Look how much I've grown

We got Biscuit's pool out last weekend and saw just how much he's grown since last year. I found a bigger pool on markdown this week, so he'll have more room to play now.

Here he is last July and this July. Check out the difference.

Patience? Not with food

We haven’t had too many tantrums … thank goodness. But when we do, they’re usually good ones! You’d think the world was ending. And 9 times out of 10, it revolves around food. As in, Biscuit thinks we’re never going to feed him ever again!

Jeff and Biscuit met me out shopping last week, and as I headed to the check out counters, I realized it was later than I thought. I looked at Jeff and said, “What do you think about going to The Hut?” I couldn’t say “pizza” or “dinner” because Biscuit knows exactly what those words mean. And as sweet as he can be, he will melt down on the spot if we mention food and don’t have any to give him. Plus, I’ve discussed just how much our boy loves pizza.

Since Jeff had his own car, he headed over early, hoping that he could order, and it would be on the table by the time we got there. Wrong! The Hut was packed! Biscuit and I got there, and Jeff had just placed our order. It was already 7:15, so I knew Biscuit was hungry.

We were playing with his Hot Wheels cars on the table, and I thought we might be okay. And then it happened. The family behind me got their pizza. The family behind Jeff got their pizza. And the family out beside us got their pizza. All within 30 seconds.

Jeff and I looked at each other, then looked a Griffin. I think Jeff and I both physically winced knowing that it was coming. Biscuit could see their pizza. He could smell their pizza. And he had no idea why they all had pizza and he didn’t. “SEET-SAH!!!!! SEET-SAH!!!! SEEEEEEEET-SAAAAAAAAH!!!! he yelled, mixed in with sobs.

This is the same kid who rides 7 hours in the car to Georgia with no complaining. This is the same kid who spends an hour riding in the buggy around Target just naming over all the things he knows words for … dog, baby, car, ball.

But when it comes to food, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PATIENCE!!!!!

Finally, our pizza came. As the server put it on the table, Biscuit’s little eyes just lit up. There was a huge smile on his face. And then I said one of the words he hates most. “Hot. It’s too hot, baby.” And there he goes again.

He sees the pizza. He smells the pizza. The pizza is sitting right in front of his face, but he can’t have any? What?!?!? So I’m slicing and dicing and blowing on his pizza until I dang-near hyperventilated. I finally got a piece cooled off enough and shoved it in his mouth. “Mmmmm,” he said. “More? More?”

“Dang! I just got that piece cooled down.” Slice, dice, hyperventilate … slice, dice, hyperventilate … slice, dice, hyperventilate. Eventually, it was all cool enough for him to eat. And then he was back to my sweet little Biscuit.

This Week in Biscuit: The Collected Short Stories

Here are some things about Biscuit that have amused Jeff and me over the past couple of weeks.

Seet-sah: Have I mentioned that my Biscuit baby loves him some pizza? I make my own chicken nuggets. I cut chicken breasts into small pieces, dip them in an egg, then shake them up in a zip-top bag with seasoned bread crumbs and some Parmesan cheese.

And it just so happens that the pan that I use to cook them on (a large rectangle baking pan) is also the pan I use to make homemade pizza. The chicken chunks were ready to go in the oven, so I slid the baking pan out of the drawer, just as Biscuit walked into the room.

“Seet-sah!” he yelled.

“No, baby. I’m making chicken nuggets.”

“Seet-sah!” he said.

“No. Chicken,” I explained.

“Chitten?” he asked.

“Yes. Chicken.”

“Oh,” he says and walks out of the room.

Luckily, he felt just fine about eating “chitten” when it came out of the oven!

Blue: In Biscuit’s day care class, they have a color of the week. So he’s starting to notice colors more. One morning this week, Biscuit came out of our closet saying, “Blue, Mama. Blue.” And yes, what he was holding was definitely blue. My new blue bra. It’s a little unnerving to see a 20-month-old running around with a blue bra trailing behind him.

Shoes: This is probably a little more than you want to know about me, but one morning this week I was in the bathroom taking care of business, and I didn’t shut the door all the way. So SOMEbody (do I even need to name him?) decided that no bathroom trip would be complete without shoes.

So Biscuit went into my closet, dragged out an old blue flip-flop, yanked open the bathroom door and said, “Shoe. Shoe. Shoe, Mama.” I said, “Yep. That’s a shoe.” Then I had to put it on. I guess he thought I needed a matching pair because then he went back and got the other one, and I had to put it on, too.

Then a little later, as I was brushing my teeth (still wearing my old blue flip-flops), Biscuit picked out a different pair of flip-flops that I needed to wear. I told Jeff that it was like those divas who host the award shows, except instead of several costume changes during the show, I had several shoe changes as I was getting ready.

Going to his class: I already know the answer to this question, but I’ll ask it anyway … Should I be happy that Biscuit jumped from my arms in the day care lobby and ran to his classroom and started knocking on the door to get in, or should I be sad that he didn’t even say goodbye?

Smart boy: I said to Biscuit this morning, “You’re a smart little rascal.” He looked at me, smiled and said, “Thank you.” Wow. He’s smart AND polite? How did we do that?!?

Good ear: I think we’re raising a “car guy.” Biscuit can already tell the difference in sound between a big truck, a motorcycle and regular-ol’ cars. When he’s sitting at the table to eat and a big truck goes down the road behind our house, he tell us that it was a truck. And when it’s a motorcycle, he says (or at least attempts to say) motorcycle. So far, he hasn’t been wrong.

Putting it all together: Biscuit and I took a trip to Lowe's this week, and it was fun to hear his take on the store. First, we walked through the rows of refrigerators to get to the back of the store. Biscuit pointed at the fridges and went through his list of fridge-related items: "ju" (juice), "wa-wa" (water), "foot" (fruit).

Then as we were making our way around the store, my cell phone rang. Jeff assigned "Flight of the Valkyries" as the ringtone when he calls me. When the music started, Biscuit said, "Phone, Dada. Phone, Dada." He recognized the ringtone as being Jeff.

We made our way over to the aisle where the paint supplies are. As I was looking at the spray paint cans, Biscuit looked over and saw the fluffy paint roller refills. "Sheep, Mama. Sheep," he said. And by golly, it DID look like a sheep. So I said, "Yeah, sheep," and we made our way to the door.

Bye-bye wa-wa: Remember the bye-bye wa-wa trick we use to get Biscuit out of the bath tub? Well, I guess curiosity got the best of him this week because as the water was making its way down the drain, Biscuit laid on his belly in the tub and put his eye right down at the drain to see where the water went. Sometimes we're in a hurry to get things done, but I hope we'll remember to give Biscuit time to experience things. And I hope we'll give ourselves time to enjoy watching him do it.

I don't want to share!

I bet when you read the title of this post, you thought I was going to write about how Biscuit isn't sharing his toys.

Well, you'd be wrong. This post is about how Mama doesn't always want to share her food.

We got takeout from a nice Asian restaurant tonight, and even though Biscuit had his own dinner, he wanted "bite, bite" of everything I had. I had California wontons, which are wonton wrappers with crab meat, cream cheese and some spices, and there's a spicy-sweet sauce that you pour over them. He loved them. "Bite, Mama. Bite."

Then I had the Classic Honey Chicken with Brown Rice. He had to have some of that, too.

He had a couple of bites of Jeff's shrimp, but he liked MY crab wontons and MY honey chicken better.

I love that he's adventurous and eats more than mac 'n' cheese, but still, why doesn't he want to have my food when I have boring stuff like broccoli? Mama don't WANT to share her food all the time, especially the good stuff!

Beatles fan?

A friend of mine at work is a huge Beatles fan. She's also a huge Biscuit fan. When I tell her something cute that Biscuit did, the first thing she says is always, "And you got this on video, right?"

So, just for her, when we were watching a PBS special about Paul McCartney receiving the Gershwin Award this year, I recorded Biscuit enjoying the music.

With his drumming efforts, my friend wants him to be the next Ringo.

It's funny to watch him watching music on TV. He can't decide whether to dance or stand really still and listen. So he often alternates between the two. Outburst of dancing, followed by intense staring and concentration.

Good taste or creature of habit?

Our Biscuit loves cars. Any kind of cars: real ones, Hot Wheels cars, cars on TV, cars in books. If it has wheels, he loves it.

At a wedding over Easter weekend, he actually walked up to a man in a wheelchair, grabbed one of the wheels and said, "Vroom. Vroom." I just stood there for a minute to see how the man was going to respond. He smiled, and I said, "I'm sorry. To him, anything with wheels is a car." The man smiled and said, "Sounds good to me."

We've bought him some Hot Wheels cars over the past couple of months. I know they say they're for kids 3 and older, but so far, he seems to be fine with them. He doesn't put them in his mouth.

Although, I do worry because there's a family history with Hot Wheels incidents. Jeff was dared by a cousin to stick the wheel from a Hot Wheels car in his nose. And guess what? He did it. Then his mama had to take him to the doctor to get it out. So hopefully, Biscuit won't follow in his father's footsteps as far as Hot Wheels go.

This morning, I was getting ready for work, and Jeff was brushing Biscuit's teeth. As soon as they were finished, Biscuit started asking for his cars (he pronounces it cah, like he's from Bah-ston or something). Jeff set him on the floor and said, "Go! Go get your cars," and Biscuit took off running.

Jeff said, "I'll bet money that he'll come back with a green Mustang and a gold Charger." Sure enough, that's what he brought back. He showed those cars to Jeff, then took off running again. Jeff said, "Now he's going to get the red Mustang and the yellow Charger. Those are the ones I get to play with." And sure enough again, that's exactly what he came back with. Jeff said he grabs those four every time - a Mustang and a Charger for Dada and a Mustang and a Charger for himself.

So I wonder, does he just have good taste in cars? Is he trying to appease both parents (I'm a Ford girl and Jeff is a Mopar guy)? Or if he just a creature of habit and knows what he likes? No telling.

Oh no! The boat!!

We're watching Gregory Peck in "Captain Horatio Hornblower." When the Spanish ship started firing on the English boat, Biscuit started yelling, "OH, NO!! THE BOAT!!!" over and over.

After a few minutes, he started sifting through his books and pulled out a book about a dog pretending to be a pirate on a ship. He handed it to Jeff and said, "Boat."

He's a smart boy.

Weekend funnies

You thought you could only find the funnies in the Sunday paper, but our Biscuit provided the funnies at our house this weekend.

Biscuit was tugging on my arm while I was trying to send an e-mail Saturday. I told him he'd have to wait, but that's not what he wanted to hear. Jeff stole a line from one of Biscuit's books and said loudly, "I WANT SOME PEANUTS!!!"

Jeff was referring to a book that Biscuit has about manners and saying please. The little elephant who yells about the peanuts doesn't get what she wants because she's being rude and impatient.

But just from that one line, Biscuit realized exactly what Jeff was talking about, walked over to the shelf where all his books are and sorted through the 50 or so volumes until he found the exact book Jeff was quoting from.

If anyone had any doubt about whether we read to the boy or not, I think that answers the question.

Biscuit had a bath Saturday night, so when we got ready to go out and run some errands Sunday, I asked Jeff if he'd give Biscuit a quick sponge bath. But while I was in the shower, Biscuit walked over to the tub and yelled for Jeff. "Dada! Dada!"

Jeff came in the bathroom, and Biscuit pointed at the tub and said, "Wawa. Wawa, Dada." He was asking if he could have a bath. Jeff put water in the tub and gave the boy a bath. Of course, Jeff got quite a bath, too. I'm not sure who was wetter - him or Biscuit.

I told Jeff to be sure and remember Biscuit actually asking for a bath. One day soon, he'll be fighting us tooth and nail to try to get out of it.

After we ran our errands, we stopped by and got milkshakes. Mine was peanut butter fudge. As we walked into the house, the phone was ringing, and it was for me. I set my milkshake on the kitchen table and went into our bedroom to talk.

While I was still on the phone, Jeff said, "Kimmy, can you come into the kitchen?" As I walked around the corner, SOMEbody was sitting in the floor just slurping away on my peanut butter fudge milkshake! He had helped himself to a good bit of it already.

I thought the kitchen table was still out of Biscuit's reach. Apparently, I was wrong.

The one good part was that as I looked down at him, he pulled the straw out of his mouth, looked me in the eye and said, "Peas, Mama. Peas?" At least he was polite as he was stealing my treat.

Oh, and needless to say, Biscuit was bouncing off the walls from the sugar and chocolate and didn't go to bed until after 11 p.m.!

Biscuit gives us a lot to laugh at. I hope we can keep him laughing over the years the same way he does for us now.

More horses

Remember how much Biscuit loves horses? Well, here's evidence.

Here, he plays with one of his cousin's stuff animals ... a horse.
























Here, he attempts to RIDE the horse. Seems like the proportions might be a little off here.

Ouchie!

I got a call from day care today. Biscuit tripped over a toy and busted up his mouth. They said he was okay, but I needed to see him myself.

I picked him up, and he was so pitiful. Then I looked at his teachers, and they were pitiful, too. They were really worried about him.

I looked at his mouth, and although his lip is puffy and had been bleeding, there doesn't seem to be any damage bad enough for a doctor.

Meanwhile, of COURSE I had to take a picture of it. My poor little Biscuit!

Biscuit runs for office

This is real. A friend sent it to me from his town newspaper's website.

"It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"

I came home from dinner with the girls this evening to find my boys watching "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

Apparently, Biscuit was quite taken with it. He loved all the modes of transportation, and for some reason, he took a liking to Ethel Merman.

It'll be fun to see what kinds of movies, music and reading materials Biscuit likes as he gets older. His Dada loves anything black and white - movies, TV shows and newspapers. My taste runs all over the place, so hopefully, I can expose him to a lot of stuff.

One thing that's funny ... I just checked out when "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was made, and it was before I was born. 1963. It beat me by five years.

Yep, it's that old. I guess you could say the movie and I are both classics!

All we needed was apple pie

We decided to celebrate the Fourth of July by taking part in some American traditions: We went to a baseball game where we ate hot dogs and watched fireworks. All we needed to make it complete was some apple pie (maybe we'll just pretend the funnel cake we ate had apples on it).

When I was picking out Biscuit's clothes for the evening, I asked Jeff if Biscuit should be patriotic or show some team spirit toward the Greensboro Grasshoppers. We opted for team spirit. And except for the pacifier that he's suddenly latched back on to, I'd say he's looking pretty cute.

Biscuit was so good during the whole game. He watched all the people around us and especially loved the mascot.

We had really good seats. A couple of our friends have season tickets, and they weren't going to use them. We were right behind home plate.

The guy who owns the Hoppers has two black labs that he brings to the games. One of the dogs, named Babe Ruth, runs out and fetches the bats after the Hoppers players hit.

The other dog, Yogi Berra, is a little younger and not quite as trained as Babe Ruth. He was supposed to fetch a ball as part of a game between innings, but he wasn't interested at all. They finally just had to pick a winner.

But it didn't matter whether the dogs got it right or not, our Biscuit baby loves him some dogs. He would stand up on our laps and yell, "DOG! DOG! DOG! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!"

The only problem we had during the game was that as Biscuit was sitting in our laps, his feet were at the perfect height to put his feet on the guys in front of us. That was bad enough, but then we realized that the guys in front of us were pitchers for the opposing team. So not only were they periodically getting poked with little toes, but it was by a kid wearing the other team's logo on his shirt.

I was a little nervous about how Biscuit would respond to the fireworks, so right before they started, I told him there were going to be loud booms. He said, "Boom, mama." And I said, "Yes. Boom."

I cupped my hands over his ears just in case it was too loud for him, but as soon as they started lighting up the sky, Biscuit starting doing the Spoon Dance. He was shimmying back and forth just like he does when he tastes something he likes. A couple of times, he pulled my hands away from his ears, then the fireworks would make a loud boom, and he'd put my hands back.

It was going on 11 p.m. by the time we got to the car, but Biscuit was still awake. He's a nosy little thing and wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything. By the time we got home, he was fast asleep. He tried to open his eyes while I changed him into his pajamas, but his eyes just kept fluttering shut. And as soon as he hit the sheets, he was out.

Happy July 4th!

Not only is today Grandma Mills' birthday, it's our country's birthday, too.

And to borrow from the Declaration of Independence, Biscuit is definitely working on "the pursuit of happiness" as he plays in the kiddie pool at a friend's cookout.

Proof of the Potty Mouth

Last week it was "whore" instead of "horse." This week, it's "Hey, ho" instead of "hello."

Told ya. My boy has a potty mouth. Luckily, for right now, it's completely unintentional.




Here are some outtakes. They never do or say what you want them to when you finally have the video camera pointed at them! (Sorry for the too-quick zooming. I seemed to have an itchy trigger finger with the video camera this time.)