Conversations With My Toddler

Last night we were headed out to meet my in-laws for dinner. Husband, trying to beat a line of cars, pulled away from a stop sign really fast and sped down the road. 

Grant's reaction to this was "Hey! If the police (po'weece) catches you...um...um...he pulls you over! And...and...buys you a ticket!" 

Husband explained what the police actually do - I was laughing - and then for the rest of the trip to the restaurant Grant talked about police and firemen (we actually saw firetrucks) and what they do. 

The mind of a 3 year old is a very fun place :)

Conversations With My Toddler

The other night on our way to dinner we passed a construction site. Grant pointed out all the equipment and then says...

Grant: Daddy. Daddy. Bull dozers are not really big. Bull dozers are not really big like you.

Husband *whispering to me*: He thinks I'm bigger than a bull dozer.

Grant *still just talking away*: Bull dozers are not really big like you. But I am. I'm getting tall. Like you Daddy.

That might be one of the cutest things he's ever said. Ever. That and telling me I looked like a princess when I put on the dress I wore for my sister-in-law's wedding. Man I love this kid! :)

Gone Fishin'

We considered this past weekend "Grant's Birthday Weekend" so we tried to fill it with fun things to do. Now, when someone says "Hey, I'm going fishing" my response is never "Can I come too?!" and probably never will be. I get the appeal of it, it just doesn't appeal to me. It's boring. If I'm going to sit quietly outside, it better be with a book and a cup of coffee. 

But Husband loves fishing and is super excited about Grant being at an age where he can get interested in it. While we were in NY for the 4th, we got him a Lightning McQueen fishing pole and he fished for the first time.

Grant never caught anything (neither did Husband even though he literally sat there for 8 hours or so) but there was so much fun to be had - not sitting still - that fishing wasn't at the top of his priority list.

Flash forward to Saturday. I'm forced to go against my will because Husband guilted me into going by saying "You'll like seeing his reaction the first time he gets a fish! Plus...you can take pictures. I won't have time for that." So I went, with Kindle in tow, having been promised I could read while there was no action (I didn't get to read). 

Anyway, Grant got a fish the first time he threw his stuff in the water. Yelling "I found one! I found one!" It was very exciting.

Reeling in his first catch

Checking out the fish

Yes, by all means, lets touch it

After that, Grant's interest wavered. I mean, he's 3. I'm almost 30 years older than him and it kept his attention longer than it kept mine in those first 20 minutes. So he's let someone throw his line out for him (I was no longer allowed to after the second time I snagged a tree) and then he'd reel it in...then throw it out...reel it in...you get the idea.

Little fisherman

Caught another one!

I think my favorite point of the day was when Husband caught a fish and Grant just randomly went nuts. "Daddy got one! Daddy found a fish!"

So excited!

Daddy's fishing cheerleader

Eventually Grant found some more attention for fishing and proudly caught one more fish, yelling across the little pond (to where I was finally trying to settle down with my Kindle) "Mama! I got another one! I got a fish!"

Showing me his catch

So, I think Grant's first fish trip was a success though I doubt I'll be going again. Hopefully I didn't complain too much (because Husband was genuinely excited about taking Grant fishing with him)...I think I was just a long for pictures. I think I successfully demonstrated my lack of fishing skills to the extent that I won't be invited along much.

Ok, so Husband was right-ish. I'm kinda glad I was there to see Grant's reaction because it was very cute. There, I said it.

Spontaneous Beach Trip

Since having Grant, we haven't been able to be those parents that just pick up and go off for spontaneous over night trips. Because we had Brodie. We had to make arrangements for my mother-in-law to come stay with him because he freaked out in the car. So taking him somewhere to board was out of the question. We were limited to spontaneous day trips, which are nice too. But with Brodie's passing, we vowed to make trips that we haven't been able to take in the last 10 years.

The Thursday before Father's Day we had a storm that lasted maybe 10 minutes. It wasn't as bad as what the weather folks were making it sound like, in my opinion anyway. But it knocked out our power...and by Friday morning it was still out. And the power people weren't giving us hopes of having it that day either. So Husband made us reservations in Wilmington, NC with the promise of spending Saturday at the beach. When we got home from work Friday, the power was on. Who cares! We had plans :) 

Packed and ready to go!

Friday after work we packed up as quick as we could, ate a quick dinner and hit the road. We got there a little later than we wanted to and Grant was pumped about the promise of the beach. It was tough to get him calmed down for sleep. But we got there eventually.

Grant and Daddy relaxing at the hotel after our drive

Grant - too excited to sleep!

So after breakfast the next morning and packing up the car we head to Wrightsville Beach. Only to realize after over an HOUR of driving around that there was no place to park. Honestly, I was ready to go home. But Grant was too excited. "You gonna find a place for the car? We gonna park? Is this the beach?" So we left there and continued down the coast. Finding no where to park until almost 2 hours after leaving the hotel we got down to Kure Beach and were finally able to park and make our way to the beach. With me 110% irriated and vowing to either get a pool or find a lake near home because a day at the ocean in season is just not worth the hassle.

Except that it was.

Because Grant had probably his best summer day to date. He played in the sand and buried our feet. Made sand castles. Picked up sea shells (that are now in a little jar in his room and he loves them). Then made them closer to the water so he could watch the waves take them. We went out in the water. Then we just stayed close to the water because he loved it when the waves hit him. He had a blast. And we had a blast because of him and my irriation disappeared quickly. By the time we left I was talking about "next time". So it ended up being a really good little trip.

So happy :)

He loved burying our feet

Daddy showing him how to build a sand castle

His "sword" (very into pirates right now!)

Beachy feet

He loved being in the waves. He kept yelling "Here
comes a big one! And another big big one!"

Me and my happy guy!

Father's Day 2013

I debated skipping a Father's Day post because I didn't take any pictures that day. But I decided I'd do one because as part of Husband's gift, I did a Daddy questionnaire and I thought some of Grant's answers were so cute and funny. I figured I'd share.

I made it extra big so you could read it.

Some of the questions I had to help him with. Like explaining what a "job" is. He really thought about the answers he gave me and it was so fun to do. I love how the mind of a child works.

On Thursday before Father's Day we had a 2 minute storm that knocked our power out for close to 24 hours. They weren't promising power for Friday even either, so we made reservations to spend the night in Wilmington, NC (so we could spend Saturday at the beach). Our power came back on but we went anyway and had a great time. Post coming soon! We got home Saturday evening and then spent Father's Day hanging around the house until a cookout with my Father-in-Law and his wife over at their place.

An exhausted Husband and a very excited Grant
at the hotel on Friday.

I hope all the Daddy's out there had a great day!

Conversations With My Toddler: Dinner Time

Dinner time at our house is usually one of two things: frustrating or enjoyable. Sometimes it's nice and we all eat and talk and listen to Grant tell us what he did at school that. Sometimes, its less than nice because Grant eats at the table with us now (instead of a high chair) and is learning to eat without a bib. He gets distracted and food ends up anywhere except where it should be. It's not always funny.

Last night was funny. I made BLT's and some potatoes. Grant isn't a big sandwich fan in the traditional sense. He likes to pull them apart and eat them little by little. We always try to tell him "eat it like a sandwich" but he rarely does. Grant's was done first to cool down enough so he was already stationed at the table chowing down when Husband sat down.

Grant *to Husband*: "You need to let it cool down. It's too hot. Let it cool down."

Husband *waiting patiently for 30 seconds*: "Now?"

Grant: "No."

So Husband waits another minute or so and then picks up his BLT.

Grant *picking apart his BLT and then points at Husband*: "Hey. Hey. Eat it like a sammich."

This kid cracks me up!

Three Bears Acres

Warning: Picture Overload!

A couple weekends ago we decided to check out a place in Creedmoor called Three Bears Acres. I had gotten discounted tickets through Living Social (I'm loving that site!) and they were expiring soon so we went one Saturday afternoon. 

It's a huge area out in the middle of nowhere that encourages kids to play, play, play. Grant eyed their jumping pillow immediately so that was the first "station" we hit. 

They said we could play too, so I did.

Grant got a little nervous with all the bigger kids on there so he didn't stay on the jumping pillow too long. We hit the paint wall next (and I'm pretty sure he could have stayed there all day.

Learning to use a stencil with Daddy.

It's a huge washable white wall and they keep all their paints, brushes, and stencils in an old crib. They also have a bucket with sponges to wash off your masterpiece. I think Grant had just as much fun wiping it off as he did painting on it.

Mud kitchen - Grant didn't play much here

A sandbox of course. I'm pretty sure Grant could have stayed here all day too.

So I had noticed this big plastic tubes in their main field. I figured they were for kids to run and/or crawl through and I honestly thought that was pretty lame. But then I saw people rolling in them and realized that's what they were for. So fun! Grant absolutely loved rolling in the big tube. He laughed the whole time, it was so funny!

And then we went over to the sling shot station. Grant loved shooting the tennis balls with the big sling shot. 

The flags are their targets.

 Next up was the archery station. Husband and I played more here than Grant did. We did let him try to do it because there was little chance of him getting hurt but he's just not coordinated enough yet to do something like that.

Then we went into the woods for more fun.

They have a huge toboggan slide and Grant would have ridden that until they closed. I went with him each time and I'll admit it was really fun. It went a lot faster than I though it would and it had a little hump in the middle to go over. We had a good time with that one.

They also have a large "tree house" area with slides, rope nets, and swings.

And hanging under the tree house area were all these fun swings. Grant's favorite was what we the spiderweb swing. It looked like so much fun and Grant loved it.

It was a great afternoon. Husband and I had so much watching Grant play outside having such a good time. They also had paddle boats but we didn't make it down to the lake. After the tree houses we had a picnic in the back of the truck which Grant thought was so great because he saw them have a picnic on Jake and the Neverland Pirates. "We gonna have a picnic like Jake?" So cute.

My thoughts on Three Bears Acres:

• It's not cheap entertainment. $13 for kids, $7 for adults. I'm kinda cheap about stuff like that so a $13 admission for a kid is steep to me. Since I got our tickets through Living Social, it was much more reasonable and I will keep an eye out if they have tickets on there again.
• Pack food (snacks, lunch, drinks, etc.)! Thankfully I did. There are no restaurants nearby and only a small concession stand at the park.
• If you're not into letting your kid get dirty, don't go. And if you're not into letting them get into stuff on their own while you sit on a bench nearby, don't go. 
• Plenty of places for parents to sit if the kids are playing on their own. I liked that because once we got to the tree houses, we parked it until Grant wanted to swing.
• The bathrooms were surprisingly clean when we went. Especially for an outdoor play place.
• Not for very small children and not stroller friendly. We brought our stroller but didn't use it. And I'm so glad. I saw so many parents struggling to push their strollers around. 

So, would we go again? Yes. Again, I was put off by the price at first. But looking back at those pictures and how much fun Grant had, I would definitely go again. I think we'd probably make a day of it, instead of an afternoon. 

Grant's First Baseball Game

This past Saturday afternoon we made a last minute decision to get tickets to the Durham Bulls game that evening. It started at 5:00 and they were doing a double-header. We knew we wouldn't be able to stay for both games but it was just something different to do. So we went.

While waiting at will-call with roughly 1000 other people, Grant was not shy about letting us know he wanted to go home. I get the anxiety, it was a lot of people and he had never been there. So we get the tickets and get inside to find out seats...we made it there by the 3rd inning.

After finding our seats, Grant seemed a little more at ease but didn't want to sit in his seat. He only wanted Daddy.

We had good seats!

 So, initial anxiety aside, things went well...yes? NO. It was louder than we anticipated and we didn't bring the ear muff things that accompanied us to the hockey game and Monster Jam. So most of the game that we managed to sit through looked like this:

Pitiful, eh?

At one point the Bulls hit a home run. I thought that would be exciting for Grant because we were in a spot to see their Bull billboard thing that has smoke come out its nose and it's eyes light up red when they hit a home run.

 Wrong again, Mama. It does not matter how much excitement you inject into your voice when talking to your petrified toddler. Grant saw that Bull and started crying harder like it was about to charge us any second. We left after the 7th inning. 

We did manage to get Grant to eat a little something there which kept him calm for a bit. Much like me I guess you can distract him from unpleasant things with food. 

So we only managed 4 innings but we were ok with it. I guess you could call it a learning experience and did have some fun. When we got up from our seats (food & bathroom breaks) Grant did great because it was quieter. He even cheered when they got a run while we were standing in line.  We will likely try to take Grant to another one and remember to bring the ear muffs. I'm thinking things will be calmer that way.

Grant wanted to sit on the bull outside the stadium.

Plus I got to wear my Mom's Yankees shirt to a baseball game :)