So... it's not all coasting until he's a teenager

I'm sure you all remember my optimistic post a few ago that said "Now that he's potty trained, it's all coasting until he's in junior high."

Many of you commented with laughter that I still had a ways to go, and you're right. But we're having sort of a Yin Yang experience now, with the good mixed in with the naughty so it's a little easier to take.

The Yin:  Our little Hamslice is a fountain of sage wisdom. He's a thoughtful little guy who's piecing the world together one concept at a time. He gives us advice such as, "It's not a good idea to put poop in your hair.... or your eyes." and "If you kill somebody, you'll go to JAIL, you KNOW"

He likes to use the phrase "you KNOW" for emphasis on the very, very important bits. It helps us know when he's quite serious.

The Yang: We have got one stinker of a liar on our hands. And you can tell when he's lying because he uses the word "well" as a verbal pause. So the dialogue goes like this: "Hamslice, did you just step on the dog?"  "Well, well, well, well, well, well, I was just stepping on him so I could get onto the sofa." 

One of my colleagues mentioned that liar kids are actually more intelligent than truthful kids, because they're able to understand their reality and the consequences of their actions more completely. I replied that we must have the most brilliant kid in the world.

But so far, no harm has been done, and we are enjoying the new view of the world through his eyes. I wonder what's next.

New fun with Electric Kitty

Christmas Wrap up

As many of you know, we spent our Christmas holiday in Key West, Florida thanks to a generous friend of ours who let us stay in his house for two weeks. We greatly enjoyed the break from winter temperatures and made sure to be obnoxious by driving in his convertible with the top down every chance we could. The heated pool was pretty awesome too, so even if the weather was only 75 (boo hoo) we could still swim in 90 degree water.

Yesss.

We opened our gifts on New Years day back in Maryland, and that was a bit of a challenge to explain to Hamslice on Christmas morning. We told him that Santa didn't have our address in Florida, and had delivered his presents to our house in Baltimore by mistake. With a single tear standing in each eye, he agreed that this was probably the case. Poor baby.

Below are copious amounts of pictures from the trip, and our holiday. Enjoy!

 Walking the southernmost beach in Key West. It's a tiny little beach, but you get the picture.

We didn't have a swim suit for Hamslice, so he paraded up and down the beach in his Buzz Lightyear underpants.

 Hamslice at the Butterfly Gardens in Key West

 Christmas on New Year's Day. Here's his Chuck the Truck present.

 Crafting presents

 And this here is Hambone's special present from me. His only comment was, "You realize... this means war"

 Hambone's present to me and Hamslice -- Awwwww. our little cutie Elwood

 Hambone macking in Key West

 Brand new PJs for Hamslice

 Sunset on our first night in Key West. Hamslice was having a great time.

 New PJs from Uncle Keith & Aunt Susan

 Still a little bit shy around Santa. Maybe next year...

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