every cowboy

needs a cowgirl ...

howdy ma'am!

weekend update

lots on the agenda this weekend ...

we started with a saturday morning halloween party. jack's made-by-mom costume was not quite ready ... but mommy realized that she might not be able to pull off the homemade costume thing and had bought a back up slightly used "woody from toy story" cowboy costume off another mom for $5. combined with some of jack's own pieces, he made for one cute cowpoke!



and it was fun to see the other kids from the playground for our third annual halloween party (more on this later in the week).

even daddy had fun at the party ... when he wasn't busy robbing trains ...

but saturday turned out to be a rainy day, so we spent the afternoon cooped up inside, much to jack's dismay.

sunday dawned brighter, both in weather and mood ... but it also dawned early. so mommy and jack, hoping to give daddy a little more sleep, headed out for breakfast ... at ....

hot donalds!

or, as it's known to most of america besides jack, mcdonald's!

jack enjoyed sharing a deluxe breakfast with mommy. and really enjoyed dipping his syrup-drizzled pancakes in ketchup. who knew?

after some park time with daddy and a long nap, we headed out in the late afternoon to get some pumpkins from a local farm.

jack declared his "favorite" a lopsided, bumpy, gnarly pumpkin. sort of the charlie brown christmas tree of pumpkins. how could we refuse him?

jack hated to leave, but at least he went in style ...

and that, dear readers, is how we rolled this weekend ...

tgif

ah, friday. the day we've been waiting all week for. especially this week.

we asked jack today if he knew what today was.

"tuesday: school!" was his first guess.

jack doesn't know the days of the week yet, and he has no concept of time. so actuallly it was a slightly unfair question. we might just as well asked him: what's the abbreviation for lead on the periodic table?

when we told him it was actually friday, he quickly replied:

"'xana's birthday!"

since the beginning of the week, jack has been reminding us that today is his nanny roxana's birthday. this year, unlike last, jack is really aware of her birthday and has been looking forward to it.

so, this morning, jack was eager to help mommy wrap 'xana's present and write her card. he helped make blueberry muffins, "and i tasted some!" he proudly declared to daddy.

and when his "mamaxana" arrived, he gave her a welcome to beat the band. he sang, he danced, he excitedly grabbed her hand and jumped up and down before leading her to her birthday card ("i colored on it!) and her present, which he then unwrapped for her.

we enjoyed blueberry muffins and juice together, with jack repeatedly chiding mommy for not having candles for roxana to blow out and roxana pretending to blow out imaginary candles to placate jack.

after breakfast jack dragged around a little cart and said he was going to the store to buy some candles before he and roxana headed out for real to a playdate and then a special lunch at the nearby chinese restaurant.

let's just hope they have candles at china pavilion. if not, they don't know what they're in for!

turn around bright eyes

jack's new vantage point from his forward-facing seat gives him the opportunity to see even more things as we pass by and he shares his excitement in this fact by providing a running commentary as we go.

on friday we headed into the big city to daycare for the day, and jack delighted in pointing out every truck, bus, taxi and flag that we passed. just in case you were wondering, when you head down embassy row into downtown dc, you see quite a few of each of these things.

a peaceful ride it was not.

but a fun ride for jack.

as promised, here is a picture (albeit a crummy cameraphone one) of jack in his new seat configuration, versus his previously backward (and yet enlightened) existence:



forward is fun!

backward is boring!

apple jack

at nursery school yesterday they focused on apples ... singing a song about them and coloring an apple. we thought we'd share the apple produced by the apple of our eye:

jack is really enjoying school. while a few other kids are still crying going into the classroom, jack arrives full of enthusiasm, with a million things he wants to tell his teacher ("i'm gonna tell mrs. guterl i saw a trash truck!") and a million things he wants to play with during the day (vacuum, shopping cart, playdough, painting, sand table, cars & bikes, etc.). as he hopped out of the car on tuesday, with one of the coöping mothers escorting him to class, he called out, "mama, i'm gonna have a good day at schoooolll!!"

guess he was right.

weekend update

another weekend past ... and an eventful one.


with mommy at a funeral on saturday, jack and daddy had some quality park time (qpt). the guys hung out, played on the equipment, kicked the ball, and raked some leaves. ya know ... guy stuff.

mommy, nana and grandad arrived just before dinnertime, and we all enjoyed hamburgers by daddy and scintillating conversation by jack.

the big event of our weekend came sunday when jack, mommy and nana walked to "make strides against breast cancer."


our day started off with breakfast at one of the team leaders' apartments. jack was pleased that the breakfast featured donut holes:





we then made our way to the race by way of metrobus. it was jack's first ever bus ride. he was a little trepidatious, but he soon settled in and enjoyed riding up high and seeing all the sights:

but the big highlight was our walk -- 5k for the short route and 5 miles for the long. we made it through the short route and proceeded on to the long route, but got distracted by ducks in the reflecting pool and other interesting items, and ended up catching a cab back (jack's first taxi ride) before finishing the loop.

jack walked nearly all of the 5k route, save for a little snack break where he agreed to be wheeled, and for some of the walk even pushed his own stroller -- usually into the backs of people's legs.

it was a great day and a great cause and made for another great weekend.

turn turn turn

to everything (turn, turn, turn)
there is a season (turn, turn, turn)

yes ... those were the lyrics running through our heads as we set off for appointments this morning to turn jack's car seat to the forward-facing position.

jack has been extended rear-facing, or erf, in the parlance. many kids are turned around at age 1 and 20 pounds. jack is more than 2-1/4 and over 30 pounds. he has been fine backward, but he is approaching the upper rear-facing limit for one of his seats and we decided the time had come to turn him around in the other two as well -- one in mommy's car, one in daddy's car and one in roxana's car.

the very nice lady at the police department scheduled us all today and got us all installed snug and tight. she totally pimped jack's ride. and she left room behind the passenger seat for the baby's carseat to be installed in a few months.

as jack and mommy drove to school this morning, mommy asked him how he liked riding in his new "big boy" seat.

"mama, i *like* my seatbelt!" he replied.

of course mama was so taken with this development, she forget to snap a pic of jack in his new rolling throne. we promise we'll get to that before the dents come out of the upholstery where the seat used to be ...

turn, turn, turn.

the art of preschool

jack is becoming quite the prolific artist in preschool. here is one that we call, inexplicably, "hands."



mommy picked up this latest masterpiece this morning while dropping jack off. although we usually just slow down the car and push him out, today mommy walked him into school so we could deliver the playdough that we were charged with making this month. jack was very excited to have it in his bookbag and proudly presented the canister to his teacher when we arrived.


she told me that all the teachers love jack and get a kick out of him for his ebullience and enthusiasm at even the most mundane things.


don't we all?

weekend update

in an effort, apparently, to pack in a full weekend, jack decided to start said weekend at 5 o'clock in the ante of meridian. painful.


after approximately one hour, seven minutes and 34 seconds of being told (repeatedly), "it's still night-night time; it's still dark outside, lay your heady down and go back to sleep," it was finally light enough to justify getting jack out of his crib and starting the day.


and while our saturday often teetered on the brink because of overtiredness, at least it was the brink of fun and good humor some of the time. we enjoyed a pancake breakfast, courtesy of mommy, that was deemed almost as good as curious george's pancakes, then we proceeded to some outside play at the park with jack's new "soccer ball." by naptime jack was more than ready to get some sleep and he awakened to receive a visit from nana.


we decided to head off to the great indoors to search for new faucets for a nused pedestal sink (new-used) to be installed this week and jack enjoyed checking out the big screen tvs, vacuum cleaners and water features with nana while mommy shopped. he even earned a special coffee milk at the end for good behavior. it's so convenient how starbucks just happens to be right at the exit of big stores like that!


on sunday, after a tasty breakfast of "daddy eggies," jack and daddy headed back to the park for more soccer time and mommy headed off to prenatal yoga to try to ease the pain in her back. it worked, however there is now, thanks to a million downward-facing dogs, a big pain in mommy's arms -- sore muscles not accustomed to supporting mommy's (increasing) bodyweight. oy!


but the big fun of the weekend was still to come ... after lunch we headed out to nana and grandad's house and to their local fire station, which was having an open house ...


we arrived just in time to see the rescue chopper land:

and we saw a ladder too tall even for jack to climb:

although he was interested in the fire trucks, he was a little wary of going in any of the trucks, and instead was interested in checking out the station's halloween decor ...

fire trucks = scary. holding hands with ghosts = fun. just so ya know.

jack did participate in some fire-related activities ... he was especially skilled when called to put out the "fire" ...

fireman jack to the rescue!

fire's out! jack's work is done ...




we even met "sparky" the fire dog, who gave us his paw print autograph.

fireman jack ... that has a nice ring to it.

we played more at nana and grandad's and then returned home to a delicious pot roast and gravy with carrots, celery, parsnips and potatoes that daddy prepared.


after that full weekend, jack slept until his normal time on monday ... and so did we ...

one-boy reveille

we told you the other day that jack likes to come bounding in to wake mommy up, like a one-boy reveille, while daddy follows behind with a cup of coffee (god bless daddy!).

well, as of today, jack's taken it to a new level.

our little horatio hornblower came in this morning playing a fanfare to beat the band ...

and, boy, it sure woke mommy up ...

awake and wondering who gave him that horn and how revenge will be exacted ...

unplanned field trip

mommy was unexpectedly at home with jack yesterday (as roxana was unexpectedly sick), so we made an impromptu, ad hoc and otherwise unplanned visit to the zoo yesteerday.

first stop, as always, was with the giant pandas ...

jack pretended to eat bamboo ...

and cuddled with the panda statue.

we saw mei xiang sleeping in a cave, and the "baby" -- who is now three years-old (and jack would hardly consider that a baby) -- tai shan, sleeping right next to the glass. sadly mommy was too busy fulfilling the plaintive request, "pick up meeee!!" to take photos. but it was a lot of fun to see them. however, soon enough, jack declared, "let's keep going," and we were off ...

... to the

construction???

yes. they are building a new elephant yard, and this might have been jack's favorite part of the visit. he did not want to stop watching all the trucks and machines at work.



eventually he was persuaded to go visit the current elephant house (background, left in the above picture) and when we arrived he declared, "it's stinky p.u. in here!" but, he decided we could stick around a while when he saw that the elephant was getting a bath.

we also witnessed a pachydermal pedicure ...

but soon it was, "let's keep going, mama" again and we went to find some monkeys. we didn't see too many gibbons or siamangs, but we did find a mirror in which to take our own picture ...

the orangu tans, however, were out on the "o-line," climbing freely above us, and jack reached up to try to grab them ...

"almost!"

if we couldn't catch the orangs, at least we could chase the armadillos. jack squealed with delighted as he and this armadillo ran back and forth, chasing one another through the glass.

and he enjoyed some hide-and-seek of his own with mommy as we headed to grab some lunch.

sometimes the best times are spontaneous and unplanned.

and that is the first and probably last time anyone will ever witness mommy utter those words.