The Cage Match

Gavin and I got to hang out together tonight. Miranda was at Wicked with a bunch of friends and coworkers, so it was just the boys tonight. I told Gavin that there was going to be a cage match since Mama was out of the house for a few hours. But first he had to eat a good dinner. Eat eat eat...

Dinner is complete, onto the main event of the evening - the dreaded cage match.

Gavin quickly takes the upperhand in the early moments of round 1. He seems to be just toying with his opponent.

He's looking for an escape route.

Between rounds (or so I thought) the cage got the better of G. I was in the kitchen cleaning up and I hear screaming coming from the dining room. Evidently Gavin had started round 2 before the bell and crawled in the cage and stood up. He couldn't figure how to get the cage off, so he was walking around with it sitting on top of his head.

The fight was called on account of bedtime. But Gavin has already asked for a rematch. He said that he is going to train harder and this time he will be ready for whatever the cage can throw at him.

Better Make That Snack To Go

Gavin does the funniest things sometimes. Over the weekend, he decided that the recycling bin made a great table for his afternoon snack. And the best part was that he could just push it wherever he wanted to go. He would stop to eat a cereal puff and drink some milk, and continue on his merry way.

Pool Birthday Party

Gavin and I attended Miss Sara's second birthday party last weekend. Thankfully it was a pool party because it was HOT HOT HOT. I think we hit 98 that day with a heat index of 104 or so. Gavin had a great time swimming with Dad, splashing, eating ice cream, cake and water melon, and flirting with all the ladies.

Sorry, I didn't get any swimming pictures since we were without our camera woman today. G loved the feeling of the water when we got in. Then the other kids got in and he got slashed a bit - he wasn't so sure that it was fun anymore. But G eventually decided that getting splashed is OK, and had a good time. He even wanted to "swim" away from me a few times.

Gavin loves water mellon

Mama was able to make it to the party after getting finished with gradution. They ate some watermelon together. He was soaked in watermelon juice from head to toe if it isn't evident enough in the picture.

We sang happy birthday to Sara.

Did I mention that G liked the watermelon?

A Boy's Saturday Afternoon

Gavin got a lesson in manly Saturday afternoons last weekend. We did what guys typically do on a weekend - we smoked some meat and watched NASCAR!!! Gavin was fascinated by the cars driving around the track. I guess he has been talking to Matt too much.

I also put a 10lb pork shoulder on the smoker. I was extremely good, but 10lbs of anything is a bit much for us to eat. So I took several pounds of pulled pork to work for everyone to eat at lunch this past week. It must have been well recieved because it was all gone in two days time.

Week in Review

It has been a busy week. Following the Memorial Day holiday, there were four school days with students--which translated into four crazy days of worrying over seniors who might not make it, talking to seniors who might not make it, talking with their parents, telling underclassmen what they need to take in summer school, and on and on and on. But, I survived--now, I just need to make it through graduation on Sunday.

Gavin provided some much needed comic relief this week.

He found out how much fun it can be to take toliet paper off of the roll. He did this while I was getting his pj's out of the dresser. On Wednesday night, he was put into "time out" for throwing food at dinner time. He didn't even realize he was in trouble. Guess we'll keep working on that.
He turned around to look at us once.
But, for the most part could have cared less that he had been turned away from us for a minute.
Thursday evening, Dean came home with us so that his mom could attend an end-of-the-year banquet. The boys played inside; they played outside.


They got ready for dinner before it was ready for them. So, I carried both of them around for a few minutes while Dave finished getting their dinner ready. Dean had a meltdown at the prospect of being put into the booster seat, so walked around with him a few minutes to take his mind off of it. Then, Gavin refused. So Dave and I sat at the table with a boy on each lap allowing them to eat from the buffett before them--blueberries, corn, green peas & carrots, chicken nuggets, smoked sausage, sweet potato fries. It was hilarious to watch their blueberry eating contest.
Friday we went over to Dean's for an end-of-the-year party.

Saturday Gavin and I had lunch with our friend Jose, while Dave finished up his 20+ mile paddle.

For dinner, Gavin got to eat off of a plate and pulled up to the table. He did pretty well, initially, but still wound up in time out for throwing food.

Then after dinner, he embarked on one of his favorite activities: taking a pasta inventory.


After his bath, Gavin had a death grip on his balloon from Lindsey's party. He went to sleep holding it and woke up the minute I extracted the ribbon from his hand. We finally told the balloon good night and put it in the hallway. He whined, but finally fell asleep.

Here's hoping next week is a bit less hectic. (Fat chance of that with me going to Austin Monday-Wednesday.)

Learn Something Every Day

One should be able to learn something new everyday. Today was not the best of days, but I'm looking for the lessons I can learn so as not to repeat today.

1. No matter how runny his nose is, a 15 month old belongs in the nursery at church (or at home if you really don't want to contaminate other kids). A 15 month old is not capable of sitting quietly on the back pew of the sanctuary for the sermon.

2. A 15 month old, can pitch quite a tantrum. When this happens, place him gently on the floor and walk away. He'll arch his back. He'll cry and turn red. He'll crawl after you. Eventually, he'll calm down.

3. When said 15 month old seems to calm down, do not resume trying to feed him dinner unless you know you look good in whatever he's eating.

4. A 15 month old will eat when he is hungry. No matter what percentile his weight falls into according to the World Health Organization, you can't force a kid to eat. (See #3).

5. Sometimes when a 15 month old has a 102 fever, he laughs and plays (see video below filmed on 5/21). Sometimes when he has only a runny nose . . . well, see 1-4.



6. Never trust that a piece of meat being smoked will be done in the amount of time indicated. (But Rene could have told me this.) I could have shopped for another hour had I not rushed home so that I could be here when Dave had to take the pork shoulder out of the smoker (so he wouldn't have to juggle Gavin, the meat, and fending off Mason). Next time I'll call to see that the temperature of the meat is. And, I'm not heading home until it is 187 degrees. (But yummy, it was tasty for dinner.)

7. Avatar is a lonnnng movie. We started it at 11:30 this morning and finished it at 8:45. (See 1-5).

Thanks, Grandma

For Christmas, Grandma and GrandBob gave Gavin this great lawn mower. Now that he's walking pretty well, he can push it along throughout the house.

Turn your volume ALL THE WAY UP before you view this so you get a semblance of the live action.



Grandma, where are the ear plugs for mom and dad? (It's really so loud that I don't even try to think, let alone talk while he's pushing it around. Lindsey and Matt can attest to this. Dean loved playing with this a couple of months ago; they loved being able to leave it here.)

Two Posts at Hopkins' Happenings

Lindsey has two cute posts featuring Gavin at their blog.

One is from the daycare's Egg Hunt. (I hadn't planned on Gavin's class participating. I had been told they wouldn't, but I went over to watch Dean and found out Gavin's class was going outside. I didn't have a camera, but Lindsey was prepared.)

The other about a playdate the boys had while Dave was volunteering for local missions and I was working my school district's job fair.

I'm sure there will be many more Gavin entries at the Hopkins blog and Dean entries here as time goes on.

Bubbles

Mike and Jonas made a very brief overnight stop at our house on their second cross-country drive from Atlanta to San Francisco. Before heading out this morning, we let Jonas run off some energy.
Everybody loves bubbles. These boys are no exception. Jonas had a great time chasing and bursting the bubbles. Gavin had fun toddling around.




Jonas got quite concerned if Gavin headed towards the street.
We learned that Jonas has a thing about shoes--he always wants to wear them. Since I prefer to be barefoot, I didn't think about having the boys put shoes on with their pjs, before we headed out onto the driveway to chase bubbles. The minute Mike came outside, the first thing Jonas said to him was, "Shoes. Daddy." Mike had to assure him that it was OK to be barefoot by taking his own shoes off. (Maybe I should have put shoes on them; Gavin ended up with a stubbed toe that necessitated a little Neosporin.)

We had a great (albeit short) visit with them. We've got to start shopping for tickets to SFO!

Sick + Teething with Molars =