Conversation with a Ladybug

Alec: "Hi, ladybug. My name 'Lec. This is my mommy. We are friends."

 

 

 

 

The Other Day...

...Alec referred to his ankle as his "bagel."

Thomas' Lead Smelting Yard

Great. They've recalled some Thomas the Tank Engine trains. Alec has four of the things on the list. My mom's especially concerned about the fate of Skarloey--maybe even more than the fate of Alec's brain cells. Fortunately, he rarely plays with the darn things.

Sometimes, When Alec Is Naughty, We Just Do This:

 

Alec's First Trip to Arcata

 

 

 

 

Monkey vs. Goat vs. Monkey

 

 

 

First off, wow--I've been doing this blog for one year. I think the Silver Dollar Fair was the first thing I blogged out here. We weren't going to go this year, because we went to the Glenn County Fair last week and we're going to the Siskiyou Golden Fair in August. But Daddy was at work and Alec had been talking about goats ever since the Glenn County Fair, so we went today. He had a blast! We had to look at the goats a bazillion times, and they even took one out just for Alec. I forgot my germ-free (Purell) at home so we had to keep bogarting others' germ-free. We parked far away, saving $3, and snuck in snacks and drinks but still ate some pizza and cotton candy and played the ping-pong ball game and were out of there for $15. Alec fell asleep on the way home, talking about the "baby chimp." We had to pay $1 to take a picture of the monkey, whereas the goat didn't charge. I guess monkeys are better capitalists.

Day of the Drive-Thrus

OK, put down your copy of Fast Food Nation. Alec got a Happy Meal today. And he got a Happy Meal on Tuesday. The good news: They had nuggets and apples, not burgers and fries. And they were probably the fifth and sixth Happy Meals of his life, and most of the others were while traveling. The poor little guy is sick! On Tuesday, he came with me to the scrapbooking class I was teaching and I brought along a Happy Meal to keep him busy. It happened to come with a Shrek toy, with which he is fascinated--mainly because it "burps." I've been trying to counteract this by saying, "Shrek burped! What should he say now? 'Excuse me!'" So, last night, we finally realized he's sick because he was running a fever of 101.7 and he barfed up his Tylenol. He's been talking about it all day: "I barfed. I barfed on the pillow. And on my hand. Big mess. I feel better." Today, Dad is at work and we ventured out to gix a mocha with lick-lick (drive-thru #1), return library books (left him in the car 12 feet away with doors opened) and later got the Happy Meal. Now I finally see the benefit of drive-thrus. I thought they were just for lazy people, or if you weren't wearing pants.

All About the Sharptooth

 

 

 

 

What's So Great About Scrat?

 

 

And when will Alec be tired of him? And what if he gets lost?

Thanks a Lot, Kid

Alec and I had just gotten home from shopping and I left him in the car while I took the bags inside. I went back to get him, opened the car door and he exclaimed: "There's big huge Mom!"

'So Patient, So Brave'

Alec just fell asleep clutching: two dinos, a mammoth, Scrat and his Cuddle Blanket. He was so tired, having missed our nap due to a rigidly scheduled dental appointment.
He was so good at the dentist! He opened his mouth wide, let the hygienist and dentist brush all his teeth and clean them with an electric whirly thing and paint them with flouride. Each time they let him get up from one of the procedures, he'd say, "All done" in a relieved voice, and wipe his hand across his forehead and say, "Whew!" We kept praising him and he'd mutter to himself, grimacing, "I so patient. I so brave." We were just wowed. He got a dino sticker and a small dino from the dentist. We took him to pizza afterward and then after work I took him to pick out $10 worth of new toys. One is the mammoth. Gram sent the big dino. Alec kept referring to the dentist as "look in-a the mouth" and said the experience was "a little bit scary."

This Is My Fave Alec Pic Lately

 

Scrat, Lost and (Kinda) Found

I always wondered why Alec didn't really latch on to any one toy--you know, the whole security blanket/transitional object developmental thing. I thought it would be kind of a cool stage to go through. Not! On Tuesday night I took Alec to Toys R Us, and for 90 cents we got this tiny (choking hazard tiny, like 1 inch) "Scrat," a character from Ice Age that Alec likes to watch on YouTube. He has not let that thing go since! He falls asleep clutching it. He wakes up asking for it. He spends 20 minutes at a time making it "dig tunnels" in my afghan. So, today, against my better wisdom, we let him take it to the park. Scrat survives the sandbox only to be lost among the woodchips as we're going down the slide. We looked for that thing forever! Fortunately, I had already gone to Toys R Us and bought the one they had left on clearance. And there's still available online for $4.99. But if you see one for 90 cents, please pick it up, because if we lose spare Scraft, we're SOL. We told Alec Scrat was going to meet him at home, and I've already extracted spare Scrat from the disgusting goo he's encased in and tied a red ribbon around him.

The Thoughtful Artist

Alec and mom have been doing arts and crafts every day.

What Next?

So, Alec gets his first fish. And the fish gets its own blog. Weirder and weirder.

Easter

Pinky

We Just Can't Decide If He Needs A Haircut

Kite day

Skinned Knees

I'm glad Alec doesn't have my low threshhold for pain. He fell down and skinned both knees and was right back up again. You know what really bugged him? The Band-Aids I made him wear because I was just reading an article about that antibiotic-resistant super-germ staph whatzit. When I was a kid you could get mosquito bites and not have to worry about West Nile Virus and feed the ducks without a thought of avian flu.