Rocco waiting for a stroller walk
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It's official. Our little Elmo-junkie has caught on... Rocco's walking! He's been taking an odd step or two for a couple weeks, but now he's actually linking them together. (Well, aside from those crawling relapses when he needs to get somewhere in a real hurry, of course.) Go, little baby!! I took some video with bad lighting the other morning. Enjoy...
The good news continues: the crazy, complaining
chickie from my singing class dropped out. All is right with the world again! Phew. I wasn't looking forward to another 7 weeks of her and her
nega-'
tude. And I'm excited to sing some selections from Evita this week... It's in my voice range- yeah!
**Addendum: we did not get to sing Evita. Maybe next week. sigh. Instead, we sang some of the other students' submissions: Home on the Range, When the Saints Go Marching In, and some Irving Berlin songs. Hmpfhh.The boys had their pictures taken last week for school. Owen will dutifully wear what I ask, but Oscar has his own ideas in the fashion department. Sacrificing even one day of his own personal style just doesn't sit well with him. I had to play smart on this one. So I let him get dressed in whatever he wanted that morning when he woke since I could tell there was trouble brewing... he wasn't gonna buy into the whole white-shirt-and-striped-tie thing! Mid-morning I began my evil plan... I made up a bath and he hopped in- the trap was set. Now, I know Oscar can't stand to put on dirty clothes- even if he only wore them for an hour- when he gets out of the bath. So I had the clean photo outfit ready and waiting for when he got out of the tub, so that I could slide him into it quickly and without him paying much attention. It worked. Of course it did- I am a brilliant mother with wily ways. Now we just have to wait to see what goofy looks the boys decided to flash at the school photographer....
Owen & Oscar after getting off the bus on picture day.
Obviously thrilled to be posing for another photo.
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Oscar spent the long weekend with Grandma and Papa. (Whom Oz now seems to be calling "
Deedrop" and "Tennis."
Hmmm. Interesting, since we don't use grown-ups first names unless it's preceded by Auntie, Uncle, Mr/Mrs, etc... And I'm certainly not aware of the approval of a new bylaw in our little family, wherein we now call Grandma & Papa by their first names. Which, by the way, are not actually Deedrop & Tennis anyway.) Oscar didn't seem at all interested in coming home again. In fact, when Dad dropped him off here at the house on Monday, I think Oscar's words were, "But Papa, I want to go back with YOU!!" (...as he tried to open the door and wriggle his way back into the car...)
Ahhh, I can feel the love.
Owen enjoyed his time home with us without a meddlesome brother to hog up our time. (Rocco doesn't really count since Owen thinks R can do no wrong.) We stayed up late, had ice cream and played Yahtzee. Owen spent much of the weekend walking around the house with headphones on and his
iPod Shuffle clipped onto his shirt. It was a quiet weekend. How nice. Skip's folks watched Rocco for us on Sunday so we could take Owen to lunch and a play. First, we had a nice lunch at The Front Room on
Munjoy Hill. Then we walked across the street and saw
Ruthless! The Musical at
The Good Theater. Owen enjoyed it, even though he didn't understand some of it.
This is Owen. He was showing me how he can spell "Good" with his face.
I assume he is usually looking in the mirror when he does this...
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So, Oscar told me this morning that it's
Tooby's (pronounced just like it looks) birthday today.
Hmm... that's funny, since we had a big birthday celebration for him back in March. I dragged out the "Happy Birthday" banner that we hang for all of our family birthdays. And we all gave him presents we'd made or found. Owen gave him a "blanket" made of paper with some cute drawings on it. I gave him a lovely blue box with satin lining to sleep in (it was a box from a nice bottle of scotch someone gave Skip, but
Tooby thinks it was custom-ordered.
Shhh.)
Oh, wait. You may not know who
Tooby is.
Tooby is a stuffed bunny. And it's always his birthday. Seriously, since the big birthday party, Oscar has claimed that it's
Tooby's birthday at least nine times. The party is obviously a magical memory for him, but my oh-my-word.
C'mon now. We may have to have a sit down with
Tooby. Better yet, we should have
Tooby's Mom sit down with him. Both
Tooby and his mom are bunnies that were gifts from Oscar's "fairy godparents." Maybe
Tooby's Mom- and that is actually her name... she isn't allowed a real first name, apparently- can talk some sense into either
Tooby or Oscar. Weirder things have happened.
Weirder things like... Skip and I finally agreeing on the plans for the new deck. After last night, I think we may have to pay our carpenter for couple's counseling fees on top of his regular bill. Tuesday night, Skip and I came nanoseconds shy of spontaneously
combusting while discussing the plans. We just kept clicking horns over every aspect, it seemed. Then on Wednesday evening, Bill shows up with new plans he made up that are darned near what we both want. He didn't seem phased in the least by our "spirited" discussions and managed to lead us much closer to actually building the new deck than I'd thought Skip & I were going to get. Alive, anyway. So we both live to see another day. Hallelujah.
Oh, and Owen informed us yesterday that he is going to give us $2 out of his piggy bank to help pay for the new deck. How cute is that!?
And now for some miscellaneous trivia bits...
Total amount of items spilled on kitchen floor yesterday (after the floor had just been mopped, of course.): 3
Pairs of fresh socks for me yesterday: 2
1. First spill: A cup of milk fell off the top shelf of the fridge, hit the kitchen floor, the lid popped off on impact- milk everywhere...
2. Second spill: About 15 minutes later I accidentally turned a box of Elmo Organic
O's upside down, starting a feeding frenzy among Lola, Rocco & Oscar. I
should've taken a picture of the three of them fighting over the fine dining off the tile.
3. Third spill: Red wine that I badly needed going down the hatch instead of on the floor-- spilled when Rocco leaned out of my arms to grab my wine glass and sent it flying all over my jeans, socks, the floor, fridge & cabinets. Luckily, the deck plans escaped harm. 'Cause that would be
really annoying.
Tooby & Tooby's Mom
It's been a long week. No lengthy diatribe from me here today... Just some pictures of how the deck is moving along. The ALR guys have all been amazing- working so hard out there. I feel so blessed to have such a good crew and good weather. We had two near-60-degree days this week and it's mid-November! But the mornings are very chilly. If I look out the window it makes me feel guilty being inside and warm... So I bake the guys cookies and offer them coffee often!
digging the spot outside my office
(square, recessed spot in the middle is for the gas fire pit)
