Yesterday evening the boys were playing near us adults, and one of them started talking about Pitbulls. Seeing that he was getting to one of the younger boys, he kept on and on, with these outrageous feats the Pitbull could do.
Oh, it could open doors, jump 20 feet, eat people, just short of fly, the boy was trying to convince the other.
While the other younger boys got a bit nervous, Antonio didn't, which I couldn't figure out. But hey,if he's not going to be worried about flying hungry Pitbulls, okay.

This morning, he comes up to me while I'm having coffee.
"So, mom," he asks, "Can Pitbulls really open doors?"
Well, I guess so, if they're trained to, but not many are.

"Mom, can they really eat people?"
"Some can bite and be dangerous."

He points to a spot on my chin, that's a Pitbull, is it going to jump at me?

......Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


No, that's a pimple, Pitbulls are dogs, honey.

Now he gets it!

This morning all I did was get out of bed and grab the camera, no rearraning was done.

I finally think I'm getting some empathy for Geno and all of the years Antonio and I have shoved him to teetering on the edge of the bed each night.
So, where's he going to fit when he comes home?




Oh yah?
And where is he going to sit in the morning to get dressed?

Tonight around 9:30, after finally getting Julia to sleep and having a few moments of quiet, I drug myself towards the kitchen, mumbling in my head, as not to risk waking them.
"I don't wanna fold laundry, make my lunch, pack my pump bag, do the dishes, clean the kitchen, wash two, wait-three, Antonio barfed tonight, more loads of laundry"

Opened the dryer to pull out fluffy clean clothes, and was greeted by a lump of lukewarm clothes. I forgot to change the setting from air fluff to heat dry.
Sweet.
I think I may have something to wear tomorrow.

Yes, Antonio puked. Poor guy.
When he first started complaining that his stomach was hurting, I thought it was because he was hungry.
But in the back of my head I really knew better.
He said he didn't want dinner, he just wanted orange juice.
I gave him some.
Still, his tummy hurrrrtttt!
So, I make him an almond butter sandwich and glass of soy milk.

At some point while making dinner, Julia had pulled herself up to stand at Antonio's toy chest, fell and whacked her eye, so add in trying to ice down a baby who doesn't want to be iced down.
Sometimes, I really should just throw in the towel and order pizza.

I grab my dinner, and the baby and dine in the bathroom while supervising her bath.

Then I hear The Cough.
The only Cough that can be made over a toilet at the end of a wretch.
I pull the baby out of the bath & wrap her in a towel and go over to comfort Antonio.
He's done, but needs to be showered off, as he splashed on his foot, and he'd freak if he realized it.

I get him situated back in bed, with a puke towel and then am able to get the girl in jammies and get her to sleep.

Now I wait for the dryer to go off, so I can fold the first load of laundry and hopefully get to sleep soon.

Good news though, we've just made it past the halfway mark of Geno's deployment!

I finally got some time to put together Julia's book.
I made one for Antonio when Geno left on West-Pac when he was 9 months old.

Antonio has been sitting with Julia and his book, pointing out, "Here's Daddy."
"Here's Daddy and me when I was a baby."
He's just so sweet to her.
Julia has been poking at pictures of him though and stating "DA!"

Julia getting into Summertime



Proof of new tooth
Ignore boogery nose, check the top right side, the little fangy whiteness

What do you get when you combine
newspaper
twigs
unravelled tarp strings
tape
and newspaper




Um, a tent?

Julia has a new tooth
It's on the top left side, not the one directly in the front, next too it.
If the other ones don't come and join it, she's going to have a jack o' latern smile

Bedtime routine with baby who decides to stay up with mom:

Step into bathroom, touch contact lens case
Walk out and move baby standing up at dresser
Back in bathroom, take out one contact lens
Walk into bedroom, with one eye closed to see properly & move baby that is yanking on cable cord
Remove other contact lens
Remove baby from standing at dresser, set her down in doorway to bathroom
Grab toothbrush
Put toothbrush down, close toilet lid while holding standing baby's hand away from water
Start to brush teeth
Hear rustle, and pick up baby who fell over armpit deep in the trash bin
Hold baby on hip while finishing tooth brushing and washing face

Saturday morning invasion

The marble jar has reached it's limit
After 4 months, it is full!

This is a system we have used with Antonio, for nice behavior, doing chores, and out of the way kind things, he gets a marble.
For rude behavior, and not being so great, he looses a marble.

Today, he got to reap the benefit, the reward of his choosing.
A ten dollar shopping spree at Toys R Us.

It all seemed so great, but once inside, he immediately gravitated towards the most huge awesome things he could reach. I felt bad telling him, no that's fifty dollars, nope, that one's twenty five.
I could see it on his face, two minutes into the store,
"Ten Dollars Suck."

I began to try and point out cool things in the ten dollar limit, and finally, we weaved our way over to the action figure section. A whole land of under ten dollars!
"Ten Dollars doesn't suck so bad!"

He picked out a transformer, oh the choices, but there were many, and he found the race car one to be the best.

He happily paid and walked out a proud boy.

This is not Julia's mad face.



This is her ha ha I just came home from the pediatrician and didn't get a shot face.

Her 9 month well baby check up was today.

She weighed in at 20# 13 1/2 oz
She's 29 inches long
and healthy as can be!

After a quick check outside for kitties




We celebrated with rice cakes

Julia is into all things that Antonio is doing.
He's been really great about keeping things with small pieces up out of her reach, or behind his closed bedroom door.
The puzzles, are not so little, so he thought he'd put one together on the floor.
He soon realized this was not the best choice, as she would try and beat him to whatever piece he was reaching for, and screeched if he tried to take it away from her.





Once both of her hands were full of puzzle pieces, he was able to get it all finished, well with the exception of 2 pieces.

And clapping!

Sitting inside the house behind the screen door, she watched me grilling dinner.
To amuse here I clapped, and to my amusement, she clapped along with me.
Her whole face lit up and a huge smile.

Home improvement

I finally had the time to put up new shower curtain rods, and as soon as I started gathering tools, I had a parade behind me.

Outfitted with his new Lowe's goggles, someone was ready to help



The other was there for moral suppot



Antonio was a fantastic tool hander and when the screw fell into the heater vent, he figured out how to save it.

He was right there the entire time, I mean it.
Right there.

After the cat exploding incident, but before the driveway incident, we headed over to Lowe's for the Saturday morning kids clinic.

Today was build the Lowe's Nascar day. Antonio was stoked.
Already wearing his smock, he was pleased that they gave out safety goggles.
So, here he sits patiently waiting for the Lowe's girl to tell them to get to hammering!



This is what Julia thinks of directions.
At least she didn't eat them.



Midway through the project




Here it is all put together and with stickers on it.
Note the new patch to sew onto his smock.

I woke up this morning to Antonio pattering down the hallway to watch some cartoons.
Julia woke up about the same time, and as we walked into the livingroom, I noticed something like marinara sauce on the floor....wait, not quite that...too liquidy.

I asked Antonio if he knew what was all over the floor, and he said he didn't.
As I got a closer look, I realized it was bloody pus, and started to gag.

Tigger, our cat was under the coffee table, and upon quick inspection, I realized it was an abscess on him that had exploded all over the floor.

It would have been nice to have had at least a cup of coffee in me, but on second thought, I probably would have hurled it. Spent the next 20 minutes cleaning the floor and then wrapping up an unhappy cat in a towel and doctoring him up.

Then, this afternoon while I cleaned the garage, Antonio thought it would be a fabulous idea to kneel in the bed of his Tonka Truck and ride it down the driveway.
He was, after all, wearing his helmet.

I didn't realize he was doing stunts down the driveway, he usually has pretty good common sense.

Do I need to say he wiped out?
Well, in case I do, he did, sprawled out, poor guy.
As I ushered up him the driveway, he muttered over and over, "I shouldn't have done that, not a good choice."
He managed to get away with only scraping up his hand, which was mended with the Scooby Do bandaids. Totally impressed the neighbor boys.

So, those incidents, added to the girls black eye from biting it at daycare yesterday should cover the 'things come in 3's', right?

Betcha didn't know your girl had grasstennaes.
This is why she always has her Power Pigtails.





Later on this evening we were sitting out in the yard while I watered the garden.
She saw this as a free opportunity to make a dash for the garden, totally unaware that the sprinkler was not only between her and the garden, but wet as well.
Then, to her eternal (loud) frustration, she could not back up. I didn't realize she couldn't crawl in reverse yet.








*camera was already on hand, she was only there for a smidge of time.
Besides, it's JULY

First toothbrushing

She let me brush her two cute -sharp- little teeth today during bath time.

Then, after bath, she wrestled it out of my hands, inspected it with her magic pokey finger...





she gave it a try herself.




and decided it wasn't too bad after all.
It was all I could do to find something more interesting and new to keep her from taking it to bed with us.

So, 4th of July we were invited to BBQ with neighbors.

I've noticed that I have a lot of pictures of the girl eating....so, why stop now.

She had her first on her own piece of watermelon to chew on. I ate most of the piece and left about two Julia bites worth on a corner and enough on the other side of it to be a handle.
She was most happy with two pieces.
One for each hand





There were some fireworks that launched a guy with a parachute. The boys would run after it and whoever caught it got to keep it.
The neighbor also interviewed each boy about which firework they were most excited about seeing lit off.




Julia decided, that once it got dark and the bigger fireworks were being lit, she didn't care too much for 4th of July.

In fact, she hated it.
A lot.

Since we were just in our cul-de-sac, I was able to bring her inside, sooth her with a bath and put her to sleep.
The neighbor's kept an eye on Antonio so he didn't have to miss anything.
After Julia was sound asleep, and I mean sound asleep, since she didn't even stir with the loud fireworks,
I sat on the porch (with baby monitor in hand) and watched the rest of the neighborhood display.

To Gramma's house we go...
for the Holiday Weekend!


Gramma has a command post spot for Julia.
She's much happier to be up in the thick of things with a stash of O's and a few toys.



After dinner on Saturday night, Gramma had the fantastic idea of making BBQ S'mores.
Antonio was thrilled to find good use for the marshmallows he sniffed out earlier in the day in one of her kitchen drawers.

He, unlike his Mama, is a patient slow roasting marshmallow toaster.
I tend to make a flaming mess out of mine.
He must have his Daddy's patience.



Sunday, the kids needed to run off major yah~yahs.
There's a new park a little bit away from the house.
Julia had her first trip down the slide, with her brother's help.

Conversation last week in the car...

The Boy: Mom, I'm done with my gum. Can I spit it out the window?
The Mom: Ummm....okay, but whatever you do, don't tell Gramma
The Boy: Why? (of course, is there any other question?)
The Mom: Because Gramma thinks it's littering, and well, it is, but just this time, go ahead.

The boy hocks the gum out the window.


Conversation this afternoon in the car...
The Gramma: So, you let the boy spit the gum out the window?
The Mom: Crap! He told you?
The Gramma: Of course! He told me you guys were litter-ers.
The Mom: Laughs and tells her the conversation that took place with The Boy.
The Gramma: You know, if you hadn't told him to not tell me, he never would
have said anything.
The Mom: *Takes mental note for next time*

You know those rare Amazon rainforest tree frogs.
The ones that cling to the tippy top of the trees,
and if they even loose contact with the tree for a minute, even if the tree is only 2 inches away they scream?

And scream
and scream
and scream


Even if the tree is taking a shower(!) and the frog is standing right there?

Even if the tree sings silly little songs, & brother frog brings the little frog toys?


Well, Julia was that frog this morning.