Backseat driver

Leo is turning into quite the backseat driver. On the trip he said at various times, "Slow down, you're going too fast." and "Go go go car, go faster." He also read a stop sign as we approached, saying "S T O P, that means stop!"

Leo did not want to leave Grandma and Grandpa's today and was not happy the fun time had to come to an end. The trip home was fine, if snowy. We'll post pics soon.

way up nort'

Early in the year, I thought that my contract specifically didn't allow the use of personal days on the day before or after a major holiday -- which made life slightly interesting, since we were headed to my in-laws in Wausau, WI for Thanksgiving.

Leo and Kirstin have been under the weather all week, and they both stayed home on Tuesday. Yesterday, we took him to school and then had Kirstin drop me off at my school. A colleague of mine (to whom I owe something homemade, yummy, and lactose-free) was incredibly nice and stepped in to cover the last 15 minutes of my last class of the day, and we were leaving Centennial a little after 3:00. While Kirstin and Leo were waiting, they had a long discussion about how he didn't want to be buckled in and how he didn't want to go visit. That persisted for a while, and I think some of it stemmed from no nap and forgetting to pack a snack.

Kirstin drove the first 3.5 hours (from Champaign to Beloit), where we stopped to eat dinner. Leo had a great time at one point saying "down the hill and turn left at the stoplight." I'm not sure where he thought he was directing us to, but it was fun to hear.

One of our practices for a very long time has been to check out audiobooks for longer drives (roughly, anything more than about 3 hours each way). This time, we had Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We hardly even have the first disc playing when Leo starts complaining, "I don't like this story." How can our son not like Harry Potter?!?!?! In the end, we ended up driving most of the way with the radio off, aside from about two hours of the stretch Kirstin drove, where Leo finally nodded off to sleep.

He snoozed a little bit after dinner, but was awake and quiet for most of it. I finished the drive, and managed to get us into Wausau a little after 10:00 (maybe closer to 10:15). We get things unloaded, and Leo decides he's still hungry. When he sits down at Marge's kitchen table, he proudly announces, "I want to do some eggs." (In reference to Easter egg decorating when last we were here.)

It took a long time to convince him to go to sleep after all the time he spent in the car. Fortunately, he slept until sometime after 7:30 this morning.

Picnic

Leo decided at breakfast this morning that he wanted to have a picnic with Bunny. And why not? We were having Badger State muffins*, which have apple, carrot, and cranberries--all things bunnies like.



* recipe available upon request






All that detritus in the background under the stool is from Leo practicing with scissors.

Party

Last night we had a small party where we served two kinds of chili and various toppings. The guests brought cornbread and dessert (pumpkin pie!). After we were done eating we put in the movie Cars and the boys watched and played while the grownups talked. It was funny to watch the boys change positions in the family room over the course of the movie while still (mostly) watching the movie. We think everyone had a good time.

All clean!

Leo went to the dentist for the first time today and did a great job. He was pleasant and cooperative. Everyone involved enjoyed it. He got his teeth checked and cleaned and fluorided.

When I dropped him off at school afterward, one of his teachers and I were talking about how we were glad it's Friday. She said that Leo delights in coming into school on Mondays saying "It's Friday! Not it's not...heeheehee!" Our little clown in training.

ABCs showdown

Mason prefers this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptbp0pmcg3U which is why he says "Cookie Monster" at the end.

We were participating in the last Jarlinsg custard of the season. Sniff.

who knew it was a contest?

Leo has just finished his very first complete shower. Bath time came a little early because of a small potty accident, and as I started to get the bath drawn, he began pitching a fit about wanting to take a shower. (He did a mini-shower one night earlier this week, cleaning his legs up after something... no, I don't remember what right now.)

Kirstin handled the actual shower duty, and Leo did a pretty good job of following directions. (A little wigglier than she might have liked, but what else is new on that front?) At the end, after the water got shut off, he started shouting, "I win! I win!"

an ecologist in training... sort of

While I was dealing with the butcher counter at the grocery store this morning, Leo and Kirstin were watching the lobster tank. Another mom & boy come by and the other boy asks his mom what lobsters eat. When the other boy's mom asked her son what he thought lobsters ate, Leo responded, "Chicken."

so named

Last night we were looking at the proofs of Leo's school pictures and he was naming all of the kids in the group shot. He was using first names only until he got to Cecily, and then he said, "That's Cecily M_____." We were surprised, not knowing he knew her full name. We said, "Yes that's her whole name, what's your whole name?" He replied, "L. E. O. William Dougan." Guess we should start calling him by his actual name more often.

weekend miscellany

Somewhere in the last week, Leo has started to get into the "mother" and "father" thing, even occasionally calling us those instead of something more kid-like. It was really amusing tonight. I got home from a trip in to school after he had gone to bed, but went in when he was up a while later. When I whispered at him to go back to sleep, he responded with a whispered "Father, are you home?"

He's had a little bit of a reaction to his flu shot, and that plays into the other really funny thing he said this weekend: "I'm ready for this cough to go away now."


At some point this morning, he was stretched out across both stools while we were working on something. I don't honestly remember what. {Kirstin sez: I don't remember what we were doing either, but in case you can't tell, he was having a fit over his paci...}






Even though the temperature was 34 degrees this morning, he insisted on going out to the back yard to play for a while after grocery shopping. Then he wanted his yellow shovel. After he caught me taking a picture or two, he told me he was digging up a castle. After switching the camera back to video mode, the following conversation ensued:

Colors, goats, books, and checkups

The fall colors last week and early this were gorgeous, although we are in the end phase--this picture was taken last Saturday, and already many of these trees are more than half bare.











Last weekend we took a trip to Curtis Orchard. Leo had fun talking to the goats.











One of Leo's favorite Halloween books was The Thirteen Days of Halloween. Here's a clip of him helping Jeff read it.

On the twelfth day of Halloween,
my good friend gave to me
twelve cauldrons bubbling,
eleven bats a-swooping,
ten goblins gobbling, (I love how Leo says goblins as globulins)
nine wizards whizzing,
eight brooms a-flying,
seven spiders creeping,
six owls a-screeching,
five cooked worms
four giggling ghosts
three fat toads,
two hissing cats,
and a vulture in a dead tree.
Leo had his 3-year checkup and was pronounced "perfect." He is in the 35th percentile for height and weight, has good hearing, and no eye problems. Next we have to make him a dentist appointment.

Lately Leo has been enjoying random interjections. He'll say the word bubblegum over and over because he thinks it's funny.

Voting

We took Leo to vote with us last night. When he asked what we were doing Jeff explained that Mama and Papa were helping to decide who would get to make the rules. Leo immediately stated that he wanted to make the rules. He also kept saying that he wanted to vote too.

Happy Halloween!

My personal intro to Halloween came by way of catching about half of the Capitol Steps' Halloween radio show on the way home from lunch after a morning crammed full of parent-teacher conferences. I was particularly fond of this year's Lirty Dies segment, but the spoof of the Village People was pretty good, too. (For those who choose to download or stream the show, they start around the 15:00 mark.)

The Halloween shenanigans around here began with the Halloween Parade at school yesterday. There was one last year, but they hadn't been allowed to call it a Halloween Parade for some reason, so this is the first official Halloween Parade. For those of you who don't already know, Leo was dressed as a pirate -- this should not be a surprise in the slightest.




Daniel, of the usual suspects (left); Leo a.k.a. Pirate Boy (center); and Ellie (right) lining up for the parade.


He woke up from his nap with a fever, and so wasn't feeling well through the parade. In fact, he spent almost all of it being carried by Kirstin. When we got home, he stretched out on the couch and really didn't eat much dinner.






This is about 5 minutes after we got in the door. I had hardly had a chance to set stuff down.














Here's our jack-o-lantern in situ. Leo helped Kirstin design it, I got the job of gutting it, and she did most of the carving. Next year, we're getting at least two.








We still went trick-or-treating with Mason and family, anyway. Mason was the Little Red Caboose; Jeni was the big black engine. Neither of us dressed up, in part because I discovered too late that my tux shirts had not made it from North Carolina. (Add a martini glass to get 007.) It took us about an hour to go around the block, about the same as last year. The boys were both big hits and had really good manners throughout the evening. A few of our neighbors did an incredible job on their multiple pumpkins; unfortunately, the pictures of those mostly didn't turn out.





Here we have a static shot trick-or-treating at a house that's just a few doors down the block. It's probably a bit of a shame that we don't know many people by name except for the Gentrys and our immediately next-door neighbor.







This film comes toward the end of the night, at a house just up the street from the Gentrys (and therefore us, but on the other side).