Thursday, June 25, 2009

A New Level of Potty-Talk

Once upon a time there was a boy named Luke.
One day this boy decided it would be funny to address another child in his primary class as "poop-head." Luke's mother promptly set about remedying this unfortunate choice of words by having the "potty-words talk." Luckily for Luke's mother (and the aforementioned "poop-head" child), Luke listened very closely to this lecture. However, when an unknowing person (or, gasp, even Luke's own mother) should happen to say something as innocuous as, "Please sit on your bottom," they will get a stern rebuke from Luke about their supposed potty-mouth. In fact, every possible potty-word Mommy happened to mention in that lecture is now seared into Luke's brain. He is the resident potty-talk police.

But, that was before he knew about the Dung Beetle.

The Dung Beetle exhibit just opened at the San Diego Zoo. Never mind that it is just a small part of the Elephant Odyssey, which contains huge replicas of pre-historic animals as well as many live elephants. In Luke's mind a dung beetle is like a free pass to use as much potty-talk as you want. I mean, how can mommy object when you're simply telling the facts? Apparently it's the funniest thing in the world to ask people if they know what the word DUNG means? And even funnier when you inform them that there is a beetle that rolls other animal's dung into little balls and EATS it!

To make matters worse, our ZooNews Magazine arrived with an entire article devoted to these lovely little creatures.
I really should have seen this coming, since Halloween is a year-round topic in our house, but after I patiently read Luke the entire article he smiled sweetly and asked, "Mama, will you find me a Dung Beetle costume this year for Halloween? Oh, and I'll need a ball of poop--I mean DUNG--for rolling."

Yeah, I'll be getting right on that.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Just another day with Luke

Ethan (sobbing like he's going to die): Moooooom! It's LUKEY, he did it! He punched me!

Luke (sitting serenely on the couch reading a book): No, I didn't.

Me: Luke, did you punch your brother? What did I tell you yesterday about that? Remember how you sat in time out for punching?

Luke (not even bothering to look up from his book): I didn't punch.

Me: Then tell me why Ethan is crying and pointing at you?

Luke (letting out a sigh like he's completely exasperated with us all): I didn't punch . . . I just hit him.

Me: LUKE! It's the same thing!

Luke: No Mom, you're wrong. Punching is like this (holding up two fists), but hitting is like this (opens his hand and begins to slap the air).

Me: Get in time out now!

Luke: But, but, but, but . . . you just said no punching Mom . . .

Me: I want no hurting. That means no punching, hitting, kicking, biting, or anything, okay?

Luke (while shuffling to time out): What about scratching Mom?

WHAT?! Whose kid is this?

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Lime-A-Licous

With Ethan it was Applesauce

With Luke it was Mashed Potatoes & Orange Julius

And with Baby Girl the #1 pregnancy craving is all about:
LIMES

How many lime-flavored foods can there be you might be wondering?
Oh, let me tell you. Here's what I've had in just the last week alone:

Sparkling Water with a hint of lime
Christy's limonada (limeade mixed with Sprite)
Simply Limeade (the best store-bought brand around!)
Yoplait's Key Lime Pie yogurt
A huge piece of Morton's Key Lime Pie (to top off my birthday dinner)
Katie's Fiesta Chicken recipe--with a lime based chicken marinade and homeade salsa topping made with fresh lime juice, it's basically double heaven for me right now
But here's what really put me over the moon:
Paula Deen's Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes with Honey Lime Butter
Don't be fooled by the words "whole wheat" in the recipe. It's not healthy by any means. And now I fight the urge to make these every morning.

(Hopefully after all this sour it's possible to produce a little sweetie, right?)

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Feelings, Nothing But Feelings

Monday marked my last turn to host Luke's playgroup at my house. This has been my third year (and fourth group) of doing co-ops and overall it's been a good experience. While I've definitely had it re-confirmed to myself that I do not possess a natural gift of teaching toddlers, I will say that there have been some really rewarding moments. Moments when everything I've planned seems to click with the kids.

Yesterday the theme was feelings and I asked them to ham it up for the camera so we could put together a collage. Here are a few of my favorites:

MAD faces
SAD Faces
SURPRISED faces
SCARED faces
HAPPY faces

Thanks Tami, Amy & Deena for a fun year!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Name Game

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it was a fun idea to record the stories behind each of our names.

And, with exactly three months from today until my due date (whoo hoo), I'm thinking a lot about baby girl names right now.



William Charles Bollard II
Obviously as a "II," Will was named after his father. However, I think it's interesting to note that both his maternal and paternal grandfathers had the first name Charles. When I first met Will in college he was Willie, which is the nickname he had been called from birth. He made a few small attempts to get his friends to call him Will, but it wasn't until we moved and he started law school that he had a clean slate to officially transition to Will. Imagine dating and marrying someone as Willie and then trying to remember to call him Will a year into your marriage! I still slip at home sometimes. Of course, he still has plenty of family members and friends to whom he will always be Willie to.

Audra Elizabeth Rose
My mother babysat a little girl named Audra when she was in junior high and fell in love with the name. I don't think my father ever really had a say in the matter (however, my Dad is on record in the video at the hospital saying that if I was a boy I would be named Eric, after Eric Hayden the Olympic Speed Skater). As an adult I appreciate having a slightly unusual name, although growing up I wished that I had a name like "Lindsay" or "Jenny" so that I could buy those pencils and mini license plates that have kids names pre-printed on them! And while I think my name is fairly easy to say and spell, I will forever be telling people that it's AudrA, not Audrey or Aubrey or Andrea or Aubra . . . (I've heard it all!).

Ethan William
While pregnant with Ethan I was visiting my Mom's ward and they announced that a family had just welcomed a baby boy named Ethan. Instantly the name stuck in my head and I loved it. But I also really liked two other names, Noah and Drew, so we decided we'd wait and see what he looked like to us after he was born. Moments after delivery we ruled out Noah, because it was obvious that this baby was a brunette and Noah was a blond-haired-only name for me. However, we really struggled between Ethan and Drew. Our family and the nurses kept asking us if we'd made a decision and by later that day I was starting to feel a little stressed out about the decision. That's when I decided that the whole "wait and see what the baby looks like" idea was overrated. Later that night we finally settled on Ethan and I've never regretted it, even when I found out later that it was the #2 most common name for his birth year (whoops!). His middle name was after his Dad and his Grandpa, and a nod to family history since we didn't carry on with a "III."

Luke Randall
With Luke's arrival so close to Ethan's it was a little tricky to re-visit boy names. My first inclination was to pick back up with Noah or Drew, but Will declared those "left-over" names and we decided to start fresh. During my five months of bedrest during this pregnancy, I had watched six seasons of Gilmore Girls, in which one of the main characters is named Luke. While I did not intentionally have any desire to name our child after a TV character, I think this is how the name initially got in my head. It seemed to feel right to Will and I instantly. I remember we decided for sure that this baby's name would be Luke when we were driving to a restaurant for Will's birthday in July. We never wavered in our decision after that and I liked being able to instantly call him Luke at the hospital. His middle name Randall is my father's name and we liked how it sounded with Luke (I remember my Dad saying it sounded like a good, strong baseball player's name).

If anyone wants to leave suggestions for a girl name, here's my two criteria:
it has to be recognizably feminine
it has to be a "stand-alone" name like our other two (meaning it can't be shortened into a nickname)

Give me your best ideas!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Only Luke

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Possibilities Are Endless

This upcoming weekend is the much anticipated
Father Son's Camp Out.

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that within minutes of being told (incorrectly) that Baby #3 was a boy, the thought crossed my mind that at least I'd be sending him off on this campout with the other two.

You see, last year I had a blissful time in my solitude. Despite several tempting offers to get together with friends, for some reason I just craved a few hours to clear my head. To be accountable to no one. To go wherever my heart desired. Silly, right? But at this stage in life I'm so rarely alone that there was something irresistible about it.
So this is what I did:
shopped for a birthday gift for my Mom at the Spectrum
ate a Chipoltle Burrito for the first time
wandered the aisles at Barnes and Nobles for an hour until I settled on a book to buy
saw a chick flick at the dollar theater that I can no longer remember the name of
ate a fancy strawberry dessert from Champagne bakery during the movie
went home, turned up my "mellow classic rock" ipod mix, and snuggled in bed to read half of the new book
slept in until 9 on Saturday morning

(Apparently I'm so predictable that when my husband got home he guessed with almost perfect accuracy what I had done!).

Don't get me wrong, I have big plans for the future to create a tradition with my daughter to do special mommy-daughter things during this weekend: pedicures, shopping, eating over-priced pastries from a bakery, letting her sleep in my room with me--whatever makes the night different from a normal night with the boys around. But for now my mind is churning with the possibilities of how I'm going to spend those few precious hours--my last free Father Sons Weekend.

Suggestions anyone?