Todds In Real Life

A little of what's been going on lately...

I rented Enchanted for Tessa. She calls it "The Princess and Dragon Movie". I can't get the songs out of my head. And if I start humming them, Tessa wants to watch the movie. She loves this movie, which is so sweet. When the prince catches the princess, Tessa literally brought her hands together under her chin and sighed. Her eyes were big, and she was...well...enchanted.

Jack has just been the ultimate hang-out kid. He just loves being anywhere where he can watch us. Tessa is his favorite view. He will stare with his mouth hanging open and drool trickling down his chin as she whirls around the living room with her "prince". All she has to do is pause for a moment and make eye contact with him to send him into gleeful wiggles.

He has learned a new trick in his swing the last few days. Normally, he only sleeps in the swing. But yesterday, he discovered that, not only could he sit up rather than recline, but he could grab the pole of the swing to stop it. This had provided long stretches of F-U-N for Jack and pleasant quiet stretches for mom.

Here's he's saying, "Check it out, mom! I'm not laying down!!"

And then, "Oh yeah. Did you see that? Huh? Check it. That's my hand stopping the swing."

As a matter of fact, the kid likes swings in general.

We have had some good rain lately. This brings out the snails which in turn brings out Tessa. She is constantly carrying them around. I had to get a picture of her "family" which she named Daddy Snail, Mommy Snail, and Baby Snail.

Casey got a haircut. I have a before picture, but I haven't taken the after shot yet. I will post the change as soon as I do. Anthony had a good time acting like he didn't recognize Casey when he got home from work. Much to Tessa's consternation.

Worth a Blog

This was forwarded to me by my mother and I just had to share the fun:

Jesus vs Santa

Yes, you read that right. It is supposed to be SANTA, not SATAN. See, the thing is, this debate comes up a lot at my house. Especially in the last year. Mostly because Tessa is getting old enough to really get excited about Santa. The argument is that Anthony doesn't think we should include Santa in our Christmas celebrations...and I do.

Now, let it be noted that I grew up in the kind of religion that denied Christmas as Jesus' birthday. It was considered wrong to celebrate Jesus during the Christmas Holidays. AT ALL. You weren't even supposed to sing the songs about Jesus that are associated with Christmas--even though we did anyway. So Santa was accepted with open arms at our house.

Let me just say that my ENTIRE family has been freed from that horrible binding religion. We are all seekers and lovers of God's word, but we no longer pervert it out of a sense of fear. Amen!

Anyway, so I grew up with Santa and the excitement that his "visits" brought. I listened for reindeer and left out cookies and milk. I found out the truth about Santa when I was 7, I think. I wrote a letter to my mom telling her I knew. I didn't want her to feel sad that some kid on the bus had opened my eyes sooner than she might have wanted.

Anthony also grew up with Santa. He remembers the Christmas excitement being a little more subdued at his house. He feels like he would be lying to Tessa (and later, Jack) if he said there was a Santa. He says his conscience would bother him. That Tessa would find out the truth and then get...I don't know...disappointed. He admits he didn't feel cheated or lied to by his parents. And I didn't either for that matter.

Now I believe in celebrating Christmas as Jesus' birthday. Why not? I also feel very passionately about making Jesus the focus of the holiday. I just think it would be sad and not as "Christmasy" if we didn't mention Santa. Mostly, I feel this way because my family loves to celebrate, and Santa was just part of the traditions we practiced. And if we need to get rid of Santa, why even have a tree? How far does this need to go to be good enough?

What do y'all think?

A Snake, You Say!

So I love to wax on about how much Tessa is like her father. And for the most part it's true. But yesterday showed two colors there. She spends much of her day outside in our back yard getting into trouble. Mostly, she ends up with dirt EVERYWHERE and a few scrapes and bruises. But yesterday, she also ended up with a snake. I don't know how she caught it, but she did. And she brought it into the house to show me no less. I am not the least bit frightened by snakes, but I would not like one slithering around loose in my house. She desperately wanted to show her daddy, so we agreed to put the snake in a Mason jar (how fitting) and keep it there until he got home from work.

While waiting, I asked her what the snake's name was. She hesitated and thought about it awhile. I suggested "Sammy" and she nodded and whispered, "He's my best friend."

Then she proceeded to take her "best friend" and shake him near to death in his jar. I had to put him out of reach before he turned belly up. My mom mentioned the likeness of Tessa's actions to this little girl from Finding Nemo:

When I mentioned how fast she must have been to catch a snake, she told me that only little girls can catch snakes. Oh.

So that evening, after daddy got home, we went into the back yard to let poor Sammy go. Tessa spent some time looking at him:

And then she held him for awhile:

After he slithered away under the fence, she had a moment of separation anxiety, but it was short lived and forgotten at the mention of Popsicles. See! She is SO my daughter!

When you feel a little breeze,

Or notice a tickle, or need to sneeze

Or find your things are rearranged

Or something seems a little strange

Look very closely and you might see

Sparkly dust, or a buzzing bee:

Behold! A fairy with gossamer wings

Has come to show you wondrous things!

Depends Day!!

So that is what Tessa kept calling "Independence Day". Too funny. Hope yall had a great 4th. We had a blast with our friends, the Bradleys. Their youngest, Collin, is the object of Tessa's affection. She chased him up and down the football field the whole night. All you could see was her pink jacket as it flew by in the dark. She actually began the night terrified of the fireworks and the loud noises they made. She would not remove her hands from her ears for anything. She even chased Collin with them stuck to the sides of her head. But...eventually she mellowed out and got used to the popping sounds. Here are some pictures from the night:

Yes, it was very cold and breezy. Last year was pretty cold, too come to think of it. I love Colorado!!!

And just because I thought it was cute, check out this progression. Somethings never change.

Don't Be a Square, Go To Heritage Square!

I am a member of a lovely MOPS group here in Littleton. Last March, they organized a trip to Heritage Square. You could sign up for a seat to see Pinocchio in their music hall. So I signed us ALL up. Anthony was lucky enough to play hookey from work and off we went. It turned out to be tons of fun.

First, we took pictures outside the play:

I never did zoom out enough to get the whole sign board. But who cares? You can see the part that matters anyway. And little Jack just stood there waiting for me to focus the camera and everything. Just kidding.

The play itself was pretty good. Lots of audience involvement. The kids loved it. Tessa was enchanted. Jack was hungry and then grew tired of trying to squeeze the fun out of chewing on my car keys--so we had to leave before it was over. We went to a souvenir shop and looked around. I swear, they had the same exact stuff that was being sold when I was a kid. Like the gold flakes in a bottle of water or the beaded jewelry. There were Colorado mini license plate key chains with your name on them, t-shirts that said things like "BYOX: Bring Your Own Oxygen" (which I totally would have fallen for had I been on a trip to Colorado from another state. Heck, I might just go back and get it.), and polished rocks, etc. The list goes on and on. I think I even spotted a metal recorder like the one I bought in Estes Park when I was 14 with pretty much ALL of my spending money. Only to never play it.

After the play, we let Tessa get her face painted. Now this little girl does not like strangers to touch her--ever. But when you explain to her that the result will be the Little Mermaid on her FACE....Well, I think the outcome is obvious:

She was more than a little proud of her cheek that day.

So after the face painting, we bought Tessa an armband for unlimited rides. Of course, she was not going to let the woman selling them put it on her arm. She just started convulsing all over the place. When the ingenious little lady offered to put it on her ankle instead, Tessa was so surprised she actually quit moving for a moment. This meant that for the rest of the day, we had to tell the ride operators that the band was on her ankle. And she would stretch her leg out and point her toe daintily to show them. *eye roll*

I was more than a little shocked that she rode as many rides as she did by herself. She didn't even scream with her arms outstretched while the ride was moving like some of the other kids. Except for that one time that I mentioned we would go eat lunch after her ride. She must have thought I was leaving her to go eat with Anthony and Jack while she had to sit in the hot sun on a ride because she flipped out and threw her head back and wailed, "Luuuuuuuuuunch!". I had to remove her from the ride and we did the walk of shame back to the line.


Here she is on the banana ride. This ride allowed the passenger to control the banana by lifting a lever to make it go up or back down. Anthony said I reminded him of the parents he used to see when he worked at Jungle Jim's Playland shouting, "Push UP, honey!!!" to their kids from the sidelines of rides. Well, fine. I slipped right into that cliche like a warm bath, I did. And it didn't help either. Tessa would only let go for a split second to push up on the lever before releasing it to grab onto the handles again. This just caused the banana to "bounce" which startled her some and made her hold on even tighter.

I rode the ferris wheel with her. This was the fastest moving ferris wheel I had ever been on. Which made it very...ummmm...thrilling. Tessa loved the view and tried to point out something new every time we hit the top (which was like every 6 seconds). She would also lift her arms up in the air on our way down. I don;t know where she learned that one, but she seemed to enjoy it. I, on the other hand, kept a death grip on her t-shirt.

Here was the balloon ride. Not only did she ride it by herself, but she didn't hold on with both hands.

She also rode some paddle boats with Anthony.

Me and Jack stayed behind because they wouldn't let babies on the boats. He was pretty happy at first.

And then he got a little bit cranky:

Well, that's it for now. I would change the songs, but I am honestly enjoying them too much!