Fall Fun

Xander and I went out to rake this weekend.


After the second pile, Xander realized he would do a better job jumping into the piles rather than raking the leaves into a pile. He would run up, jump and put his legs out and land sitting down every time.


Since then, when he sees a pile of leaves he will start laughing and take off towards it.

Last night we worked on the pumpkin carving. Chris picked up 4 pumpkins a couple of weeks ago and they have been sitting on the front porch. I picked up a cheap ($3) pumpkin carving kit last week. When we got down to business, Chris opened up the pumpkins and emptied them out with Xander's supervision.
Xander wasn't allowed to do much else because his drawing skills aren't quite up to making triangles and because he's not allowed to play with sharp objects. The sharp objects were extra cheap and broke anyway.


Xander had to go to bed, so the quality control department wasn't quite up to scratch. But we are happy to have our pumpkins done.


Josie slept through both events. Guess she's not quite in the holiday spirit yet.

A Sick Little Boy

Poor Xander caught a pretty nasty cold. On Saturday Chris noted that Xander seemed tired all day. Around dinner time I took Xander's temperature and it was 100.1. As we fed him dinner, Aunt T noticed that Xander was shivering.

At 2 am I heard Xander talking to himself in his room. This continued off and on for almost an hour before I went in to check on him. He was shivering again despite three blankets. I took his temperature and it was 103. I tried not to freak out and gave him some medicine. I felt so bad for him and he kept cuddling up to me, so I figured I'd sleep on the floor with him. But when I went to get my pillow Xander yelled "Dad!" immediately waking Chris up who wondered what was going on. I explained and Chris actually suggested Xander just sleep in our bed.

Xander was feeling so achy and miserable that it took him quite a while to fall asleep. He kept tossing and turning, wanting one parent and then the other, the shivers stopped but there were little spasms every few minutes. Finally a little after 4, I carried him back to his room fast asleep.

Since then the temperature has disappeared but he is still easily tired. He's developed a bad cough and a runny nose. I did take him to the doctor who said it was a cold. Man, that was the scariest part, wondering if this was the flu or THE flu or even pneumonia. Xander's been sick before, but this has definitely been the worst. Hopefully he'll just keep getting better and won't pass it off to Josie.

Another MiniMe

Everyone comments about how Xander looks just like his Dad. And when you look at pictures of Chris as a boy, it's eerily clone-like.

Some people have commented on the likeness between Josie and me. What do you think?

Me at 6 months



Josie at 3 months

Xander Short Stories

Here are a few of Xander's recent adventures.

Story 1 - The day before he turned 2, Xander discovered that peas do indeed fit up his nose. Fortunately, they all rolled right back out. Believe me, I was sitting there wondering how I would get it out. Blue ball nose sucker, maybe? I know if it's Kix, you just crush it in his nose and make him blow it out. He hasn't tried it again.

Story 2 - I was sitting on the couch holding Josie when Xander walked up in front of me holding his little stuffed penguin. He proceeded to pull up his shirt and press the penguin to his chest. It took me a minute to figure out that he was pretending to nurse the penguin! I laughed so hard that I scared Josie a little. He held out the penguin to me and I'm not sure if he wanted me to help get the penguin latched on or if he wanted me to feed the penguin. I didn't know how to break it to him that a) boys can't nurse and b) penguins can't be nursed. He hasn't tried this again either.

Story 3 - In case you didn't know, Xander has chubby feet. This past week the weather turned rather quickly and we had to break out the socks and shoes. The only shoes that are close to fitting do not have any actual laces or velcro, just some elastic across the tongue. To get his foot in, I have to shoehorn it. So the shoe is more than long enough, it's just not quite wide enough. Due to a lack of shoehorns in our home, I used a spoon. Today when we were getting ready to leave, I told Xander to get his shoes, which he did. He then proceeded to run over to the silverware drawer, open it, and fish around until he found a spoon. He brought it over to the shoes. When I got the darned shoes on, I started strapping Josie into her seat and saw Xander get the spoon and return it to the drawer.

Story 4 - Xander's vocabulary seems to grow every day. His pronunciation is a little off, but that is to be expected. We can not seem to get him to make a sentence beyond saying "Hi cat." If he wants something, he will grunt a few times and say "Bah." 'Please' is the only word we can't seem to get him to say. He can say all of the parts, but when we put it all together, he grins really big and with a big nod says "Bah!" For a couple of weeks, he yodeled everything. "Hi-eyi-eyi-eyi!" Everyone thought it was so cute. I kept waiting for it get annoying, but it never did. His favorite word now is 'whale' (pronounced 'vay-heel') for the fishing game he loves and 'poop' (see next story). Today he finally started saying his sister's name. It sounds like 'Joe Gee' but it's better than always calling her 'Bee' (for baby).

Story 5 - Potty training time! Chris and I debated if it were time or not. Xander has seemed interested in it for a little while. The repeated incidents of finding him sans diaper and a mess for me to clean up were pointing towards 'yes.' But I didn't really think I was ready to deal with it, not with a baby to take care of too. So it's a compromise situation where we take him to the bathroom a few times a day or when he says 'poop' or 'pee.' He hangs out on the kiddie potty and we have some books for him to read (like 'Everyone Poops'). There have been a few successes, but there have also been frustrating moments of trying to keep him sitting or trying to get a diaper back on. He gets a cookie as a reward, but he thinks he deserves a cookie every time. So that has lead to a few temper tantrums.

Story 6 - Xander started throwing temper tantrums over the summer. Depending on the situation, it can involve yelling, crying, throwing things, sitting or throwing himself down. For the most part, I find them amusing but it hasn't happened in the middle of the store yet. One day he was upset that I didn't give him juice but gave him water. He started wailing and plopped down on the kitchen floor. He stopped, looked down at the hard floor, got up and walked onto the carpet and then started over by crying and plopping down on the soft carpet.

I think that about covers it. I'll try to get Josie stories in soon.