Screwing Around

So this is me just venting for a minute in the hopes that sharing this with all of you will help me find the patience I need until we move into another phase.

The issue is: Screwing Around

At first blush this might not seem like such a big deal, but it's incredibly frustrating. I've been trying to get Hamslice to dress himself... all by himself... for a couple of weeks now. I'll ask him to put his clothes on and then come downstairs for breakfast. Simple enough, right?

After 20 minutes of hearing footsteps and some grunting and rustling from his bedroom, I'll go to check in on him; finding Hamslice completely nude, standing with one foot on top of his dresser and wearing underpants on his head. His Buzz LightYear toy will also have one sock over his boot.

There's just no giddy-up in this boy these days. He knows how to actually get dressed, he just likes screwing around so much more.

*sigh*

Now that I write it all out, he sounds a lot like me when I was a kid.

Monster Trucks for Christmas

Hambone took Hamslice shopping for trucks over the weekend. This one was Hamslice's favorite, and he asked if he could buy it and take it home to put in the garage.

Hambone asked Hamslice how much he thought this truck might cost, and Hamslice said, "It's probably about $20."  and when asked where the $20 would come from, Hamslice thought for a while and said, "I think you have $20 in your wallet."

They learn so young...

When to be funny

So now that we're getting past the 100% rebellion phase, we feel like we may be able to mold Hamslice's young mind somewhat.

Lesson 1: When to be funny

International Day at Montessori

So below you'll see a few videos from International Day at Hamslice's Montessori. It was his first school performance, and just as cute as can be. I should mention that Hamslice's class was the last one to perform, so they had been sitting on the floor patiently for about an hour before this. I imagine this explains some of the behavior...

Here's the warmup -- Hamslice fooling around on stage with his favorite buddy, Brooks. Our guy is the blond in the front row, wearing the dashiki


Next comes the introduction where the class says Good Morning in Swahili


Here's Hamslice doing his speaking part. I was so proud


And then... well.... then there was the singing and dancing portion, which Hamslice took to a new level complete with stunts, a time out, and a dash to his mom. My poor baby.

Taking a break from uploading Movies

I've noticed that this blog used to be written by hand with my own comments, but lately all I've done is upload movies. (not that there's anything wrong with that, right?) So to take it old school, I'll try a text entry again.

Hamslice has been giving us a run for our money lately, with the pinnacle being the specially requested parent teacher conference two weeks ago. I was sweating that conference BIG TIME because I was sure he was going to be kicked out of Montssori due to his inclination ignore anyone in authority.

To my (sort of) relief, they just wanted to see how we were managing him at home, and they wondered if they could borrow any techniques. I said "sure... here's one, stop letting him push you around!"

Since then his behavior has improved greatly. I'm not sure if it's because some new synapses attached in his brain because he's growing, or if it's because his home and school lives are now more similar. Either way, we'll take it.

I hear that after you get through the 3s its smooth sailing until they're about 8. Here's to riding it out for another 10 months!

Cyclone!

Night Time Reflexes

Sometimes Hamslice still wakes up in the middle of the night, and often his first impulse is to grab a toy and crawl into bed with Mom and Dad.

Last night, his toy of choice was Hambone's Makita cordless hammer drill... fully charged...

I am pretty impressed that I was able to spot this as a no-go even at that groggy time of the night. We all emerged unscathed, except that I may never sleep again.

Goin' CRAZY at that playground

While we were on vacation over Labor Day, we took a day trip up to Lewes Delaware just for kicks. Hamslice found this playground and played his little heart out. There was a long nap that afternoon!

On a side note, Hambone dug around in the house where we were staying and found a bowl of old, obnoxious sunglasses. He picked out a special pair just to wear while standing next to me. You'll see those highlighted in this movie as well.

Awesome.

OC Hurricanes make great vacations

We had a great time in Ocean City this weekend. We drove up around 2pm on Friday and stayed through the weekend. Vacations are awesome.

Happy Birthday Hamslice

His actual bday is later this week, but we celebrated on Sunday anyway

Dino-Mite

A little motion sensor never hurt anyone, right?

"Dripping"

Last week Hamslice had a touch of stomach flu, and spent the morning being sick in the bathroom. It was the saddest thing. He would come to me and say "Mom, I'm gonna Drip" and then out would come anything he might have had to eat in the past several days.

Since then, he's been obsessed with "dripping." All of his toys now have little sauce pans next to them just in case they need to be sick. I get emergency calls into the living room to check on his toy dinosaur who is "dripping on the rug."

It must have been pretty traumatic for him to be sick that day. My poor baby.

Electric Cars in Iowa

Hamslice School Picnic

sharing with mommy

Shopping Shennanigans

Deconstructionism

You put the lime in the bathtub and shake it all up

Nationals Vs. O's game recap

Dr Doolittle look out

Hamslice Fishing Adventure

Vacation Pics and Video

Earlier this month, Hambone, Hamslice and I went mobile. We packed up the Avalanche and drove to Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan (and then back to Maryland) in one week. We were tired at the end, but overall had a complete blast. I have more videos, but can't seem to get them out of my phone (stupid Apple). Here's what I have so far...

Here we are at Navy Pier:



And here's a video about the Ferris wheel sign...



Here we are at Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan:

Fountain of Hamslice

Hamslice discovered the fountains in the inner harbor a few weeks ago. It was a ... refreshing experience, let's just say...

Hambone Smart Alec

In case some of you don't know what a Smart Alec is, keep reading.

We seem to have an extra strong-willed boy on our hands, so Hambone and I instituted emergency M&M measures. Hamslice's answer to everything lately has been to shout NO and then lay on the floor, immobile. And if he's tired of laying on the floor, he pretends to be deaf.

So, we have started a currency of M&Ms. If he says no to what we ask, then we ask again nicely if he would like an M&M for doing the task. Usually that works, but if he still says no, then we say "well if you don't do the task then no M&M for you."

So far he has been immediately jumping up to do the task when we say we're taking away the M&M, but I can tell this will only work for a while. According to Wikipedia, Hambone and I are the smart Alec's in this scenario. Wikipedia has no advice for how to continue exacting good behavior from my son.

Hamslice Home Movies

You all seem to enjoy these quite a bit, so here are a couple more Hamslice Superstar movies.

Hamslice Paints


Hamslice Businessman

He gets this from Mom

"I can't go poopies without the Reader's Digest!"

Hamslice Sings

Here are some movies of my little guy singing in the car. We don't quite have all the words down yet, but I'm happy to hear that he can carry a tune.

=)

The ABC Song


Baa Baa Black Sheep

Famous Hamslice

Our family was selected for BGE's energy savings household promo video -- you can see how much better we all look when there are professional video editors in the mix.

Hamslice Fisherman

One of our favorite activities is going to the Bass Pro Shop to look at the fish. Here's Hamslice getting "into the action". Just a couple more years before we can all get back to fishing as a hobby!

Monster Face

Mommy got a new phone that has a video camera in it. Now you will see Hamslice in Motion, like this:

Digging out

Today we begin digging out. Hamslice was a tremendous asset.

Homebound, Day III the Saga Continues

This is all going to be great to look back on, but this is my third day of hard time in the house taking care of Hamslice while Hambone plows for the entire day. (He just landed a City Emergency Team contract, so I officially have to stop whining about this)

I have been trying to cook to keep busy, but the derth of ingredients makes it a little tough. Last night was pea soup that contained a bag of dehydrated black-eyed-peas and some of our Christmas ham leftovers form the freezer.

That culinary experiment led to the discovery that Papa Johns across the street was open, but only accepting carry out orders. That means pizza is ready for us in 20 minutes. No muss, no fuss. That's the good news.

The bad news is that we're starting to run out of things like milk and toilet paper. We're living the cliche.

I'm also running out of fun things to do with Hamslice. Three days of kids movies is my absolute limit, so we're experimenting with splashy time in the tub and thinking about where there may be a street or sidewalk open to go take a stroll.

The house and I are also starting to turn on each other. I walk into room after room thinking, "My God this place is filthy." So this morning I cleaned Hamslice's room, including sorting all of the clothes in the drawer.

With the 10 inches of snow we're supposed to get tomorrow, this may be an endurance run. Stay tuned.

Snowmageddon II

Here are more snow pictures. This was so amazing to see that I had to show all of you too. We have officially broken ALL snowfall records for Baltimore. I can believe it!

These pictures were taken while Hambone, Hamslice and I were joyriding in the Bobcat. We had to put the plow away because there was too much snow. Instead we drove around with a giant shovel on the front of the Bobcat, lifting massive heaps of snow and carrying them to the sides of the road.








We call these people the Federal Hill Zombies. Nothing was open today, but people still wandered aimlessly around hoping to find something to do. They walked in the middle of the street looking like they would actually eat brains if it came to it.





And I have to ask "why bikes?" they were everywhere, as if bicyclists think a bike is an ATV.

Hamslice Snowball

Snowmageddon 2010 is underway. 2 feet so far (easily).

State of emergency was declared last night by the Governor, so this is officially cool now.

Last night we went to bed poo-pooing this storm because there was only about 2 inches on the ground and it was still 40 degrees. During the night, we heard a lot of thunder -- so much that it woke Hamslice up at 4am. We all peeked out the window at that time and whistled low and long.

Here's what we have:

Hambone and Hamslice plowing out the street together, and both having a marvelous time. Hamslice was so relaxed in the Bobcat that he fell asleep in the cab for an hour WHILE Hambone continued plowing.


This is the front of our house, looking south.
This is the Hamslice snow depth meter. His feet didn't go all the way to the pavement because he's too light, but waist deep is about a foot and a half or more. This isn't a snow drift he's standing in, it's the sidewalk au naturale.
This is Hambone trying to get out the back door to get to his plow. This took a while.
The view out the front window at 6:30 am
One more Hamslice measurement: see how high the snow is on the door? That's also not a drift.


Our yard, at 5:30 am.

Embarassing Bath Photos

I wouldn't be a parent if I didn't post at least one bath photo in public, right? Here you go...

Early Morning Fishing?

Have you ever gone fishing for crappie or bluegill? Well do you remember how the flop all over the dock once you bring them out of the water? It's chaos with the flipping and flapping and leaping into the air. You'd never forget it.

Now picture that fish at 5AM, flopping around in your bed, and then call that fish "Hamslice." That's what we woke up to this morning. Our little guy crawled into bed early in the morning, and a very noisy F A R T from one of us woke him up. For the next hour, he flip flapped in bed until we all woke up for the day.

We've got to get a lock on that bedroom door.

Whisper

Our little Hamslice is an early riser, and likes to get out of bed far earlier than his parents. As a compromise we let him crawl in bed with us after 5:30 for some snuggle time and (we hope) maybe some additional sleep.



Hamslice knows he's supposed to be quiet during this time, so he uses it to ruminate about things he has seen, or things he'd like to do during the day. And he talks to himself in a soft, feathery whisper.



He mostly says things like "Today I'd like to stay home from Montessori and play with Mommy" and "I want to go to the playground with the slides and tunnels."



But there's something about the sound of his whisper that lends a "Stephen King" tone to the discussion, making my hair raise when he says things like "Mommy's getting fat" and (terrifyingly) "I want to eat your eyes"

Go Raisins!

Because the Baltimore Ravens are doing so well in the playoffs (thus far) Hamslice's Montessori class is learning about football and what it means to cheer for their home team.

His teachers were crying with laughter when I picked up Hamslice last Friday -- evidently when they asked if he likes the Ravens, he said "yes, I like raisins very much."

Go Raisins.

Pecking Order

Sometimes it's tough being 2 1/2. Evidently, you don't get the respect you think you deserve, so you look for a patsy.

This afternoon Hambone and I found Hamslice in the kitchen, bossing around our terra cotta chicken. He was sitting on his zebra scooter, pointing his finger and commanding the following:

"You go to bed right now or I'll close the door"

"Don't make me mad"

"When I get mad, I get scary"

and so on. It was so adorable, but kind of a reminder of what jerks we can be as parents too. Humbling, really.