Happy Birthday To Me!

Today has been a fun, low key and kind of sad/lonely day. James and I had a fun outing this morning where we both rode a Riverside Transit Authority bus for the first time, James experienced his first movie in a movie theater and we had a delicious lunch (too bad we both filled up on popcorn and couldn't eat all our food). We saw Turbo, in case anyone is curious. It is a really cute movie, perfect for my little snail loving (seriously he loves to watch the snail), car loving boy.

Then we came home. I tried to get my little tired boy to take a nap, so I could rest too. But he wouldn't stay in his room longer than 10 mins. So after trying about 3 times I gave into his refusal.

The rest of the evening went just as usual. I really did consider going out to dinner, but my poor legs/feet were tired from all the walking we did this morning. I decided to just stick with what we had here.

The sad part of today is I'm missing my best friend. I wish his work was over so he could come home, but we haven't even made it to half way yet (we will in a couple of days though). It isn't the first time he's been gone for my birthday. He missed last year too. I know it won't be the last either. The curse of a summer birthday and being married to a Paleontologist. However, it doesn't bother me much that he is gone. I just miss him terribly.

So that is how my birthday has been. Looking forward to what year 29 has in store for me.

20 Days Down, 40 To Go

Phew, we've made it a 1/3 of the way.

I'll start off with a little bit about what Tracy has been up to. The first day of his trip he spent in St. George. Met with the St. George Paleontologist, Andrew Milner and did some work with Milner for a paper Tracy is going to write. I don't remember if it is also correlates with his thesis. He then spent 4 days in Wyoming looking at swim track locations in the Red Peak Formation (same time period as the Moenkopi Formation his thesis work is about.) This was more of a just wanted to see for himself what was there. He'll be able to reference it in his thesis, but his main focus is the Moenkopi Formation.  He then spent the 4th of July and several days afterwards at his parents house. Finishing up last minute paper work for permits, buying supplies. On the tenth he with his cousin as an assistant headed to the San Rafael Swell where he'll get down and dirty working on collecting data and specimens for his thesis. He finished with is work at the Swell today, a couple of days earlier than planned. It was nice talk to him this evening. He had a good time and got a lot of work done, as well as a nice sunburn.

Now what James and I have been up to the past 10 days. You can see what we did the last 10 days on my previous post.

DAY 11: Movie Night
I gathered up some movie snack. James picked out the movie (The Fox and the Hound).
And we had a great time.

 DAY 12: Skype with a Family Member
I arranged for James to talk to his cousin Abby.  Abby is exactly 2 month older than him.
They are always so cute when together, even miles apart talking on the computer.

Here they are both playing with their toy cameras. (They have the exact same one.)

DAY 13: Dance Party
This was wishful thinking on my part. There's no way I can get this kid to dance and he always tell me "no" when I dance. Instead we listened to music and chased each other around,
until I stubbed my little toe on the couch and could barely walk after that.

 DAY 14: Paint with Watercolors
This kid loves to paint with watercolors.
You just have to keep him from drinking the water.

 DAY 15: Make Rice-Krispie Treats
He didn't really help me make them, but he had no problem cleaning the bowl afterwards.
Then wanted more and didn't care that they were set up yet, so I just stuck some in the bowl and gave him a spoon. 

DAY 16: Swimming

His stick had to go swimming too.

DAY 17: Picnic at Playground

On this particular day James hadn't been eating his meals too well, 

so I decided the playground would have been too distracting. 

We ate on our patio then went and played at the playground.

 

DAY 18: Story Time at Cellar Books

James slept in this morning, so we didn't make out of the house in time to get to story time. Not that I can ever get him to go into the book store. I don't blame him sometimes who would want to go into a store when there is a stream with fish to watch. 

Instead I bought him ice cream.

DAY 19: X-Box Game Night

It seems we missed doing a lot of our activities this weekend. This day we ended getting an invite to dinner and didn't get home in time to do our game night. We did however take time the next day to play a little X-Box. 

 

DAY 20: Make M & M Cookies

He loves helping make things and this wasn't any different, until I put the M & M in the dough. He got really mad and said, "No, those are for my potty." He gets M & M's when he uses the potty. Guess I won't be making these again soon. 

I forgot to get a picture when we were making them, but here I have a batch in the oven
 and you can see just how unhappy he is with me.

Stay tuned for our next 10 days of fun.

Reading with James and Potty Training

I've been doing reading time with James before his nap time, well quiet time now (no longer sleeps), and before bed. The end of last week he made the connection that there are letters on the page. His favorite letter to find is "x". There's not very many x's to be found, except in The Lorax. He also discovered the question mark. He had asked me what it was and has been finding all the question marks as well. He's also been learning the exclamation point. So now for him to find any letter or punctuation he wants to has made our reading time last a little longer. But it is fun to see him make the connections. Only a matter of time before he is reading on his own.

Also, anytime he find words in italics. He says the letters are falling down. I guess it looks like they are falling. What do you think? Yesterday, he was really, really concerned about an "x" that was falling down. I told him it was O.K. the "x" isn't going to get hurt and some how got him to move on from it. This evening we were reading the same book and came across the same "x" and he patted me on the back and said, "It's O.K. mom. "X" won't get hurt." I had to take a moment to compose myself after that. Sometimes he says the funniest things, like saying "Yes, sir" anytime he answers yes to a yes or no question.

I've also taken the potty training plunge, for like the 100th time. I quit pushing him a several months ago after no success in training. Every once in awhile I could get him to go potty. There was several times I could get him to go at least once a day for several days, but then refuse if I tried to push him for more. There were times he'd wake up in the morning and ask to "go potty like mommy and daddy". I decided to give it another try since it is just me and him and we really don't have anywhere to go. I was also so very tired of buying diapers. Yesterday was horrible. I almost threw in the towel, but today it went better. I struggle being stuck inside all day for more than a day. But after a little swimming today, I've been recharged with vitamin D or maybe not since it was cloudy. It was just nice to not have to worry about a mess. So far James has had about 2 successes a day and about 2-3 misses. The biggest success is he actually is letting me put underwear on him. Hopefully I don't have to buy another diaper for him. (Just wish I had a washer and dryer in my apartment.)

Between going potty we've had some silly/fun moments:
Like some how getting stuck behind the chair.

Or laying on the back of the couch hiding.

Watching the sunset. (The first two I took of the sunset tonight. The rest James took.)

He is becoming quite the photographer