What We've Been Up To

We've had a lot going on lately, but no time to blog about it. Michael has been busy doing some kind of overhaul on his car while simultaneously ripping out our countertops in the kitchen and two bathrooms. Meanwhile, my dad was in town over the weekend and helped me entertain Grayson throughout the mess. Unfortunately, it was rainy all weekend so he couldn't even go outside and run around or swing.

Our new countertops are set to be installed on Wednesday and I can hardly wait. I've been documenting the demo process (think Mike with a sledgehammer, two types of saws and crowbar) and will post before and after pics once we are at the "after" stage.

In Grayson news, he's still infatuated with books and words in general. I've started quizzing him randomly to see what he knows and was surprised yet again tonight. He recognizes a few shapes (square, heart and star), plus all his facial features and belly, foot, arm and hand. He's staring to learn animals (beyond his favorites "good girl" aka dog and duck), while also taking great joy in pointing out every truck during our commute.

Birds are another great source of entertainment these days and luckily we have a lot of them flying around our backyard. It's amazing to see how quickly his mind processes and retains new information right now.

A Face Only A Mom Could Love

After a crazy day at work, this kid puts it all back into perspective. My life lesson for the day: sometimes progress can be really messy, but it's still worth it in the end.

The Time Has Come

We have finally given in to Grayson watching a little television. It all began innocently (and ironically) enough with a book.

Grayson is currently obsessed with books and his favorite one is Elmo Loves You. He calls Elmo "Momo" and has read this book so much it's literally falling apart at the cardboard seams.

Knowing how much he enjoys Momo, I thought I'd show him a few Elmo sing-a-long videos on YouTube for fun. When Grayson recognized Momo as a "real" live movable thing on the screen his face immediately lit up and he began dancing. He was filled with so much excitement and surprise, it was like he discovered a long-lost friend. Up until that point, he had no idea that Elmo lived anywhere besides his books.

It would be easy to assume that his instant fascination stemmed from not really being around the television, but the truth is we've shown him some other kid-friendly morning shows and even some Baby Einstein DVDs and he quickly looses interest after a minute or two.

Not wanting to force TV on our young child, we just moved on and were thankful he enjoyed playing and reading, but now that he's discovered Elmo it's like he can't get enough of this new, wonderful friend. Last weekend we purchased an Elmo "Let's Play Music" DVD that's 56 minutes long. Grayson actually sat completely still and watched it for 27 minutes straight. After a short play break and snack he went back and finished the rest of it. We were shocked.

Luckily, Elmo is fairly educational and likes music which Gray is also very into these days, but I am amazed that something can capture Grayson so completely when other puppets, cartoons and even Mickey Mouse don't seem to interest him. I guess those Sesame Street folks really know kids.

We're still planning to limit Grayson's TV exposure but it's nice to have the DVD in our back pocket, especially for things like our upcoming roadtrip to Beavers Bend State Park or flight to Houston. Momo may quickly become best friends with our entire family.

Word of the Day

It seems like every day is a vocabulary lesson (and surprise) around our house. A few mornings ago, Grayson woke up and said "eat" while pointing to his mouth. We had hadn't heard him use that word before but he seemed to know exactly what it meant.

Then tonight at the grocery store we were perusing the produce section and he said "apple." Sure enough, we were standing next to the apples.

We've also been using pictures of our extended family as flash cards to teach him names of people he doesn't see daily. It's all starting to sink in and is fun to watch everything click. He's even putting a few words together from time to time, such as "dada, bye."

If that wasn't enough of a sign our little boy is growing up, we were looking for some new socks at Target and had to go over to the Boys section to find his size. We're so used to shopping in the baby section that on the walk over, Michael told me he couldn't believe we were already moving up to "real" boy clothes.

After all of this big boy business, I went ahead and gave Grayson extra kisses and cuddle time when I was rocking him tonight. It just seemed in order.

Stranger Than Fiction

As many of you know, my husband is a collector of hobbies. Over the 10 years I've known him, Michael's interests have ranged from cycling to cars to computer gadgets to learning instruments to video games to fly fishing to day trading stocks to learning languages to 2-cycle engine repair and many others.

This list is in addition to his artistic pursuits of pottery, photography, sculpture, painting, jewelry making, woodworking, re-upholstery, and (his profession) graphic design. The latest twist in this saga is so strange I find it comical. He's recently been obsessing about vintage turntables and bonsai trees. Yes, you read that right. I can't make this stuff up. Here are photos of two recent acquisitions to prove it:

A Pioneer receiver and speakers which will accompany a future turntable (even though we do not own a single record...yet).

Several seedlings he recruited from our backyard that are "potential" bonsai candidates.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have hobbies but Michael doesn't really treat these like normal hobbies. He OBSESSES to no end learning about them, researching everything and collecting all kinds of gear to go along with the latest activities. Essentially, his lifelong hobby is to collect endless amounts of stuff as he moves from one interest to another.

As his partner, I have become inspired to take up a new hobby as well. Purging.

Swinging into Spring

In addition to stopping by our house, the Easter Bunny also dropped by Grandmother and Granddaddy's house (my mom and step-dad), leaving behind a new swing for Grayson.

I wish so badly that I had video taped Michael attaching the swing to the tree. It was worthy of America's Funniest Home Videos. Our neighbor even popped his head over the fence to see what was going on after seeing Mike scale the tree and then make a dozen (plus) attempts to throw the ropes over the branch.

Once he got the ropes secure, the rest was a snap and Grayson was quickly enjoying a sunset swing. I have a feeling this will be our new evening entertainment for a long, long time.

Happy Easter!

Despite me being under the weather lately and Grayson's nose running off his face, we managed to have an enjoyable Easter. My parents, sister and brother-in-law came by for brownies and an egg hunt this afternoon.

Aunt Emily and Uncle Levi "hid" the eggs and Grayson ran around discovering them with glee (and Roxy's help, of course).

The Easter Bunny brought Grayson a bubble shooter so we had fun getting sticky. The timing was great because "bubbles" is one of Gray's new words this week, along with eat, out, boo boo, and bonk.