Hanging Out at the Mall

After a weekend full of errands and cleaning, we all needed to get out of the house on Sunday afternoon. So we went to a nearby mall that has a nice play area for the kids, and let them loose.

It’s amazing to me how easily kids make friends. Within 2 minutes, Sammy and another boy were sliding down the slide, hanging onto each other so they’d tumble off the end in a tangle of arms and legs. They’d laugh and laugh (even though it looked like it hurt) and run up the slide to do it again. Then the other kid got the brilliant idea to go down the slide head-first, on his back. It was a small-ish slide, but very slippery so he shot off the end pretty quickly and his head skidded about a foot across the carpet. No surprise, Sammy decided to do the same thing. The look on his face when he hit the bottom was a look of “Ow, that hurt” and I was expecting tears – his normal response. Nope, after a split second he laughed through his almost-tears, got up, and ran around to the ladder for another round.

Then the two boys played monsters. The other boy chased Sammy around the play area, and then they lost track of each other. Sammy came up to me and asked me where “the good guy” was, just before spotting him on his own. The next time they went around, Sammy giggled as he said, “He’s not a good guy, he’s a bad guy!” I told Sammy he should ask the other boy what his name was.

After “the good guy” left, I asked Sammy what his new friend’s name was. “I don’t know,” he answered, unconcerned. Just like that, he’d forgotten all about his new friend. That’s probably just as well, since they’ll probably never see each other again.

But really, can you imagine making friends like that as an adult? It would be like going shopping, and seeing someone around my age, going up to her and saying, “That shirt would look great on you!” We’d walk around the store, giggling as we chatted and helped each other pick out clothes, and then we’d leave and go home, having never exchanged phone numbers or even names. What a trip that would be!

The Land of a Million Bells and Whistles

Last night, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's. We hadn't been there since February, but Sammy remembered it well. Every time he'd see coupons in the newspaper, he'd point them out and ask when we were going again. Since it's too cold to do anything outside these days, I called up my friend J last night to see if she and her two kids wanted to go with us.

The kids had a blast playing games, riding rides, and climbing through the tunnels. And then...Chuck E. Cheese himself made an appearance. Sammy was in love. He looked up at Chuck with adoring eyes and gave him a hug. About that time, I noticed Natalie needed a diaper change so I asked J to keep an eye on Sammy while Natalie and I went to the bathroom.

When I came back, I saw Sammy following Chuck around the restaurant. J was hanging back, laughing, and she explained to me that he had been doing that the entire time we were in the bathroom. Aw, isn't that cute. He makes an adorable little stalker.

Then, Chuck was done visiting customers and started walking towards an employees-only door. Sammy tried to follow him, and I caught up with them just in time to keep Sammy from going through the door after him. I explained that Chuck E. Cheese was taking a break, and he might be out again later. Sammy announced he was going to sit right there and wait for him to come out. I finally convinced him to play some more, but he kept asking about Chuck the rest of the time we were there. I told him I supposed Chuck might have gone to bed already, and Sammy seemed okay with that answer.

First thing this morning, Sammy was asking about Chuck E. Cheese again. He wanted to know what kind of a bed Chuck had. When I said I didn't know, that wasn't good enough, and Sammy wanted me to guess. So I said, "Well, maybe it's one like you have." That was thrilling to Sammy and he exclaimed, "He has a Lightning McQueen bed just like I have?!" Then he said, "Can Chuck E. Cheese come over sometime to see my bed?" I didn't really know how to answer that. How do you explain to a not-quite-yet-3-year-old that it might be a bit inappropriate to ask a grown man (maybe it was a woman) dressed in a mouse suit to come to your house to see your bed? I was hoping to not have that discussion for a few years yet.

In conclusion, a fun time was had by all and Sammy has a new idol.

Fort Snelling

Alright, so this trip to Fort Snelling was two months ago, but like I said, I just got around to downloading my pictures from that camera.

For anyone who lives locally, this is a great place to take kids. I didn't think it would be, since it's all historical and educational and stuff, but all four of the kids (mine and my friend's two) enjoyed themselves. A little background: It's a historic fort, which served as an outpost from 1819-1839 in the then-wilderness of Minnesota. During the Civil War, it became a training center for the Union Army, and when the war was over, the regular Army returned. The fort was finally closed after World War II, and was declared Minnesota's first National Historic Landmark in 1960. Today it's open to the public, and costumed guides are located everywhere, and will tell you the history of each building. There's your history lesson for today.

And now, pictures.


The view from a balcony overlooking the Mississippi River:



The armory? It's been so long, I couldn't swear to that anymore.



The four kids.



I believe this was the fort's doctor's bedroom.




Sammy and his cousin in the fireplace in the soldiers' barracks.



The stairway leading down to the bathrooms. The doors on either side are parallel with the ground, in case you're trying to figure out the orientation of this picture.

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

The Minnesota State Fair is a big deal around here. Interesting fact: Our fair has the highest daily attendance of any in the U.S.!

The food theme is "on a stick". The majority of food items are served on a stick. Alligator on a stick. Deep-fried candy bars on a stick. Calzones on a stick. You get the idea.

And every year, there are new, crazy food combinations. This year's "big deal"? Pig Lickers (chocolate-covered bacon). My motto used to be, "Everything's better with chocolate", but I'm going to have to rethink that now. No, I did not try the Pig Lickers. I'd rather spend my money on cheese curds and mini donuts, thank you anyway.

And...some pictures. I'd like to point out the blue rubber rain boots Sammy is clutching in the final picture. He absolutely insisted on wearing those boots, and would not be dissuaded, even by dangling his Elmo sneakers in front of his face.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Weekend Update

We had our town festival this past weekend, so the kids and I enjoyed the parade and the petting zoo on Saturday. Sammy gorged himself on parade candy, practically inhaling in his efforts to eat as much as he could before it was confiscated. I was surprised he didn't poop out any whole Tootsie Rolls yesterday. Sadly, about fifteen minutes before the parade was over, Ron put a stop to his all-you-can-eat buffet, and Sammy was devastated. Until he found an errant piece of candy and snuck off behind us to open and eat it. He almost got away with it, but Ron turned to see Sammy hunched over something, paying no attention to the parade, which was a dead giveaway.

The petting zoo was a hit with both kids. They had a good variety of animals - rabbits, chickens, a dog, horses, donkeys, a calf, and llamas - which prompted a recitation of Llama Llama, Red Pajama. Speaking of which, I am amazed at how that kid can memorize books. We get a new bag of library books each week, and by the end of the week, Sammy has his favorites memorized, almost word for word.

But I digress. The highlight of the day wasn't the parade, or the petting zoo, but a garage sale that we passed. I happened to notice that they had a Power Wheels jeep for sale, and I begged Ron to turn around. We'd been wanting to get a Power Wheels for the kids, but didn't want to pay full price (those things are expensive!). The jeep was marked at $75, but as it needed a new battery, they were willing to sell it to us for $50. The new battery cost another $50, but that $100 was worth every penny. The kids drove that jeep around for an hour last night, and we finally had to pry them out of it, kicking and screaming. Sammy needs to work on his steering a bit, though. The steering wheel is a bit hard to turn, so when he was coming up on an obstacle, he'd get out of the jeep and turn it by pulling on the front end. Whatever works, I guess.

Next time Sammy gets in trouble, I'm going to threaten to take his car keys away. I didn't think I'd be able to use that leverage for about 13 more years.

We went to the county fair last night, and on the way home, Sammy kept saying his tummy hurt. "I really sick," he said. "I need some medicine." I assured him that his tummy just wanted some healthy food, and he'd feel better after we ate supper.

We got home, and he went up the stairs. On the top landing, he threw up. It took everything I had in me to not do the same. There is nothing worse than the smell of vomit. This morning, he seemed fine, though, so it was hopefully just a case of too much fair food. He only ate two mini-donuts and drank some root beer float, though. That doesn't seem like much to me.

Enough talk about sicknesses for this week. Here is an excerpt from a recent performance by the 2-year-old:

(I never before realized that Are You Sleeping and Where Is Thumbkin share the same tune)
Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping
Brother John
Brother John
How are you at daycare?
How are you at daycare?
Run and hide
Run and hide

Not the Best Idea I've Ever Had

This weekend, we took the kids camping for the first time. We went to a state park in the southwestern part of the state, about a two-hour drive.

In the days leading up to our trip, I suggested making reservations half a dozen times. With an $8.50 non-refundable registration fee, Ron balked at the thought. "We don't need reservations," Ron said. "I'm sure the campsite won't be full," he said.

We pull in at 5:30 p.m., to find that there are only two campsites available, both in the "rustic" campground. This means no running water and no flush toilets. That wouldn't have mattered much to me before having kids, but I wasn't looking forward to the thought of changing diapers without being able to wash up afterwards, or having to drag a kid with me into the filthy outhouse. But we didn't have much choice, so we took one of the sites and pulled in to our spot--which was right on the corner of a triangle of roads, and very cozily next to another campsite. Meaning, no privacy at all, and constant worries about the kids going onto one of the roads.

Ron and Sammy got back into the van and went back to see if we could still get the other spot, which was more secluded. We were lucky enough to be able to switch campsites, so we got set up in our new home.

The ground was very muddy in the patches where the grass had worn away. The kids were both covered in mud from head to toe before we'd even been there for 15 minutes. And with no running water, clean-up wasn't too easy. We went through a lot of baby wipes, in an attempt to keep the dirt under control. And both kids had poopy diapers within fifteen minutes of being at the campsite. Thank goodness I remembered to bring some antibacterial hand gel, since there was NO RUNNING WATER.

Around 8:00, we started to get the kids ready for bed. Natalie went to sleep pretty easily, but it was after 10:00 when Sammy finally settled down and went to sleep. Then, for the next hour, I got to listen to a kid in a nearby campsite wail and scream. I get enough of that at home, thank-you-very-much. I didn't need to drive two hours to hear someone else's kid throw a tantrum for an hour because he was over-tired and needed to get to bed. So much for the park's "quiet time", which was supposed to start at 10:00 p.m.

But the next morning, we were on the other end of it. Every other time I've been camping, it's been in much more secluded areas than this particular campsite, so I hadn't worried about our kids' early wake-up time disturbing anybody else. As usual, the kids woke up around 5:30 and for the next hour, I did my best to keep them quiet, but I'm sure we still managed to wake up half the campground. As soon as it was obvious that other people were starting to get up and move around, we packed up our tent and left. We were all too tired and cranky to do any of the fun things we had planned on, like swimming in the sandy-bottomed swimming pool in the park, or the nearby caves which we had thought about touring.

On another note, I'm home today with Natalie, who woke up with a 101+ degree fever this morning. She's had some other symptoms for the past week, which I'd attributed to teething, but when she developed the fever, I thought I'd better have her checked out. The doctor thought the fever was just some random virus, and she agreed that the rest of it is probably teething. Poor Natalie is cutting six teeth, all at once, and it's been rough on her. Not to mention the rest of us.

The Weekend Update

Friday morning, we went to a parade, which both of the kids loved. Sammy was a little intimidated by the older children who shouldered their way past him to grab as much of the candy as they could get, but eventually he got braver and did manage to snag a few tootsie rolls. We went to a fireworks display on Friday night, and Sammy was underwhelmed, to say the least. He has been going to bed around 8:30 lately, and the fireworks didn't start until 10:00, so I think that was a big part of the problem. The good news? He slept in until 7:30 on Saturday morning. I honestly don't remember the last time he did that.

Natalie had a huge weekend. Not only did she learn how to walk, but she cut another tooth (finally! a grand total of 3 now!) and - can I get a drumroll, please - she slept through the night last night, for the first time ever! Surprisingly, I didn't even wake up to wonder why she hadn't woken up yet, so I got a very restful night's sleep.

Speaking of Natalie, let me tell you about our little drama queen. For example, this morning she wanted to play with Sammy's potty chair (yuck!) so I finally picked it up and put it where she couldn't reach it. She looked at the chair, looked at me, then flung herself face-first onto the floor and started shrieking in outrage. This exact scene plays itself out a couple of dozen times every day. I had to laugh when I picked her up from daycare on Thursday, and her daycare teacher told me they'd been calling her a "drama queen" all day. Apparently she doesn't just save those shows for me. I should also say that her teacher said that with affection - I know that's one of those things that could be taken different ways, and it all depends on the tone of voice. Trust me, every time I call her a drama queen, I am struggling to contain my laughter. I'm sure I won't find it as funny when she's a teenager, but right now I find it hilarious to see a 2 1/2-foot-tall little girl in a frilly dress flinging herself on the floor in tears over a potty chair.

And one last random story. Both kids seemed to have some sort of mild stomach bug this weekend. It didn't really seem to bother them, but it did give them yucky diapers for about half a day each. And that resulted it a really nasty-looking diaper rash apiece. Sammy's cleared up pretty quickly, but poor Natalie was still really red and sore-looking last night, so after bath I decided to let her go diaper-free in the kitchen for awhile. I gave her some crackers and cheese cubes in a bowl on the floor, and that drew Sammy's attention (for some reason, her food is always much more appetizing to him than his own food).

After about fifteen minutes, I vaguely heard Sammy say something but I was lost in my thoughts and didn't pay any attention. A few seconds later, his voice became more urgent and I snapped to attention. "Hurry up! Nye peeing all over!" he was saying, over and over. I turned to look, and there she was, sitting in a growing puddle and, unconcerned, was just about to pick up a soggy cracker to put in her mouth. That is why I kept her in the kitchen (tile floor versus carpet) for diaper-free time.

Weekend update

Saturday, in addition to being library day, is Farmer's Market day at our house. I know, we lead such a glamorous life, right? If we're feeling really crazy, we'll even end the day with a trip to Target. ;-)

So, Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market. St. Paul and Minneapolis each have their own, but we prefer St. Paul's. It's smaller, and less busy (meaning: a LOT easier to find parking), than the Minneapolis one.

I *heart* the Farmer's Market. I love the idea of supporting local farmers, and everything is fresher than the grocery store, as well as being cheaper, in most cases.

The highlight of our day, though, was stopping at Sonic after we finished at the market. Minnesota's first-ever Sonic just opened last week in St. Paul, and we were excited to try it out. Obviously, we don't get out much.

We weren't the only ones who had that idea. There was a police officer directing Sonic traffic down to the Catholic Charities parking lot down the street, where the line was forming. We were told it would be a 15-minute wait, but happily, it was more like a 5-minute wait. And it was worth it. Yum.

It seems to take a long time for Minnesota to get the good chain restaurants. I remember when our first Krispy Kreme opened up in February 2002. It's not as sad as it seems that I remember the exact date. That is when I had my lasik surgery done, and the lasik clinic was on the same block as the new Krispy Kreme. When I went in for my post-op appointment, there was a cop directing traffic that day, too, due to all the donut-hungry customers.

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Natalie's been having a rough couple of nights. Teething, a cold, and who-knows-what-else, means that I've been running on fumes. Yesterday, I didn't trust myself driving, so I called in to work and stayed home. Natalie and I took a 3-hour nap after we got Sammy off to daycare, and I felt almost human again after that. Sadly, last night wasn't much better, but I didn't feel like I could take another day off of work, so I muddled through as best as I could. I know some day, I'll get enough sleep again, but it's hard to imagine that right now.

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Lastly, yesterday afternoon, I took the kids to a local park with a swimming beach. The water close to shore was very warm, and Natalie loved playing in the sand and sitting in the water, but Sammy didn't want to have much to do with it. I'm pretty sure that was my fault, though. On the way there, I was warning him against drinking the water, since I knew that would be one of the first things he'd try. I think I went too far when I explained why I didn't want him to drink the water. I said that fish and geese and ducks poop in the water, so it isn't good to drink, and he got a horrified look on his face, right before saying "I don't think I want to go in the water."

He did put his toes in for a minute, right before saying that he wanted to go play on the playground. We climbed up the two-foot retaining wall, and I gave Sammy a little boost to help him up. I had an "awwww" moment when I heard him say, "I help you up" and turned around to see him trying to take the hand of a little girl who was about twice his size, to help her up the wall.

Playing hooky

Last Friday the weather people were forecasting the nicest day so far this year. I really had no choice but to take the day off from work, so I could take the kids to the zoo.

Usually we go to Como Zoo. It's a lot closer to our house, and a lot cheaper. But since we had the whole day, I decided we should go to the Minnesota Zoo this time.

Unfortunately, I think every school in the state had a field trip to the zoo that day. We weren't able to get in to the first two dolphin shows, but we were able to just barely squeeze into the final show of the day.

I think the highlight of my day was when we saw the caribou, and Ron informed Sammy that when you milk a caribou, you get coffee. The highlight of Sammy's day was riding the "train" (the monorail).

Some pics:

Eating lunch. Sammy was in heaven over being allowed to have french fries. Natalie kept grabbing fistsful of his fries, and put up a valiant fight when I pried them out of her hands.

Admiring the big pig (it's not real).

On the train.

The dolphin show.

Photo essay of our trip

Okay, I'll grudgingly admit that if the kids didn't get us up at 6:00 a.m. every day, we would have missed this spectacular sunrise over Lake Superior.

And...off he goes.

Look at that kid, parents nowhere near.

Can you spot the toddler in this picture?

If you look closely, you can see him chasing that poor bird.

The kids, by the jetty.

And we ordered our food to-go at Grandma's Bar & Grill. Sammy got all excited when he overheard that we were going to eat at Grandma's. Then he was puzzled, and kept saying, "Where'd Gramma go?" These pictures were taken in the lobby, while we were waiting.

Baby smiles.



I keep telling you - "I'm SOOO big! How many times must I say it?"

Sammy riding the coin-operated motorcycle.

And happily, this is how the entire trip home went. All three passengers sleeping peacefully.

Our vacation

We went on our first-ever family vacation this past weekend. I use “vacation” in the loosest sense of the term, as we only took an overnight trip to Duluth, but it was the first trip of its kind since having kids.

Things actually went much better than I expected. There were only a couple of small blips. Such as five minutes after we got to the hotel room, Natalie was playing happily on the bed when I heard some rumblings coming from her diaper region. Ron started changing her as I went to the bathroom, and when I heard him say, “Becky, you’ve got to see this,” I thought I knew what to expect. No big deal, as I’d packed three outfits for her. But I was curious why he was making such a big deal out of a blowout – after all, this is a near-daily occurrence at our house.

I walked out of the bathroom, and Ron pointed towards the bed. I saw a large, wet yellow circle on the bedspread, which upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be baby poop. Luckily, the comforter was satiny so a handful of baby wipes cleaned that right up. Now if one of those investigative programs ever comes in there and shines a blacklight on the bedspread, there might be a big glow-y spot, but I did the best I could. Natalie had blown out through: 1) her diaper; 2) her onesie; 3) her jumper dress and enough poo still escaped to make a dinner-plate-sized mess on the bed. Oops.

Incident #2 took place at 3 a.m., when I awoke to hear Sammy saying, “I look out the window, Mommy!” It took about an hour to convince him it was the middle of the night, and we were really NOT going to get up right at that moment. We had a hotel room that was right on the lakeshore, so we had a beautiful view out of our window. The city lights were visible to our left, and the two lighthouses were just to our right. So it really was a beautiful view, although I was not inclined to get up in the middle of the night just to take another look. Sammy felt differently.

Since we were only there one night, and it’s too early for tourist season, we didn’t do too much. We visited the aquarium, and spent some time in Canal Park. It was about the only decent weekend we’ve had, weather-wise, so we really couldn’t have picked a better time to go.

Sammy’s favorite thing was chasing the seagulls. He never gave up until the poor birds, tired of being harassed, finally flew away. I got a few pictures of Sammy in hot pursuit, but I haven’t had a chance to take anything off the camera yet.

A good time was had by all. :-)

The two's, they can be oh-so-trying. Yesterday, Sammy was in rare form. From the moment we got home, he was throwing things, knocking all of his letter magnets off the fridge, and just generally being a pain in the patootie. After numerous time-outs, I finally banished him to his room and told him not to come out until he felt better.

I was surprised he stayed in there, but he did. I could hear him kicking his walls and jumping on the bed. After about ten minutes, he came out and happily announced, "I feel better now!" And wouldn't you know, that was the last problem I had with him all night. I think maybe he just needed to blow off some steam.

Last Friday was a work holiday, and I decided to keep the kids home from daycare. When I picked them up on Thursday afternoon, I mentioned that they wouldn't be in the next day. One of the infant teachers said, "Oh! Then we need to quick paint Natalie's hands before you go." (It was for an Easter art project - a ducky whose wings were the kids' handprints.) I had already picked up Natalie - who always gets so wiggly with excitement when she sees me - and had to put her in the high chair so they could finish up her project. Her face crumpled, and it was plain to see that her little heart was broken at the thought that I wasn't taking her home with me after all. Man, I'm going to miss this stage. No one else gets that excited to see me.

Then Friday morning, I took the kids along to do errands. Remind me never to do that again. Taking one with is no big deal, but the two of them together makes it very complicated. First of all, it was snowing hard and the parking lots were a mess. Before we even got to the first store, Natalie had fallen asleep in her carseat, and I didn't want to wake her, so I took the seat into the store. Those carseats weigh about 20 pounds, even without a baby in them. Then because the parking lot was so slick, I carried Sammy in my other arm. So that was about 60 pounds of kids plus accessories to lug through the slushy, slippery parking lot.

I put Sammy in the seat of the cart, and Natalie's carrier in the cart basket. That didn't leave much room for groceries, so I had to get creative with piling things in and around the kids. By the time we got to the checkout, Natalie had woken up and was voicing her unhappiness at being stuck in the carseat. I could barely hear the cashier over her protests.

Stop number two - Kohl's. They have a different type of cart there - like a stroller with a basket attached to the back. Now I know they have double strollers there, but I couldn't find one. So that meant I could only have one kid in the stroller at a time. I could see that was going to be trouble. Natalie started off in the seat while Sammy wandered off walked on his own. It's really hard to look at clothes when you are trying to track a moving toddler, so after about 10 minutes I gave up and decided to come back another time, ALONE. One cute thing happened at the store, though. Sammy found a friendly older lady and started chatting her up. He walked back to the stroller, patted Natalie on the head, and said to the lady, "This is my sister."

Stop number three - the library. I knew Natalie was probably hungry by now, so in the parking lot, I got her out of her seat to feed her before we went inside. That's when I smelled that old familiar smell. Sure enough - she had a blowout. And I had no spare outfit for her. I should know better by now, than to leave the house without a spare outfit for the baby. Last week, I took her to the chiropractor (three minutes away!) for a quick adjustment, and she had a blowout on the way. This morning, she had a blowout on the way to daycare and Ron had to drop her off with poop all over her clothes. Um, come to think of it, maybe I won't miss this stage too much, after all. It is nice to move past the constant fear of a blowout at the worst possible time.

That was my Friday. I did eventually get all my errands done, but by the time we got home, all three of us were crabby and tired. Nothing is simple when you have two young children.

As promised, here are the pictures of our playdate

Da boyz.

Joey and Natalie. Natalie looks like she's having fun, no?

My munchkins. Sammy looks like a little caveman here.

I suppose that's not too far removed from the truth.

Weekend recap

On Sunday, I golfed two 9-hole golf courses, played 3 tennis games, boxed one round, and bowled 10 frames. Yes, we are finally the proud owners of a Wii! I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to find that little machine. I knew we wouldn’t get one at Christmas time, but I had no idea it would take two months to get my hands on one.

Do you know that there are whole websites devoted to helping people score a Wii? I signed up for two of them – one which tracked online inventories of major retailers, and one which tracked local availability. I ended up locating mine at Target by pure, dumb luck. I got the second-to-last unit. Yay, me! I know, I sound like a total geek now. Hey – at least I didn’t stand in line at midnight to get one!

We also went to the Minnesota Children’s Museum on Sunday. Sammy had a blast. I’d never been there before, but it was worth every penny we paid, and we will definitely be repeat customers. There were so many fun, hands-on activities for toddlers, and Sammy was running from one exhibit to the next, as fast as his little legs would take him. Natalie wasn’t feeling too well this weekend, so she slumbered away in her Snugli the whole time. She seemed to be feeling a lot better yesterday, back to her usual, happy self. Teething, or another ear infection – who knows? If it was an ear infection, it seems to be clearing up on its own.

I have two kids teething at the same time. Come on, you know you’re jealous. Let’s just say that I’ve recently learned a full-size bed is NOT big enough for a family of four. By 5:00 a.m., all of us are crammed into the bed, like sardines in a can. Whatever buys us a little more sleep, uncomfortable as it may be, is worth it in my book.

On a side note, Sammy goes to daycare with a little boy named Alexander. Yesterday, we were talking about what he had done at daycare and a sly smile came across his face. “Alexander punny [funny],” he said. Mental note: Ask daycare teacher what Alexander did. Knowing Sammy, his sense of humor, and his mischievous nature, I suspect a good story.

Sammy's big day

Both kids have colds right now. It's a mild-mannered virus by day, but at night it rears its ugly head and results in lots of coughing. I spent the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. rocking and administering medicine. I'm not even sick, and this cold is kicking my butt.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. I took the day off from work, and we trekked down to the Mall of America. Sammy was impressed by the sharks and the big turtles at Underwater World. Then we went to the amusement-park-formerly-known-as-Camp-Snoopy to do rides. I couldn't believe it when Sammy stopped underneath the ferris wheel, looked up in awe, and said, "Look, Mommy!" After some discussion, Ron took him on the ride. I really thought Sammy would get up there and freak out.

Is this really my kid?

That figures. He's terrified of Santa Claus, but being 50 feet in the air doesn't phase him one bit.

All aboard!

Sammy eats his birthday lunch of ketchup, with french fries on the side

Of course, Natalie was with too!

Sammy didn't want to miss one moment of his special day, so he refused to nap. That made for some interesting moments. Such as when Grandma Anita called to wish him a happy birthday. I tried to hold the phone up to his ear, and he shrieked, "No! No!" I took the phone back and he started sobbing, "Talka Grandma! Talka Grandma!" So I offered him the phone again, and he pushed it away, shrieking "No! No!" Again, I took the phone back and he sobbed, "Talka Grandma! Talka Grandma!" Ah, there's nothing quite like toddler logic.

Then we had chocolate birthday cake, and opened presents. He instantly fell in love with his Elmo karaoke machine.

Because you just can't hear "Elmo's World" too many times.

In other news, Sammy was so proud of the polar bear he and Daddy made a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately for the bear and Sammy, it's been quite warm here lately. Today when we got home, Sammy announced the polar bear was "broken".

My eyes! My EYES!!!