A Thanksgiving From His Prospective

Yes, he does crash and burn occasionally. Granted it takes a lot to get him there but Mr. I'm-not-napping-anymore even took a nice long nap after church today. That after three long days of Thanksgiving holiday.

Being at someone's house for an overnight holiday is very challenging for a 3-year-old out of his normal element after a two hour car ride, surrounded by 20 adults and one 14-month-old toddler.

 

But he found some things to keep himself busy, like this game he has plays with each time we go down to visit. He loves the way the marbles can roll around the outer rim of the game board. Only this time the marble pieces became little planets in outer space. 

And the 14-month-old had some pretty fun little toys too...

I think the best part of his weekend had to be when he was allowed to watch Wall-E before bed on Thanksgiving. Our friend Diane gave him a copy which he is still quite thankful about. We also put it in the portable DVD player for the ride home and the movie ended as we pulled up to our house. What timing.  It was the first time we used the DVD player in the car - awesome! It made a quiet, peaceful ride home.

Thanks again Diane!


Hope you had a good Thanksgiving weekend.

Invasion of the Wooden People

I received a box in the mail on Wednesday filled with some goodies from South Dakota. 

When Harrison and I arrived home to find the box, he was overcome with excitement and wanted to open it right away. He even got his scissor out and started to try to cut into the box as he has seen me do - but packing tape is strong tape! Once I helped him open it he was again delighted to find "popcorn!". Then I pulled out the vintage Christmas ornaments and he immediately went for the three kings.

After some time, he discovered three Pringles cans filled with wooden people.

"Humans!" he exclaimed.

As I sat looking at these little wooden people, I tried to recall why I marked them the way I did. In the faint cobwebs of my memory I almost see myself doing it. I believe I marked them as families and sets. Who knows why. I was meticulous that way sometimes. (and what is up with the uni-brow on that little girl??)

For Harrison...

A perfect discovery for a rainy day.

There was much celebration of and playing with the little wooden people that converged on our house for a long overdue reunion with me and introduction to my 3-year-old.

Photo Story is Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We're spending time with friends for Thanksgiving but our thoughts will be with our extended family as well - wish we were all a little closer. So in honor of the day, a picture of Harrison's last craft from his Aunt.

Our little pilgrim friend sits on the table every day greeting us with a smile.

Today he's greeting you with a Thanksgiving smile!

Have a good one!

A Slimy Situation

We made it this Summer, I took it out today.

It was sticky... I let him play with it anyway.

I turned away for only a moment. Then found his covered with the gooey slime.

I starting to think his arms were melting...

Like one of the comic book based action flicks.


I spent half an hour getting it off him.
Note to self: When Slime becomes slimy - throw it away.


Visit Tracey for much more "graceful" best shots.
(Oh, and my best shot... the first one, it's such a Harrison moment.)

and then there are those days...

Daddy took him to bed, we often take turns with story reading and tucking in, but he came down to get a drink for Harrison. So I took the water up to him.

After a drink, he hugged me, I hugged him tighter and told him, "I love you so, so much." with tears welling up in my eyes. (yeah, I was having a mommy-moment)

Harrison says as he holds me in the hug, "I love YOU so, so much. I love you when you're sad, I love you when you're angry, I love you when you're happy, I love you when you're glad."

Daddy taught him that.

Then he said, "I love you way, way far away into outer space and Ster Trek."


Can't beat that.

Getting ready for his Thanksgiving Program at School. 

The camera and I were in an argument..

I didn't win. This was the best of the bunch.

Best Shot Monday - Straight Out of the Camera

This picture popped up in my computer slide show this weekend. I opened it and kept it up all weeken've left it there are look at it.

It amazes me. So I went to he folder where this picture resides. I had forgotten about these pictures.

It was right after his first haircut. But the little curls grew back one more time.

He was 15 months when we moved into this house. Still so tiny then...

How did he go from this...



To this?
Oh, I just love this boy with every part of my being. He is amazing. Spirited. Bright. Outspoken. Independent. Loving. Smart. Beautiful. Gentle. Stubborn. Talkative. Contemplative. Funny. Loud. Full of kisses. Comic. Fierce. Needing. Respectful. Polite. Brave. Energetic. Complex. He helped me rediscover myself.

And in less than four short months he is going to be four years old.


Did I blink?








Tracey has more Best Shots - check them out.


And for more Straight out of the Camera, go say hello to Melody.

In Theory... it was a Bad Idea...

Motrin put out a new ad campaign that in my opinion demonizes wearing your baby, something that was helpful for me in Harrison early months for various reasons including the fact that he wouldn't nap in the beginning; and when I went back to work Harrison went with me - in a wrap. They want you to believe that back pain is the norm for baby wearing. It's not.

I blogged about it in more detail here since I try to keep this blog strictly about Harrison.

But there are some of you that don't read my blog and I needed to share about the numskulls at Motrin who came up with this bright bad idea. If you believe in baby wearing, whether or not you practice it, let Motrin know just how insulting this ad campaign is by emailing them.

Gah!

Here's an obligatory picture of Harrison in his [and my] favorite carrier causing me much pain and anguish [can't you see it on my face??] "for the good of my kid" and so that I "look like an official mom". Uh-huh.

(P.S. - He's sitting too low after being there for a bit, but I was new at getting him on my back.)

Wordless Wednesday - Finger Painting

Harrison has used tempera paint, acrylic paint, and watercolors; but never finger paint - before last week.

I had no idea that it was the consistency of gel.

...Once again - I'm behind the times.

And I'm not wordless.



Well, there's always these wordless pictures!

Theme thursday - Pure Imagination

This is one of my favorite images from childhood. It's a poem from a version of A Child's Garden of Verses that my mother gave me as a young reader. It's illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone. I have four books illustrated by them from my mother that now sit on Harrison's bookshelf. I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVE their art. The light, wispy pictures have always enamored me. I wanted to be these children. When I looked at the pictures, they took me to far away places and a feeling of lightness. Where for a moment my world was perfect.

The stories and images lit a fire in my imagination. I would scour the house for everyday things that I could use to create my own little world like I saw in the books. I even made my own ship on our basement stairs that my mom worked around for weeks.

I would go outside and build Indian tee-pees, and line my friends and neighbors up for a musical march, I would sit on the top of hay stacks and sing songs at the top of my lungs to the farm animals - and they always listened.

And it all started with stories and books.

I'm visual and I love the power of the written word combined with beautiful illustrations in the books of children. Especially in vintage books. I LOVE vintage books.

It's hard in today's world for some families to not get caught up in television and consumerism. It's everywhere, for us, I chose books that are not "branded" with the exception of library books that Harrison picks out. Clifford the Big Red Dog often visits our house for a few weeks; but Harrison has only a handful of books that are based on a television show. An Elmo [I spy-type of] book, a few Baby Einstein board books and a reprint of the Disney classic, Pinocchio.

Harrison's grandmother made one request about bringing up Harrison. To read to him. I've kept that promise. Although I don't read enough myself, I read to him. He loves story time.

It sparks his imagination.

I hope that fire keeps burning.

When I think of the word imagination - I can't help but think of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Pure Imagination is one of my favorite childrens songs. After all the movie was birthed from a book and the lyrics could easily refer to the adventure of reading.

Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination

We'll begin with a spin
Trav'ling in the world of my creation
What we'll see will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world, there's nothing to it

There is no life I know
To compare with pure imagination
Living there, you'll be free
If you truly wish to be



Reading allows us to be anyone we want to be, takes us anywhere we want to go and teaches to never stop using our imagination. I only hope that Harrison will always love to read.

Go say hi to Stacy at Land of K.A. today for more imaginaton.

**edited to say that I had a busy day and published this late. I went to Land of K.A. to see that Stacy and I were "on the same page" today! How funny!!

Wordless Wednesday - 3 days in October

3 days in October, originally uploaded by roseytsp. Click in the picture for a larger view.

He thought he would use watercolors for pumpkins. Who's to stop him when he gets an idea in his head?

More Wordless Wednesday here.

Best of Halloween

We got home on Thursday for find a box for Harrison on the step. It was a Halloween surprise from his aunt in Arizona.
I got the scissors out and cut the tape with enough time to jump back and watch Harrison tear into it. The first word out of his mouth...

"POPCORN!"

Had there been nothing more in that box he would have been happy, but for the 3-year-old, it only got better.

Candy!

And more...This is his "spooky tree", he won't let anyone touch it (with the exception of grown ups).

Then we realized the little ornaments Aunt Celia sent were to hang on it!


All done!
We also put together another little craft she sent, but we'll save it for another week - closer to Thanksgiving.

After the crafts and candy, Harrison had another thought. He looked at me sheepishly, I knew what he was thinking and I encouraged him to test it out...
A perfect fit, he decided.

Now a closer look at that Halloween card.

"Hey Mama! Look, spooky skeleton!"


My best shot. More joy of course. Playing in boxes filled with packing "popcorn" - what more could you ask for?

I told you, he would have loved his Aunt just for that alone; everything else was just a bonus.

"Thank you Aunt Celia in Azona!"



For more Monday fun head over to Mother May I.

Been There, Done That. Halloween 2008

I know, you are all waiting to see what we did for Halloween. But as usual I didn't get the pumpkins carved, daddy had to work, we didn't have candy for any treat-or-treaters... AND Harrison took a 3 1/2 hour nap waking up at 6:15pm!

When he woke I threw his costume on over some long underwear and we walked up to the church in the corner that was having a "Trunk-or-treat". Yeah, I didn't know what it was either.

It looked like this:
Cars with their trunks open and decorated for Halloween and candy to be passed out.

There was a Wii set up to play! And the Incredibles playing in another car.

He went from car to car

Until he saw this:

A Delorean complete with a professor,

and flux capacitor
and Back to the Future playing on a video screen inside.

After that he spotted something else...

This...

A big Mystery Machine jumper.

That's him in the back dressed as Obi Wan Kanobi and holding a light stick.
He was in there for almost 2 hours. I hung out, drank a half cup of coffee and sneaked a couple pieces of his candy.

Then we came home to drink hot tea and watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
A perfectly nice evening for both of us.