Bo-isms #5 & 6

5. Oct 29, 2008 - In the car today:
Me: Bo, We're going to Sam's Club.
Bo: Bo's, too.
(he thought I was talking about Sam and he wanted to go to Bo's Club)

*And this isn't really a Bo-ism but it's cute and his new question of the week:
"What the heck is these are?"

6. Nov 2, 2008 -
Me: Nana & Opa live in Texas. Where do you live?
Bo: Home

** Newsflash **

2 more binkies have been found recently with broken tops, bringing the current count (to the best of my knowledge) to:

Dead: 5
Alive: 4 (more have surfaced since the original report on 9/30/08)

The remaining ones better run and hide because I am getting sick of their mere existence and want them gone.

This Smell Is Making Me Sick

I've decided to start a new series of blogs,

"You know you live with a spirited child when . . . "

And so, my first goes something like this:

You know you live with a spirited child when your dinner is interrupted by an overwhelming stench of baby powder oozing out of the back bedroom and into your lemon meringue pie.

Tracy Enjoying Her Last Day Here With Sam

(Not the "spirited" one)

Bo left the dinner table early and went back to his room where he was playing quietly. This usually means he's pooping so I didn't think anything of it. I was just happy to be enjoying a quiet dinner without Bo pulling on me or having to ask him over and over to sit down on his bottom. About 15 minutes later, Tracy asked, "Umm, Is Bo doing something with baby powder?"

I didn't even get up. I didn't want to know.

Wes went to check it out and when I heard, "BO ELIAS!", I knew it couldn't be good.

This is what he found . . .

The Air Was So Thick With Powder It Fogged The Photo

He had pulled everything off of his changing table, dumped the wipes all over the floor, and poured baby powder EVERYWHERE! And I mean EVERYWHERE!

It was in every dresser drawer, in the diaper basket, on the changing pad, on and in the fan, on his bed, in a baseball cap, in a diaper, in the dirty close hamper, and on his toys. You name it, he sprinkled it.

And now, many vacuuming times and almost 24 hours later, the horrible (once thought of as nice) smell of baby powder is making me want to vomit.

Chena Hot Springs

Last Thursday, Tracy, Tom, Bo, Sam and I drove up to Chena Hot Springs for the afternoon. It was really cold (8 degrees) but a beautiful sunny day.

It's a weird time of year as far as tourist activities are concerned because it's definitely not summer and there's not enough snow yet for snow adventures so we basically just toured the Ice Museum and had lunch.

The Museum used to be called an Ice Hotel but the Borough Fire Department shut it down because it didn't have fire alarms and a sprinkler system. Hello. Stupid! If there ever was a fire the whole damn thing would be a sprinkler system and you sure wouldn't have to worry about finding the closest emergency exit; the fire would do that for you.

So now they call it an Ice Museum and thanks to their lawyers finding a loop hole, you can now rent out an "Art Gallery Room" for $600/night instead of a "Hotel Room." But Museum or Hotel, it is still freakin cold in there and not a place I would ever want to spend the night. That's just crazy!

Ice Harvested for Ice Sculptures

Carved Ice Martini Glasses

Inside the Ice Museum

Ice Potty

Cheers! Appletini anyone?

In Front of the "Fire Place"

Bo Feeding Bert or Ernie

Sam Watching From His Cocoon

Warming Up In The Lodge

Playing Outside

It snowed all day today so after dinner we decided to bundle up and go play outside. It was 9 degrees when we went out so it required some layers.

Poor Tracy (16 wks pregnant) was worn out after only putting on her ski pants and boots. There's a reason she lives in Texas.

Wes and Bo plowed the driveway while Tracy, Tom, Sam & I played. We first tried sledding in the yard but that didn't really work so we ended up sledding down the driveway and into the street.

It was fun to get out but the sledding wasn't great. We need a bigger and better hill. Hopefully we can hit the hills up at UAF on Friday and do some serious sledding.

Sisters are Awesome

Tracy & Tom flew in yesterday and are staying with us for a week. We don't have any big exciting plans while they are in town. We plan on just hanging out and having fun.

Sam smiling at his Aunt Tracy

This morning we took Bo to Open Gym at Gymnastics, Inc. but forgot the camera. (I hate when I do that.) We all decided we need to go back before Tracy & Tom leave so we can get some good pictures. Bo is hilarious and runs circles around the other kids. He is so freakin' springy and fast. You'll see what I mean when we go back later this week and actually take the camera. Sorry to leave you hanging but here are some other pics from this afternoon instead.

Photograph compliments of Bo

I call this one: "An Aunt, A Wedgie & Lots of Teeth"

I love this picture

Pet-Peeves

I had a bunch of pet-peeves growing up that made me literally sick to my stomach (chewing noises, gum smacking, soup slurping, the sound of milk dropping off a cereal spoon back into the bowl, and so on) but apparently these have recently all (well not all) been replaced with new toddler induced pet-peeves.

What on earth is so fun about throwing, and I mean high speed whirlwind hurling across the room throwing, freshly folded clean clothes?! Is is really that gratifying to throw socks on the dresser, underwear on the floor, and shirts on the doorknobs? And as if that's not bad enough, when the laundry tornado isn't in full swing, the jumping onto piles of crisply folded towels commences.

Rarely do I ever get a load washed, dried, folded and put away without at least one of the steps having to be repeated. Yesterday I walked into the laundry room and found Bo shoving the used-to-be folded clothes back into the wet washer. Thanks, Bo, but THOSE WERE ALREADY CLEAN!!!!

Then there's the cleaning off of coffee tables, dressers, counters, and night stands. And by "cleaning", I mean forcefully bulldozing anything and everything out of the way and on to the floor. And by "anything and everything" I mean anything and everything. Trucks, remote controls, mail, magazines, phones, sippy cups, money, books. You name it and it has probably been tossed across our living room at one time or another. And if by some chance it hasn't been, I'm sure it's because we just don't own one.

This morning I added book throwing to my list. Yes, book throwing. While I was nursing Sam on the couch, Bo decided it would be fun to pull books off our book shelf and throw them across the room. Now these aren't little kid books, mind you, these are huge hard covered beasts of books and I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to get hit upside the head by American Soldier by General Tommy Franks (590 page memoir) which at one point landed on the pillow right next to me.

I yanked Sam off (sorry Sam), laid him on the couch, and dragged Bo to Time-Out. I had had enough, but Sam had not, so I took advantage of the temporary cease fire and finished nursing him in quiet.

Shit, I may need to start wearing a hard-hat and cevlar in my own house if this keeps up, but then again I would probably just get hit by it during one of the laundry tornados.