Dentist Visit Laughs

Jerry and I both had dental cleanings this past week, and we scheduled our appointments back-to-back for efficiency. But then it meant Lo had to be entertained at the dentist's office for longer than he otherwise would have been; we brought the pack n play so he could crawl around inside there instead of just sitting on our laps the whole time. Another little girl in the waiting area started entertaining Lo, and he was laughing SO HARD. But of course once the camera came out, he didn't laugh quite as good as he had been. Anyway, it's still cute. Yay for baby giggles.

Dog Days

We made another visit to the local farmpark for the working dog weekend. I'm determined that Lo shall learn to love animals, but for now he seems fairly ambivalent about them. Observe his boredom in the poodle video. That poodle has now become my dream dog, btw. Breed an apricot with a chocolate and you get...chocolate cherry! Such a gorgeous auburn color. The dog "works" at a preschool. Other working dogs we got to meet included the lab that is "ears" for her owner; seeing eye guide dogs, Newfoundland water rescue dogs, a police dog, sheep dogs in all their variety, and too many others to count. There were lots of demonstrations, but this terrier one ended up being my favorite: 1. Start with an unassuming largish white rat.

2. Put it at the end of a tunnel.

3. Let dogs loose in the tunnel, and cheer while they "work" the rat.

I couldn't believe how intense these dogs got. They get points for speed and how much they attack the rat at the end. PETA calm down, the rat stays safely inside his wire cage during the "attack." =)And he didn't even seem anxious about the whole thing. Watching these dogs reminded me of my childhood doggy Chrisha. The neighbors called her "rat dog," because I suppose she was a little ratty looking with wirey-coat and scrawny legs. But she also had some literal "rat dog" terrier blood in her, and more than once murdered my pet rabbits when I left them in her reach. Can't blame instinct. I blame myself for being careless.

This notion of instinct was evident when we watched all the different breeds doing what they were bred to do. For instance, the labs trembled with joyous anticipation waiting to be allowed to do their water acrobatics, but the terriers were totally oblivious to the pond beside them. On the other hand, the terriers/dachsunds/etc. went crazy when they caught sight of this rat, but when the red poodle (in video below) came to visit the terrier/rat crowd, she looked more interested in the people around her than any ol' critter.

We are really enjoying our membership to the farmpark. Coming up next month: a woolfest and an ice cream celebration! Any locals care to join us?




(The reason the terrier wasn't filmed at the end is that he ran through the tunnel so quickly, our camera man didn't realize the dog had already passed the glass viewing point). But just imagine the dog biting that wire rat cage so viciously it would give ya nightmares...)

Library Love

Enter the dawning of a new summer reading program. Probably my crush on summer reading began when my mom toted me to the bookmobiles as a preschooler. I remember around age 10 or so, feverishly finishing a chapter book a day to maximize my prize winning potential with Boise's summer reading program. The prize at the end? A book, of course. But there were bribes of pizza coupons, toy raffles, etc. along the way.

Cozying up on the couch with a good book with my children is one of the activities of motherhood I most looked forward to getting to do, and to accompany that joy, immersing ourselves in local library summer reading programs:

Here we are at the summer reading kick off party a couple days ago. The library gave out grab bags with lots of gift certificates to local restaurants. They also had local area businesses bring their mascots, like the Build-a-Bear shown above with me and that Lo (I like how he grabs the bear's eye. Does that to me too sometimes!) Libraries are good for a lot more than just books. Jerry and I frequent the dvd selection, bringing home such gems lately as the original Pink Panther, Rear Window, and other classics. One of the libraries near our home has nice framed art available for checkout, so I put a few paintings up on our otherwise bare walls. I have even known one library in a past place I lived that had educational toys, such as giant models of dinosaurs, available for patrons to take home for a time. The library where we used to live in Massachusetts had free passes to area zoos, museums, etc. which was a lot of fun. Basically, libraries are one of the best inventions ever.

Just when I thought he couldn't get any cuter...

A couple days ago during Little's babbling, I noticed a glint of light reflecting off the saliva on his lower gums. Wait! It wasn't the shine of drool...but the shine of teeth! He now has two tiny pearly whites, and they seemed to appear out of nowhere. I had heard such horror stories about teething times, that I felt shocked at first to realize these incisors cut through without me even being aware of it--but then I looked it up in the book the pediatrician gave us, and it actually says only occasionally does teething cause unpleasant symptoms. So if a baby seems particularly miserable or has a high fever, it is likely not due to teething and other causes should be explored. Interesting.

I'll try to catch a photo of the little chompers soon.

Virus, Food, Cleanup

We’ve been careless about using wireless (bad, I know, and we are in process of repenting). And our antivirus software expired and when we tried to sign up for it again, we just get some rejection notice about our registration not being valid or something like that. Ask Jerry. Anyway, this new virus makes the computer screen refresh itself at the most wretched times, resulting in lots of lost writings, including whole blog entries, emails, comments on blogs, etc. and it has annoyed me so much, I just took a little break from the computer for awhile. Now I write everything in Word and then paste it. *sigh*We’ve been doing Infant Directed Weaning (IDW). I stumbled across the idea here (of all places?! An AP concept on a Babywise blog?! I’m not the only eclectic parent it seems). As I understand it, the concept is mainly that "food before 1 is just for fun." Feed the baby “real” food from about 6 months on up, but keep breastmilk/formula as the primary source of nutrition. We haven’t altogether skipped Gerber, as I give him cereal or pureed foods a few times a week.
I love how stress-free and fun it makes feeding times. Here he is eating a slice of avocado, which has the peel attached to make it easier for him to hold. Downside of IDW is mainly that it is quite a bit messier than spoon-feeding. Also, I’ve been a little cavalier about handing Lo new foods, and as a result he got some light rash near his mouth from a food sensitivity and I don’t know which food caused it. But he’s off peaches and Gerber peach puffs for now. Current favorite food is watermelon.

Though he gets messy feeding himself, it just gives us another excuse for bath time—so the mess is not really a bad thing afterall. We only had one bath toy, a rubber ducky, which recently lost its squeak. But with a few random objects we found in the bathroom closet (peri bottle, plastic bowl, nasal aspirator, etc.) who needs toys? Observe:

Memorial Day Weekend

I just realized another weekend is already looming before us, and I haven't even begun to talk about last weekend. There are a lot of pictures to catch up, since we had an eventful few days (as most holidays are, I suppose). I am grateful Jerry was free from work Memorial Day. We always love to have him around more. Here he is reading to that Lo. He is covering the baby's eyes because the story being read is about Jesus healing a blind man: "Imagine what it would be like to have no sight, and then suddenly be able to see again." Also note in this picture our sleeper sofa is pulled out, and we prepared our extra queen-sized bed in Lo's room (which he isn't using right now). We had some Young Single Adults (YSA) stay with us for a couple nights this past weekend as part of a church conference in the area. We feel pretty "grown up" to be able to host guests like that and it was fun getting ready for their stay. The YSA's were really sweet and we look forward to helping again in the future. On Friday night, we went to a great bowling party with more than a dozen friends. Our friend Jacob won a free bowling party for himself and 20 friends, so we felt special to be included in his "top 20." =) Thanks, Jacob.

We took that Lo swimming for the first time in a real pool! Too bad we forgot the camera for the actual pool time, but here he is in the living room right before we went as I slathered sunscreen all over his squishy baby body. His swim "trunks" are the cutest thing ever. I'll have to post a better pic of them soon. He seems to like being in the pool. Lots of looking all around in awe, and a bit of tentative splashing. He splashes more in the bathtub than in the pool. I also dunked him under the water a few times, blowing in his face first to help him take a breath. He didn't mind.
On Saturday we visited another Church historical site in the area, the Isaac Morley Farm. The little pathway they have through the trees is one of the more gorgeous places on earth. I saw flaming red cardinal bird, and a smoky black squirrel. This site is where Joseph Smith prophesied that the LDS church, just a small band of followers at that time, would one day grow to fill the nations of the earth. I am excited to see that prophecy unfolding, as nearly every country on earth now has opened to the spreading of Jesus Christ's restored gospel.

And speaking of religion, we visited our friends of another faith on Memorial Day with a trip to Amish Country. That Lo got to pet more horses and other cute farm animals, and we delighted in eating fresh Amish foods. My favorite was a lemon pie, though we had some tasty fried chicken and sweet potato fries as well. To get this photo of Lo driving the mini buggy, we had a whole team effort. (check out the video). Thanks to our wonderful friends for all the love they show that Lo. It always warms my heart to see people giving attention to our precious baby boy.

One of the Amish co-ops was having some special events where they let us get pictures taken in a real buggy. Also, note the videos of our time in the petting zoo and with the buggy horse (unhitched). I'm so amazed how quick those Amish horses trot along with a buggy full of people behind them. The horses are Standardbreds (I asked).

yardsaling

I've never felt very skillful at bargaining down a price, or having the eye to see potential in another person's junk, or even the luck to stumble on a goldmine of a sale. But last week I felt pretty happy about how one yardsale went, so I thought I'd publicly proclaim the occurence (it isn't likely to happen again soon). After spending just one hour at a Mother-to-Mother sale in a local park, I spent $2.50, and got: 2 sunhats; an infant-sized life jacket; a ring stacker toy (that classic rainbow colored one we've been wanting for a long while); and (drumroll, please).....this awesome standing table toy that has lights, sounds, music, and inside the lid there are a couple more top parts to rotate so Lo doesn't get bored of it as easily. His favorite way to play now is standing up, and a lot of times when I try to sit him down in front of a bunch of toys, he stiffens his legs so I have to keep him standing. He is constantly trying to pull himself into a standing position, which has resulted in more than one instance of head bonking. But if he is in the bathtub, with his body weight partially supported by water, then he can pull himself up to stand against the side of the bathtub. It makes him look so old.

My Aunt Stefani always says if you don't go early, don't go at all (for yard/garage/tag/estate sales at least). I attribute most of my success at this particular sale to following her advice. btw, I have lived in regions where each of those four terms was the preferred way of saying it. Interesting linguistic phenomenon, isn't it.

Farmpark

I never heard of a "farmpark" before (in Idaho where I grew up, we just have something called a "farm" instead). But out here, there is this cutest functional farm, which has been formatted to encourage learning. We came on their horse theme day, so Little Tam got to pet lots of horsies, ride in a pony-drawn cart, and got a few freebies like a horshoe with his name on it, and a little soft toy horse. Lo kept grabbing the reins of this pony. He is ready to be a rider! Maybe in another year or so we'll try letting him steer the horse himself. =) Grandpa Dean, get those horses gentled real good for us, k? These lambs in the photo below looked like cats to me, the way they were lounging with legs half on/half off the ledge:

This baby foal was just 30 days old, and they had a contest in which attendees could name the horse. We submitted a name (the name is Lo's real name; we'll see if it gets picked).

These horses pulled people around all day on a wagon, which was another freebie included in the price of admission; I love places where all the fun stuff is included in one package.

Except food was extra. I almost bought a funnel cake, but then just ended up eating the granola bar I'd smuggled in. Check out the greenery in the background. Nope, not in Idaho anymore! It's a jungle out here.

We didn't get photos of a few of my favorite parts, including the part where police horses were being trained. These horses were really in the beginning stages of their training, so we got to see them progress in just the few minutes of watching them. One horse had never seen bubbles before, so one handler blew bubbles at the horse from a soapy bubble machine, and then the rider gradually coaxed the horse to chase the bubbles. Another horse got practice trotting over some garbage can lids, which popped and bounced under his feet. Having ridden horses before, I was impressed by how brave these police mounts could be--normally horses can be pretty skittish over unfamiliar objects.

The horse in this video was beautiful. It could do both reining and dressage (horse ballet), and put on quite the show for us. We had front row seats. When we got home, I read Lo a story about farm animals, and he seemed to really notice and try to grab at the photo of the horse in his book. I think he remembers the horses he saw there at the park.

Oh! And hope ya'll noticed Lo's darling Carhart overalls. A few people at the farmpark commented, "he is dressed perfect for hanging out with horses!" Thanks Uncle Matthew for giving such a great outfit to our Lo.

Chameleon Lo

We got some sheets on clearance at Kohl's. They match Lo's pj's. Time for a little game of "where's Wald-Lo."

finally caught on video...

This is the way Lo's been conversing over the past month or so.