At the Park

Yesterday we went to the Park near the library again. These are just some pictures from our playdate at the park. We took his soccer ball which he has been playing with a lot in the back yard. There is a soccer field attached to this little park. Chance kicked his soccer ball all the way across the field and into the goal which is kind of funny because I didn't tell him that was what he was supposed to do he just figured it out by himself.

Hanging out

The last couple days Chance and I have mostly been hanging out. We went swimming on Wednesday and then yesterday we went to the library and to the sporting goods store looking at tents. We are planning to go camping this spring so I am starting early looking around to find the best size tent and prices, oh yeah and we went to the park. Today we might go to the park and maybe to Walmart to check their tent prices, and we need to clean the house. I think to start we need to get dressed. Somehow our day got mixed up and we ended up watching Sesame Street before we even got dressed. Oh well, this picture is of Chance trying to get into the park near the house when it was closed on Mardi Gras. He didn't quite fit through the bars.

Clearing the Empty Lot

The empty lot behind our house is getting a face lift. You may remember it used to be a burned out house which was torn down a few months ago. Well, our neighbours purchased it and are turning it into parking for themselves and extending their back yards. This is great news for many reasons. Just to start it is nice to know what is going to happen to the empty lot and it is nice that our neighbours bought it because they all take wonderful care of their houses and we all get along so we know it will look nice and they will be considerate of our house being so close. After they torn down the hosue a few months ago we could not afford to put up a nice wood fence so we put up the chain link fence you can see in this picture. The gentleman who bought the piece right behind our house is having a nice wood fence put up and all we have to do is let him use our electricity and water for the power tools and mixing the cement. That is a great deal for us and we really appreciate that he is doing that. It will be nice to have a good privacy fence up on that side of the yard. Chance enjoyed watching the little bulldozer go back and forth bringing in gravel and leveling the land.

Going Back in time

I say that because these photos are from this weekend. Actually it is from Saturday to be exact. We saw 3 parades on Saturday, first we went uptown during the day (the first picture) Chance had a good time sitting in his little chair and watching the parade. He also got to walk in the street between parades which he thought was tons of fun because he usually does not get to spend much time in the street. Then later that night I went to a parade with my Mom and my cousin Brenda. Scott doesn't really like going to the parades and since that would be asking a lot from Chance to go to more parades at night, the boys stayed home while we went to the parade. This one was one of the really big ones which always has a celebrity Grand Marshal. This year it was Kid Rock who you can see in the second picture.

sleeping

We have been busy this last week. Going to Parades and visiting with my Mom who was here over the weekend. All this activity is making us tired. Chance has fallen asleep in the car more times this week than he has in months. Right now he is sleeping in his bed after falling asleep in the car on the way home from dropping Scott off at the airport. There are more parades today and tomorrow but I don't know if I have the energy to go to any of them, it is chilly outside and we would be going by ourselves. I might drive over that way this evening and if the parking is ok we might get out and see what we can see, I don't know yet. Traffic is really bad especially around parade times so we might just stay inside today and tomorrow. I don't know. I have more pictures from this weekend and will hopefully get around to posting them tonight after the little guy goes to bed.

Books

Chance has recently learned the word 'book' and now that he knows it he really likes to use it. He has always enjoyed books and throughout the day he will occationally bring you one of two books to read to him. I love that he loves book because I love books too, in fact I am in the middle of three different books right now but since Chance learned the word 'book' he has brought book after book after book out of his room for us to read to him. This is a picture of all the books that he brought to us yesterday to read to him. We read all of these 14 in all and some of them twice. He is also learning the titles he calls "Green Eggs and Ham" 'ham'. He is funny walking through the house saying 'ham'...'ham'...'ham' until you read the book to him. We have been going to the library a lot with our playgroup recently which is great because we always pick up a couple new books.

More Parades

Today we had two more parades. Our friend from the meetup group lives just a couple blocks fromt he parade route uptown so we made our home base there today. Chance had a good time waving to the floats and getting lots of beads. He found a new fun thing to do between the parades today, picking up beads that landed on the sidewalk and street from the parade that just went by. They don't open up the road between parades so it is safe to walk around. Chance picked up a string of beads then brought it back and put it in our backpack then he would point to a strand of beads he saw ont he ground asking me if he could go get it, I would say 'yes' and off he would go to pick it up and bring it back to his collection....and then the puddle.
So, where we were standing was right behind a big puddle. We watched the bands go by from the sidewalk side of the puddle then step over to wave at the floats as they passed by, it was really a great place becasue the puddle was easy to step over (for me) and no one else wanted to stand there because of the puddle so we had made our own little space there. When the first parade ended and we were waiting for the second parade to begin Chance wanted to walk around to collect beads so I let him down, longer story shorter he was walking toward the puddle and just as I said "don't (go in the puddle)" he stepped off the curb and splashed into the puddle. And in a second he was mid calf deep in puddle with muddy splashes all over himself. The curb caught him off guard and he was upset for a minute then he thought it was tons of fun. Then he was all wet and dirty and remained that way for the whole second parade since he was not upset about being wet we stayed and continued to enjy the day but you can see in this last picture how dirty he is sitting in his stroller. This is a video I took in between parades today. It has more of us in it and less parades like the last two. Chance says 'hi' and tries to grab the camera.

Pirate Toast

Yesterday for Valentine's Day Scott and I exchanged cards and Scott got me a cool little gift which turned out to be fun for all of us. It was a Jolly Roger Toast Stamper. You push it into a piece of bread then toast it and the design shows up really well. Chance enjoyed stamping the toast. He did not even wait long enough for me to toast his slice of bread he just put the whole thing in his mouth after he stamped it. It was fun and I must say Pirate toast is tasty. Aaarrrrrrrhh!

Happy Valentines Day

We hope everyone has a happy Valentine's Day. We don't have anything special planned today/night. Scott is working till around 8pm and Chance and I are taking Nick (a friend from Florida who works with Scott who is in town for WWL) to the parades tonight before Scott gets off work. Scott and I plan to go out just the two of us next weekend when my Mom is in town. Chance did really well at the parades last night. I wasn't sure how he would do now that he is running around everywhere but he stayed close although he did have to splash in the puddles near by but that was a small price to pay for him being such a good boy for two parades in a row. He caught beads and got lots of stuffed animals which he doesn't care about and some doubloons which he loves. This year he is waving as the floats go by unlike last year when I tried to get him to wave but he just sat there. He also LOVED when the fire trucks when by and he also liked the girls with sequins on their outfits that walk with the marching bands. I didn't get a lot of pictures because if I wasn't watching the parade I was keeping an eye on Chance but I did take a (really bad) video of the parade and of Chance and I. We aren't in it very much and I am still trying to figure out how to use the video function on my digital camera so hopefully the videos will get a little better. But you can see one of the Maids in the Pygmilion parade and us.

Plessy V Ferguson

We had a big day, I put Chance in his stroller and we went for a long walk which you can read more about by following the link these are just some pictures of Chance that I took at the event. http://neworleans.metblogs.com/2009/02/12/plessy-v-ferguson/

Twitter

Recently I have become addicted to Twitter, you may have noticed the recent addition of my twitter feed on the right side of the page. Scroll down and you will find it. Twitter asks you one question "What are you doing?" and you have 140 characters to answer. It does not sound like that big of a deal and that alone would not be but then of course you link to your friends and they all answer the question throughout the day or every other day and so their answers show up on your twitter homepage. So all the time you are updating them on what is going on in your life and they are updating you on what is going on with them and the cycle continues. So now maybe you see where the addiction comes in. So if you have a twitter already then go ahead and follow me (click the link at the right) and if you don't have a twitter account then you can sign up if it sounds like fun. Oh yeah and did I mention they have applications to download for almost every kind of smart phone and other desktop apps too? They further feed the addiction.

Music Playdate

Since our Kindermusic classes are over and we don't have the money right now to sign up for the next semester I thought I would try holding a music playdate at our house with our usual group. I put it all together and we had 5 other Moms and 6 other kids here at the house. It actually went very well and everyone had a great time. I think I will do it again soon. Chance was very good sharing his toys again. He took a drum stick away from a little girl and when I said "did you take her drum stick?" he held out the drum stick and then I said "if you took the stick you need to give it back to her" He gave it back with no complaining and said "thank you." He is so cute and polite.

Krewe Du Vieux

Tonight was the first parade of the Mardi Gras season, Krewe Du Vieux. This year there was a little twist, it went right by our house. it started at the art school across the street from our house went away from us turned and came back toward our house but about two blocks down so we all walked down the couple blocks and watched it go by then we came back to the house ate dinner and put Chance to bed then the parade came back right next to our house and entered the school where they are holding their after party. First, we sat out on the stoop watching the people in their costumes arrive at the school getting ready for the parade to start. While we were waiting one of the bands and some of the parade members walked by, they gave Chance some very nice handmade glass beads some play money and this wonderful (read ear piercing) horn. Chance seemed to have a great time watching the parade. This year he actually waved, last year I was just trying to make him wave but this year he got so into waving that he started waving at random cars going by. He got lots of beads and other things that he will like to play with tomorrow when he wakes up. He went right to sleep when we put him in bed and did not wake up at all as the parade passed right by the house. He seemed to really be getting into the parade and I think he will like going to see more parades over the next two weeks which we intend to do. Mardi Gras is February 24th so we will be out and about to lots of parades from now to then. This video is to show how close the parade really was to our house. It is really cool to be right on the parade route.

Lounging in the Tub

He looks so comfortable doesn't he?

Painting

Chance and I have been painting a lot lately. I had some watercolor paper in my crafts box which I cut up in postcard size pieces and we have been using those as our canvas'. Chance really likes to paint. I have never tried to paint in the past I am so bad at drawing I thought I would be equally bad at painting but I seem to be able to put things together better with paint. I am really enjoying the procces and so does Chance. He picks the colors he wants and paints in swirls and in straightish lines. He has said green a few times but since we have been painting he says it all the time when he wants that color and he has started saying blue too. With words it seems all he needs is the right motivation. Chance painted two pictures and I painted two pictures I am sure you can tell which ones are which. I plan to scan the one with green corners into the computer and write a poem in the middle.

Weirdly Accurate

Your rainbow is shaded red and violet.

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate energetic people. You are patient and will keep trying to understand something until you've mastered it. You get bored easily and want friends who will keep up with you.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

The Monkey Room

There is a great place here called the Monkey Room. Inside is a whole big play area to climb through and slide down and jump around. The first time we went here was really before Chance was walking and I was overwhelmed by all the action around him so we had not gone back for a while. Well, today we had a playdate there so off we went. Chance loved it, he is holding his own now and off he went. This first picture is one of the ways in to the big play area, I thought for sure when he got to the top he would turn around to look for me or come back down but I was wrong. After he got to the top he turned the corner and disappeared for a few minutes. I kept listening and watching waiting to see or hear him and then down the slide he came and right back around to climb back up and doing it all over again. He played and played and played and I tried not to watch. He was just fine the whole time he did not get hurt and he was very polite with all the other children taking turns and everything. Parents are allowed to go in every thing too and a few times Chance came out, took my hand and drug me through the play area with him, which to be perfectly honest was a lot of fun. Now that Chance is able to climb and everything I think we will go back more often.

He is getting more words too. Today he said "more" when he wanted more bran flakes. Yeah, yhou read me right, he was eating just the dry flakes from a box of Raisin Bran and he wanted more.
Picture 1 - There he goes all by himself, Picture 2 - That is him climbing int he same area as the first picture but from the side, Picture 3 - That's him up in the tunnel not paying any attention to me at all, Picture 4 - Here he is crossing the bridge, Picture 5 - now you can see why I tried not to watch that is him the little speck way up on the bridge it is perfectly safe everything is enclosed so he can not fall out but it still takes some getting used to, Picture 6 - This is Chance and Sophia one of the girls in our playgroup. Her Mom was babysitting another little boy today who is too young to go through this area so I went through with Sophia and Chance. In the last two pictures we are all actually inside the play area, Picture 7 - This is what the bridge looks like from the inside, Chance looks funny because he is trying to stand up even though he is too tall to stand up in there.

Chuck E Cheese

Today we were looking for something to do and since we had a lot of tokens left over from the last time we went to Chuck E Cheese off we went to use our tokens and get out of the house. Chance loved driving all the cars as usual and driving the train. We played and played and played. When it was time to go he protested just for a moment and then was happy to be going. He was so tired he fell asleep on the way home and we still have a few tokens left for next time. We didn't even get any food so the whole visit was free. Chuck E Cheese gets two thumbs up, especially if you can go during the day when most of the crowd is in school.

The park and the plane

Every time Chance gets sick and we have to take a sick day (and by that I mean a laying around in front of the TV day) the days following the sick day are not any fun. It is like all of his good little boy pieces are just thrown out the window with all that couch cuddling and Television watching. So the last couple days he has been really really really whiny. We decided to take him to the park yesterday to get out of the house and get our blood pumping again. While there we saw these dandelions they had bees on their flowers and Chance liked watching them as they were collecting the nectar from the yellow flowers. We stayed back just watching. The park did seem to help but the standing in the corner when he whines is working a lot better. It is his first real punishment. We have been understanding but serious since he was born, I guess in a way expecting a lot of him but nothing that he has not been able to handle and due to that he is a good little boy who listens when we tell/ask him to do things (for the most part) but now he is trying to use his cuteness to get away with things and so the punishment has to be upped a little and now he gets the corner. It is working for now. He learns that if he whines he doesn't get anything and when we count to 3 he goes to the corner. I know it is for the best but it is still sad when he walks over to his corner crying.
Scott flew out today to ATL and will be back on Thursday. Chance cried when he saw Scott's suitcase packed in the living room he knows when it comes out to the front of the house Daddy is going away. He cried when we left the airport too. To be honest it hurts and feels good to see him cry when Scott leaves, I don't want him to be hurt or upset but I know it can be hard for Scott to leave and he was worried for a while that he wasn't around enough for Chance to know him but you can not deny that the little guy not only knows him but loves him very much with a reaction like that.