I'm not leaving.  Ever.  You can't make me.

Observations

We are taking our annual family trip to Lake Redstone with Travis's brother's family.  The scenery is Wisconsin at it's finest.  Rolling hills, beautiful rock formations, farm fields flourishing with this year's crop, and just so many trees.  I mean we have our fair share of trees in Cottage Grove, but it's different.  While we were driving here, I pointed out a huge hillside completely covered with trees...

Me:  Alex!  Look at all of those trees.
Alex:  Whooooooooaaaaa...They must have the freshest air here.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's alright.

Dentist

I hate hate hate going to the dentist.  Everything about it.  I hate have them poke that hook thing around.  I hate having someone else floss my teeth.  I hate the gritty taste of the polish/paste crap they use.  I hate the way the suction tube feels in my mouth when it's sucking all moisture from my body.  And don't even get me started on any sort of pain related to dental work.  Blech.  The last time I got a filling, I whined so much the dentist administered enough Novocaine to numb a rhinoceros.  Just the smell of a dentist office, and they ALL smell the same, makes my stomach turn.  I tell you all of this so you will possibly have a shred of understanding left after I tell you that I had yet to take Alex to the dentist.  He's six.  He has a lot of teeth.  A lot of teeth that had never seen the blinding brightness of a dentist's overhead light.  Had never seen.  I finally bucked up and got an appointment for him.

He was so excited.  When I got to daycare to pick him up, he came running to me shouting, "Is it time for my dentist appointment??!?"  Yes.  Calm yourself.  This shit is awful.

But it wasn't awful.  He was great.  Straight from the get go he told me, "I just know it's gonna be a good appointment.  I just know it's gonna go well Mom." OK buddy, I like your positive attitude.  He was very polite, and a little bit shy, but he didn't need any prompting from me to answer any questions the hygienist or dentist asked him.  He sat well and followed all instructions during the cleaning and exam.  And for an extra bonus...no cavities!

He absolutely loved it and is sad he isn't going back until January.  He is not my child.

Two favorite pictures from Gramma and Grandpa Z's yesterday:

Brewer's Trip!

A friend of Travis's had some Brewer's tickets he couldn't use, so he put them in Travis's name at will call for the game on Tuesday.  We had no clue where the seats were, so I told Travis to take Alex instead of us scrambling to get a sitter.  WRONG CHOICE.

Travis made sure he got done with work early, scooped up Alex from daycare, they stopped by my office to grab some chairs from my truck, and were on their way to Milwaukee by 2:30.  The plan was to get there early enough to do a little tailgating but still get into the stadium well before game time so Alex could run around like a lunatic for a while and they could be in their seats for the first pitch.  And it's a good thing they did that, because there were some issues getting the tickets.  But once they did, they found out where their seats were.  5th row behind home plate.  Travis sent me a picture, and after I replied that I hated him a little, he said, "Yeah...we should have gotten a sitter."  Gee, YA THINK?!

Not surprisingly, they had a great time.  Alex got to watch the sausage races from the front row.  "Number 2 won...no wait...contestant number 2 won.  There was contestant number 1, and  contestant number 2, and contestant number 3, and contestant number 4, and  contestant number 5.  Contestant number 2 won though.  He was the hot dog."  Did you happen to learn a new word buddy?

Then he got to sit in the front row with another kid that was near their seats.  And that kid had a game ball.  A game ball that he gave to Alex because he already had one at home.  And then they stayed for the whole game.  A game that started at 7pm.  Yeah...they got home right around midnight.  I was positive Travis would be carrying a comatose asleep Alex straight up to his room, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard them talking on their way in.  Alex climbed up on the couch to tell me all about it.

After he finished his rendition of the day's events, Travis told him to tell me what he had decided his favorite part of the day was.  Quick side note:  Every night at dinner, we go around the table to tell each other what our favorite part of our day was.  As I was mentally running through everything Alex had just told me trying to predict what his favorite moment was, he leaned in, laid his head on my shoulder, and said, "My favorite part was coming to your office to see you."

I only cried a little bit.

So Many Towels Needed

Stinky Snuggle Bug

Alex tiptoed to my side of the bed at 5:30 this morning, climbed in, asked what time it was, and quickly fell asleep snuggled against my side.  When I woke him up this morning, the following conversation took place:

Me:  Just what do you think you're doing coming in here at 5:30 in the morning?
Him:  I just wanted to snuggle you.
Me:  I'm just teasin' buddy.  I love it that you came to snuggle me.  Snuggling you is my favorite thing in the world.
Him:  Me too.  I just want to always snuggle you.  I wish you didn't have to leave to go to work and I didn't have to leave to go to school so we could just always snuggle.
Me:  Me too, buddy.
Him:  (from his butt) FFRRRRBBBBTT....(from his mouth)BAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Me:  You're nasty.

I Did It!

I saw this neat trick/idea on imgur where you take a regular cord, wrap it around a pencil or some other cylindrical object, and then heat it up with a blower dryer for a couple minutes.  You end up with a curly, springy, not tangly cord.  Normally, I'm all, "Yeeeeahhhh right that works" to these sorts of things, but I had a cord in mind that needed some curly, springy, no tangly in its life.

BEHOLD:

Do you know what this means?!  This means my grubby little scooter of a baby can't pull the iPod player off the counter whilst his mama is rockin' out in the kitchen.  This means musical freedom!  And?  It means I successfully completed a cool trick I saw on the interwebs.  Good stuff all around.

The Cover of Darkness

Alex is burning through shoes faster than ever lately.  It seems like every two months MAXIMUM he needs a new pair.  This time I didn't mind though.  There was a sale at the shoe store we usually go to, and they had a pair of non-light up ones in his size.  I bought them without him and had him try them on at home.  And to my elation, he said, "These are PERFECT!  They are super compfty*.  And?  They don't have lights.  Which is good because I wanna be able to play Kick the Can with the boys at the lake house and if I have lights on my shoes?  I will be an eeeeeeasy target."

*That is not a typo.  That is how he says "comfy."  Not surprisingly, I love it.**

**Speaking of things he mispronounces:  One of the BattleBots is called "Tombstone."  When I said somthing about Tombstone, Alex looked at me incredulously and said, "No Mom, it's "TUBEstone."

Still Impressionable

While in the bath after watching Dirty Jobs:

"Hey Mom!  Do you have insurance?"
"Yes.  I have insurance."
"PHEW!  Did you know if you get in an accident and you have insurance they fix your car for FREE?!?"

"I'm sorry it's come to this, cow...but we need to talk."

My Little Kobayashi

This baby.  He can eat.  Like a lot.  Last night after having some Apple Jacks, cheese, crackers, and milk, he started in on this peach.  I tried to take it from him to cut it up, but he just screamed at me and sunk his teeth in while keeping a side eye on me to ensure I didn't try to steal his precious from him.

And after a couple minutes, this was the remains:

And then?  After all of that food?  He had a full plate of spaghetti.

Well, he ate most of it.  The dog got some and he wore whatever didn't make it into one of their mouths.

I'm Comin' for You, Summer!

Thanks Dog.

Aiden is still with me pretty much all day, every day.  She comes to the office, she comes with to day care, she is home with me, she goes on walks with me.  And since I've been forcing her to be my shadow, the peeing in the house has all but stopped.  There have been occasional pee incidents when we do decide to leave the house without her tagging along, but it isn't every day when I get home anymore.  Because I've made it physically impossible for her.  Yay.

This morning started like any other morning other than Travis is out of town.  Everything was going swimmingly.  Both boys woke up happy and each took a quick bath.  The dog went out and then was all snuggled in a blanket.  I made my lunch last night and got the coffee set up so I had minimal work to do.  Alex did a great job listening and getting dressed and turning off "BattleBots" when asked.  I totally kicked this morning's butt.

Right as we were about to walk out the door, I scooped Sammy up, plopped him on my hip, and immediately felt wet shorts on my arm.  How is that possible?  He was in the living room the whole time...did I miss him getting into the dog's water bowl somehow?  Nope.  That asshole of a dog peed on the carpet at some point this morning, and Sam sat in it.  Awesome.

Alex's agility training didn't go so well with the dog.

Friends in High Places

See that little boy in the upper right corner of this picture?  The one on the rope bridge that is almost three stories off the ground?  Yeah, that one!  That's Alex.  What.

Day care took the kids on a field trip to Kalahari yesterday.  The weather wasn't super great, so they stayed indoors and played in the indoor amusement park area before going on the water slides.  Mr. Alex and one of his friends decided to tackle the highest rope bridge.  Obvisously they were tethered for safety, but still!

Explanation of the climb up:

"The whole time we were climbing up, SoAndSo said he hoped he didn't chicken out.  He kept saying, 'I don't wanna chicken out!  I don't wanna chicken out!'  And then we got to the top and he almost chickened out!  But then I said, 'Dude.  You said you didn't want to chicken out.  Don't chicken out.'  And he didn't chicken out Mom!  He totally did it!"

Ya think he learned a new phrase yesterday?

Best picture from Chuck E. Cheese's or best picture from Chuck E. Cheese's?