halloween begins

It took a bribe of tea to get Jed to put his hat on, but even tea could not persuade him to wear the bandanna. Still, he's a pretty cute engineer.

hats are stupid

but tea is good

later . . .

Eric single-handedly manned the camera, the kid, and the kid's candy during trick-or-treating, so we don't have a lot of photos, but in this first one, Jed is taking candy from McLeod. In the second, he's moved next door and is contributing McLeod's treat to Betsy's collection!

Under Eric's guidance, however, he quickly learned to keep the treats rather than returning them at the next stop, and he didn't find Betsy's witch hat nearly as terrifying this year as it was last year!

And yes, Grandmothers, we did let Jed eat some of his treats!

down to business

Our neighbor and friend, Ellen, is now selling her wonderful photographs of names. "Photos of names?" you ask. Well, I can attest that her pictures make a very cool display: in her son's room, for example, she has framed photographs of her son's first, middle, and last names, and I'll confess that since I saw that, I've been on the look out for places to photograph Jed's names. In fact, we're considering choosing bd2's name from her collection!

So click here to check out her new website, and we'll get back to our own photos of Jed soon.

captain no

This week, Jed has become Captain No. Or, I guess more accurately, Captain Change My Mind. Here's how many of our conversations have gone down:

me: Jed, would you like milk or water?
Jed: mo.
I give Jed his milk
Jed, with much head-shaking and hand-waving (imagine I am trying to force-feed him gasoline): NO MO! NO MO! NO MO!
And the milk hits the floor or the wall or me or Winston.

Basically, you can substitute any two nouns for milk and water and have a good idea of how our week has unfolded.

This morning, we got in Eric's car to take Eric to work. For most of the ride, Jed yelled to be in Mommy's "char," and when Eric got out of the car, Jed turned him down for a kiss, but then started making kissing sounds and yelling for Daddy after Eric was across the street.

On the way home, I held out hope for stopping at the dry cleaners: the ladies in there dote on him and he had perked up momentarily when I told him we'd stop there after we dropped off Daddy. Alas, at the dry cleaners, he screamed "NO DRY NEENER! NO DRY NEENER!"

Back at home, he sat down to his breakfast. He'd asked for an ennie muffrie (English muffin) and he chose almond butter over cheese. But when he got it, he wanted it "clo," meaning closed, as in not sliced. He also yelled for cheese, but freaked out it when I sliced it instead of giving him the entire block.

I think the pictures communicate the anguish and dire nature of the situation.

I usually try to ignore his food-related complaints, but I did want to get some breakfast in his system in hopes that he would cheer up, so I offered cereal. He seemed excited about it, but he's seemed pretty happy about lots of things that have turned out to be horrible, terrible, frightening, and/or anger-inducing, so I was a bit surprised when Grape Nuts turned out to be just the thing. Thankfully, he's been in good shape since then and he's calmly napping at the moment.

even Winston gets in on it:
earlier today, he barked several times to come in, but when I went to the door, he was almost as far away as possible and kept his head turned to the street.

And yesterday was Jed's Halloween day at school. After seeming pretty excited to be an engineer, he screamed and screamed "no oafalls! no oafalls!" when I put his overalls on. As for the hat and bandanna... well, don't even think about it, lady. When I left him at school, he was trying to con one of the teachers into helping him out of his overalls.

By the time he woke from his nap, he refused to change out of his napping shorts but he did decide wearing the hat and bandanna would be fun. Hopefully, we can catch at least one snap of the entire ensemble on Sunday, but I doubt it.

5796

Today, I cast the 5,796th vote at our downtown early-voting poll. Why, Sarah, did you vote early? Why not go with the masses on election day, which is always more energizing? Well, the answer to that question is another question: When will bd2 arrive?

The answer to that is, of course, yet another question: Who knows? But I am feeling more prepared everyday, or at least I'm ticking things off my to-do list; I mean, really, who can say they are prepared for a new baby?

My pre-baby to-do list, however, is getting shorter:

I'm two small purchases away from completing my Christmas shopping and three packages (two of which are the yet-to-be-purchased gifts) away from finishing my wrapping.

Yesterday, I finished making a set of three blank books or journals to contribute to Jed's playschool's annual silent auction. Tonight, I should be able to finish Jed's 2009 photo album, and by the end of the week, I hope to finally sew the last stitch on Jed's long-awaited Christmas stocking. (I know: at that pace, bd2 won't have photo albums or a stocking until he's about 14.)

Except for buying diapers, finding the little sling that holds newborns in our baby bathtub, and installing another car seat, preparations for bd2 are basically complete.

And I have a good start on my hospital bag (which was well-used and well-stocked by this point in Jed's pregnancy!).

So when will bd2 show up?

I'm posting a poll to let you vote. I'm not endorsing any of the answers, but I'll give you as much information as I can. The main thing to know is that I've been having contractions for many, many weeks now. For the most part, they've been irregular and uncomfortable but painless, and I've been able to stop them with rest and lots of water, but keep in mind that it was those painless, irregular contractions that got Jed on his path to an early arrival. Plus, I have had a few rounds of more painful and somewhat regular contractions that were more like the real deal.

Currently, we are just past the 34-week-mark. Jed came at 35.5 weeks, but I will say that I feel confident about making it longer than we did with Jed. Of course, I probably just jinxed things and the next post will come from the hospital, but still, I feel good about going longer.

The other pertinent bit of information is that Eric has a pretty busy mid-November ahead of him. His past few weeks have been slower, and from late November through early or mid-December, he has intentionally planned to have less on his plate, but in another week or two, things will pick up for him.

As for my doctors, they have made no predictions, but I'm not on any medication, as I was with Jed, nor are they seeing me any more frequently than normal. So enjoy the poll and in the meantime, we'll consider doing poll about the kid's potential name.

breakfast wreck

I have found that Jed eats the neatest, the most, and the biggest variety of food when he's basically left alone during meals. Therefore, I was close at hand for today's breakfast but was intentionally not really paying that much attention to him.

When I approached to check on him, he held out a spatula of eggs, but the spots on his face really caught my eye. No, it's not chicken pox. It's tea. He's decided that he wants tea, like his father, so we give him luke-warm water with an orange zinger tea bag that turns the water red. When one drops the tea bag into the water repeatedly, one might eventually get splashed in the face.

And I know I said Jed eats the neatest when he's alone, so before you doubt that claim as you look at the pictures, I must point out that almost nothing was on the floor.

dumping the last drops of smoothie

spotted face

But all that was just the tip of the iceberg:

Note the glob of almond butter on his neck. The back of his neck.

marmie's visit

Marmie started her trek back to the tundra this morning after spending a week helping us and entertaining Jed. We had a great visit and hope she did, too! And I hope Jed enjoyed all the attention because she probably won't be back until the new scene-stealer is working the room.

Much to Jed's delight, Marmie brought him a fruit and vegetable set complete with cutting board and knife. Now he can "cu" (cut) and "cha" (chop) to his heart's content! Thanks, Marmie!

Can Marmie stay longer?

Jed + grandparents = happiness all around

Before Marmie departed, we tried to recreate our red-chair family photo, which we've done during most visits from Marmie. Were we successful? Eric thinks not.

field trip!

Jed went on his first school field trip today at the farmers market, and based on his level of post-school exhaustion, he had a blast! When we arrived, it was fun to see him recognize his classmates in a new setting, and I was delighted to hear from one classmate's mom that her son talks about Jed all the time, too. (I was afraid Jed's affection for this boy might be unrequited given that the other boy totally ignored him in the parking lot last week.)

I have to admit, however, that having the parents go kind-of defeats the purpose of sending him to school. I mean, the purpose is for him to socialize and learn, but the real purpose is for him to be out of my hair for a few hours. Thankfully, Marmie cheerfully corralled him, although she did get suckered into a cookie purchase.

Jed and Marmie storm the pumpkins

Jed and friends gather around their teacher while Jed "helps" her locate something in her bag.

Please note the extended index finger as Jed negotiates for "just one" "tookie" from Marmie.

A sucker and her cookies are soon parted.

It was so easy, that one of Jed's two best friends (a calculation based on the number of times he repeats their names) makes his own successful play.

Tookie. Yum.

Miss Jill, Jed's teacher, gamely herds the octopi* into position.

Hold your pumpkins and say cheese!

Too bad someone hid his pumpkin behind the big pumpkins by the time Miss Jill joined her charges. At least that was better than dropping it about 50 times like one of his classmates.

*I know it's overkill to use "octopi" but it's just so much better than octopuses.

hey hay!

Yesterday, our church hosted a fall festival, which consisted of apple bobbing, a pie-eating contest, hamburgers and hotdogs, a hayride, and a balloon twister. It was not a huge event, but Jed was blown away, which makes me wonder if his brain would actually explode if we took him to the State Fair.

Tops on Jed's list of the activities was watching the very talented balloon guy who made an Elmo for Jed . . .

that he showed off to everyone.

He also walked down to the pond with Marmie (look for adoring Marmie pictures later in the week).
No, Jed, that's not the oniee (ocean).

and now for the hay
After watching a tractor pull a trailer load of folks on a hayride, Jed decided it would be fun to "ri tractor," which was "pu tray-were" (pulling a trailer). But when the tractor returned, Jed panicked and when asked if he wanted to go on a hayride, he declared "no no." By the next opportunity, however, he warmed up to the idea and as the tractor returned to home base, he was shouting to Marmie, "Marmie ri tray-were! Ri tray-were!"




When we left, about 30 minutes before bedtime, Jed was still yelling to "ri tray-were" and crying for the last bit of "ha bu er" (hamburger) he had winged at me earlier, and therefore lost. Despite those tears at the end, this is one of the few times he's actually cried to stay on at an event, so I think we can declare our afternoon a success.

stickers!

Grandma and Grandpa (aka Papa and Papa) are here to help out while I recover from the David Family Stomach Bug, and they came armed with stickers, which Jed kindly shared with Winston, who asks "when can we go back to Grandma's and Grandpa's?"

Thanks, buddy.
(and no, it's not cold; Jed just wanted to wear his jacket)

Also, as Grandma ushered Jed downstairs following his nap this afternoon, I overheard them identifying family photographs in the upstairs hall. At one point, Jed asked, "Wha-tee?" ("What/who is that?" in Jedspeak). Grandma replied, "Grandpa Joe," meaning Eric's grandfather and Jed's namesake, and Jed clearly repeated, "Papa Joe."