Thomas's New Friend

Thomas has another little friend.

This is Everett but he doesn't look like this anymore. He got his first haircut for his 2nd birthday last week. Now, he looks like a tiny version of his dad.



Everett and his mom Lauren come over once or twice a week. Lauren is super nice and seems to get dressed every single day which completely blows my mind.

Thomas and Ev mostly like having access to each other's toys but they're also starting to play together.

TV Monster

Thomas and I found these tiny Sesame Street figures while we were clearance hunting at Target today. He officially loves them. I asked him where his Sesame Street guys were at one point today, so now he calls them guy. (He's not so big on plurals.) It's just one of the four words he started saying today.

Guy (24)
Melmo = Elmo (25)
Out (26)
Dow = Down (27)

(Yes. I'm still keeping track. It should surprise no one that I have spreadsheet for this very purpose.)

He's super cute wandering around saying cookie all day. Nevertheless, we've cut way back on his tv time. He was watching around an hour a day which doesn't seem like a lot but frankly it turned him into a huge jerk.

He screams when I turn the tv off. He doesn't cry; he literally screams. In the last week or so, he also started screaming at us whenever the slightest thing didn't happen exactly the way he expected/wanted it to happen. I finally realized that when he watches tv his default reaction to frustration for the rest of the day is to scream in my face. So, we're taking a break. It's a bummer because I was really hoping Big Bird would teach him the alphabet.

Thomas and the Slide

Hmm ...

Maybe ...

Whoosh.

What's next?

Shadow Chef

Thomas makes dinner.

Pour in the Rice

Add the Spices

Some Water

Black Beans

New Tool

Measure the Tomatoes

Give it a Stir

Cover and Simmer

Bubble Baths and the Clearance Queen

Thomas has fallen in love with bubble baths. He stands in front of the sink and stares at the bottle on the counter while I start his water. He wants to make sure I don't forget. He even says bubble now, the whole word. (It's number 22. Yes, I'm keeping track.)

Walmart put their summer toys on clearance two weeks ago. I've been stalking the aisle ever since. Yesterday two of the things I wanted finally hit rock bottom. I got the little Tadoodles boat he's playing with and a 3D Sidewalk Chalk set for $2 each. I love getting good deals.

Tee Vee

Thomas changed from a no-tv-kid to a television lover almost overnight.

When we bought the Cars paraphanalia for his room, we thought he should probably see the movie. So, we used some of his birthday money to order the dvd from Amazon. After I ordered it, I thought I should try to get Thomas used to the tv. I'm all about value; I wanted to get our $16.95 out of that dvd. So, I found a Thomas the Tank Engine movie on Netflix Watch Instantly. I set it up on the Roku for Thomas to watch. He hated it. He seemed frustrated that the pictures moved before he could get a really good look at them. I had to turn it off because he was whining and crying. So, when the dvd came in the mail, I wasn't sure it was such a good buy.

There was nothing to worry about.

Thomas Watches Cars from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

It may not look like it but he really was excited. I guess he has naturally discriminating taste in film. The production values of Thomas the Tank Engine just cannot compete with state of the art computer animation.

Around the same time, Thomas found my old collection of Sesame Street Treasury Books on the bottom shelf of his bookcase. He started choosing them at storytime before his nap and at bedtime. So, I recorded a couple of episodes of Sesame Street. And that's when his conversion became total. After that first episode of Sesame Street, he literally stood in front of the television and demanded more!

Fortunately, he's not a slack-jawed, open-mouthed addict. He watches for 10 or 15 minutes and then wanders off to play with his cars or look at a book. He'll come back a little while later to watch some more.

And he is proof positive that Sesame Street is educational. Thomas's favorite character is Cookie Monster. He thinks that cat is hilarious. Just 10 days ago, he said cook for cookie. Not anymore.

Cookie from Leslie Ann McNolty on Vimeo.

Apple

I gave Thomas a whole apple for the first time a few days ago. He's eaten apple slices before but I'd never just handed one to him.

You'd have thought I'd given him my new IPod Touch (thanks Daddy!) for his very own. He loved it. He took it into his room and asked me to put him in his crib. He lounged around in bed for half an hour eating that apple. He started at the bottom and ate toward the stem so he ate a big chunk of the core. Though he did call me in at one point to hand over the dry, spiky part on the bottom.

Apple Eater

Thomas Turned Two

Thomas is two! I have no idea how that happened. Pictures from his actual birthday are up at our flickr page. On his first birthday, he started walking. We had hoped he would start talking on this birthday but no such luck. However, he did score lots of great loot from his birthday money. First, we bought him a sandbox and some sand toys.



Then, we found an awesome lot of Cars stuff for his room on Craigslist. There's a rug with a track on it to play cars on.



And a sleeper sofa that he loves.

We also got a traffic light and a little book case to go with them. He likes to turn off the lights in his room, sit on his sofa and look at the traffic light. The woman who sold it all to us threw in a bunch of books too.

Thomas also got clothes and cars and new shoes. The shoes were surprisingly a big hit. I guess he really didn't like the sandals he'd been wearing all summer. (I got new shoes too.)

Green Things

I'm doing some container gardening. Thomas and Mary like to help water. I wasn't sure that anything would really produce in a pot so I just bought a grape tomato, a green pepper, a strawberry and a watermelon. The watermelon is the most experimental. I have no idea if we'll get anything off of it. The strawberry should have done well but somehow I managed to drown it. But the tomato and the green pepper are going like gangbusters.


Look at all those tomatoes. Only one has turned red even though its younger than the others; you can just barely see it peaking through. I have big plans for that one little tomato.


I have four green peppers already! They only grow to about 4 inches long so two of them should be ready to pick in a week or so.

The clothesline is my greenest endeavor, though that's not why I did it. Our dryer is broken. It tumbles but doesn't produce any heat. Eventually, we'll get it fixed but we don't know anyone here who can help us and we don't want to pay a repairman right now. So, I strung up a clothesline. My pride at having done this is way out of proportion to the actual accomplishment. I'm kind of glad that the dryer broke. I never would have hung a clothesline otherwise. Twenty-five dollars, my incredible handiness (I learned how to tie a knot!) and we can dry our clothes for free for the rest of the summer. Now if the dryer would just magically repair itself.

Another Trip to the ER

Croupy, Sick Boy

Thomas has croup. Croup sounds like a normal illness that every kid gets eventually. No big deal. But it was actually completely terrifying.

Last night we had some friends over for dinner. Originally it was just supposed to be Alexa, Chris and their son Cam but then Jeremy's friend Nathan and his daughter Saige decided to drive into town and Nathan invited his friend David over as well. So what started out as dinner for six turned into dinner for nine. This always seems to happen. So, I was a little frazzled.

Before everyone came over for dinner, Thomas coughed a couple of times during his nap. I didn't really think much about it. It was a harsh, barking cough but he only coughed three or four times. And I was really busy.

Then, while I was cooking dinner, I noticed that he was wheezing. I asked Jer to keep a close eye on him and after a couple of minutes, it stopped. About half an hour later he started coughing again and wheezing and crying. I was afraid that he had something stuck in his throat. I saw one of those TLC shows about mothers once, Bringing Home Baby or something, where the older daughter, a toddler, got caught playing with some change. The next day she stopped breathing and was rushed to the hospital. She had swallowed a dime but it got caught in her throat and moved around until it blocked her airway.

I called our insurance nurse hotline. She told us to call our pediatrician. But by the time I got off the phone, he was breathing fine and playing with the other kids. He seemed fine again.

Thomas stayed up late playing with Saige after Alexa, Chris and Cam left. Before we put him to bed he was really wheezing and breathing hard. But he was running around, laughing. I was really worried about him but we decided to put him the bed and just check on him throughout the night.

Twenty minutes after he layed down we heard him crying. He sounded panicked. I ran into his room and he was laying in his crib, gasping for air. It was horrible. I thought he was about to stop breathing. I snatched him up and brought him out into the living room where I could see him better. His lips were red so I thought he was still doing okay but he was working so hard to breathe. We decided to take him to the emergency room and by the time we got him strapped into his car seat, he was breathing easier but still wheezing.

We finally found a hospital without 50 people in the waiting room. He started to struggle to breathe again in the waiting room. I told the receptionist that he was having a really hard time and they called us in. He had a fever and a barking cough so they immediately knew it was croup. The gave him a breathing treatment and he fell asleep. (This took 3 hours; why are the staff in the emergency room so slow? We could see five and six people at a time chatting behind the desk. Ugh.)

He's still sick. His fever keeps coming back but he can breathe. If he had gotten the fever earlier, I think I would have realized it was croup and just turned the bathroom into a sauna. But he didn't seem sick. Jeremy thought he'd sucked in a bug or something. He kept getting better.

So, I managed to take my kid to the emergency room for croup. I feel a little ridiculous.

It's all about the pajamas.

I try never to buy clothes at full price, especially for the kids. I'll buy stuff on sale in a pinch, otherwise I stick to the clearance racks. But the other night Thomas was crying after Jeremy dressed him after his bath. Thomas climbed on my lap and started pulling at the feet. He was crying because his pajamas were too small for his feet! (Though weirdly, the shoes I bought him last year still fit.) So, I broke down and bought him two new pairs a few days ago.

Then, Easter came and grandmas and grandpas sent him money in the mail. I decided that the Easter money paid for the pajamas and now I can sleep at night without wondering if I could have found clearance pajamas if I'd searched for a few more days.

(Speaking of laying awake nights over money, thank you for all the ad clicks. Keep it up!)

Thomas also got trucks for Easter. He loves them, thanks Grandma Peggy!

Yay Easter Trucks!, originally uploaded by leslie.ann.

This is Thomas' new favorite thing to do:

New Habit, originally uploaded by leslie.ann.

And, of course, I laugh every time. Because I am a child. He's guaranteed to do it every day until he turns 15. Spiffy new pajamas, though.

Thomas has a little friend.

Thomas and Trent, originally uploaded by leslie.ann.

Tyson, our neighbor across the street, has a 21-month-old son Trent and is much more outgoing than me. He actually crossed the street to introduce himself a couple of weeks ago. Shocking, huh?

(An aside: it actually was a bit shocking. Thomas and I were doing laundry in the garage when I saw this young man walking up our driveway and into the garage with us. My first instinct was to keep him out of the garage so I was trying to corral him back outside when he explained that he lives across the street.)

Tyson and Trent came over to play in the yard today. Thomas and Trent don't exactly play together. Thomas gives his toys to Trent and then marches back over to recover them a few minutes later.


In other news, I planted some flowers.


I put in the landscaping timbers and filled in the bed with compost and manure. Unfortunately, Home Depot wouldn't cut the landscaping timbers so I left the ends open. It rained yesterday and a lot of the soil washed out into the yard. I had considered that possibility and decided that it wouldn't be a problem. However, I didn't account for the runoff from the roof of the house. Anway, I found something they would cut down for me and closed off the ends. Now, I just have to keep the flowers alive.

Food Friday - Pasta w/ Chickpea-Tomato Sauce

This pasta is simple and awesome. I doubled the garlic from the original recipe because I have never in my life tasted something and thought it had too much garlic. If you have had that thought, scale back the garlic. I also threw in some steamed broccoli and marinated tofu because they were in the fridge. I didn't have any fresh basil so I added a small pinch of dried basil to the sauce. (I just planted a few basil seeds though so I'm looking forward to the next time I make this.)


Pasta with Chickpea-Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Everyday Food April 2009

4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ tsp red-pepper flakes
3 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 cans)
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 can (14.5 oz) vegetable broth
1 fresh basil leaf (more for garnish)
1 small head of broccoli, cut into florets
12 oz medium pasta shells
grated parmesan for serving


Saute garlic and red-pepper flakes in olive oil until fragrent. Add chickpeas, season with salt, and cook for 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes and vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until sauce has reduced slightly, about 20 minutes. Add basil leaf, cook for 5 more minutes. Remove basil.

While sauce is cooking, cook pasta according to package directions and steam the broccoli.

Add sauce and broccoli to pasta and toss. Serve w/ parmesan.

Outside

The weather has been just wonderful here for the last week. Thomas and I go for a walk on the days that Jeremy is on campus and we spend all day together. Lately we've been able to come home and play outside for another hour or so. Our back yard is a barren wasteland of broken glass and nails left from when they remodeled our house so we hang out in the driveway. Thomas prefers the front yard anyway because he likes to watch the cars drive by.

Car!

Our street is insanely busy for a residential area. People cut through our neighborhood to avoid slow spots on the freeway. We recently voted for a traffic plan that will put speed bumps on our block to reduce the traffic. I hope it passes because I'm terrified that I'll get distracted while we're outside and Thomas will wander out into the street. Although even if it doesn't, our landlord Bob is planning to have the backyard cleaned up and sodded in May while we're in Houston for Jeremy's graduation. It will be nice to go outside without following two steps behind him.

Funny Faces in the Bike Trailer

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Hello

Hello, originally uploaded by leslie.ann.

Sorry about the lack of new content. I am running up against a deadline so all blog activity is officially procrastination. I have to turn in pages to George on Wednesday (or Thursday). I'll have a new stuff up after that.

Zoo

We went to the Sacramento Zoo this morning. It's a small zoo and badly in need up updating. It really made me appreciate all the work that has gone into the Sedgwick County Zoo.




Fortunately, they are doing some work on it. This sad little giraffe exhibit is being replaced with a much bigger enclosure next year. Hopefully, it won't have any concrete.




Sitting in this little dump truck was probably the highlight of the zoo for Thomas. The kid is seriously obsessed with vehicles. Jeremy was holding him at the chimpanzee exhibit when a young chimp walked right up to the glass and climbed a rope that was hanging there. It was very cool. Unfortunately, a plane flew overhead at the same time. Thomas missed the chimp because he was frantically pointing at the sky and saying "Pway! Pway!"* over and over again.

Silly monkey.

*"Pway" is how Thomas tries to say "plane". The "p" sound is just barely there. As far as I can tell, he has no idea how to make the "n" sound. I've never heard him make it.