bathing in the great outdoors. As you can see, he was quite pleased, so much so that we may not be able to bathe him indoors until November. I have saved the full monty shots for when he brings home his first girlfriend...







As I am typing this, it has become Mother's Day, so Happy Mother's Day to all of you great mothers out there!! You deserve it and I hope you all have the best day ever!!

A Sad Sight

There is this little girl who goes to Jonathan's school. They've been in the same class off and on (she turned 2 in February so is already in the Twos). She is a really sweet little girl and her mother is also very nice.

I heard a while back that her mother and father were having marital problems and then, more recently, I learned they got a divorce. I'd forgotten all this until I saw the mother pull up today and park where you go in to drop your kids off. I noticed that she had an empty car, which was, for obvious reasons, strange since we were, after all, at a child care facility. I noted this and started to pull out of my parking spot when I saw the dad walk down the sidewalk with the little girl and her five-ish year old brother. The mom literally burst out of the car and went over to pick up the little girl, who was crying.

I realized pretty quickly that the dad had the kids over the weekend for visitation and that mom was just reuniting with them briefly before she had to go to work and they had to go to school. I am admittedly very sensitive, but this whole scene made me tear up. I cannot imagine spending the whole weekend separated from Jonathan, just to see him long enough Monday morning to kiss him and take him into school. The whole thing completely broke my heart. It also reminded me that I am really lucky to have such a great hubby and that I need to be thankful for my the wonderful family I have. I know divorce happens and that it's often for good reason. I just plan to do everything in my power to make sure that I never have to see the look on Jonathan's face (or my own) that I saw on the little girl and her mother this morning.

Oaks!!

We had the best time at Oaks!! The weather was definitely NOT wonderful--rain off and on throughout the day. However, our box was under cover, so we did not get rained on. We were also close to bathrooms, food and (most importantly) liquor, and the day was pretty much perfect! The picture above is us with one of our best "couple friends," Joe and Cindy. Aren't they cute?

The picture below is Bryan's uncle, John, and his girlfriend Catherine. John definitely deserves a shout-out here because he treated us to this fabulous day at the track and dinner, too. Thanks, John--you rock!!



I wanted to be sure that we took a nice picture before we started participating in the drinking, betting and general debauchery that goes on at the track. The first one is a "classic" pose and the second is our traditional self-portrait:





We actually won some money at the track, too, which is definitely not the norm for us. We're not now millionaires or anything, but we were able to offset our food and drink and subsequent gambling expenses, so we were pretty happy. I always look at the birthdays of the horses as an indicator of whether I should bet on them (I find it's just as good an indicator as any). With this methodology, I won $$ on the horse that placed second in the Oaks--he had Heather's birthday. Given, I only made $1.60, but I'm generally happy if I win at all. Thanks, Heather!

The rain luckily held off most of the day, at least not becoming a torrential downpour until after the Oaks ran. Unfortunately, we were almost out of Churchill Downs when I realized that, in his mad dash to gather all of our belongings and get back to the car, my hubby had left my purse in the box. So he and I had to go against the 100,000 people trying to leave the track to retrieve it. It was, happily, still there, but it was POURING when we came out. John was ever so kind enough to meet us outside with ponchos so our clothing remained, overall, intact.

However, the rain did not help with the already-destined to be bad traffic situation getting on the interstate and out to Z's Oyster Bar and Steakhouse for dinner. Since it was Oaks' night, the restaurant had a policy where your credit card would be charged $50.00 per person if you were not in the restaurant within 15 minutes of your reservation. This did not make my hubby very happy as it was our credit card that secured the reservation. This picture is in fact what he looked like pretty much until we arrived at the restaurant--that smile is completely fake:



Not to fear, however, because we arrived at the restaurant EXACTLY 15 minutes late, so they did not give up our table. Which is a good thing because the dinner was DELICIOUS. We had Caesar salad, filet, au gratin potatoes and (this was the best part) Godiva chocolate creme brulee. We also enjoyed a couple of bottles of delectable Northstar Merlot. We were more than full when we left but it was completely worth gastrointestinal discomfort!!

We turned in at a modest 10:45 pm and slept soundly until almost 10:30 am Saturday morning. Jonathan had a great time at Nana's, so it could not have been more perfect! It was SO nice to have a whole day of adult-fun, but I was really happy to get my little man back yesterday morning!!

The Results Are In--A 22 Month Old Child CAN Unlock a Car!

About a week ago, I blogged about a new mommy low. Little did I know that was NOTHING compared to what happened today!

As I posted yesterday, Jonathan's school closed early today for the Pegasus Parade. When I got to school to pick him up, I parked on the second floor of the adjacent parking garage rather than right by the door to the school like I usually do when I pick him up. This was because the closer parking spots are limited to a two hour max and I planned to just leave my car there and walk down to our parade viewing seats.

So I go inside to pick J-Man up, like usual. He'd had a great day playing on the inflatables that a business associated with his school had for all the kiddos. I walked him out to the car so I could get our stuff together for the parade. I thought it would be a good idea to let him set in the driver's seat while I got everything out of the trunk. So I put him in the driver's seat and closed the door. He had the keys in his hand, so obviously the car was not running. I got the stroller out of the trunk, set it up by the car, put the brakes on and closed the trunk. Then I went to open the driver's door to get Jonathan out.

It was locked. In fact, all four doors were locked.

Cold sweat engulfs my entire body.

Jonathan had locked the doors and was holding the keys in his hand. My cell phone and in fact all of my personal belongings were in the car with him. I looked around and tried to figure out what to do. I tried, fruitlessly, to get him to push the unlock button on the remote. I was met with laughter as Jonathan pushed the emergency flasher button, tried to fit the keys into the ignition and opened a Coldplay CD case, removing the CD and attempting to place it in the CD player.

Fighting back hysterics, I noticed a guy who'd just pulled in two spots over from me who was getting his little girl out of the car. He was on a cell phone. I guess he had seen me trying to deal with this situation, because when I went over to ask him if he would let me use his cell phone to call my hubby, he immediatley hung up with whomever he was speaking to and and handed me the phone. I told me I just needed to call my husband so he could call AAA. This angel of a man said just to do whatever I needed. I could have kissed him, but I was not in any state even remotely akin to romance. :)

So I called my husband's office and told the receptionist that it was "sorta an emergency." As calmly as possible, I told Bryan the situation and what I needed him to do. I wanted to be sure to tell him everything AAA would need to know as I had no way for him to call me back. He was pretty calm and said he would take care of it. Feeling somewhat relieved, I thanked angel-cellphone-guy profusely and went back to the car to try to convince Jonathan to let me in the car. Still laughing, he responded to my pleas to pick up the keys by banging them against the glass.

Finally, he starts fooling with the door unlock button that is actually on the door. Encouragingly, I told Jonathan "yes, yes, push it up!! Just like a light switch!!", the whole time keeping my hand on the door handle. And, just like magic (which, ironically, is the theme for the Derby festival this year), he actually did it! I opened the door and get him out. This is the point where confetti dropped from the ceiling of the parking garage (not really, of course, but it felt like it!). I got him out and asked him if he was OK, the whole while eveloping him in the tightest hug EVER. He brushed me off and wanted to get in the stroller, reminding me that at least HE didn't know anything was wrong, he was just having fun and, now that car fun was over, wanted to go on a walk.

So after this great adventure, we went on to the parade, where the weather actually cooperated, at least to the extent that it was not pouring! As you can see from the pic below, Jonathan was happy as a clam in the rain poncho Nana bought him. Now if my heart could just stop pounding...

Busy, Busy!

For those of you who aren't Louisvillians, those of us who ARE know that this is the middle of probably the best week ever--Derby Week!! Unfortunately, my office has a lot of clients who are not in the metro area and they apparently have not gotten the message that they are supposed to postpone all legal issues until after the first Saturday in May. So I've been super busy. Which completely sucks.

BUT it's all about to come to an end. I only work a half day tomorrow and then I'm off for the rest of the week. YAY!! Assuming that it does not rain, I am taking Jonathan to the Pegasus Parade courtesy of tickets from my friend Kim. We're going with my mother in law and my nephew. I really hope Jonathan likes it--there are floats, Macy's parade style balloons--all the usually parade regalia. But best of all there will be TRUCKS. Fire trucks, particularly, and I know that Jonathan will like them. AND he finally knows the color red, so I feel fairly certain I will get some rounds of "red tucks!" tomorrow. I can't wait!!

As if that weren't enough excitement, the hubby and I are going to Oaks with his uncle John and his girlfriend on Friday. John was ever so kind enough to buy us tickets and they are actually really good ones--just a couple of rows over from the finish line. We're going to be at Churchill Downs all day and then, as if tickets weren't awesome enough, he's taking us to dinner at a DELICIOUS steak and oyster place afterwards. AND, for the proverbial icing on the cake, my mother in law is going to pick J-man up from school and have him spend the night at her house. I hope it doesn't make me a bad mother that I am SO looking forward to this that I am virtually vibrating with excitement!!

I'll end with some new pics of Jonathan from the past few days. The first two are from this past weekend--the weather was gorgeous and, much to my outdoorsman father's pleasure, my son loves being outside above pretty much all else. This first one is of J-Man outside on Sunday, literally having the time of his life with a rock:



This one is him having entirely too fabulous of a time pushing around the blue bucket we use for weeds:



This next one is from yesterday and is Jonathan actually EATING DINNER. He recently decided to refuse the high chair, so now we're using a booster in the kitchen. It's solved at least some of the food issues I've blogged about previously. It is A LOT messier, but it makes for more food consumption, so I'm completely OK with the compromise:



And the last one is one of my favorites, taken on the day Jonathan was born, all 5 pounds, 13 ounces of him. This is in honor of his 22 month birthday, which was today! I can hardly believe how quickly the time has passed!!