Our Motley Crew

Ladies and Gentlemen... allow me to introduce the band....

On the Plastic Toolkit/Drums: Uncle Kevin 

This genius "instrument" plays short little ditties when you turn the cogs. Uncle Kevin added a new element by also making it a drum. 

On the Middle Eastern Wooden Hippo Doorstopper/Guitar: James

I mean, really, a guitar solo, dance moves AND vocals? It's obviously musical genius.

Song: The "smile" song. This is a little song we sing when we are trying to get James to smile for pictures. Apparently, it has stuck.

Lyrics: "smile! smiiiiile! smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile! smiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile!" sung in octaves only meant for dogs....

About the Band: As many of you may know, Uncle Kevin was IN A BAND in his younger days. We have pictures...

Bla la la la Hazy

The kid can say "impressive" and use it in a sentence, but he can't say "Udvar." Yeesh! This is the Udvar Hazy Center, a part of the National Air & Space Museum - more planes, more space, less crowds - our kind of place. James calls it "bla la la la Hazy." The pic below shows the 360 degree "control tower" that parallels Dulles Airport so you can watch planes takeoff and land and listen to actual air traffic controllers guiding them in. 

With over 100 different aircraft to look at, our son would rather climb on the structures holding the building together. All are marked "keep off" thankyouvurymuch.

 
The control tower.

Seriously, planes are landing right in front of our noses with actual air traffic controllers talking through the speakers and James wants to play with... the outlets.

ps. If you have an issue with James' hair... talk to Brian.

What Have We Done?

So.... we don't -never have - never will - talk to James in baby talk. We have never made up names for things (ex. "baba" for bottle, "jammers" for pajamas, etc) or spoken to him in a tone other than what we use with each other (ex. normal tone of voice, oozing sarcasm). In fact, we sort of pride ourselves on it. However, based on the following conversations, this little plan may be backfiring.

In the bath while I am washing him:

James: "Oh, thank you for having me at the bathing."

Me: "Thank you for coming."

Seeing a group of people about to cross the street

James: "What are those people doing?"

Me: "Well, I think they are just waiting to cross the street."

James: "Oh, is that very impressive?"

Picking up Brian from the train station

James: "Oh hi daddy. I am so happy to see you."

then pointing at me as if in introduction: "And this is mommy."

At JW Tumbles

James: "Mommy, you can go down the slide."

Me: "Mommy is too big for that slide, buddy."

James: "Well, you could try!"

To our neighbor at 10am

James: "Oh hi. Did you just wake up?"

And my personal favorite - when picking him up from preschool

Teacher: "James, your mommy is here!"

James (hanging out in the back of the classroom): "Oh, no thank you."

I can just see him at his first day of kindergarten.... "Oh, hello teacher. Thank you for having me in your wonderful educational environment. This classroom is very impressive." Oh, he will be SO popular...

Another Fine Fall Weekend

Frolick in the fall foliage - check.

Daddy's cars & trucks passed down to next generation - check.

Steph's besties in for a visit - check.

Baby shower thrown by incredibly thoughtful & generous neighbors - check.

Even James' little tot lot playground is perfectly beautiful and serene in the fall. The serene part might have been due to the fact that we were the only people there...

Brian unearthed his boxes of cars and trucks and trains and shared them with James. I think we looked at them for over an hour and still never reached the bottom of the box. Those boys really love their vehicles.

 
Two of my besties, Emily and Vicki made the trip up from North Carolina for my baby shower (see below). They came sans kids, Brian went on full-time daddy duty and we had some much needed girl time.
These are our two sweet neighbors Cheryl (on left, below) and Pilar who threw me a baby shower this weekend. I insisted that I didn't need one and that I didn't need a thing, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm so glad they didn't because it was awesome! All the ladies in the Mews came and so did some of my local gal pals. The ridiculous amount of food was served on china, the drinks were never empty and the gifts just kept on coming. Awesome.

James and Brian came by for a visit - Brian for the food and James for his own gifts. Seriously! Several of the ladies brought gifts for James congratulating him on becoming a big brother. SO THOUGHTFUL!

Stay tuned for our adventures next weekend which will involve napping for 72 hours straight.

I LOVE this town.

Really, I could live here forever. Old Town is great, but being minutes away from DC is just icing on the cake. Where else can you feed your kid dinner, call your brother-in-law to babysit, spruce yourself up and see a show at The Kennedy Center? I mean, really.

Love.

It.

(thanks Uncle Kevin!!)

Happy Halloween 2008

Really. What else could he be for Halloween while we are living here in the nation's capitol and in Old Town? Uhhhh... George Washington, of course.

Where did I buy this costume you ask? What costume store sells toddler-sized lined corduroy jackets with tails and epaulets? It's a little boutique I like to call, "my mom" or "Nanet" as she is known in this house. My mom was here in late September and I asked her if she could help me make James look like this:

What I meant was, "can we just buy a little jacket from a thrift store and rip it up and throw some gold buttons on it?" What my mom heard was, "let's make a lined jacket FROM SCRATCH, first out of muslin and then the real thing." (thanks mom!)

I am not sure that the pictures do it justice. I do think James grew 4 inches and 14 pounds since my mom made the jacket in September which explains his little belly peeking out from underneath.  He really did love it and exclaimed several times "Trick or treat! It's me, George Washington!"

We went to about 8 houses and were stopped on the street no less than 10 times for oohing and aahing. He even had his picture taken by a complete stranger which I have come to think of as my barometer for a successful Halloween costume. 

Our first house was in the Mews - our neighbors Pat & Cheryl - who thought it would be fun to dress like this to give candy to a 2-year old. 

James, of course, was terrified, but came around when they gave him an entire GIFT BAG full of candy & toys. Actually, two of our neighbors did this (see "big haul" pic below) so James might find trick-or-treating a little disappointing in the future.

Here he is outside Gadsby's Tavern where George used to throw back a few ales.

And here he is outside of one of George Washington's homes here in Old Town. Please note the GW bust in the window. Sadly, these people were not home.

And here's the big haul. We let James choose one piece to eat before heading off to brush his teeth and go to bed and he chose.... Smarties. I'm just saying...