Let the games begin

We're here in Dallas. The flight was fine, the passengers were fine, the toddlers ears were fine. Our luggage even arrived lickety split. Granted, we were the last ones off the plane, but I love that baggage handling at DFW is about thirty minutes faster than at either Dulles or Reagan National. The only downside to the whole flight was we were back by the engine - so far back that we could only see the engine and not outside the plane. I had no idea how claustrophobic I would be having no idea where the clouds and ground were for three hours. Andy didn't care though - we had Thomas on DVD. What a lifesaver.

We've been having fun. Andy has so far caught his first fish, "driven" a golf cart, played on a seesaw, hung out with his grandparents, been taken down in a loving choker hold by his cousin Megan who is 2 1/2 months older, gone swimming, played in a bounce house, ridden on a train and eaten a lot of cupcakes and ice cream. Needless to say, he's having a very good time. I, however, am tired.

The patient

Funny, after two days of Andy acting fine, but being sick, today he is actually acting sick as well. It is mostly strange since he's now on the path (allegedly) to wellness due to the doctor visit and antibiotics. Today he's been hacking twice as bad as yesterday and generally seems to feel achey and sad. Poor chicken. The good news is he doesn't have strep throat - the doctor's office called early this morning to tell me. I appreciated the call, but we were all still asleep at that hour.

To get us both out of the house briefly (it's too cold for much else) I took him over to A.C. Moore, a craft store similar to Michael's, because I heard they had cheap(er) Thomas stuff and I wanted to see for myself. The prices aren't significantly cheaper than anywhere else, but they do have coupons for 40-50 percent off one item on certain days so I'll need to come back and get some stuff on sale and keep it in my closet for a special occasion. I did walk away with some connector track so we can now marry up the pieces that can't come together because it ends up being two female ends (of course, as I type this, I'm imagining the hate mail I might get from the freakish conservatives in Virginia who think marrying females to each other is a bad thing. It makes me smirk just to think about it.)

Happy birthday to me

Helping me cook his cupcakes.

Faux food from grandmother for his kitchen.

Singing happy birthday.

Playing with the awesome train table.

Today was the big day. It was two years ago in the evening (I would say 10:30 p.m., but at this point, I've chosen to forget what a looong day that was) Byron Andrew was born. Whenever I say anything about how cute he was as a tiny baby, Bjorn reminds me how bad labor and delivery was. I really can't believe it's been two years. In some ways, I still feel like a rookie in this business. Other days, I can't believe I didn't have him with me.

We had a busy day today. We opened a couple presents this morning then I came over at lunch and brought cupcakes for his class. There are only three of them (including Andy) right now and so it was an intimate group. I like that. His babysitter was so sweet and gave him a cash register (complete with faux money), a hat and some mittens. After school, we met Bjorn at Chipotle, our favorite, for dinner. He even picked up a balloon from Tree Top where I had to restrain myself from buying more train stuff. It may be for Andy, but man, I like it too. As a kid, we used to play with the Brio train set at Neiman Marcus. I don't remember my mother ever actually buying anything at Neiman's, but I sure remember that train set.

Dots

It turns out Andy isn't calling stars "dots," rather he's pointing the outside saying "dark" it just happens to come out "dah-tks." He wanted me to personally let everyone know that.

I took Betsy's advice and made a visit to Tree Top Kids where we got to check out a train table set up with an awesome track and probably 15 trains. Andy loved it, which gave me some time to shop. The Ikea tracks I have are compatible with Thomas and Melissa and Doug so I bought a couple extra pieces from Melissa and Doug (some switch pieces so I, er, he can have more than one track). I also wanted to get him a few trains. Then I realized trains each cost like $12 for a little piece of wood. They did have the Byron (see right) that naturally I had to get for him. (Shhh...my dad might end up with one for his birthday, too). Once we got home, he chased Bjorn around with it in the package saying "open, open" so we went ahead and let him play with it. He'll be even more delighted when he sees what it goes with.

As for Thomas, checking online it seems a lot of the trains are cheaper if I were to order from Amazon so I have a feeling that's where I'll be going in the future. As for Tree Top, totally a cool store. The folks there were very nice and when Andy made signs of never leaving, they kindly flipped the lights off and on and said they were closing so he'd get the hint. That didn't stop some loud protesting, but I think it may have muted it a bit.

Happy almost birthday

Someone turns two day after tomorrow and my mother is hard at work spoiling him from afar. What a lucky kid! He's getting an awesome train table made by Melissa and Doug. It's awesome and was easy enough to put together after a few false starts. The only downside is the size. Granted, this was my idea, but the darn thing is huge! I've been doing some rearranging in the basement to make it fit. Purple Heart is coming this week for a pickup so we took this as an opportunity to sort through some old books and games to make a pile to give away. By the end, the pile was pretty huge. We love books (and have tons of them), but getting rid of some of the old ones is a good feeling. We also found some gems in the racks, including a book of Swedish rhymes that Andy is going to love! Now I just need to keep Andy out of the basement tomorrow evening so he doesn't see his new table. I have a feeling he's really going to love getting to spread out and play with his train set.

Right now, I've got a couple of sets of the Ikea train pieces. They're similar to Brio, but more basic with just wooden tracks and trains. My goal is to include some Thomas or Brio sets to complement the plain tracks. I went to Target tonight during our bizarre, brief snowstorm only to find out they had neither. They sold Thomas stuff, but it was plastic and said in the small print "not compatable with Thomas sets." Um, what? Turns out they have a "travel" system that is different than the wooden stuff. Glad I read that or things might have gotten complicated. My mom also got him some cool Melissa and Doug food that he can cut. Should be interesting to see how that all works. He adores his kitchen so I think he'll really get a kick out of it.

Andy is getting more vocal and verbal every day. It's just amazing to listen to some of the stuff he says. He now asks for "dots" when he goes to bed, which turns out means he wants the curtains open so he can see the stars. He can say stars, but for some reason he calls them dots. Go figure. He's also starting to throw his weight around to get what he wants. Last night he insisted on going for a ride in the wagon. When we were half way on our route, he decided he wanted cookies (crackers) and HAD to get out and proceeded to wander into other yards. I finally strapped him into the wagon and he screamed at me for maybe three blocks. Then he was happy again and chirped at me the rest of the way.