Bat Friend

Last week Linus made this bat at the library.  With its wings askew and eyes a bit wonky, it sure does look cute, doesn't it?  Linus liked running around the house with it to help it fly.  In other bat news, everyone should check out Bats at the Library.  The illustrations are charming and there is so much to discover on each page.  The story is about what happens one night when a librarian leaves a library window open. The bats excitedly go in to enjoy all that the library has to offer.  Adult guests in our house have loved it and it is great for reading aloud.

Linus is now in bed feeling very worn out from a day of playing and raking leaves, followed by trick-or-treating; and all without a nap. I, too, am worn out by all of the excitement. 

This week our newest neighbor was born.  I got to meet Grace this afternoon as her parents and grandmothers were taking her out for her first walk.  I got to hold her for a good amount of time as other neighbors joined us in their front yard.  What a tiny and sweet bit of perfection in this world.  I could barely part with her.  It was wonderful to experience this beautiful moment of neighbors gathering to excitedly surround the baby and her parents.  We all shared in the gloriousness of welcoming a new baby.

Cookie Blobs

I bought a pumpkin cookie cutter recently and thought we could decorate Halloween cookies with icing.  Several things didn't go as planned, but we accomplished my goal to have some fun with Linus.  For some reason the cookies spread out a lot and lost their pumpkin, leaf, or apple shape.  They all looked like blobs.  I'm not sure what the problem was since we used a recipe for cut outs.  Unless the extra sugar Linus put in while I was occupied with the plumber messed it up. I have some icing decorator tips, but no piping bags, so I cut a hole in the corner of a Ziploc bag and let Linus have at it.  The bag tore and the tip came out.  I tried to fix it with packing tape, but that didn't last long.  The decorating went fine without the tip in since Linus was having fun squeezing the frosting out everywhere.  Don't tell Matthew, but when Linus sucked some of the icing out of the bag I pretended I didn't see it.

Covered Up

This is what Linus is doing right this very minute:  sleeping under the ironing board.  My current quilt project is hanging over it. He wasn't tired at nap time so we kept playing.  All of our activities today finally caught up with him.  He crawled under the quilt top and kept asking me what I could hear.  Next thing I knew he was zonked out.

What did we do today that wore him out?  We brought laundry in off the line from yesterday afternoon, we washed another load and hung it out together (he says he is clothes pin boy and I am clothes woman), made two loaves of bread, played the Thomas matching game, Langley showed up with some replacement puzzles for the ones we left her and that her dog chewed up, we played with all of the new puzzles and played a rather large memory game, ate lunch, read stories, swept the house together, and listened to a cd.  Phew.  I'm tired too.

Spider Art

I helped Linus create a spider web this week.  He had discovered my little hole-punch in my desk and had fun punching holes in the paper in the recycle bag.  I gave him a paper plate and instructed him to punch holes around the rim.  I had to help him slide the plate in far enough, but he did pretty well at punching through the plate.  Then I gave him yarn that I knotted on one end and wrapped in a bit of tape on the other so that it would be easier for him to sew with it.  He criss crossed the plate and created a fine looking web.  I created a spider by spiraling up pipe cleaner (he chose white), and bending smaller pieces onto the body to create the legs. Linus applied the googly eyes.  After we took pictures of it, he decided the spider needed flies to eat. He then proceeded to glue every single one of his puff balls on it for the flies.  I don't have pictures of that because the lens cover on my camera refuses to open and I need to mail it in to be repaired. Grrrr.

Matthew took some comp time and came home early from work today.  He and Linus are off for a walk, which gave me a chance to blog a bit.

Pants

Linus put his pants on all by himself for the first time.  He told me he wanted to go get pants by himself and that he wouldn't be lonely because his animals would keep him company.  Then he came back with this pair of jeans and he sat down and put them on by himself. I didn't have the heart to tell him he needed a pair of undies because he was proud of being independent and he can't reach them in the top drawer of his dresser.  (I guess it is time to move them down lower.) He was so excited that he took them off and put them on again a few times.  

Potty training is going okay.  Not too long ago he went a few days with a lot of accidents, but he is back on track and today had no accidents.

Linus is doing a great job of using his manners at home.  He says thank you without being prompted and even asks to be excused from the table.  His little voice sounds so cute when he asks, "May I be excused?"

Yesterday I bought gas ($3.15 a gallon) and while I pumped the gas I played peekaboo through two of the car windows. As we pulled away from the gas station he was still laughing and said, "Thank you for peeking at me."  Sure thing, kid; anytime.

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went out to the Gardens' site at Chatfield for Pumpkin Fest.  It was drizzly and cold so we didn't spend all that much time there.  Even so, it was fun to see Linus in his lion costume stumbling his way through the pumpkin patch.  Before we even arrived there he knew he wanted a little pumpkin.  He brought home a very cute one that I neglected to photograph because it started to rain.  When I saw the barrel trains I was pretty sure Linus would think a ride on one would be fun.  As the tractor pulled away with him, I couldn't believe he was doing this on his own.  How could he be big enough for this?!  As we watched the barrel train curve off out of view I told Matthew, "This is the first time we've let a complete stranger go off with our kid."  I think this is just one example of the baby steps I'll be taking until he goes off to preschool.

Autumn Walk

I brought the camera with me when we went for a walk recently.  Linus brought Floppy Dog with us.  We smelled flowers, watched squirrels, and ended up at the playground at the park.  When we started to head home Linus wanted me to put Floppy Dog down his shirt.  Something led me to believe that he wanted to carry him the way people carry babies in slings.  I used his long sleeve shirt to make a sling and that is how he carried Floppy Dog all the way home.  

Two new words in his vocabulary include "evaporated" and "xenophobic."  He was jabbering away and I was only partly listening and I heard him say "evaporated." At dinner I told Matthew about it and he asked Linus, "What evaporates?"  Linus answered, "Water."  Matthew asked, "When?"  Linus said, "At the garden."  When it comes to "xenophobic" I should clarify that although he said the word a few times today he doesn't really know what it means.  He has a book called C is for Curious: An ABC of Feelings.  For the letter x it has the word xenophobic and an illustration of some unidentifiable animals that kind of look like skinny dogs looking up at a UFO flying overhead. I just tell Linus that they are saying, "Who is that up there?" and I use a bit of a gruff voice.  I don't think a two-year-old needs to know what it really means.

Assistant Sander

One of my goals this summer was to refinish our porch swing.  I finally started it last week.  Linus liked sanding and was even good about going with the grain.  After a few minutes of focused work he started running around the yard, coming back to sand a bit, and then running around again.  I haven't gotten any farther than I got last week because it aggravated my carpal tunnel syndrome and it is still bothering me nearly a week later.  I guess I should send out an email to our friends and see if someone has a power sander I could borrow and learn how to use.  Or else we won't sand it anymore and just put some polyurethane on it and call it done.

Cute things Linus has said recently:

Matthew said, "It is already 11:15."  Linus said, "No, it's 14:19.  14:16." 

He sang these words:  

We ma way

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the jungle

Lion in the zoo.

He was on my lap and we were cuddling and he looked at me and said, "Everyone in the world likes us."  World peace does exist in this tiny way.  What a beautiful idea.

What Do Ants Eat?

Linus left his peanut butter bread outside and he discovered it several hours later with tons of ants on it.  So now he has a better understanding of what ants will eat.

I hosted another Obama event Monday night.  It was a postcard-writing party.  Two of my neighbors attended and the other six folks signed up via the Obama website.  We wrote out 148 postcards encouraging undecided voters to choose Obama.  Some people brought store bought postcards to write out and others decorated their own.  

Linus did okay with all of the strangers in the house, but he did get quite keyed up.  He colored with markers, ate brownies, and prattled to me.