New Orleans

Scott (and his lucky wife) were invited to attend an engineering conference in Louisiana last week. Even though some incredibly wonderful friends offered to care for the boys while we went (I know, we have the best friends ever) we decided to make a family trip out of it and spent 4 days in New Orleans together. And as an added bonus, our good friends the Linfords were there too! We were able to get adjoining hotel rooms and it was wonderful to have someone fun to play with while the guys spent the day at the conference. Sadly, we didn't get a picture all together! We had a great time experiencing New Orleans with them though.

Our hotel room had a large window with a little boys' dream view: it overlooked the Mississippi river, which had river boats and barges going up and down it all the time. On the street below us was a train track and a road with lots of truck activity. And since we were on the 19th floor, we didn't have to hear any of it! The boys were in heaven watching everything and they spent nearly all our time in the room playing in the curtains and watching the show the boats and trucks and trains put on for them.

Joseph loves to perch his little body right on top. Ian thought it looked like a boat and hoped on too.

 

The architecture, food and insectarium were my favorite tourist attractions of the trip.  Check out the iron balcony in the above picture. While some of the French Quarter was keep-your-eyes-to-the-ground-nasty, several streets had beautiful porches and lovely greenery. Here is a Catholic church and the world famous Cafe du Monde which served incredible bengiets (deep fried doughnuts). A man was playing what looked like a homemade tuba outside the cafe.

Aside from the albino alligator we saw at the aquarium, we didn't get to see any live alligators. Darn. But we saw plenty of alligator souvenirs! Look at all those jaws!

Above, Joseph is eating a squid at a restaurant some NO native friends recommended. See that tasty leg sticking out of Joseph's mouth? Below is Scott at the insectarium. This was my favorite thing in NO. There were tons of live bugs and lots of interesting bug information. Ian loved it.

Behind the normal cafe at the insectarium was the Bug Appetite Cafe. Here a chef prepares candies with bugs in them, including Chocolate ChirpCookies. She just got this batch of water roaches and hasn't decided what to make with them yet.

 

And here is Ian eating a piece of toffee with a cricket in it. Not to be outdone by our toddler, Scott and I ate one too. And regretted it. Notice Ian's black eye in this picture. He ran into a wall one evening and got a small cut near the corner of his eye. He woke up with a shiner. It went nicely with the fat lip he got the next morning from splitting his lip open on the door in our hotel room. Boy is it tough to keep two active boys safe in a hotel!

It was a fun trip. We ate and ate and ate and by the time we were headed home we could eat no more. When we got home it was time to celebrate Joseph's birthday!

PS Scott says I need to clarify some things because some people are left with the impression that New Orleans is a cool city. The take-away from this post should actually be that it was fun because Scott's employer footed the bill and invited us there in the first place, and our buddies the Linfords had an adjoining room to ours, which was incredibly fun. We still think that there are probably more than 100 US cities that you have never heard of that are cooler than NO. Go to one of them instead. Seriously.

Vasaline: Non-medicinal Uses

I hadn't planned to spend nap time dealing with this...

And I tell myself that Ian hadn't intended to yank all the blankets out of the linen closet, flip Vaseline all over the carpet in three different rooms in a hundred tiny blobs...

...smear his clothes with Vasaline, or leave hand-prints three feet up the wall, all while I opened a can of tuna downstairs. 

 

The upside is that the Vasaline was not smeared into the carpet and that today his preschool class played with shaving cream, so he was dressed for messy activities. What I can't understand is why when I asked him what he was doing, he said "I was trying to get the froggy out" and pointed to the glob of Vasaline on the lid, and said "Da'ts da froggy right there!"

I only wish I had taken a picture of the culprit. His greasy, spiked-up hair, shiny face and arms, and slimy clothes were quite the sight to behold. Let's hope my technique of scraping the Vasaline off with knife and treating the stain with Spot Shot is enough to save our carpet.

THE BOYS and a chance to win something cool

Eating ice cream out of a baseball cap while wearing a baseball cap. For Ian, life doesn't get much better.

Decorating cookies. Notice the concentration on his face. If you hold your mouth just so, the sprinkles go much better.

During a moment of insufficient supervision, Ian found a jar of caramel chocolate frosting and ate it off his fists and fingers, occasionally wiping the excess on his jacket. Luckily Ian does not know to lie when I ask him what he is doing. So when I hollered downstairs and asked he replied "I am eating the "chur-lock-it" out of da crockpot!" and I knew exactly what he meant.

Ian and Joseph carry around Scott's shoes all the time. And Ian loves to wear them, just like he did way back when this video was taken.

Is there anything cuter than an infant squatting to look out the window while wearing corduroy? Nope.

The weather has been great lately. Thank goodness! We have been shut-ins ever since the pools closed last month. This is how you can find the boys most days -- Joseph practicing going down and climbing back up that stair, and opening and shutting that door over and over, and Ian in his car.

I usually sit on the ledge where Joseph is playing and watch them, and sometimes Ian will join me. He calls it "sitting on the house".
Aunt Allison introduced the boys to 'black fruit snacks' (black licorice jelly beans). Here they are riding shotgun in Ian's favorite car. Sometimes when Ian is really upset I will ask him what I can do to help him feel better. After he replies "Maybe just two black fruit snacks. Or three," then he is instantly all smiles.

Joseph is the happiest little guy. He is usually content to go along with whatever Ian wants to do, and mostly he just hangs around on the sidelines watching Ian. But every so often he swoops in, steals what Ian is using, and runs off in the other direction laughing. When it happens, two of us thinks it is hilarious. One of us does not.

Ian wanted me to take a picture of him so he could see himself. Just before I took this picture he decided to speed things up by making the clicking sound himself and then running over to me, instead of waiting for me to actually take it. But then we got this shot -- it has been months since he has smiled for the camera!

One week 'til my baby turns 1!

PS : One of the most talented seamstress/crafters I know is giving away something really cool. Head on over to her craft blog and leave a comment for a chance to win. It will be handmade and will probably be the coolest thing you've ever won. Best of luck to you!

Joseph

I didn't think much of this picture when it was first taken, but I am in love with it now that I have stumbled on it almost a year later. I can see my sweet Joseph in that puffy newborn face and I love that he is looking into my eyes through his drowsy-looking eye slits.

Joseph doesn't get as much face-time on this blog as he ought to, so here is a post dedicated to getting to know 11-month old Joseph.

***

For the last several months Joseph's favorite activity has been shutting doors. Before he could crawl, he would roll over to the door, and laying on his back would push the door shut with his legs or arm. When he learned to crawl he would head-butt the door closed. That progressed to shutting the door by walking on his knees with his hands against the door. And now that he walks, Joseph likes to walk the door nearly closed, then swing it open again, then walk it closed, and over and over again. He has slammed his fingers enough times to know that he needs to be cautious -- when the door is nearly closed he'll squint his eyes shut and wince a little, as if preparing himself for the pain of getting his fingers smashed.

***
Joseph is very interested in doing 'big boy' things. He wants to drink from a cup (and not even a sippy cup, but a real, open-topped cup. It's a very messy endeavor.), and he also wants to scoop his own food with a spoon. He doesn't usually get much into his mouth, but likes to practice anyway.
***

Joseph can say "Uh-oh" (it sounds more like "Uh-uh", but with the inflection used in "Uh-oh") and he can say "Daddy". All beloved objects = "daddy". He gets really excited when he sees Ian's bunny unattended and within reach, and he exclaims "daddy!" with lots of affection as he moves towards it.

***

I tried to get Joseph to put his two words together one day, and said "Uh-oh, daddy!", hoping he would repeat it. Scott was at work at the time, but Joseph immediately turned toward the entrance to the room we were in, looking excited at first and then confused, probably because he was expecting to see that daddy had just walked in. It was really cute to see that Joseph understood what "uh-oh daddy" could have meant in that circumstance. (Now whenever Joseph drops something he says 'uh-oh daddy!').

***

I often say "uh-oh, Ian" when Ian "makes a bad choice", like, say, hitting his baby brother with a spatula. So when I tried to get Joseph to practice saying "uh-oh, Ian" Joseph quickly turned to face Ian while leaning away from him, with all the instinct that a younger brother possesses.

***

Joseph is getting steadier on his feet, and looks less like he is marching than he did at first. He still topples over frequently, and for some reason, all the bruises are on the left side of his head. Perhaps that side weighs more? At any rate, the bruises do little to blemish his irresistibly cute face. I hear regularly that he looks like the Gerber baby (even Ian asks to see 'Joseph' on the box of baby cereal) and twice in one week elementary age boys asked if they could "pet my baby's head". Like I said, he is irresistible!

***

Joseph is also starting to put on some weight. He has always had a lean build, but favoring the skinny side of lean. In the last two weeks he has starting drinking his bottles instead of just squirting the carpet. And without much coercion he now consumes near the recommended daily amount of formula. People have been commenting on his chubby cheeks and rolly thighs all week. And the chubbier Joseph gets the more I can see resemblance to Ian's baby pictures.

***

Joseph loves a blanket his Great Mama (my grandmother) made for him. His favorite is actually the one made for Ian (big surprise) but his own yellow version is also well loved. Just this week he has started wandering into his room to retrieve it from his crib and drag it around the house. It is so adorable how he lays his head on it immediately when I put over my shoulder, or how when he finds it on the floor, he lets out a gleeful noise and then flops his body down on it and lays there for a minute.
***

Joseph also loves binkies. It is not uncommon to see one in his mouth and one clipped to his shirt, for backup.

***

There recently was an incident that involved Joseph eating in his high chair and a very large pile of... feces... under his chair. So we did what anyone would do: Scott took him outside and hosed him and the chair off at the same time. Joseph loved it.

It's hard to believe Joseph is only a few weeks from his first birthday!