I don't care how "Joe Cool" you are

You can't help but giggle around bubbles.





(c) 2008 Scott Everett

The two boys outside

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Galloping

A friend of ours made this horse for Andrew a while back and he just found it. He spent quite some time galloping around the backyard with it. Now he just needs two coconut halves to provide the sound effect.






(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Bathtub smiles

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

So how is it that you think this time around you won't miss anything since you know what you're doing? All of a sudden, Matthew is an expert at getting his hands to and in his mouth. His head is almost never wobbly. And he's blowing bubbles. I think it all started with the smile. Matthew started smiling at just after a month. It reduced me to tears since I was going back to work just a week or so later. Now he's got his fingers in his mouth and next he'll discover his toes. I guess even though you know they grow up too fast, its still hard to take it all in.

Andrew was born to be a big brother. He tries to show Matthew the world. For his part, Matthew loves his big brother. If you ever need Matthew to smile (and he's a smiley baby), just have Andrew talk to him. He'll light up. I'm sure there's going to be many times in the future where Matthew and Andrew don't adore each other, but right now they do.

As for Andrew, he's doing well, just don't mention Transformers. That movie scared him so much he's still talking about it two weeks later. He has a girlfriend. A little girl a daycare asked him if he would be her boyfriend and he said yes. Then she asked him to go play in the dirt. Apparently, he even shared his chocolate milk with her, because he was served before she was. They even hugged goodbye. I don't know, if he's playing in the dirt with a girl, I think it might be serious and I need to meet her. I mean playing in the dirt is what he does best. By the way, do three year olds generate their own dirt or is Andrew just a dirt magnet

liz?

My favorite toy

All I asked was that he look at the camera.




(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Goovy bubbles

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Last of the zoo pics

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Nothing says "zoo" quite like a sandbox

What is with his fascination whit sand, anyway?







(c) 2008 Scott Everett

The zoo didn't get much more exciting for Matthew

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

At least they aren't smoking

But they are absorbed by the gorilla at the Ft. Worth zoo.





(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Errands

Yesterday we had a couple errands to run: Matthew's 2 month check-up, back to the doctor to drop off his shot record, to the pharmacy to drop off his prescription (eye infection), and pick up lunch so Liz could nurse and go back to work quickly. When we got home from all of that, I looked in the unusually quiet back seat to find that Andrew had fallen asleep. After I went around the car to check on Matthew, I found him asleep in exactly the same position. I had to take a picture, but all I had was my cell phone. Oh well, you hace to roll with what you have.



(c) 2008 Scott Everett

We went to the zoo

We drove all the way up to Ft. Worth last weekend (4/5) to go to the zoo and this is all the excitement Matthew could drum up.




(c) 2008 Scott Everett

I never wanted to be THAT parent.

I had to yell at Andrew's daycare today. OK, I didn't actually yell, per se, but I did voice my displeasure strongly.

Yesterday Andrew came home from school and told us that he watched a monster movie that afternoon. Now, we've been getting frustrated with the amount of time his class has been spending in front of the TV lately and were teetering on mentioning that to the director. We pressed him further to find out what kind of monster movie they showed his class. He calls Sesame Street character monsters, so it could be anything.

"Cars," he said.

Cars doesn't have any monsters.

"Cars and monsters."

"Huh?" we replied.

"Cars turn into monsters!" was his, shall we say, impassioned response.

"Transformers?!"

"Yeah, transformers."

I went into the living room and pulled out my copy of the DVD (as yet unopened, unfortunately) and asked him if that was the movie.

"Yeah!" He points to Optimus Prime and mentions the blue truck that turned into a monster, then points to Bumblebee and mentions the yellow car that turned into a monster.

Shocked, we asked if he liked the movie.

"No, it scared me."

"Did you tell Miss Shiloh (his teacher)?"

"No, I cried. I cried at school."

"Because you were scared?"

"Yeah."

At this point I'm fuming. That's hardly an appropriate movie to show to three- and four-year-olds. Just to be sure I checked the back of the DVD. Yup, it's PG-13 for violence and sexual dialog.

This morning (4/11) I had Liz ask his teacher if they actually watched the movie yesterday (not that he'd come into contact with those characters any other way) and she confirmed that one of his classmates brought it in for the whole class to watch.

I finally got a chance to talk to them when I picked the kids up this evening. The Director was out of the office, so I had the chance to talk to the Assistant Director about it. She seemed genuinely surprised that they had watched that movie and assured me that, not only would they not watch anything like that again, but also that the TV was slated to be removed very soon. She also promised to talk to Andrew's teacher about the incident. I felt that was sufficient for the time being, but insisted that, even though we had just paid our registration fee, I would not hesitate to throw that money away if I felt this was going to happen again.

We'll see how this goes.

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

I told you he's a monkey

(c) 2008 Scott Everett

More Matthew smiles

Well, almost.



(c) 2008 Scott Everett

Still loves the dump truck

If he isn't begging us for a swing, he's running around the backyard with his dump truck. I'm starting to get dizzy just thinking about it.




And yes, I did mow the lawn afterward.

(c) 2008 Scott Everett