lollipop karma

I never blogged about our annual trip to the North Shore this year for a few reasons. One being that I wrote notes about the trip on the back of some work papers. When I finished that work, they wound up in the recycler. Oops. Secondly, the resident Hernan-dos photographer never flagged his favorite photos from the trip. He's all about the movie clips these days. Photos are so yesterday. Anyway, I get overwhelmed looking at all the photos. Give me the cliff notes, baby!

Anywho, there were a few little funny things that I wanted to write down before I forgot them entirely:

1. When we went to Betty's Pies, in the lobby they had a couple little boxes collecting money for various charities. They also were selling big delicious lollipops. Elian asked if he could get one of the lollipops and Ed told him he would give him a dollar. He could decide if it should go to a hungry child or if he should use it to buy a lollipop for himself. Cruel, I know. See what I have to live with? But guess what my sweet-toothed-lollipop-crazed little man picked? He chose to give his dollar to the hungry children! Talk about a proud Mama moment. IN YOUR FACE YOU PEOPLE WHO SAY ONLY CHILDREN DON'T KNOW HOW TO SHARE! As a reward, Ed bought him two lollipops.

2. Then there was the trip we took to the Portland Malt shop. Or should I say ONE of the trips we took to the Portland Malt shop. When the girl at the window asked Elian what kind of ice cream he wanted, he responded, "Chocolate with a layer of chocolate on it." When she told him they didn't have dipped cones, he asked for sprinkles. Strike two, no sprinkles. But that didn't keep him down. He was going to get extra sugar one way or another. He started panning the back of the ice cream stand. That's when he spotted some spray whipped cream and said, "I see you have some of that!"

3. And finally, when we were taking a little hike around Gooseberry Falls, we came upon this thin ledge that jutted out with trees growing out the top of it. When Elian saw it, he said, "It looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book!" and it truly did.

quote of the day

MAMA: What do you want in your lunch tomorrow buddy, alphabet soup or peanut butter and honey?

ELIAN: Peanut butter and honey. And maybe some apples...(recalling the signs we saw when we went apple picking) maybe some Connel Reds...maybe some Sweet Sixteens...maybe some Do Not Picks...

quote of the day

Yesterday, Ed had the day off work (hooray, Christopher Columbus!). Elian had his Monday morning daycare, so Ed and I had a romantic shopping spree date at Target and REI followed by lunch at Good Earth. We had to sort of rush through the lunch part so we could pick up the little man in time, so there was no dessert (gasp!). Ed suggested we make up for it with a trip to Cafe Latte after picking the boy up. And who was I to argue? Just take one look here and you'll know why.

We took our mammoth-sized dessert selections (chocolate chocolate cake and some sort of berry crumble if you must know) and sat down. There was a dude sitting nearby with some funky cheetah-spots dyed in his hair. I said to Elian, "Hey, buddy, look at that guys hair, he looks like a leopard."

He looks around and looks around.

I point. "Over there, buddy!"

He looks around and looks around. I can tell he can't see what I'm talking about. And proving my point he says, "Oh yeah, he does look like a leprechaun!"

rain man

Every once in a while, the little man freaks my freak. Like the other day. We were playing this golf game (surprise, surprise), seeing who could hit the golf ball closest to a block. Sometimes there would be an argument about who was closest. That's when he would pull out his measuring tape to confirm the results. One time, after one of us hit the ball, he said right away without grabbing the measuring tape, "That's about 32 inches." I measured to see for myself. It was 32 inches. Exactly.

Then today, we were enjoying a little quiet time. He was doing his thing, I was doing mine. After about a half hour, he was done. He came over to me and looked at the remaining pages of my book and said,
"Is that what you just read?"
"No," (fanning pages) "This is what I read during our quiet time."
"So 28 pages, right?"
"I don't know, maybe it's about 28 pages."
"Let's count."
"Well, I don't really need to count, I can just look at the page number where I started and then look at the page number where I ended and subtract." (Subtracting 380 from 408.) "Yep, it's 28 pages, Rain Man."

another wii-kend

The little man and I spent the past weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Schulz's in Racine. It was a great trip filled with fun: a pool table, a pizza party with the aunts, uncles and cousins, grandma's marble run, miniature golfing and last but not least, cousin Chloe's Wii. The little man got some quality Wii time in while at Grandma and Grandpa's. He's still blathering on about Shay-Shay Lake or some such track I have no idea what he's talking about.

This morning, I drove him to preschool because it was raining and I couldn't find our second umbrella. As I was buckling him into his car seat, I reminded him that he has a cold and he needs to cover his mouth when he coughs -- especially at school. I said something like, "You should just keep practicing that so you do it automatically." Still in Mario-Kart-Wii-mode, he responded, "Not manually."