Traumatized for Life?

Due to Doug's very "traumatic" childhood there are certain things he is very picky about with James. For example: Doug's mother made him change into his swimsuit in front of the entire swim class and their parents. Who knew a 3-year-old would have such a great fear of public nudity. As a result all bathtub pictures (if allowed at all) are censored, and there is no possible way James will ever be changed in a public setting. I had to fight pretty hard to be able to take a picture of James during his first bath. Another example: Doug remembers being zipped up in his blanket sleeper. So now I have had extensive training on the proper way to zip up a blanket sleeper, and any other zipper that is close to James' body.

So my question today is have I just traumatized James for life? Is he going to remember this event for the rest of his life. And will his wife suffer because of it?
I was starting to pack for our trip and James was playing in his room. I could hear him playing with this basket which for some reason is one of his favorite toys. Suddenly he starts crying so I go in his room to see what happened. I couldn't help but start laughing. James had put first his blanket then himself in this basket and was stuck. He wasn't hurt, just frustrated that he couldn't get out. I thought that it was so funny that instead of getting him out of the basket I took a picture first. So I wonder when the day will come when James tells me how I care more about a cute picture then his safety and well being. And I think it is safe to say Doug will back him up on this!

Plane Trip

James and I are getting ready for the long trip to Florida! We are so excited to visit Grammy and Grandad, but we are a little nervous about the flight. We have a 3 hour flight to Chicago, then a 4 hour layover, then another 3 hour flight to Ft. Lauderdale. We're not sure if the Benydryl will work so we are bringing reinforcements. Sometimes I feel like there is more to carry on then there is in our suitcase. We've got, books, movies, a portable DVD player, cars, a magnadoodle, and a few surprise toys he has never seen along with his blanket, monkey and favorite snacks. If anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear them.

Big Helper

James loves to copy Mom and Dad. It has been a lot of fun to watch him try to do things that we are doing. For example in the morning when I am brushing my teeth James come in and "asks" to get on the counter, then, after refusing his toothbrush, he grabs Dad's and starts brushing his teeth. I think it's pretty cute.



Some other things James loves to do are:

• "Talk" on the phone, so if you have ever gotten a call from me in the middle of day and no one is there it was James.
• Play Wii
• Help make dinner
• Take a shower
• Drink out of a cup
• Read books
• Type on the computer
• Wear Mom or Dad's shoes
• Help with chores: he loves to wash windows, helf do the laundry, and sweep or mop the floor. Chores have started becoming harder and harder.

I loved how his faced looks. He is watching Dad throw a ball high up in the air. Of course when Dad was done he had to try himself. He was not very successful!

Where's James

Today James was playing in his room with a friend. He was getting a little grumpy so I threw his blanket over his head to distract him and he started walking around. I didn't think he could see but he was walking really well so I thought he had to be able to see, then he ran into a wall, turned and ran into another wall. So of course I ran to get my camera and when I got back he had already taken the blanket off. Lucky for me he thought it was really fun and asked me to put the blanket on again, he does this by handing me the blanket then backing up into me. So I put the blanket on again and got a great video of James walking around with a blanket on his head.

And for more viewing pleasure here is a picture of James reading to Loa. note: this picture was not set up in any way. James asked to sit on the couch, then he got a book, and Loa being the jealous dog she is couldn't let James have all the couch, or any of it.

And for those of you who haven't seen, we got James' pictures taken a few weeks ago. They turned out really cute!

Petting Zoo

Today we decided to take James to the petting zoo. I thought James would love it because he loves to chase the animals around the complex and "neeeee" at the horses across the street. The problem was the petting zoo didn't open until 11 which is really close to nap time. But he slept in this morning so I thought it would be great. Well we got there, and waited, and waited and waited. We could see the guy moving the animals around but they didn't open. So we went to some of the shops around then came back, it still wasn't open. So we had lunch and went back after 1:00 and it was finally open. By then James was already grumpy so he didn't really care too much about the animals.

James was watching the geese while we were waiting, one "yelled" at him and he got scared.

Waiting for the ponies to get ready, he was so excited.

Still waiting.

Finally we got to go in and all he wanted to do was walk across this bridge.

The goat got in his way!

We were so disappointed because they had a lot of fun friendly animals here that James would love, so I think we will try again next week, in the afternoon after nap time, so hopefully we wont have to wait for them to open but you never know!

Reading to Monkey

Reading has been James' favorite thing lately. I was making lunch today and heard some jabbering in the other room so I went to investigate. James was reading a book to his monkey. You have to listen very carefully to hear him, I didn't want him to see me.

Also, thanks Blake for taking us to lunch. James loves the hat more then the toy that came with his lunch.

Cute or a Bad Addiction?

I think our little monster is finally calming down, a little. He is, believe it or not, actually sitting still for minutes at a time! He loves to be read to and will bring us books to read to him, and no matter what book he brings originally he always winds up looking for Brown Bear. Today while Doug was reading to him, which is rare because it is always mom he wants, he slipped off his lap and came over to get me. He then dragged me over to the couch, dropped my hand, grabbed dads hand and pulled him off the couch. Then he got me and tried to pull me onto the couch to read to him. I think dad was a little hurt.

This brings us to the big question. Today while I was sorting some laundry James went and got his Dad. He pulled him downstairs (he is really good at this nonverbal communication) and over to the TV. Then he got the Wii remotes and put Doug in my chair and tried to get on Doug's chair. The message was loud and clear to Doug, "I want to play Mario Kart". So James has been "playing" Wii with Dad for the last 15 minutes. So is this cute or are we going to have to worry about video game addictions? Right now we are just so happy to see him sit still for any amount of time!