like father, like son

Lo Lo follows what Daddy does, and sometimes it is so cute to me. Here he is trying to squish in the same chair Jerry was using for a nap: by the way, this photo shows Lo's buzzed hair pretty clearly--his head also looks a little bit square-ish but I think it is just the camera angle?

Jerry often does pushups and situps, lifting hand weights, etc. in the evening and Lo Lo likes to exercise right alongside him. Normally Jerry's form is more straight of course, but he was craning his head around to look at Lo, laughing as I took the photo.

Lo gets his feet up on the couch like that all by himself.

Try to ignore all the toys covering our living room floor in those last two photos. =)

1st 3D and other movie fun

I saw the new Harry Potter movie a couple days ago and it was my first time to do an actual full-length movie 3D. Those Dementor's cloaks billowed out so real, and the dust came right at my face (ok, sort of a spoiler alert) when you-know-who, erm, you-know-what. Awesome. Totally worth it. Also, I hadn't read the books in awhile so I didn't really recall the smaller details of the plot and I think it helped me appreciate the movie more.

Jerry wasn't interested in seeing that film, so I went with a group of friends. The deal is that Jerry gets to go see Transformers 3 now in 3D. Anybody care to join him? I'll be staying home. :)

Also I hadn't mentioned earlier that when my mom was here she babysat while Jerry and I went to a movie (Super 8). It felt pretty strange--we haven't gone to a movie alone for about 2 years. It was maybe 50% enjoyable, because I was concerned about how Lo did at home with my mom, it being his bedtime and all. But he did fine of course. When I saw the Harry Potter flick two evenings back, I felt something more like 99% relaxed enjoyment because I have more experience leaving Lo with Jerry and know the two of them do fine without me. Babysteps.

Cleveland Children's Museum

 When my mom was here, we visited the Children's Museum.  Most of the exhibits seemed perfect for Lo's stage of development.

He always begs us to let him drive our real car, so this jeep was a favorite. 

Puppets. 

Water table. 

Okay, this train table was hands down Lo's choice--if I had let him, he would have spent two hours there.  But we have free train tables at our local library.  Sorry Lo; I am restricting your agency on this one.  :)

Finally I dragged him away from the train table and we played with anatomically correct baby dolls...

Until he looked out the second story window of the make-believe house and saw...

The TRAIN TABLE!  He abruptly dropped his baby doll playtime in favor of running back to the trains.  Um, really, we can just play with the ones at the library anytime, Lo.  Moving on...

A moon buggy car to drive! 

Spacemen use treadmills.  This was cute because we are always trying to keep Lo off the treadmill at home, but he loved to be just like Mommy & Daddy, exercising on this fake one. 

A real astronaut suit.  Lo was excited to wear it once he saw other kids trying them on.  He is sitting at a control desk, which had an intercom, and some other fun buttons. 

Launching a rocket. 

Building a rocket...or um, throwing the blocks that could be used to build a rocket. 

Lo Lo loves putting coins into those little devices that funnel the coins to a center hole. 

This climbing platform is supposed to mimic the water cycle, and you can pretend to be water molecules going up into the clouds and then raining down.  It is meant for kids a few years older, but Lo didn't know that and we had scary moments of him getting stuck trying to climb around. 

Hope we can return again soon!



Oh, and one more shot: His face looked lit up, coupled with squeals of delight, every time we entered a new corner of the museum.  But most of the photos show just little smiles because he was busy concentrating on serious play.  



Columbus Temple - The Smart Way

Sorry I've been slow getting back into blogging, even though it has been nearly a week since my mom left. I sort of felt dismally uninterested in life over the past few days--not sure what triggered the funk, but maybe because we have missed Grandma so much! Even though she thanked us graciously for giving her a fun vacation, it was really a vacation for ME because my mom did so much cleaning and playing with that Lo while she was here. Lo even got a bunch of inside jokes with Grandma and she had to start translating for me to understand my own son. Also, he called her "mom" because that is what Jerry and I called her. Oops. =) Anyway, hopefully I'll get our fun times documented here little by little. Normally when we visit the temple, it is a LONG day with about 6 hours in the carseat for that Lo, and his mid-day nap turning out terrible attempted on the temple grounds. So this time, since my mom was here visiting and volunteered to babysit while Jerry and I made a date out of attending the temple together, we splurged a bit. We got a hotel for the night, and timed our journey to and from Columbus to coincide with Lo's daily nap so he slept nicely for most of the driving. Totally worth it.

And we joined a group from our ward who also went down to the temple that weekend. What fun! Several in this group are recent converts who were visiting the temple for the first time to perform proxy baptisms for their deceased ancestors.

While Jerry helped with the baptisms, my mom and I played with that Lo outside the temple. See the pretty spire? And see Lo? See him running around there on the grass? It was a million degrees humidity and sunshiney-hot, but he LOVED being outside.

Here we are instructing on why leaves cannot be thrown into the stream as efficiently as rocks.







My mom was going to attend an endowment session while Jerry was doing the baptisms, and we planned that I would just stay outside the temple with that Lo for a couple hours. But I had killer insomnia that night in the hotel (honestly--way worse than even "normal" insomnia--this kind left me feeling zombi-like until I got a nap Saturday). So my mom volunteered to watch Lo while I napped and while Jerry was doing the baptisms. I LOVE MY MOM!

Grandma ("MOM") and Lo, best friends forever. Thanks again for being such a lifesaver, Mom and helping Jerry and me have a great visit to the temple. Oh, and thanks again for rescuing my glasses when the lens popped out into the stream. Good memories.