Bringing up Biscuit

Random things

2012-02-11T22:58:00.001-05:00

A few random things about Biscuit:

Teamwork: Biscuit and I used his blocks to make a fire station today. He drove one of his trucks into the wall, and the whole thing came tumbling down.

"I'm sorry I knocked down the fire station, Mom. I KNOW! Let's work TOGETHER and build it back."

Who am I? Biscuit's imagination is pretty vivid, so there's no telling who he's going to claim to be from one minute to the next. We get all kinds of scenarios and story lines.

Biscuit and I spent today alone together. It was too cold and windy to go outside, so we had to amuse ourselves inside. It seemed like every time Biscuit walked into the room, he would say, "Mom, I'm Capt. Griddles, and you're Mr. Cogill," or "Mom, I'm Firefighter Ronnie Gage, and you're Firefighter Roy Desoto," (Biscuit got those names from the first season DVDs of "Emergency" that he got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa). It seemed like we went through about 10 characters each.

My favorite was when he walked in and said, "Mom, I'm the zookeeper, and you're the people." When I asked what exactly it was that the people did, he told me that the people visit the animals at the zoo. He might as well have added, "Well, duh, Mom," at the end.

Words: Biscuit is starting to figure out that letters fit together to make words. He knows the sounds that all the letters make, so it's fun to watch his face when he sounds out words. He gets really excited. His eyes get really big, his eyebrows go up, and he puckers up his mouth.

The other day in the car, we were talking about cats, and I helped Biscuit sound out the letters. Then I helped him spell it, then he repeated it after me. Then we moved on to "dog." We sounded it out, then he spelled it on his own. I was impressed.

This afternoon, I called Biscuit into the kitchen. He has magnetic letters all over the bottom half of the refrigerator. I asked him if he could spell "cat," and he sounded it out and put the letters together. Then I asked him if he could spell "dog." He got all the letters right, but didn't quite get the order. He spelled it "dgo."

Biscuit has a placemat on the kitchen table with his name on it. He's been able to say what letter his name starts with for a while, but I had no idea he had memorized all the letters in his name. He grabbed a "G" and an "R" from the fridge, then he said, "The next letter is an "I" then another "I." I told him that he had two of the same letters in a row in his name, but it wasn't "I." So we kept sounding it out, and figured it out and grabbed a couple of "F's."

After we got all the letters put together, I said, "What do all those letters spell?"

"Um, that spells 'Griffinator,'" Biscuit said. His old teacher gave him that nickname, and all the kids at day care still call him that.

I was really proud of Biscuit's word play today. I hope he learns to love words as much as Jeff and I do.

Cool tricks

2012-02-09T21:42:00.000-05:00

So I've shared Biscuit's made-up "Red Cowboy Riding a Red Horse" song. Then I shared the Christmas carols that he's still singing every morning ... and afternoon ... and evening.

So for his next trick, Biscuit will share his beat-box skills and his Edward G. Robinson imitation.

I just don't know how he holds this much genius in that little 3T-sized body!

Christmas in February

2012-02-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

My Biscuit baby really got into Christmas this year. He enjoyed the tree, making cookies, opening presents and mostly, he enjoyed the music.

He enjoyed it so much that he's still singing Christmas songs ... in February. We tried to explain to him that some songs were just for Christmas, but he didn't really get it. And then I thought, "Hey, if the kid is happy enough to be singing, let him sing whatever the heck he wants!"

And since his ban on me "taking his picture" was lifted last night, I got him on video singing his two favorite Christmas songs.

I will warn you that sometimes he sings all the words, and sometimes he sings his own abbreviated versions of the songs. And sometimes, when he's feeling especially creative, he'll completely change the words to suit his mood. He stuck to the original words on this video, although he did change the phrasing a little here and there.

Got him on tape

2012-02-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

Biscuit has been very anti-video for the past few months. He wouldn't let me video him doing anything. His response was always, "Mom, you can take my picture later."

But something shifted this evening.

Biscuit and I were sitting together just chatting, and he started singing a song he made up. It was about a red cowboy who rode a red horse and had parts of one of his cowboy books in it. It was also a mash-up of his original song and "Home on the Range."

So I asked Biscuit if I could "take a picture" of him while he sang his new song, and he actually said yes. Then he proceeded to ask me to take a picture of him singing other songs, too.

So here is the debut of Biscuit's song "Red Cowboy Who Ride a Red Horse."

The first time Biscuit sang his song, he had the hiccups.

Word of the day

2012-02-06T22:53:00.000-05:00

Jeff and I have worked really hard to only say things around Biscuit that we wouldn't mind hearing come out of his mouth in public.

Although, I have heard some really funny stories about little kids and cuss words.

Like one friend's daughter who walked into the living room and said, "We've got to clean this s--- up!"

Or a pediatrician at the second hospital I worked at used to tell us all kinds of funny kid stories. One of my favorites was about a little girl who wore a new dress to church. All the kids went down to the front of the church for the children's sermon, and the minister noticed the little girl fluffing the skirt on her new dress. He realized that the little girl was fishing for a compliment, so he said, "That sure is a pretty dress you're wearing today." The little girl just smiled and said, "Yeah, but it's a b---- to iron." I'm sure her mother was thrilled.

My nephew was playing hide-and-go-seek at Mama's house, and she couldn't find him. Mama and Daddy's bed sits catty-cornered in their room, and my nephew had crawled over the headboard and was hiding in the corner. Mama finally found him and told him to come out from behind the bed. My nephew said, "I'm trying to Grandmama. If I can just get my fat butt over." He was about 4 when he said that.

So far, Biscuit hasn't found any fun words to use. And we're hoping it's a while before he learns any.

But there are times we have to bite our tongues.

Like tonight. I was browning some ground chicken for dinner, when my spoon slipped and I splashed boiling water on my hand and arm.

I'm not sure exactly how to spell the noise that came out of my mouth, but it sounded something like, "DA-SHOW-WAHHH-OOOOOT!!!!!" Unless I just learned to speak German, I can't think of a single exclamation I might have been shooting for. Although some choice words did flash through my mind.

But at least those choice words didn't come out of my mouth. Which hopefully means they won't be coming out of my boy's mouth any time soon, either.

I like this kid

2012-02-06T22:35:00.000-05:00

My son just ran to my husband and said, "I'm ready to go to bed, Dad. Come read me a story."

Then Biscuit bolted up the stairs with Jeff right behind him. They're up there reading right now.

This was after Biscuit took a bath with only about 30 seconds of whining.

Earlier in the evening, he ate two tacos and some black beans and corn for dinner. He was also sitting in his spot at the table before the food was ever set down. Usually, we have to chase him down for dinner.

I'm not sure what got into Biscuit tonight, but I'm lovin' it.

I can't hear!

2012-02-05T12:11:00.000-05:00

Why is it that my son never plays with some of his noisiest toys until I'm watching a movie where I need to hear the dialog? Isn't it naptime yet?!?

Biscuit's kisses

2012-02-04T22:26:00.001-05:00

As we were leaving day care Friday, I noticed that there were folded notes on the classroom door, one with each child's name on it. When I opened it up, there were two big hearts drawn on it, one listed all the boys' names in Biscuit's class, and one listed all the girls' names. They were for Valentines.

Valentines for 3-year-olds.

My 3-year-old has no idea what Valentine's Day is, and I have to buy Valentine's cards for 26 ... you read that right ... 26 kids?!?

Biscuit and I went to the store and strolled down one of FOUR aisles dedicated to Valentine's Day. They had the little cards with the little envelopes with all the popular cartoon characters. If Biscuit were old enough to know these characters and pick out the ones he likes best, it might be okay. But for some of them, I would have to buy three boxes to have enough. And they're not cheap.

Anyway, after I finished stewing, I came up with a cheap alternative. I bought a bag of kisses and a pack of stickers, and when we got home, I dug up some red card stock.

Cute, cheap and Biscuit got to help. They're not fancy, but I feel better about these than I would have buying some of the others.

So here are the Valentine's cards Biscuit is going to give out this year.

What does a yellow light mean?

2012-02-03T22:05:00.001-05:00

If you've never watched the 70s show "Taxi," you need to watch this clip to appreciate this post.

Biscuit was eating dinner tonight. We had PB&Js in the living room because I had a horrible day at work and was not in the mood to cook.

"We're having PB&J and chips in the living room," I said to Biscuit.

"In the LIVING ROOM?!?" asked Biscuit (actually it was, "In the wiving room?!?")

We pulled one of his little chairs up to the coffee table, and he sat down and grabbed a chip. He started gnawing on it like a little mouse, then I realize he hadn't said the blessing.

"Hey. You forgot to say the blessing," I said to Biscuit. So he said his usual blessing and went right back to gnawing on his chips. He was eating the chips so fast, I was afraid he was going to choke. But when I called him on it, he didn't quite get what I was talking about.

"Biscuit. Slow down. Slow way down," I said to him.

"Okay, Mom. ... Bless ... this ... foooooood ... fooooor ... our ... goooood. Was that slow enough, Mom?"

"Yes, baby. That was slow enough," I said.

Ding, dong, the in-laws are gone

2012-02-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

My in-laws headed home this morning, and we're kinda sad about it.

They came down the week before Christmas and split time between us and Jeff's brother and his family. It seems like after that long of a visit, we'd be ready for them to go, and they would be looking for any chance to get away from us and go home.

But actually, I was hard going to work this morning knowing they wouldn't be here when we got home.

As I was leaving this morning, my father-in-law joked with me and said, "Send us a video of your dance." A few years ago, they said they were sure that I sang a song and did a dance when they finally left. So I waited until they left and handed the video camera to Jeff. Remember the "Ding dong, the witch is dead" song? Well, I changed the words to "Ding dong, the in-laws are gone."

(And before you get all judgmental, they loved the video. They knew I was joking.)

When Jeff took Biscuit to daycare this morning, his parents were still at our house. Jeff strapped Biscuit into his car seat and backed the car out of the driveway. The in-laws were standing in the driveway waving at Biscuit. He waved at them and yelled "goodbye." They waved back at him then started walking back toward the house. The didn't know that Biscuit was still waving and hollering.

"Dad, they can't hear me, can they?" Biscuit asked.

"No, but they saw you wave, boy. You did a good job," Jeff said.

When we got home this evening, Biscuit walked in, looked around and asked, "Hey, where's Grandma and Grandpa?"

"They went home, remember?" Jeff and I both said.

"Oh, yeah," Biscuit said.

"Hopefully, we'll see them again soon," Jeff said.

Bad mother alert

2012-02-01T23:26:00.004-05:00

I am a horrible, horrible mother. Biscuit just wandered into the living room. It's 11:24 p.m.

A. He should've been in bed a long time ago.

2. I forgot he was still up.

Maybe we should all go to bed now.

------------------------------

UPDATE: We tried to get Biscuit in bed, but he was so tired, he couldn't relax enough to sleep. So we put him in our bed, and less than 10 minutes later, he was out. Jeff carried him upstairs to his room, and Biscuit never moved.

This morning, we had Mr. Grumpy Pants on our hands. But I told Jeff we'd just have to suffer through it because it was our fault.

Jeff said to me, "I wish you could've seen your face when Biscuit rounded the corner into the living room." Jeff worked late last night, and I had a class, so our whole evening routine was thrown off. I truly thought Jeff had put Biscuit to bed, and Jeff thought I had put him to bed.

After Biscuit was more awake and alert and had eaten his breakfast, his sweet boy self kicked in, and things were back to normal. But guess who will be going to bed at 9 p.m. tonight?!?

Out of the mouth of my babe

2012-02-01T22:32:00.000-05:00

Play it again, Sam: Like I'm sure most parents do, I make up stories to tell Biscuit all the time. And because his favorite topics right now are firefighters and cowboys, that's usually what the stories are about. The problem is that because I'm making them up as I go along, I often don't remember a lot of the details, or sometimes even the plot.

So on the way to day care yesterday morning, when Biscuit asked me to tell him a story about a character I created called Fred the Firefighter, I was at a loss.

"Mom, can you tell me the story about Fred the Firefighter?" Biscuit asked.

"I don't remember the story about Fred the Firefighter," I said to him.

"Mom. Just ask yourself. Think about it and just ask yourself," Biscuit said. And it was even better because Biscuit pronounces his "th" sounds as "s." So he really said, "Sink about it and just ask yourself."

Ouch: Biscuit stooped over and walked under the kitchen table this morning. As he was coming out, he raised his head too fast and smacked his head, really hard.

"Did that hurt?" Grandma asked.

"I didn't feel great," Biscuit said.

All through the house: Once Biscuit is in the bathtub or shower, he's fine. But getting him there is quite a challenge.

Tonight, I tried to psych him up for the process.

"Hey, Biscuit. I have to tell you something, but you can't whine or cry or pitch a fit, okay?" I said.

"Okay, Mom. (In a whisper) What is it?" Biscuit asked.

"You have to have a bath," I said. And Biscuit immediately started whining.

"No, no, no, no. You can't whine, remember?" I said. Then I followed with a challenge. "I bet I can get to the bathroom before you!"

"Noooooo!" Biscuit whined. Then in a very stern voice, he said, "It's not a race, Mom!"

"Okay, let's go together," I said. We walked into the kitchen, and I asked, "What is this room?"

"Um, it's where we get food," Biscuit said. "It's the kitchen."

Then we walked into mine and Jeff's bedroom. "What is this room?" I asked Biscuit.

"Um, this is where we watch cartoons," he said.

And he's right. After his bath, we let him watch a couple of shows while sitting on our bed. Nevermind that mom and dad get to sleep there, too.

Small bites: Jeff and I joke that Biscuit eats like a polar bear ... he swallows his food whole. So we try to remind him to take small bits and chew his food really well.

"What happens if you take a big bite?" I asked Biscuit.

"Um, if you take a big bite, you choke. Then you pour a piece of water and drink it. Then the chokes will go away," Biscuit explained.

Project complete!

2012-01-31T22:35:00.001-05:00

The big project my father-in-law did this year is complete. And I couldn't be more pleased.

All my cookbooks fit with some room left over. I'm sure I'll probably do some rearranging, but it's really nice to have them all contained in a pretty way. I have two more chef prints that I have to hang (one on each side of the one already hanging), then it'll be done.

Check it out:

A gated community

2012-01-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

Remember the pretty gate I made Jeff buy back when Biscuit first started crawling?

Well, a few weeks ago, we took it down.

I had a talk with Biscuit and explained that we were going to take it down, but he was under strict orders to never, ever, ever, EVER go up or down the stairs without letting me or Jeff know.

He's done pretty well with it. I'd say there have been about three or four times since we took it down that he has tried to head up or down on his own. Every time, we've busted him.

At the top of the stairs, there's an open loft area that serves as Jeff's movie room. Biscuit's train table is up there, so he has decided on a couple of occasions that he wanted to go up and play ... without letting us know. Biscuit's room is also up there, so one time, he said he needed to go up and get a book that was in his room.

The first time it happened, I broke poor Biscuit's heart. I caught him about halfway up, and I made him come back down. He wailed like life as he knows it had ended. He pouted. He whined. But I told him that because he didn't tell me or Jeff that he was going up, he had to stay downstairs and play. Ninety percent of Biscuit's toys are downstairs, so if he had thought about it, making him stay downstairs to play wasn't a horrible thing. The problem was that he wasn't getting to do what he wanted to do.

It took me a good two weeks to get used to seeing the naked stairs. It seemed like the gate had been there forever, and because it was so bulky, it being gone has completely changed the look of the bottom of the staircase.

We still use a gate in Biscuit's bedroom doorway. Well, we usually use a gate.

Biscuit fell asleep on my shoulder last night, so I took him upstairs to his bed. It's getting harder to make it to the top with that sack o' taters on my shoulder. He's a lot bigger than he used to be.

I put him in his bed, tucked Puppy under his arm, pulled up the covers, turned on his noise machine (ocean waves), then headed back downstairs to go to bed myself. The one thing I forgot? I didn't put the gate up in his doorway.

Biscuit woke up this morning and was calling for Jeff. I was already awake, so I headed out to get him. I got to to the bottom of the stairs and looked up to say "good morning." Then I saw that the gate was down.

"Biscuit! Did you take that gate down?" I asked him.

"No, Mom," Biscuit said. "I didn't take it down."

It took me a second to decide whether Biscuit was telling the truth or not. Then I replayed my actions last night and realized that I never put the gate up.

I told Biscuit how much I appreciated him staying in his room and calling for his Dad instead of heading down the stairs on his own.

"You say not to go on the stairs without telling you and Dad," he said to me.

I realize the day will come where it's not so easy to get him to mind what I say. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy my sweet boy.

Lonely is the night

2012-01-29T22:43:00.001-05:00

This time of year is a hard time for Jeff, Biscuit and me.

Jeff's parents will be going home soon, after being here since the week before Christmas. We get used to them being here when we get home from work and day care. Plus, my father-in-law always has some home improvement project in the works right up until the day they leave. (Among the projects this year, he's building bookcases and a banquette in my kitchen.) So during January, our house is a bustle of activity.

Add to that the increased number of basketball games Jeff has to cover, which means he'll be gone two or three nights during the week and pretty much all day on Saturdays. The games usually take a couple of hours, then a couple of hours to get his story written and all the work done, then add on a couple of hours of drive time to get to the games.

Both of these things mean lonelier times for me and Biscuit.

Biscuit and I will spend a lot of time together in the next month ... A LOT! And he'll get on my nerves, and I'll get his nerves. And we'll be frustrated with each other. And we'll vie for Jeff's attention when he is finally able to be at home with us.

I've been saying that after Jeff's parents go home, Biscuit and I are going to make a point of getting out and about more, especially on Saturdays. Of course, I said the same thing last year and didn't follow through. Let's hope I can do better this year.

Once Dad comes home, Biscuit is stuck to him like glue. And I can never decide which feeling is stronger, being jealous that Biscuit ditches me to cling to Jeff or being jealous that I have to wait my turn to have time with Jeff.

The schedule is hard on Jeff, too. When he has Saturday games, he's off on Mondays. So Tuesday, he'll cover a game in the evening. Then Wednesday, he'll work a day shift at the office. Then Thursday, he'll cover a game in the evening. Then Friday, he'll work during the day. Then Saturday, he'll head out depending on whatever time the game is. Personally, I like the games that start at 6 or after. That means Biscuit and I have a little more time with him before he has to leave.

I can tell you one thing for sure, during February and March, I get a small taste of being a single mother, and I don't like it. Come on, April.

A rough night

2012-01-27T23:39:00.000-05:00

Biscuit sleeps well. So well that when I share his sleeping habits, other moms roll their eyes at me.

Biscuit sleeps so well, in fact, that Jeff and I are spoiled. If we don't get the sleep we're used to, we're grumpy, grumpy people!

So when we heard Biscuit over the baby monitor this morning at 5:45, it was a little startling. He was yelling, "DAD! DAD! I NEED MY DAD!"

Our bedroom is downstairs, and Biscuit's is upstairs. And at 5:45, those stairs seem almost insurmountable.

So I made Jeff go! Biscuit was hollering for his Dad, after all.

Jeff tried to soothe Biscuit and talk him into going back to bed. But apparently the nightmare was bad enough that Biscuit had no intentions of staying upstairs by himself. He wanted to join Jeff and me in our bed.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings, when Biscuit wakes up, sometimes we bring him downstairs to our bed. He sits in the middle of our king-size bed, we turn on some cartoons, then Jeff and I doze in and out until we're ready to get up. It's great. My whole little family, together.

But it was different this morning. Biscuit was not in a good place. He was half asleep, half awake and ALL out of sorts.

Biscuit said he needed to go to the bathroom. He was wearing pajamas that zip up the front and have a snap at the top. Stupid me, I unsnapped his jammies before he left the bedroom.

"NOOOOO, Mom," Biscuit whined. "Don't do that 'til I'm in the bathroom. Don't, Mom. Put it back. Put it back, Mom."

So I snapped it back.

Biscuit made his way to the half-bath in the hall, and I asked Jeff to accompany him while I went to the master bathroom. As Biscuit was unzipping his pajamas, he realized Jeff was with him instead of me, and he melted down again.

"NOOOO, Dad," Biscuit whine. "I want my Mom. I want my Mom in here!"

I hurried to take care of business and went into the half-bath. Biscuit was being a real pain. I tried to help him get his pajamas back on, but he wanted to do it by himself. I was sleepy. I was ready to go back to bed. So I got short with him. "Biscuit, stick your arm in your pajamas, right now."

I helped Biscuit wash his hands and sent him on his way back to our bed. He got about halfway there, and I realized that he still wasn't completely awake.

"Griffin," I said to him and held my arms out. Biscuit turned around and ran into my arms. I sat down on the bench at the end of our bed and rocked back and forth. Biscuit had his head on my shoulder, and I realized how tall he's gotten. I had a hard time trying to figure out where to put Biscuit's legs.

I asked Biscuit if he was okay, and in this quiet little whisper, he said, "No, Mom." So I held on closer and rocked some more. I wanted so bad to make Biscuit feel better, but I have to admit that I was really enjoying holding him close. As he's gotten older, Biscuit doesn't like to be snuggled and held. So holding him like that was something that just doesn't happen anymore.

After about 20 minutes, Biscuit pushed away from me and said, "I feel okay now, Mom." He wanted to get back in our bed. I told him to scoot over so I could get in, too, and in no time, Biscuit was sound asleep.

Jeff was snoozing soundly on his side, and Biscuit didn't scoot over quite far enough. I was teetering on the edge of the bed. Sleeping with Biscuit when he's fitful is like sleeping with a small tornado. You doze off, you get kicked in the back. You doze off, you feel a little hand playing in your hair. You doze off, you feel an elbow in your shoulder blade.

I never got to go back to sleep, but Biscuit did. He slept for about another hour or hour and a half, and when he woke up, he was a happy little camper. He was singing and humming and laughing.

I, on the other hand, was not a happy camper. Grumpy, sleepy, tired.

I'm hoping tomorrow morning will be one of those happy cartoon-watching mornings. Fingers crossed.

Out of the mouth of my babe

2012-01-26T23:42:00.002-05:00

A few things Biscuit has said recently:

Morning logic: As Biscuit and I were getting ready to go this morning, he looked at me with a very serious look on his face.

"Mom, the faster we watch cartoons, the faster you can go to day care," Biscuit said.

"We don't have time to watch cartoons this morning," I said to Biscuit.

"But Mom, I NEED to watch cartoons," Biscuit said.

"No, you NEED to get your coat on so we can go to day care."

My name is Ginger: "Mom and Dad, I'm a puppy. I am Griffin The Dog Named Ginger The Talking Dog," Biscuit said.

A picnic: Jeff wrapped a hand towel around the top of Biscuit's shirt while he brushed his teeth. Biscuit looked down at the towel and said, "Dad, can I spread this out for a picnic?"

"What kind of picnic?" Jeff asked.

"A FOOD picnic, Dad," Biscuit said with a tone that didn't make his Dad sound too smart!

Feelin' fine: Biscuit and I have been dealing with a cold that just won't go away. One night I heard him sounding pretty snuffly over the baby monitor while he slept. So the next morning, I was anxious to see how he slept.

"Biscuit, how are you feeling this morning?" I asked.

"Um, I feel happy, Mom," Biscuit said.

What a great answer!

Remembering

2012-01-25T23:30:00.000-05:00

Today is the three-year anniversary of my Granny's passing, and I've been thinking about her a lot today.

Granny was the only one of my grandparents who got to know me as an adult. I was 34, almost 35, when I got married, and I didn't have Biscuit until I was 40. Granny never hassled me about getting married and having babies like a lot of other people did. She said everybody had to find what would work for them.

Even so, she was really happy when I met and married Jeff. She LOVED Jeff. She especially loved cooking for Jeff. Of course, he didn't seem to mind the eating part of that deal, either.

When I told Granny that I was pregnant, she seemed really happy for Jeff and me. I think she was a wee bit excited to get another great-grandchild, too.

While I was out on maternity leave, I got a weird feeling and told Jeff that I needed to go see Granny. She lived two states away with my uncle, it was January and Biscuit was barely 3 months old. I don't think Jeff was completely comfortable with the idea of the trip, but he had just taken the college sports writer job at the paper and couldn't get time off to go with me. But when I told him I really needed to do it, he supported me.

I called my Mama and asked her to go with me. She said the weather was too unpredictable in January, and it was too far to be traveling with such a little baby. I basically told her that I was going whether she went or not, partly because I knew if I said that she would go with me, and partly because I meant it. I just had a weird feeling about it.

I carried Biscuit into the house in his infant seat with a blanket over him. As soon as I pulled that blanket off, Granny's face just lit up.

We spent the next day just hanging around the house. Granny spent a lot of time staring at Biscuit. She was too weak to pick him up, but if she sat down, I could lay Biscuit in her arms.

The second night we were there, Biscuit woke me up to be fed. After he was full, I was in the process of getting him back to sleep when I heard Granny calling for Mama and my uncle. I went into her room to ask if she was okay. She said she wasn't feeling well and said she thought she needed to go to the hospital.

I got Granny dressed while Mama and my uncle got themselves dressed. I cranked up my uncle's car and turned on the heater. With Mama on one side and my uncle on the other, they helped Granny out of the house toward the car. When she got to the bottom of the front steps, she turned around and said, "Kim, there are some leftover biscuits in the oven and all kinds of vegetables and stuff in the refrigerator. You make sure to make you some food."

I told her I wasn't thinking about food, I just wanted her to get better. Then they left for the hospital.

Granny never came home from the hospital, and I was glad I trusted my gut and went to see her.

I think of her often when I'm watching Biscuit play. I wish she could see him. I wish she could hear him talk and see how smart he is. I wish she could see his smile and his pretty blue eyes.

Even though Biscuit won't remember meeting Granny, I'm going to make sure he knows who she was.

Here are a couple of pictures of Granny meeting Biscuit:

It all comes back

2012-01-24T21:47:00.002-05:00

Biscuit has started picking up turns of phrase. And what tickles me most is that once he learns them, he uses them a lot. And he uses them correctly.

I was thinking about that the other night when Jeff was trying to get him to take a bath, and he said, "No means no, Dad." He's heard that from me. I'll tell him no about something, and he'll ask again. And I'm trying to teach him that when I say no, don't ask again. So I've told him more than once, "When I say no, that means no."

Here are a few others:

Is that a good plan? When Biscuit forms a plan on his own, he always follows up with "Is that a good plan, Mom?" Like if I say, "What should we do for dinner, Biscuit?" And he'll say, "Um, we should go to the pancake restaurant and eat pancakes. Is that a good plan, Mom?"

Good as new: The ladder came off of one of Biscuits seemingly thousands of fire trucks, and he took it to Jeff and asked him to fix it. Jeff said okay, then Biscuit asked, "Will it be good as new, Dad?" I've heard Jeff say to Biscuit so many times that once something is fixed, it will be good as new. Biscuit filed it away and used it exactly the way he should've.

Oh, I get it: When Biscuit asks you a question and you give him an explanation, he'll nod his head and say, "Ohhhhh. I get it, Mom."

It was here a minute ago: When Biscuit can't find something, he repeats what he hears Jeff say all the time, "I can't find my fire truck. It was here just a minute ago."

It's more than a little weird to hear your own words coming back to you like that.

Little helper

2012-01-23T21:39:00.004-05:00

My father-in-law is building shelves and a bench for me in the kitchen. I hope he enjoyed the peace and quiet he had during the day today because once I brought Biscuit home, Grandpa got some "help" ... whether he wanted it or not.

Biscuit got a tool set for Christmas.

And of course he decided to try out the hammer first!

Mudballs

2012-01-22T15:40:00.000-05:00

Jeff was giving Biscuit a bath tonight when I suddenly heard a commotion. Then Biscuit said, "You're not my friend anymore, Dad."

When I asked Jeff what happened, he said that Biscuit asked if he could play in the tub for a while before Jeff washed him. Jeff said that was fine, then he grabbed a book to read while Biscuit played.

We keep a basket of little-kid washcloths next to the tub where we bathe Biscuit. Every once in a while, Biscuit will help himself to one, which is what he did tonight. He got the washcloth wet and was throwing it against the back wall of the tub. He said it was a "mudball."

Jeff said he saw him out of the corner of his eye, but Biscuit wasn't making too much splash, so he didn't protest. As Jeff was reading, he said the mudballs were going, "WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!"

Jeff glanced back up again when he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. The first mudball was blue, but the mudball Biscuit was throwing at that moment was white.

Jeff started to count and realized there were eight mudballs. Eight mudballs made from all eight washcloths we had in the basket by the tub.

Jeff took all the washcloth mudballs away. That's when the "you're not my friend" comment came in. Biscuit was mad because since he had messed up all the washcloths, he didn't have one to wipe his face.

After the bath, Jeff and Biscuit snuggled up on our bed and watched TV. I guess that means they're friends again.

Kaboom!

2012-01-21T12:43:00.001-05:00

A toy grenade exploded. There were no survivors.

Mr. Photogenic

2012-01-20T23:10:00.003-05:00

My son, aka Firefighter Biscuit, came walking into the kitchen like this:

I couldn't decide which feeling was stronger: Thinking it was cute and funny or worrying that he was going to turn up on a beefcake calendar 25 years from now!

For my sanity, let's just say it's cute and funny!

The house of many hats

2012-01-19T22:35:00.001-05:00

They say the hat makes the man. But at our house, the hat makes the Biscuit ... and sometimes the Dad ... and sometimes the Mom.

We have lots of hats.

Here are just a few:

We change hats several times throughout our evenings together. Sometimes I'm the cowgirl, Biscuit is the policeman, and Dad is a cowboy. Sometimes Biscuit is the firefighter, I'm police officer Mom, and Jeff is Police Officer Dad. Every once in a while, one of us is a baseball teamer or the zookeeper.

You change the hat, you become a different person.

I love that Biscuit's imagination is so big. He comes up with names and jobs and situations for all of us. He creates story lines and dramatic scenarios in which we have to rescue the people and find the lost dog and put out the fire and lock up the bad guys.

We ride our horses and tell the bad guys to put their hands on their heads. We call for backup on our cell phones and talk on our "hawkie-talkies." We hit home runs in the living room and run the bases through the dining room to the kitchen to the hall and back to the living room. And of course the fireworks are blasting all the while.

We rescue all kinds of animals and use a vet kit on stuffed animals and plastic horses. We make trips to the doctor where we have to tell the doctor what hurts and have our hearts listened to with a blue and purple stethoscope.

Right now, we have a massive racetrack set up between the living room and dining room. The racetrack starts on top of the dining room table. The first piece of track is clamped to the edge of the table. You let a car go, and it speeds down a hill, around a banked turn, down a short straight-away, then launches off a ramp. The other part of the track starts with a launcher that sends the cars down a straight-away through a loop, down another straight-away, then around a banked turn.

I don't care that I have to pick up all these hats every night. I don't care that there are plastic horses, assorted farm animals and cowboys all around the living room. I don't care that there are 50,000 little cars that always seem underfoot. I don't even care that the race track is bright orange, red and blue and doesn't match any of my decor.

All of these things are part of Biscuit. They feed his imagination and stimulate his creativity.

Plus, Jeff and I really like playing with toys ... especially the race track!

Pizza problem

2012-01-19T00:04:00.000-05:00

"Biscuit, why are you picking at your lip?" Jeff asked.

"It's my pizza, Dad," Biscuit said.

"What?" Jeff asked.

I had to tell Jeff that Biscuit grabbed his slice of pizza before it was cool the other night and got a little blister on his top lip right in the middle. I first saw it when Biscuit was picking at it the night it happened.

"Mom, can you get this ball off my lip?" Biscuit asked.

"Ball on your lip?" I asked. Then when I looked at it, I explained to Biscuit that it happened because his pizza was too hot, and it burned his lip. So he remembered the pizza part and tried to explain it to Jeff.

Biscuit picked at that little blister for three days. I honestly thought he'd irritate it so much that it wouldn't heal. I'm so glad it's finally gone.

The best laid plans

2012-01-17T22:13:00.001-05:00

I picked Biscuit up from day care this evening, and as I was strapping him into his car seat, he asked where we were going.

"Well, we're going to the store, then we're going home," I said.

"Let's not go to the store," Biscuit said. "Let's go to the pancake restaurant and eat pancakes. Does that sound like a good plan?" And let me add that Biscuit pronounces "restaurant" with three very distinct syllables ... rest-a-rant.

"No. That doesn't sound like a good plan," I said. "We have to go buy some things at the store, then we're going to go home to make dinner."

"And dinner will be pancakes at the pancake restaurant?" Biscuit asked.

"No," I said to him. "Dinner will be chicken and beans and sweet potatoes."

"I like chicken and beans and sweet potatoes," he said. "But I like pancakes better."

Jeff was working on a late story, so he called while Biscuit and I were in the store. He said he was done with his story, but he couldn't find his keys. I don't carry keys to his car with me, so Biscuit and I had to take the items in our buggy (about half of what we were there for, I might add) to the cash register. We paid and headed out of the store, with Biscuit asking, "Do we have everything we need, Mom?" the whole time.

As we were leaving the store, I explained to Biscuit that we didn't get everything we needed, but Dad lost the keys to his car, so we needed to go home, get the extra keys and drive the 20 minutes it takes to get downtown. So we drove home, I made Biscuit use the bathroom, I poured some milk in a sippy cup, I poured a little bowl full of crackers, I grabbed my keys to Jeff's car, and we were off.

"Are we going to your work?" Biscuit asked.

"Yes," I said. "We're going to where Dad and I work. That's where Dad's car is."

I thought I had explained every part of our mission, but Biscuit asked about a thousand more questions.

"Where is Dad's car? Is Dad at work? Is Dad coming home with us? Is Dad going to ride in our car? Can I run up the ramp at your work? Can we ride the elevator? Where is Dad? Did Dad find his keys? Does Dad like pancakes? Can we go to the pancake restaurant?"

Needless to say, the whole lost-key thing threw a big, fat monkey wrench into my dinner plans. It was 7:45 before we left the parking lot at work.

And I'm happy (and frustrated) to say that Jeff's keys were down beside the passenger seat in my car. He has a new coat that has very shallow pockets. So when we went to lunch in my car, his keys fell out, and he didn't realize it. I had been driving around with his keys the whole evening.

Jeff and I had cereal for dinner. Biscuit had half a PB&J sandwich and a cup of applesauce. It wasn't gourmet fare, but considering our evening, I think it was good enough.

Bath time blues

2012-01-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

For some reason, Biscuit did not want to take a bath tonight.

He asked early in the evening if he could watch TV in my bedroom. I told him he could watch a show after his bath, but at the time he asked, we hadn't even had dinner yet.

So as we were cleaning up after dinner, I said to Biscuit, "Are you ready for a bath?"

"No. Not yet," he said. "Maybe later."

Usually, he gets so excited about watching TV that he wants to hurry to the bathtub. But for some reason tonight, he was stalling.

Jeff was folding some clothes on our bed, and Biscuit wandered in there. "Are you ready for your bath?" Jeff asked.

"Dad, when somebody says 'no,' it means 'no,'" Biscuit said. "That's what I say to all your questions about taking a bath."

I was directly in Biscuit's line of sight, and I barely got my back turned before I cracked up. You cannot under any circumstances let them see you laugh. They'll think they've done something wonderful, and they'll repeat the performance over and over, especially in all the wrong situations.

After his comment, Biscuit walked into the living room to play some more. I walked in there and said, "Biscuit, you need to go take a bath."

"I had a bath last week, Mom," Biscuit said. "I'm a firefighter, and firefighters don't take baths. Being a firefighter is dangerous, Mom. They don't take a bath."

"Being a firefighter IS dangerous, but their jobs are also very dirty, so they DO take baths," I said to him. Silly me, trying to rationalize with a 3-year-old.

"I'm kinda tired, Mom," Biscuit said.

"Do you want to go to bed?" I asked him.

"Um, I don't need a bath, so I can just go to bed," Biscuit said.

He would rather skip out on the rest of his evening and go straight to bed instead of taking a bath.

"Because firefighters don't take baths, Mom," he said. It's almost like if he repeated it enough times, he thought I would believe it.

"Listen, I don't care what firefighters do, YOU are going to take a bath. Go see Dad right now," I said.

"Okaaaaay," Biscuit said. "I'll go. But I don't want to."

But I'm happy to report that Biscuit is clean and ready for bed. Let's hope my pro-bath boy is back tomorrow night.

The beach ... again!

2012-01-15T23:46:00.002-05:00

I'm not dead in a ditch. We've been to the beach ... again!

Jeff and I went by ourselves New Year's weekend, but this trip was to a different beach with a different bunch of people -- Jeff's side of the family.

There were 9 of us that stayed in this beautiful oceanfront house that had higher-end features than the house we live in!

We had a good time. We went to the aquarium and the serpentarium (SNAKES!) and spent a whole morning building sand castles on the beach.

Here are a few pictures of Biscuit from the weekend:

A cool bubble window at the aquarium.

"Hi, jellyfish," Biscuit said.

Sand castles!

Sittin' on the dock of the bay

Jumping on the "blocks" otherwise known as cobblestone streets.

My big boy

2012-01-11T22:53:00.001-05:00

Biscuit's outfit today featured his "fire shoes," his new skinny jeans and a shirt that Jeff and I just couldn't pass up.

Biscuit had a pair of fire shoes in size 6 and loved them. We tried to find them in a size 7, but no luck. So when we saw a size 8 AND they were on sale, there was no discussion. We bought them.

As for the jeans, they're a pair of Biscuit's new jeans. A friend recommended a store that offers toddler jeans in skinny, boot cut and carpenter. Part of me is bothered by fashion and fads being thrust on toddlers, but another part is glad someone makes skinny jeans that will fit my boy.

Someone along the line came up with an ingenious feature on toddler pants. You never know if kids this age are potty trained or not, so pants have to be big enough to go over a diaper or pull-up, but not so big that they'll fall off of kids wearing underwear. So nicer toddler pants have an elastic band on the inside of the waistband. There's a button near the front of the waistband and the elastic has button holes in it. So you just cinch up the elastic and hook it over the button.

Biscuit's pants fit perfectly with the button in the sixth hole on either side.

Jeff and I were shopping one night and found a rack of shirts that hit every nostalgic nerve we have. There were logos for video games we had as kids, card games, candy, TV shows. We had a hard time narrowing it down to just a couple. We decided on "Wax on. Wax off." I think it was a good call. And if anyone disagrees with me, I might have to sweep the leg!

Here's what Biscuit looked like today:

Hawkie-talkie

2012-01-10T22:17:00.001-05:00

The remote for Jeff's remote control car has recently become a walkie-talkie for Firefighter Biscuit. Except we had to take it away tonight because Biscuit started bending the antenna so far down that we were afraid it would snap off.

A friend of mine sent me an email the other day saying she had found a firefighter set for $4 that included a helmet, hatchet, fire extinguisher, badge, whistle, vest and ... guess what ... a walkie-talkie. She wanted to know if she should buy it. Um, of course!

She brought it to work today, and we swapped money for merchandise. And after seeing Biscuit handling that remote control, I'd say the swap off happened just in time. I've decided that I'm going to parcel out his new fire set, one piece at a time, starting with the walkie-talkie.

I asked Biscuit if he had any calls over his walkie-talkie, but he quickly corrected me.

"No, Mom. It's hawkie-talkie. That's how you say it. It's hawkie-talkie," Biscuit said.

Well, that's just so cute, of course I'm not going to correct him.

Here he is with his hawkie-talkie:

Dad pushed me!

2012-01-09T23:48:00.000-05:00

Jeff walked into the living room the other night with Biscuit on his back. It was a rare sight. If Jeff carries Biscuit, it's usually on his shoulders or in his arms. Biscuit is still so small that Jeff can't get a good grip on him when he's riding piggy-back.

Once they were in the living room, Jeff hunched over a little bit, thinking that Biscuit would slide down his back onto the floor. But what happened was that Biscuit let go and fell hard, right on his rear end.

Whoa! It was not pretty.

Biscuit cried and cried and cried.

When he calmed down just a bit, I asked him what happened.

(Note: This is one of the joys of parenthood. Even if you saw what happened, ask the kid anyway. You won't believe the explanations and/or stories you get.)

"What happened?" I asked.

Biscuit replied through tears, "Um, Dad pushed me off, and I fell on my booty, and it hurt, and I'm crying about that."

Jeff apologized and told Biscuit it was an accident, and after some hugging and loving and squeezing, everything was fine again.

Say what?!?

2012-01-08T22:44:00.001-05:00

A post from The Daddy Man:

Our living room looked like a toy grenade had exploded in it the other night, so I started picking up some of Biscuit's toys.

Biscuit walked into the room, and I said to him, "Hey, boy. Help me pick up some of these toys."

Biscuit looked at me and said, "Um, that's not my job."

It took me a minute to process what he said, but I let him know real fast that yes it is his job to help pick up toys he strowed out all over the place.

That boy best just be glad his Mama wasn't in the room.

No good choice

2012-01-07T22:53:00.000-05:00

I went with a friend to see an exhibit about the Titanic today, and I really enjoyed it.

There was a lot of history about the boat and passengers. There were also some tour guides there in costume and character, including a man who was in the role of Captain Smith. Apparently, the captain was getting ready to retire when they talked him into taking one last cruise.

There were a lot of artifacts that have been salvaged from the wreckage. I wasn't surprised to see some metal tools and dishes. I was, however, surprised to see a piece of sheet music, a ride ticket for Coney Island and a perfectly preserved wooden carpenter's ruler. You would think all of those things would be the first stuff to disintegrate. It was all about where certain items were stored. Like the ruler. It was kept in a leather case that had been tanned using chemicals that ended up acting as a preservative for the wood on the ruler.

One thing that surprised me was all the little things that could've changed the outcome. As it was leaving port, Titanic almost hit another ship. What if it had hit that ship and had to stay in port for repairs? The telegraph operator turned off the telegraph at one point. What if he had left it on and had gotten the notification that could've altered the course of the ship? Because they were convinced nothing could happen to the ship, they didn't even put red flares on the ship. Red flares were the ones used as S.O.S. signals. Titanic shot white flares, but a nearby ship saw the white and thought they were fireworks. What if they had been able to shoot red flares?

But by far, the passengers faced the worst dilemmas.

When they started loading the lifeboats, it was women and children first. How could you possibly get on a lifeboat if your husband couldn't come with you?

The staff members tried to get one woman to get on, but she refused. She said to her husband, "Where you go, I go." That brought tears to my eyes right there in the middle of the exhibit. I couldn't imagine getting on the lifeboat and leaving Jeff behind.

Then it got even worse. I read about how one woman was married AND had sons old enough to be considered men. Leave your husband and sons? No way!

One woman was holding her baby when someone grabbed the baby and basically threw it to someone in a lifeboat. Then they threw the woman into a different lifeboat. When they were rescued, another woman tried to claim the baby as her own. It took a whole day to get the baby back to the mother. So you survive such a tragedy only to have something try to steal your baby?

I think by far the worst decision would have to be if you were a wife and mother of boys and girls. Do you get on a lifeboat and save your girls? Or do you keep your family together, knowing you'll all perish?

When you enter the exhibit, you get a boarding pass with the name and information of a real passenger. At the end, you can look on a manifest to see if your passenger survived or not.

My passenger survived. And because she was a first-class passenger who stayed in the most expensive suite on the ship, her adult son was able to get on a lifeboat pretty early in the process, too.

I hope I never have to make such a terrible decision. I want to keep my boys with me as long as possible.

Parents is plural

2012-01-06T23:06:00.000-05:00

If there's one thing I've learned for sure in my 3 years and 2 months of being a parent, it is that parenting isn't all about the big life-altering decisions, it's the 1,000 little decisions you have to make every single day.

You usually have a good bit of time to think about and worry over and plan the big decisions. But the little decisions have to be made in the spur of the moment, on the fly.

Do I help him put on his jacket or let him do it by himself? I like helping, but is it more important to let him be independent? If I let him have a snack before dinner tonight, will he expect one every night? Should he be learning to use scissors? Should I buy scissors just in case?

Throw in all the books, articles, TV shows, blogs, message boards and advice-offering moms, and you can spend a whole lot of time questioning your own parenting skills.

Then throw in the fact that women seem to be such control freaks these days (myself included sometimes), that they don't trust their husbands to do anything, mainly because they're afraid that their husbands aren't going to do what needs to be done exactly the way they would do it.

All of this means that the burden of parenting falls to one person, the worried, stressed-out, insecure mom.

Well, I call bull on that.

I'm not perfect, but I know my son better than anyone else on the face of this Earth. AND, my husband is a good father who is very involved with our son. He feeds him and bathes him and picks out his clothes and takes him to day care and does all the other things that parents have to do. And he may not do things the way I would do them, but if I ask him if he can give Biscuit a bath and get him dressed for bed, Biscuit will be bathed and ready for bed.

There's no reason for moms to put all the pressure on themselves. You can't do everything, nor should you try. But if you're going to ask for help, you have to back off and let things get done. In this case, the end does justify the means.

Parents is plural, and that means that two of us working to make things happen.

The hard part is accepting that things may not be done exactly the way you want them done. But in the long run, does it matter that you wouldn't have put that shirt with those pants? Or that you wanted the child to have milk and the dad gave him juice?

Jeff and I want Biscuit to be a confident, kind person who is happy in his life. We will gladly listen to any advice we're given. We'll read books or articles that we think are beneficial to what we're trying to accomplish. But in the end, we're going to trust our instincts and each other.

And I believe with all my heart that we can help Biscuit become the person he's supposed to be.

New pants

2012-01-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

I once heard of an elaborate practical joke where every night this guy's roommate would hem up his two pairs of uniform pants just a tiny bit higher than the night before. The roommate did this for a week, and needless to say, the guy who wore the uniforms thought he was going crazy.

Well, I think someone played that joke on Biscuit over the weekend.

I sent him to the beach with three pairs of jeans, and he came home with the same three pairs of jeans, but each pair was about an inch and a half shorter than they were when I packed them.

It has to be a version of that practical joke because my Biscuit baby cannot possibly be growing up so fast!

I called my brother today to ask him what in the world they did to Biscuit over the weekend.

"What did you feed him?" I asked.

"It wasn't the food," my brother said. "What happened was that his cousins were fighting over him, so they each grabbed one end of Biscuit and pulled. They stretched him out the whole weekend."

So, Biscuit got new pants this evening. Three pairs of new pants. Buying those pants was weird on several levels:

I've only had to buy Biscuit a few pairs of pants during his 3 years. And most of what I've bought has been just because it was something so cute or so inexpensive, I couldn't pass it up. We've been so lucky with hand-me-downs, that I was a little surprised that I was actually going to have to go shopping for clothes for him ... on purpose.
Biscuit is so narrow through the waist and hips, I can't just go into a store and buy 3T pants. So this was the first shopping trip where we went into the dressing room to try things on.
KID CLOTHES ARE EXPENSIVE! When you're used to having the majority of your child's wardrobe given to you, it's hard to spend that kind of money, even when the clothes are on sale.

I asked Biscuit tonight how tall he planned on growing to be. He stretched his arms up as high as they would go and said, "Thaaaaaat tall, Mom."

"Taller than Dad?" I asked.

"Yes. Taller than Dad," Biscuit said.

So I guess this means our pants shopping trip this evening won't be our last outing of the sort.

Laundry lessons

2012-01-05T22:04:00.000-05:00

New rule:

All pants pockets shall be thoroughly checked before the pants are put into the washing machine. Otherwise, as you're swapping clothes from the washer to the dryer, you'll find things like this little roadblock.

Out of the mouth of my babe

2012-01-04T22:17:00.002-05:00

Here are a few things Biscuit has been saying recently:

Almost full: When Biscuit is having dinner, and he's ready to go play or he's had enough of whatever is on his plate, he'll say, "I'm eating. And eating is hard time work."

Are these for big boys? Biscuit has some new pajamas that were made by a well-known baby namebrand. The label has a baby's face on it.

So when Biscuit saw his new jammies, he immediately looked at the tag and said, "Mom, are these jammies for big boys?"

"Yes," I said. "They are definitely for big boys."

"There's a baby right there," he said, pointing to the label.

"Yeah, but that's just the label," I said. "Check out this truck on the front of them. That truck is definitely just for big boys!"

Christmas Lights Face: Biscuit really enjoyed driving around looking at Christmas lights this year. Even if we just went to the grocery store, he ask, "Can we look at Christmas lights on the way home?" And luckily, there were a few houses on our way home from the store that we could cruise by.

One night, right before we got to this one house that was covered in lights, Biscuit said, "Mom, when you see Christmas lights, make this face."

First of all, it was dark. Second of all, I was driving and couldn't see his face. So of course, I said, "Okay."

Apparently, he enjoyed us making the Christmas face because from then on, we had to do it every time we saw lights.

Remember this? Well, THIS is the Christmas tree face.

Sitting and staring

2012-01-03T21:19:00.001-05:00

I feel drawn to bodies of water. The ocean, with its smell and the mesmerizing sound of the waves. Rivers and streams, as they flow over rocks and fallen tree limbs, just to send the water to whatever bigger body of water they're flowing into. Even the pond at my parent's house, as fish make bubbles at the surface that expand in perfectly round rings all the way to the water's edge.

All this, despite the fact that I am terried of water. A real-live paralyzing fear.

It's only been a handful of years since I've started putting my face under the shower. I use to wet a washcloth to clean my face. Yep. That's how bad it is.

Even so, I want desperately to dive in. But instead, I just sit and stare at it, wondering what it would be like.

A few years ago, on a whim and some encouragement from a co-worker who had done the same thing, I signed up for a swimming class. It was called "Chicken of the Sea" and was billed as a class for women who are afraid of water.

Wrong!

It was just a beginner adult swimming class. There was no discussion of how to overcome a fear of water.

I try to live by the "you won't know until you try" idea (which has gotten me into trouble more than once), so I figured, what the heck. Just be brave and do whatever they tell you to do.

So I did.

I put my face in the water and I glided across the water using a kickboard, learning to turn my head in and out of the water. Nobody in that class knew how scared I was. And I felt a huge personal accomplishment to get as far as I got.

Then came streamlining. We started at the side of the pool. No kickboards, no noodles, no nothing. Just us and the water.

We were supposed to place our dominant hand on top of the other with our arms extended straight out in front of us. When the teacher gave us the signal, we were to take a deep breath, put our faces in the water, then push off the side of the pool and glide. When we ran out of breath or stopped gliding (whichever came first), we were to surface, take a breath and start kicking our feet and pulling ourselves forward with our arms.

Wait a minute! That last part is actual swimming. This occurred to me as I pushed off. If I can do this, I can swim.

So I took my breath, pushed off the wall and glided. It was wonderful. As small as it might seem to some, it was truly one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.

My breath started to run out, and I started to panic. I tried to surface, but instead of going up, I went down. If I'm sitting on a chair, I push down with my arms to stand up, right? Well, you don't so much do that in the water. If you push down, you go down.

And that I did.

I pointed my little gliding hands straight down so I could theoretically push myself up to the surface. Only I was going deeper and deeper. We were in 4 feet of water. It was one of the worst feelings of my life.

I started flailing and my teacher rushed forward and grabbed me. He was this huge guy with shoulders about time and a half again as broad as mine. I should've felt save in his arms, but I didn't.

I was coughing and sputtering and crying. As he turned me around to take me back to the wall, all the other ladies in the class sort of looked away (at the ceiling, at each other, anything but me, really). I got a lot of encouragement, but I was done. I had made it through four lessons in a six-week class.

I share this to say that I have no idea why I'm drawn to water yet so deathly afraid of it. I spent a good bit of time this past weekend sitting on the balcony of our hotel room, listening and watching as the waves of the ocean rush in and out. It's incredible. And if we hadn't had to check out at 11 a.m. yesterday, I'd still be sitting there.

I do intend to learn to swim before my life is over. I definitely want Biscuit to learn.

We never really had access to a pool, but once I hit my teenaged years, I missed out on a lot by not being able to jump into a pool.

So until I get brave enough to take some more lessons (I'm planning to go private next time, so if I flail, nobody but me and the teacher will see it!), I'll just sit here on the sidelines and enjoy the wonder of it all.

Can I send him back?

2012-01-02T23:40:00.005-05:00

Remember all that whining I was doing about missing my boy? Well, after about an hour with him, I was ready to send him back to my brother!

The boy was a wee bit excited to see Jeff and me.

"MOM! MOM! MOM! I was so worried about you." That's what Biscuit said to me when he met me at my side of the car.

"DAD! DAD! DAD! Are you my family again?" Biscuit said to Jeff.

We heard all about how he "digged" in the sand and made a sand castle. Then they "digged" a hole big enough for him to get in. Then they took my nephew's new skateboard to the skate park at the campground. Then they went to the playground and there were slides and swings and he got to slide down the fireman pole.

Let me tell you about this campground. It's a gated community, and the only time you can drive your car or truck is to come and go from the place. All the traveling around the grounds is done in golf carts, or something under your own power, like bikes, scooters or skateboards. They have a store and a couple of restaurants and a stocked fishing pond and several pools, including an indoor, heated one. They have a church, a couple of playgrounds and several basketball and tennis courts. The whole thing sits oceanfront, so you can walk from your site to the sand in no time. There's a real sense of community there, and every time we're there visiting, I'm always a little jealous that we don't have a camper.

Anyway, Biscuit talked non-stop for what seemed like forever. He had to tell us everything that happened, and everything his cousins said and everything he ate and, well ... everything.

My brother and sister-in-law said he minded well, short of a couple of "I didn't get my way" moments. They had never heard him say that, so I was a little amused to hear their retelling.

My sister-in-law said, "He told me to turn the TV on. And I told him that first of all, he would have to ask nicely and say please, and second of all, we weren't going to watch TV right then."

Then apparently, Biscuit said, "I don't like that. I don't like that at all."

To which my sister-in-law replied, "I'm sorry you don't like it, but that's the way it's going to be right now."

At which point Biscuit started crying. My sister-in-law asked Biscuit why he was crying, and he said, "Um, because I didn't get my way." I think she had a hard time keeping a straight face.

Other than that, everything went well, and here are a few of the pictures they took of Biscuit this weekend.

We sent Biscuit's new trike. He had the hang of it in no time.

The hole Biscuit and his cousins "digged."

Check out the motor-boat lips. I can just hear the noise he's making.

I did it!

2012-01-02T09:08:00.001-05:00

I've survived a weekend without seeing Biscuit. Well, unless you count the photos my brother sent me of Biscuit and two of his cousins sitting in a hole they dug in the sand.

I've been told that there will be times in the future when I can't wait to get away from Biscuit, but this first time was kinda hard.

Jeff and I had fun, and I didn't really realize how much we needed this time together.

We've had uninterrupted conversations. I've been able to eat meals without cutting up someone else's first. Jeff and I played golf. We saw a movie. We've strolled around stores without a buggy or a stroller, and without having to worry if it was nap time or food time or bathroom time.

As I often tell people, I never planned on doing the whole husband/family thing until Jeff came along and ruined all my plans. But now, I can't imagine not having Biscuit in our lives.

Even though Jeff and I said we were going to try not to talk about Biscuit during "our" time, of course we did anyway. Jeff said he never really noticed child obituaries until Biscuit came along. Now if he sees one (and it never matters if it's a disease or an accident or whatever), Jeff said he stops and takes a moment for the parents, praying they'll find some kind of peace in such a horrible situation.

Last week, when Jeff, Biscuit and I were shopping, we ran into a guy Jeff works with. Jeff introduced me to the guy and his wife, and I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the couple he had told me about a few months ago who had been trying to have a baby for a long, long time only to lose triplets during her eighth month of pregnancy. She had other miscarriages, too.

I'm almost glad I didn't know that when I met her. I think I might've had to hug her or something.

I used to get really bitter when I heard about high school girls getting pregnant or women who had no intention of getting pregnant and "it just happened." Some of us aren't that lucky. It takes a whole lot more work to get babies.

How in the world did I just get from Jeff and me spending time together to infertility. Jeezy Pete!

We're meeting my brother and his family for the Biscuit trade-off at noon. Three more hours, and I get my Biscuit baby back.

Or as Jeff would sing (mocking a restaurant commercial), "You'll get your baby back, baby back, baby back." The jingle is talking about ribs, but I think I'll just grab onto the whole thing. And hold him and love him and pet him and squeeze him.

New day, new year

2012-01-01T08:09:00.001-05:00

Jeff and I are at the beach. Biscuit is at the beach, too, just not the same beach.

I figured that since Biscuit did so well spending the night with my brother and his family a few weeks ago, we should try a longer stay ... say, a weekend.

So I told Jeff about a month ago that I wanted to drive to my parents' house (my brother lives 5 minute away from them), drop Biscuit off, then head to the beach.

Being the helpful creature he is, Jeff suggested, "Well, my folks will still be here, why don't we get them to keep Biscuit."

"I don't WANT them to keep Biscuit," I told him.

I obviously didn't mean it the way it sounded, but I could see Jeff getting a little defensive ... something you don't usually see from him.

"Don't you think that I have thought and considered and worried and prayed over this decision, and that I've come up with the best possible solution that won't have me so freaked out for the entire trip that we won't have any fun?!?" I said to Jeff.

Deer in the headlights. That was the look Jeff gave to me.

The beach we're at is 2 1/2 hours from my brother's house. The closest beach to where we live is about 4 1/2 hours away. My thought process is that if I'm going to be away from Biscuit for 3 days and 2 nights, I would rather have him 2 1/2 hours away than 4 1/2 hours away.

"What if something happened, and we have to go home early? Do you REALLY want to be in a car with me for an extra 2 hours as we drive back to our house?" I asked Jeff.

"Um, probably not," he said.

"Definitely not," I said.

Plus, my brother has three kids (13, 9 and 7) to keep Biscuit entertained (and to wear him out enough that he'll sleep well while he's with them).

Last week, my brother almost broke my heart. He called me and said, "Hey. What are y'all doing next weekend?"

With a dumbfounded look on my face and a big ball of lead suddenly sitting in my stomach, I said, "We were planning to go to the beach. Did you forget you were supposed to keep Biscuit?"

"Oh ... yeah," he said.

"Well, that's okay. We'll just take him with us. It's not a big deal," I said to him.

Turns out, my brother was doing what lots of mean younger brothers do to wonderfully loving older sisters. He was messing with me.

He remembered all along that he was keeping Biscuit. He just wanted to see how far he could string me along. Mama and Daddy should've let me beat him up more when we were kids!

He was actually calling because he had checked out the weather for New Year's weekend at the beach and saw that it was going to be nice and pretty warm for this time of the year. So he figured he'd take his camper and his family to the south end of the beach Jeff and I are at. He was calling to make sure I was okay with Biscuit traveling with them.

Well, let's see. If we had left Biscuit with Jeff parents, he would've been 4 1/2 hours away. At my brother's house, 2 1/2 hours away. In the camper at the south end of the beach we're at, about 20 minutes away. I really don't think there's a question there.

So for the first time, Jeff and I are spending the weekend away from Biscuit.

I'm happy to say that Biscuit is doing great. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I am not. I miss my baby.

My brother and sister-in-law have raised three great kids. There is absolutely no reason I should think that my son would receive anything other than exemplary care while he is with them.

But I worry anyway. Isn't that what Mamas do?

Jeff and I went to a great restaurant last night. Shrimp, scallops, crab legs. Tasty-yummy-licious! Then we went to see a movie ... something we don't get to do a lot of at home. I was truly amazed at all the little things that reminded me of Biscuit. Things that made me think of him.

Before we all left yesterday morning, my brother said to me, "It's not like you're leaving him with total strangers, you know."

"I know," I said. "But you have no idea what I went through to get that baby, and unlike that comedian who says, 'I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out, then make another one just like you', Biscuit is my only shot. I can't make another one!"

And of course he DOES know what I went through to get that baby. He rolled his eyes and said, "Just go to the beach."

So we did. We're in an oceanfront room on the sixth floor. Just high enough to get a good view without being so high that we can't watch the people (and dogs) walking and playing on the beach.

We're planning to play golf today, and I've found us another seafood restaurant to try tonight.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting impatiently for Jeff to wake up.

I woke up just in time to catch the sun rise (and a few pictures, too).

The first sunrise of the first day of a new year.

Happy New Year. I hope it will be a good one for everyone.

Achoo!

2011-12-29T23:28:00.001-05:00

Know what happens when you're feeding your kid applesauce and he has to sneeze?

You get a face full of half-processed applesauce, that's what.

Applesauce in your hair. Applesauce on your glasses. Applesauce in your mouth. Applesauce up your nose.

I was only trying to help. He wanted applesauce, and I wanted to finish watching a TV show. So I told him he could have applesauce in the living room as long as he let me feed it to him.

I guess he showed me the consequences of my actions! Next time, I'll catch the TV show in reruns and make him eat in the kitchen!

Dr. Biscuit

2011-12-28T23:09:00.000-05:00

We had to take Biscuit to the doctor yesterday. He has had a cold for a little over two weeks, and I could just tell that it was starting to turn into something more serious. I feel so bad for him because at his age, he can't have a decongestant. So his poor little nose has been alternating between stuffiness and runniness for a little over two weeks.

Poor little man.

Biscuit loves going to the doctor. First of all, he gets to ride an elevator. Then once we're in the office, he gets to search through all the multi-colored chairs until he finds just the right red one. Have I mentioned that red is Biscuit's favorite color?

Once we get called back, we look through the horrible book selection. If you thought the 2-year-old magazines in the adult doctor's office were bad, multiply it by 1,000, and that's how bad it is to have to read a story about a fish who wants to go to school. There was no explanation about how the fish can live on land. There were two pages missing out of the middle. The fish had somehow evolved to the point that it could walk on its tail. And of course its face had shifted down. I guess if the fish is going to walk upright, his mouth and eyes can't be facing straight up.

All that to say that the time between getting called back into the exam room and the time we actually see the doctor seems like an eternity.

Biscuit is fascinated by all the gadgets and the whole process of getting checked out. He asks questions and chats with the nurse and doctor. And when he's unsure about whatever is about to happen next, he always cuts his eyes over for my approving head nod.

When the nurse called Biscuit's name yesterday, Jeff had gone out to the bathroom. So when we got back to the room, I asked the nurse if she could let Jeff know where we were. I told her that he was wearing a blue and white oxford shirt.

"What's his name?" she asked.

And before I could answer, Biscuit said, "His name is Jeff."

"And what do YOU call him?" the nurse asked.

Biscuit smiled and said, "Um, Jeff!"

"You don't call him Jeff," I said. "You call him Dad."

"No. I call him Jeff," Biscuit said. Personally, I think the boy was flirting with the nurse. She just smiled at him and made a big ol' fuss.

The doctor asked if Biscuit takes any medicine, and I told him he has some liquid medicine for his seasonal allergies. He asked how much, and I told him I use half a teaspoon.

"I thought it was 2.5 milliliters," Jeff said.

I just looked at Jeff, confused for a minute. "I thought the bottle says that ages 2 to 6 get half a teaspoon," I said.

The doctor laughed, then Jeff smiled at me. Then the doctor said, "Half a teaspoon and 2.5 milliliters are the same thing."

I just looked back and forth between the doctor and Jeff. "There's a reason I was an English major," I said to both of them. "Biscuit, do you hear Dad teasing me? Tell him it isn't nice to tease Mama."

"Dad, it's nice to tease Mom," Biscuit said, laughing. I can't believe my boys teamed up against me!

The doctor concluded that Biscuit has a sinus infection and said he should have an antibiotic. He scrolled back through Biscuit's file on his computer and asked, "Have you seen any other doctors?"

I explained that Biscuit's original doctor left the practice to teach at a medical school in Virginia, and Biscuit's 3-year-old checkup was the first time we had seen the new doctor we chose.

"I meant outside of this practice," the doctor said.

Aside from pink eye and his 3-year-old checkup, yesterday was the first time Biscuit has been to the doctor in over a year. It's also been that long since he's had to take an antibiotic. Apparently, not going to the doctor for that long is rare for a kid his age, and the doctor was surprised by it.

"That's a good thing, though, right?" I asked the doctor, only halfway serious.

"Yes, definitely. That's a great thing," the doctor said. "It's just unusual these days."

Don't even get me started on these Moms who haul their kids to the doctor every other week demanding an antibiotic for every little thing. But I digress.

The nurse had no idea that she was doing something so great, but she gave Biscuit a fire truck sticker when we left. And then, he got to ride the elevator back down. I'm going to miss the days when these little things aren't a big deal anymore.

Biscuit got two doctor kits for Christmas. One came with a character called Mr. Bump and has a stethoscope, otoscope, thermometer, blood pressure cuff and some other gadgets. The other one is a veterinarian kit. It came with a dog carrier with a stuffed puppy inside, plus all the gadgets to check out the dog.

So with his most recent doctor's visit done, Biscuit turned himself into Dr. Biscuit. Jeff had to cover a football bowl game last night, so I was the sole recipient of Dr. Biscuit's attention. I had my temperature taken, my reflexes checked, my heart listened to, my tonsils looked at and my blood pressure taken.

After Biscuit listened to my heart, I asked, "How did it sound?"

"Great. It sounds great," Biscuit said. "Can you open your mouth and say, 'Ah'?" I did as he requested, then Biscuit said, "That's very good, Mom. You did it just right." I'm a very good patient.

And Biscuit is a good patient, too. He takes his medicine without complaint and doesn't complain. Let's hope the medicine does its job and makes my baby better.

The Christmas Rush

2011-12-27T23:31:00.002-05:00

We spent a good deal of our Christmas days off on the road. We drove 1 1/2 hours Saturday to spend time with Jeff's family. Then we came home and got ready for Santa Claus.

On Christmas morning, we had to wake Biscuit up. I know, I know, this will probably be the last year we can brag about that. But we just tried to enjoy it as much as we could. Biscuit checked out his haul from Santa, which included a really cool tricycle. Then he had about an hour to play before we had to hit the road for a 2 1/2-hour trip to my parents' house.

Now don't get me wrong. I love spending time with both sides of our family during the holidays. But truth be told, I kinda like it when the holiday is during the week. That way, we can travel the weekend before or the weekend after and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home. And with this coming year being a Leap Year, my during-the-week Christmas wish will come true.

We have one niece (13) and one nephew (11) on Jeff's side of the family and two nieces (13 and 9) and one nephew (7) on my side. So it was a lot of fun watching the kids play with Biscuit.

Mama cooked a big ol' Christmas dinner for us. She's always critical about her own cooking, but I can't say I had any complaints. Plus, if you're going to have to drive 2 1/2 hours, I can't think of a better way to end the trip than a plate full of Mama's home cooking.

Anyway, refreshments were served and a good time was had by all.

And here are a few pictures:

GIT YO HAND OFF THAT CANDY!!!

Long car ride = long nap

Paging Dr. Biscuit. We have a sick puppy.

"Look at those cool ornaments I can't reach."

"Santa brought me a bike!"

Cowboy Biscuit tears into a present.

"Look at me, Mom. I'm asleep in my sleeping bag."

Out of the mouth of my babe

2011-12-27T22:53:00.002-05:00

A few things Biscuit has said recently:

Merry vs. Mary: I finally figured out the Very Christmas thing. Biscuit keeps arguing, saying that you don't say "Merry Christmas," you're supposed to say "Very Christmas."

When we were at my parents' house this weekend, my Mama said "Merry Christmas" to Biscuit. He said, "No, Grandmama. It's Very Christmas. Mary is Baby Jesus' Mom."

So basically, every time somebody says "Merry," he thinks they're saying "Mary."

It was like a lightbulb went off over my head. Now I get it. I do have to say that it sounds a little weird for Biscuit to refer to Mary as "Jesus' Mom"?

New horse book: Biscuit got a new book about horses for Christmas. He has remembered and even recited random facts from this book since the first time we read it to him. Although, a few of the facts have blended together into statements that just aren't quite right.

Like this morning. "Mom, is it cold outside? Do I need to put on my coat?"

"Yes," I told him. "It's cold, so you need your coat."

"Mom, horses have great eyesight when it's cold. When they're cold, their eyesight is great."

You learn something new every day, I guess.

Cowboy learning: "Mom, when I'm a cowboy, I will put my left foot in the stirrup and mount my horse. That's what I'll do."

Story time: This is a story Biscuit shared with me this morning.

"One day I was riding my horse outside. And a wild white shadow came and got on my horse. Then a bear started chasing us. And my horse, he neighed really loudly and scared off the bear."

Sometimes you just have to smile and nod.

Definitely my boy: Biscuit has struggled with timing during the holidays. Telling him things like, "Christmas is next week" doesn't mean a whole lot. He doesn't understand when next week is.

But when we told him on Christmas Eve that Santa Claus was coming that night, he got it.

His eyes got big, he took in a big breath, and he said, "Tooo-niiiight?"

So the day after Christmas, as we were driving the 2 1/2 hours home from my parents', Biscuit asked about Christmas. I explained to him that it was over. I went back over all the things we did in preparation -- put up the tree and decorations, made cookies and candy, read about Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus, gave and received presents and went to see Santa Claus.

Biscuit considered all of this for a minute, nodded his head and said, "Okay, Mom. What's next?"

Yep, he's my boy, alright.

Out of the mouth of my babe ... Christmas edition

2011-12-24T08:45:00.000-05:00

Here are a few things Biscuit has been saying recently:

What?!?: Sometimes you just listen and agree. Don't even try to understand.

Biscuit said recently, "When I grow up, I'm going to be bigger and bigger and bigger. And when I'm cold, my hair keeps me warm like horses' hair keeps them warm."

Smile and nod with an occasional "yeah," then smile and nod some more.

Baby Jesus: Biscuit was telling his Grandma all about his Nativity set, and I think for the first time, he really thought about Baby Jesus being an actual baby. So he came up with a plan.

"Baby Jesus has to go to day care. Mom's going to take him," Biscuit said. "The snowman is going to be his teacher."

The Duke: Remember Biscuit's brown cowboys movie? (It's the tame Western that has sepia-toned photos on the DVD box?) Yes, my son's favorite movie was made in 1949. What can I say, he's an old soul.

John Wayne's character in the movie is Capt. Brittles. I'm not sure how Biscuit decided this, but he will argue with you that John Wayne's character is actually named Capt. Griddles. When Biscuit is on his stick horse or his bouncy horse, he says, "I'm pretending to be Capt. Griddles" as he rides off into the sunset.

So Jeff decided the other day to see if Biscuit understands that the character Capt. Brittles is played by the actor John Wayne.

"Do you know who John Wayne is?" Jeff asked Biscuit.

"Yeah. He's a pretty good brown cowboy," Biscuit said nodding and smiling.

For now, I think that's all he needs to know.

Gift request: We haven't talked a lot about Santa Claus or exactly when Christmas Day is. Biscuit doesn't really understand "next week" or "4 days from now," so we've kept him on a need-to-know basis.

Yesterday morning, as we were getting ready for the day, Jeff asked Biscuit, "So Biscuit, what did you tell Santa Claus you wanted for Christmas?"

"I tell him I want firefighters, Dad," Biscuit said.

"And what did Santa Claus say about that?" Jeff asked.

Biscuit thought for a second and said, "Santa Claus, he say 'Firefighters coming right up!'"

Let's hope Santa was listening!

Christmas greetings

2011-12-22T20:49:00.001-05:00

We usually do a family photo for our Christmas card, but this year, we just never got around to doing it.

It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to get out the camera and the tripod and get the three of us dressed decently and in some sort of family-looking pose, but with an active 3-year-old and a husband who spends a lot of time covering basketball games this time of year, it's more difficult than you'd think.

Biscuit got his cowboy outfit (suede chaps and a vest) from Jeff's parents for his birthday in November, and I wanted to take some pictures of him in it. There's a stable right down the road from our house, so on Thanksgiving evening, we dressed him in his best faded jeans and put his cowboy outfit on him.

The only problem was that the chaps were too big, and the only way he could keep them on was for us to put them on backwards. If you know any real cowboys, don't tell them what we did.

Here's our Cowboy Biscuit wishing everybody a Merry (or Very as he says) Christmas.

A Very Merry Christmas!

2011-12-21T19:57:00.000-05:00

I think Christmas morning is going to be fun at our house. Biscuit's excitement is growing by the day.

This morning, as Jeff walked into our bathroom to brush Biscuit’s teeth, he said, “Merry Christmas, Mama” to me.

Biscuit’s head whipped around so he could look at Jeff. His eyes were huge and he had a funny grin on his face. Then he looked at me expectantly.

“Today isn’t Christmas,” I told him. “I know Dad said ‘Merry Christmas’, but you can say ‘Merry Christmas’ even before Christmas Day gets here.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding more than a little dejected.

“Can you say ‘Merry Christmas’?” I asked him.

“Very Christmas,” Biscuit said.

“No, baby. It’s ‘merry’ with an M,” I said to him. “M-m-merry Christmas.”

“Noooo, Mom. It’s VERY Christmas,” Biscuit said with a touch of whine.

I thought about it for a second, and in the grand scheme of things, Merry Christmas vs. Very Christmas is just not worth the hassle of arguing over.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll have a Merry Christmas, and you can have a Very Christmas.”

He smiled, thought about it for a second and said, "Okay."

It was a good compromise.

Very Christmas, everybody!

Bathroom frustration

2011-12-20T23:18:00.002-05:00

A post from The Daddy Man:

It's been a while since I posted anything here, but I'd like to remedy that with a rant.

I want to meet the germaphobic genius (insert dripping sarcasm here) who invented motion-detector toilets, no-touch faucets and automatic hand dryers and punch him or her in the nose.

The inventor must not have kids, especially not a toddler.

And here's how I know that.

The motion-detector toilet is very sensitive and inevitably flushes while my toddler is still doing his business. It scares the daylights out of him and completely interrupts any progress he might have been making.
The no-touch faucets have the tiniest sensors ever created. Combine tiny sensors with Biscuit's tiny hands, and you get an almost impossible hand-washing situation. It's hard enough trying to hold the boy up to the sink with one arm and hand and help him wash his hands with the other. Where am I supposed to get that third hand to keep the faucet sensor engaged?
The automatic hand dryers are loud ... very loud. And all you have to do to turn them on is walk in their general direction. And if you're 3 feet tall and happen to walk underneath one, it can be quite traumatizing.

What's so hard about faucet knobs, toilet flush handles and levers on paper towel dispensers, anyway?

Firefighter Biscuit finds a home

2011-12-19T23:25:00.000-05:00

When my in-laws come for their winter visit, they split time between mine and Jeff's house and Jeff's brother and sister-in-law's house. So since they'll be leaving our house tomorrow and won't be coming back until after Christmas, we decided to let Biscuit open presents from them tonight.

I was really excited to see him open one particular present ... a vintage fire station playset.

It pains me to say that the vintage playset was made in 1980. I was in sixth grade in 1980. I don't want to think that things I owned at 12 years old could now be vintage! But that was 31 years ago. THIRTY-ONE YEARS!!!

Anyway, Biscuit opened the fire station this evening, and he loved it. He's been playing with it nonstop, swapping the firefighters and the dalmation (aka fire dog) into different vehicles, up and down the ladders and into the fire station.

There's a crank on the side of the fire station that raises and lowers to garage-type door on the front. And just for kicks, it has a bell that rings as you crank the door up and down. You didn't think it was possible to have a completely silent toy for a toddler, did you?!?

Here's Biscuit playing with his new favorite gift:

Santa's Little Helper

2011-12-18T22:19:00.001-05:00

Biscuit and I made some Christmas cookies together tonight. Biscuit was decked out in a "Santa's Helper" apron his Grandmama bought him.

Since Biscuit has the attention span and patience of a typical 3-year-old, I have to plan our cooking projects to accommodate him.

So we started with ready-made refrigerated cookies, added sprinkles and then waited a whole 8 minutes until the cookies were done.

Here are a few pictures:

We missed the timer buzzer and got brown cookies. Biscuit loved them anyway!

Who the heck is Dave?!?

2011-12-18T14:06:00.004-05:00

I was sabotaged by my own husband last night.

Biscuit loves a book about Paul Revere that belonged to Jeff as a child. It's been his go-to bedtime book for a long time.

Jeff decided one night to ad lib a line, and Biscuit liked it so much that when Jeff read it the next night, Biscuit added on the extra line himself. From then on, Jeff said the line each night, even though it isn't in the book.

Paul Revere says, "We did it! We did it! Right under their noses!"

Then on that fateful night, Jeff read the line above then said, "Yeah, we did it!" said Dave.

I carried Biscuit to bed tonight, and he asked me to read about Paul Revere.

I was reading about how Paul Revere was "riding, riding, riding to liberty." I read about how they did it "right under their noses," then turned the page and kept going.

"What about Dave, Mom?" Biscuit asked. "You forgot Dave."

I flipped back a couple of pages and didn't see anything about anyone named Dave.

Biscuit started to get upset. "You didn't read it, Mom," he whined. "You have to read about Dave."

I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and the longer I sat there trying to figure it out, the more upset Biscuit got. There were tears and everything.

Jeff was sitting in the living room and heard me reading. He called me, and I stepped out of Biscuit's room to see what he wanted.

Jeff explained how he was reading one night and just added Dave in ... just for the heck of it.

So I went back into Biscuit's room and said, "Hey, let's flip back a page and read it again." I added Dave into the story, and Biscuit got a huge grin on his face.

"That's right, Mom. You forgot Dave, but now you read about him," he said. "Thanks, Mom. Thanks for reading about Dave."

Now, what can I do to pay back Jeff?!?

Thou shalt not steal

2011-12-17T23:53:00.002-05:00

Biscuit and I stopped by the store to buy a birthday present for a little friend of his a few weeks ago. We went to our usual shopping destination. And Biscuit called it before we even got to the shopping center.

As we leave day care, we go straight to go home and bear off to the right to go to our usual shopping destination. So as soon as the car bears right, he always asks what we need to buy at the store.

I had planned to explain the purpose our trip to Biscuit anyway, because we were going into the toy department, but we weren't going to buy anything for him. He seemed okay with the concept of it, but I was interested to see how things would actually go down in the store.

As we walked into the store, we stopped by the discount aisle up front. I was looking for a couple of little notepads, but Biscuit immediately spotted a horse. He asked if he could see it, and I thought it might make for a good distraction.

"Would you like to hold this horse while we do our shopping?" I asked Biscuit.

"Yes, pease," he said. "I like horses." (Quite an understatement on his part!)

We got the birthday present we were after, and Biscuit didn't ask for a single thing. We traveled on through the grocery section and got cereal and a couple of other things. Then we headed up to the cash registers.

I paid for our merchandise while Biscuit had a conversation with the lady in line behind us. Biscuit seems to have my gift of gab, so he doesn't meet too many strangers.

Then we headed out of the store to our car. Biscuit sat in the buggy seat as I transferred our bags from the buggy to the car.

With the buggy empty, I started to scoop Biscuit out of his seat. Then I saw it. He still had the horse I told him he could hold as we did our shopping.

"OH, LORD!" I said. And with my Southern drawl, it sounded more like I said, "Oh, lowered."

I am usually very careful about what I say in front of Biscuit. And although what I said wasn't horrible, it's still something I'd rather he not repeat (Lord's name in vain and all).

So of course he repeated it. Except he can't pronounce his L's.

So Biscuit said, while mimicking my drawl, "Oh, woe-word, Mom. Oh, woe-word."

"Don't say that, Biscuit," I said to him, which of course just encouraged him to say it more.

"What's wrong, Mom?" Biscuit asked as I wheeled the buggy around and headed back toward the store.

"We didn't pay for that horse," I told him.

"Oh, woe-word, Mom. We didn't pay for this horse. Oh, woe-word," he said.

We got to the customer service desk and I told the woman what had happened. She wasn't fazed in the least. "Do you want to buy it?" she asked. I told her I did want to buy it, then paid and left.

Luckily, the "oh, woe-word" comments didn't last past that night. And Biscuit has become super-conscious about us paying for our stuff in stores and restaurants.

Now if I can just keep from each him any other bad habits.

Grandparents

2011-12-16T22:24:00.000-05:00

Biscuit saw my parents last weekend. Their names are Grandmama and Papa.

Jeff parents just arrived today for their winter trip. Their names are Grandma and Grandpa.

Biscuit is having a wee bit of trouble trying to differentiate between all his grandparents and their names.

Biscuit and Grandma were on the couch watching TV just now, and Biscuit realized that Grandpa wasn't around. You could tell he wanted to ask about Grandpa, but he couldn't seem to remember his name.

He looked at Grandma and said, "Where's ... um, where's your friend?"

"My friend has gone to bed," she said.

Poor Grandpa.

Awww! Not the face!!!

2011-12-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

Jeff and I love to look back through tons of candid photos we've taken in the three years Biscuit has been on Earth. But our mothers, they like portraits. Store-bought portraits.

The closest we've come to giving in to a portrait session is Biscuit's school pictures at day care.

Believe it or not, they have professional pictures taken at day care twice a year - once in the spring and once in the fall. I had to buy the spring ones from last year. They were adorable.

And Jeff, God love him, was pressured by a group of four women to buy Biscuit's fall photos this year. A couple of day care moms and two ladies from the photography studio ganged up on him and guilted him into buying the way-too-expensive photos. I'm sorta glad they did, though. The photos were really good.

So as I scanned through the circulars in the Sunday paper, I found a really good coupon for a local photo studio. It's a place that has been recommended to me by several friends. They say it's low-key and laid back. And there isn't a ton of pressure to buy.

So I decided I would take advantage of the good deal I found, dress Biscuit up and take him to the portrait studio.

Well, until tonight's ... um, incident.

I hate to sound like I'm bragging (and yes, I know I might have to eat my words at some point), but Biscuit has been doing so well with the whole bathroom process. He lets us know when he has to go, and since he's quite routine-oriented (I can't imagine where he got THAT from), we've been able to pretty easily establish the rule of him lifting the seat and putting it back down when he's done.

So Biscuit went into the bathroom tonight, got up onto his step-stool, pulled his pants down and did his business. He grabbed the seat and was in the process of putting it back down, but he was leaning over just a little too far toward the toilet. The seat slipped out of his hand, and on the way to crashing down onto the toilet, the seat caught Biscuit right between the eyes on the bridge of his nose.

Poor Biscuit. He screamed and he cried. And who can blame him? I can't imagine how much that must have hurt. And he bled, too, which always makes matters worse.

Jeff was trying to comfort him, but sometimes even tough little boys need their mamas. Biscuit came walking toward me wearing socks and a shirt ... and that's all. He was so pitiful.

I held him and told him I was sorry it happened. I asked him if he was okay, and through his tears and snubs, he said he was.

"I'm o-o-okay, M-m-mom," Biscuit wailed.

So I guess our trip to the portrait studio will be postponed just a bit. Maybe Biscuit will be injury-free around Mother's Day.

This was after the crying and bleeding, once a little antibiotic ointment had been applied.

The Question ... and my answer

2011-12-14T22:55:00.002-05:00

"When are you going to give Biscuit a little brother or sister?"

That's a question I get a lot these days. And people don't mean anything by it. It's pretty obvious to most people that Jeff and I are enjoying being parents, so it's a natural assumption that if we like having one kid, we'd like having more.

But since I couldn't get pregnant again, it's been a little tricky trying to answer those kinds of questions. Not to mention that I'm still pretty sad and mad and disappointed about the whole thing.

I still having frequent dreams about babies. Sometimes I wake up thinking it's real. And that's hard to deal with, especially when you're staring a well-meaning person in the face trying to answer a question that sometimes makes you cry.

So for my own well-being, I practiced until I came up with what I think is a very suitable answer when people ask me about a second child.

It's a tricky thing. If you just say, "I couldn't get pregnant again," it puts people in an awkward position. They don't know what to say. And Job No. 1 as a Southern woman is to make people feel at ease. (Or at least that's what my Southern DNA tells me!)

If you try to avoid answering the question, without thinking, some people will rephrase the question and ask again.

"So do you WANT more children?" they'll ask.

And I want to say, "YES! We want more. But I can't get pregnant, and we can't afford the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to adopt a healthy child, and Jeff told me I'm not allowed to take children away from people I think are bad parents."

Yeah, now that I type that out, it might seem a tad harsh as an answer to a harmless question.

So after going over and over it in my head, when people ask about a second child, I now say to them, "Well, we tried to have another baby and it didn't work. So we're just going to be thankful we got Biscuit."

I think it works. It answers the question without making anyone feel bad. But it also throws out the hint that not having another baby wasn't by choice, so it might not be the best topic to pursue.

Some of my friends get up-in-arms when I tell them that people ask me the question on a pretty regular basis. But as much as I like to talk to people, and as much of an open book as my life is, people aren't being rude, they're just taking part in the conversation.

And I think I finally have an answer for them.

Out of the mouth of my babe

2011-12-13T20:53:00.003-05:00

A few random things Biscuit has been saying lately:

Me, the people: "Mom, you're the people, and I'm the cowboy," Biscuit said to me tonight.

As usual, my response was, "What does the (insert name here) do?" In this case, it was "What do the people do?"

"The people have to sit in your rocking chair until I get back," Biscuit said. Then he walked around the living room and came right back over.

"What's your problem, people?" he asked.

This is when I have to quickly come up with some problem he can fix.

Tonight's response was, "Well, I don't have any carrots for my pet rabbit."

"Oh!" Biscuit said. "I can fix it. I'll take my cowboy rope and lasso some carrots. Wait right there!" Then he made a big show of throwing his lasso, drawing in some imaginary carrots, then bringing them to me like they weighed 100 pounds.

"Here you go, people," Biscuit said. And "people" pretended to feed imaginary carrots to the imaginary rabbit.

New nursery rhyme: Biscuit walked up to Jeff and me the other night and said, "Hey, guys. I know all about Humpty Dumpty."

In unison, Jeff and I said, "You DO? Tell us."

"Humpty Dumpty, he sat on the wall. Then Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And ALL the king's horses and ALL the kings men, they didn't put him together again."

Jeff and I made a big fuss over his recitation. Biscuit had a grin from ear to ear. Then he started to walk away.

He quickly turned, came back and said, "Hey, guys. The king's horses ... um, they have cowboys to ride them. The cowboys ride the king's horses."

Cleaning up and cleaning out: Biscuit and I were at my parents' house this weekend, so I thought it would be a good time to weed out some no-longer-played-with toys.

So I called Jeff and had him go to the big toy box in the living room. Then we began to discuss what needed to stay and what needed to go.

Jeff got everything put into a box and into the trunk of his car to take for charity.

Jeff picked Biscuit up at day care this evening. As they were leaving the day care parking lot, they hit a bump and from the trunk they heard, "Choo, choo! Choo, choo!" from this little train that makes noises when you shake it.

"Dad, Dad! I hear a train," Biscuit said. "There's a train somewhere."

"Yeah, I hear it, too," Jeff said.

Then, luckily for Jeff, a song Biscuit likes ("Jinger Bells") came on the radio and took his attention away from the train. But no worries, I'm sure Santa will replace that train with something really cool.

Mash up

2011-12-08T22:39:00.001-05:00

Have you heard of mashups? It's where singers take two different songs and put them together in one. They usually have some common words or themes.

Well my Biscuit baby did a little mashup of his own tonight, only his was in story form instead of song.

"Mom, you're the cowgirl," Biscuit said. "And Dad, you are the cowboy firefighter brother."

"What does that make you?" I asked him.

"I'm the firefighter cowboy policeman dad," he said.

"Wow," I said. "What does the firefighter cowboy policeman dad do?"

"He rides his firetruck horse," Biscuit said in a matter of fact tone that made me feel sorta stupid for asking.

It all made perfect sense to him, so we played along.

The pizza guy

2011-12-06T20:19:00.001-05:00

I've been wanting to get Biscuit more involved in the kitchen. I've read a bunch of articles about how picky eaters get less picky when they take part in food preparation. That's probably true, but I was mostly just looking for something fun that Biscuit and I could do together. Something I could teach him to do.

So I got a pre-made pizza crust, some sauce and cheese, and Biscuit and I whipped up a pizza this evening. It was nowhere near the best pizza we've ever had, but it didn't matter. He learned to do something new. He saw the process of creating something out of pieces and parts. And he and I had fun together.

Here's my little pizza guy in action:

A close encounter

2011-12-05T23:06:00.001-05:00

Do you know how many fire hydrants there are between our house and Biscuit's day care? Well I do!

52. There are 52 fire hydrants between our house and day care.

Do you know how I know that? Because we have to count them every morning.

And every morning, in the process of counting, Biscuit gives me some variation of the following information:

"Mom, firetrucks carry firefighters when they rescue somebody. Some fire trucks are hook and ladder trucks (or hook and wadder as he says it). Some other firetrucks are pump trucks. They carry water. Firefighters use water to put out fires. The pump trucks sends the water through the hose to put out the fire. Then when they run out of water, the firefighters patch the hose into the fire hydrant for more water."

"Sometimes firefighters rescue dogs. And sometimes they rescue people. They climb ladders to reach high up in the sky. The firefighters sleep at the fire station. And when the alarm rings, the firefighters slide down the pole, get their fire coats and their fire hats and their fire pants and their fire boots and they jump on the truck and they turn on the sirens and they go FAST to the fire."

We took Biscuit to the Festival of Lights downtown the other night. We didn't get there in time for the tree lighting, but it was still fun to walk around and hear all different kinds of music and people watch. But the best part for Biscuit happened as we walked from the parking lot to the park where the tree is.

We spotted a real-live fire truck.

Nobody was around except for a couple of police officers, and they seemed preoccupied with the one officer's motorcycle. So I asked Biscuit if he'd like to have his picture taken on the fire truck. The front bumper stuck way out, so Jeff scooped Biscuit up and set him on the front of the truck. That boy was truly amazed! (Jeff and Biscuit both!)

I took a couple of pictures, one from the front and one from the side, and as I got into position to take more, I glanced up and saw a group of firefighters running toward the truck.

"Um, we're going to have to borrow that truck for a minute," one of the guys yelled.

Jeff grabbed Biscuit, and we hurried to the sidewalk to get out of the way. As soon as Biscuit saw the firefighters getting into the truck, he clamped his hands over his ears. He knew what was coming next.

The engine turned over, the lights started flashing, the siren started wailing, and away they went.

Biscuit sat there for a couple of minutes with his ears still covered and his mouth hanging open. If 20 years from now I take pictures of Biscuit in his new firefighter uniform, I would not be the least surprised.

(Notice that he has a horse in each hand in these photos. I also wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years Biscuit was a rancher!)

Holiday decorating

2011-12-03T22:37:00.001-05:00

Have you ever heard the quote "I hate writing, but I love having written"? Well, I hate holiday decorating, but I love having decorated.

Before Biscuit got here, I always felt like holiday decorations were optional. But nowadays, it's all about creating memories. So like it or not, we doll the place up for holidays.

We have one tree for Biscuit and his ornaments and one tree for mine and Jeff's ornaments. I guess it's like a grown-up tree and a kid tree. And of course, Biscuit's tree is way more interesting because it's got photo ornaments of him, ornaments that people have given us and even a couple Biscuit has made.

Biscuit's tree is pre-lit and has a push-button switch that you turn on with your foot. And guess whose foot is strong enough to turn it on this year?

Biscuit was also able to help hang ornaments this year. He hung the first one by himself and was so proud he came running into the kitchen to tell Jeff and me about it. We had to stop what we were doing and go check it out.

And since Biscuit hung some of his ornaments, some branches have more than one ornament and some things are hanging on top of other things. And as fussy as I can be about things like that, I'm not moving a single ornament he placed.

Griffin's tree

A new ornament for this year handmade from a pod of okra.

My how he's changed.

Two ornaments, one branch.

New firetruck ornament. Biscuit desperately wants to touch it, but it's blown glass.

Party-planning purgatory

2011-12-01T21:54:00.001-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with some girlfriends this evening about kids' birthday parties.

I've never thought twice about inviting people to Biscuit's birthday parties who don't have kids of their own. Jeff and I have some friends who are planning to have kids but don't have them yet. And we also have friends who have chosen not to have children.

Either way, they're all part of Biscuit's life, so I want them included in the celebrations and milestones.

We didn't have an official party for Biscuit's first birthday. We just had a small family gathering. But for his second and third birthdays, we invited a bunch of people to our house. We don't do anything fancy -- I make ham biscuits and some chippy dippy sort of stuff. And I have cupcakes and cheese puffs for the kids.

As for activities, I don't really plan anything structured. We just bundle the kids up and let them play in the backyard. The adults do a lot of chatting and catching up, and the kids seem to have a good time, too. It's a cheap and easy party.

But tonight, we were talking about a friend whose son's birthday is in December -- a month during which the weather could be warm and sunny or cold and windy or even icy and snowy. She can't really plan anything for outside. So she ends up having to find party destinations. His first birthday party was at a children's museum here in town. This year it will be at one of the local bouncy-house-inflatable places.

So I guess what I realized is that although it's never been a question in my mind about inviting people with kids and people without for Biscuit's birthday parties, I have the luxury of an inexpensive party at my house, where everybody can just hang out and relax.

My friend, on the other hand, has to pay per person at the destination party sites, plus weigh whether her childless friends would even want to go to a place that's designed specifically for and caters to young children. It's a lot harder for the adults to relax and have a conversation when they are also trying to keep track of the young partygoers among all the other children.

It's a tough balance to strike because you don't want to leave anyone out, but at the same time, you don't want anyone to feel obligated to come to a party where it will be difficult for adults to have fun.

Who would've thought that a little kid's birthday could be so complicated?!?

Music at the ready

2011-11-30T22:42:00.001-05:00

I realize that in today's world of instant everything, when Biscuit asks for a song he wants to hear, I should have it right at my fingertips.

I have satellite radio in my car. I have a fancy mp3 player for occasional listening at work or when I'm having a solo lunch. I have the CDs and even cassette tapes that Jeff and I combined when we got married. And I love them all.

But even with all those musical options, when Biscuit asked me to play him a song tonight, I couldn't do it.

"Mom, can you pay 'Jinger Bells'?" Biscuit asked.

We were listening to Christmas music on a satellite channel, but it was some boy band singing a different song. You could hear bells in the background of the music, so I guess that's what triggered Biscuit's question.

"I don't have that song with me," I said to Biscuit.

"Yes you do, Mom. Yes you do," Biscuit said.

So I started singing "Jinger Bells."

"Not YOU singing it, Mom. I want to hear the other people singing it," Biscuit said to me.

Way to put down on your mother's singing, Little Man!

I finally convinced him that I couldn't play that song for him on the radio.

"Okay, Mom. I get it," Biscuit said. Then he sat there quietly for about 30 seconds. "Can you pay the song about that lady coming around the mountain?"

And the explanation began again.

Next it was, "Can you pay the song about the twinkle stars?"

"No. I can't play that one, either," I said to Biscuit.

And the explanation began again.

Speaking of songs, do you remember this one?

"This is the explanation that will never end. It just goes on and on my friend ..."

Name that tune

2011-11-29T22:23:00.001-05:00

Biscuit has learned to hum.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again ... it constantly amazes me how much kids have to learn. I mean, who thinks about the fact that kids have to learn how to hum?!?

Biscuit has been making cooing-singing-type noises since he got here. And like most babies, he has always had a reaction to music. When he was wee-tiny, I would sing an old reggae song to him (he never complained about my singing voice) ... "don't worry, about a thing, 'cause every little thing, gonna be all right."

When he was about 1 1/2 years old, he heard that song on TV. I hadn't sung it to him in a long time, so I was really surprised that he had a reaction to it. He stopped what he was doing, got really quiet and just stared at the TV until the song was over. I was amazed and really touched that he recognized it.

I secretly hope that Biscuit is musical. I would love it if he picked up an instrument or if he loved to sing. I have a piano and a guitar, and I allow Biscuit to play them (as witnessed by the many videos I've posted). Biscuit has a drum, a xylophone and several other little fun instruments to play. So if he is musically inclined or interested, I think we've given him a good start.

But hearing him humming around the house. Hearing him make music with his own little voice. It just makes me smile every single time. You can actually tell what the song is by the intonations in his voice.

And if you think about it, do people hum when they're in a bad mood? Hearing Biscuit hum makes me feel like he's happy.

I got my Mama a refrigerator magnet that says, "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Well, in this case, Mama is very, very happy. And I hope Biscuit is, too.

Out of the mouth of my babe

2011-11-28T22:21:00.001-05:00

A few recent comments from Biscuit:

Cowboy and ringmaster: "Mom, I'm a cowboy, and you're a ringmaster. Ringmasters are in charge. They say who gets to be on the floor. Cowboys have to go to the farm."

I don't ever want to discourage Biscuit from saying what he's thinking, but sometimes I want to look him in his pretty blue eyes and say, "What in the world are you talking about?!?"

Tacos: We had chicken tacos the other night, and Biscuit was excited.

"Mom, I like tacos. Tacos are good for everybody. Tacos make you feel really really better."

I sautee black beans and whole-kernel corn in olive oil and garlic to go on our tacos, and Biscuit seems to think that the black beans don't quite look like black beans.

"Mom, can I have some of that corn and blueberries on my taco?" Biscuit asked. I told him he could.

"Corn and blueberries are really, really good, Mom. I like lots of tacos."

Christmas songs: It's always amazing to me when I remember that children are not born knowing Christmas songs. They have to learn those, just like they have to learn everything else.

Biscuit's first Christmas song is "Jingle Bells." But that's not quite how he sings it.

"Mom, listen to me sing a Christmas song, 'Jinger bells, jinger bells, jinger all the way."

Good helper: Biscuit loves to help. Even taking a piece of paper to the trash can makes him very happy.

When I got home this evening, Biscuit came running to greet me.

"Mom. I'm a good helper," Biscuit said. "I help Dad with the laundry, and that was a nice thing for me to do."

"That WAS a nice thing for you to do," I said.

"Yeah, I'm a good helper, Mom. I do good things," Biscuit said.

He's a good helper, and he's humble, too!

He likes to be right: Like most people I know, Biscuit does not like to be wrong. Tonight, he actually argued with me.

"My horse has 10 legs, Mom," Biscuit said.

"No. All horses have 4 legs," I told him.

"No, Mom. My horse has 10 legs because he can run really fast," Biscuit said.

"Yes, your horse CAN run really fast, but he does it on 4 legs," I told Biscuit.

"My horse is the same as the 'brown cowboy' horses, and he's got 10 legs. I can count them, and nobody else can count my horse's legs because they're being quiet."

Wait a minute, did my 3-year-old son just tell me to shut up?!? Yes, I believe he did.

I asked Biscuit to bring over one of his horses, and we counted its legs. When I pointed to each leg and let Biscuit count, his total came to 4. But when Biscuit held the horse and counted, 6 extra legs made their way in there somehow.

"See, Mom? See? I told you. I told you that. My horse has 10 legs."

Oh, and just for good measure, throw in the fact that Biscuit can't pronounce his L's, which means he was arguing about "wegs."

Blessing the food: Friday night, we took my parents to a diner near our house. Jeff, Biscuit and I ordered breakfast food. Biscuit loves the silver dollar pancakes.

My parents both ordered off the dinner menu. They each got a small garden salad before their entrees came out.

"Can you say the blessing, Biscuit?" my Mama asked.

Biscuit looked around the table and had a bit of a frown on his face.

"There are no pancakes here, Grandmama. I don't have any pancakes," he said.

Biscuit thought he only said the blessing once he had his own food. I guess nobody else's food needs a prayer.

Say "Cheese!"

2011-11-28T21:22:00.001-05:00

Biscuit has had a camera shoved in his face since the day he arrived. But it seems like even with all the photos I take of him, there are a couple each year that I just fall completely in love with.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1 day old

2 months old

7 months old


11 months old

18 months old

2 years old

A visit with the Jolly Old Elf

2011-11-27T21:03:00.001-05:00

We took Biscuit to see Santa Claus on Friday evening. This was our third year seeing this Santa, and we just love him. He's so kind and very patient.

As we walked toward Santa's chair, Biscuit made his way behind me. He wanted no part of Santa.

But as we got closer, I squatted down and held onto Biscuit while Santa talked to him. Within 30 seconds, Biscuit was sitting on his lap, having a great conversation.

He put on his best fake smile (oh, how I hate the fake smile), and the ladies taking the pictures oohed and aahed over him. Biscuit looked way too grown up sitting up on Santa's lap. Some days I look at him and wonder where my baby went.

Anyway, he told Santa that he wanted some firefighters for Christmas. He also told Santa he would be a really good boy. We'll see about that!

Deputy Biscuit

2011-11-26T20:19:00.001-05:00

Watch out bad guys! Biscuit was deputized today.

In addition to his cowboy and firefighter careers, he has now added sheriff's deputy to the list.

A friend of ours swapped his own career from newspaper reporter to sheriff's deputy. I think his military background helped lead him in that direction, and I think he'll be great at it.

He got his car in August, and we've been trying to get Biscuit over there to check it out ever since then. Well, today was the time.

Here are a few pictures of Biscuit being deputized and checking out the car:

He had to promise to eat his veggies and keep his room clean.

That's where the bad guys go.

Roger that.

A new Nativity set

2011-11-23T22:04:00.001-05:00

I found a cute Nativity set for Biscuit that he can actually play with.

I told him about each person and animal. But then Biscuit took it into his own hands.

He took Baby Jesus on a ride on his bouncy horse. "Baby Jesus likes to ride my horse. He say giddyup and yeehaw."

Then the angel fell down and hurt his wings, so he had to go see Dr. Mom to get fixed. Dr. Mom also had to listen to the angel's heart.

A few of the animals had to leave the stable and go to a barn play set that Biscuit got for Christmas last year.

Then he said Mary was very hungry. "Did you give her something to eat?" I asked him.

"Yeah. Mary was hungry, so I gave her some hay. When you live in the barn, you eat hay," Biscuit said. Poor Mary!

Then Mary got a break. "Mom, Mom! Mary is going to a picnic. I'm going to put her in a box and take her to a picnic."

Biscuit just brought Mary back to the stable. Speaking in a high-pitched voice, Biscuit said, "Hi, guys, I'm back from my picnic."

And I'm not sure what happened after that, but the police showed up at the manger. There were two black-and-white patrol cars parked right out front.

Look at those sheep gossiping, trying to figure out what's going on!

Jeff's version of what the police officers said was, "It's SILENT night. Get it? That means keep down the noise. We don't want to have to come back out here again!"

That comment is why I've developed "The Look" that I give to Jeff when I don't want him sharing his smart aleck comments with our son!

Anyway, Biscuit has several books about the Nativity, so I think it will be fun when we can read the books and have the people and animals to play with. And I'll make sure to leave out the parts about Mary eating hay and the po-po showing up!

Lots and lots of lights

2011-11-22T23:01:00.001-05:00

A golf course about 45 minutes from where we live covers a good part of its grounds with lights for Christmas, and I've been waiting since Biscuit arrived for the right time to take him.

Tonight was the right time!

I looked online for the hours and found out about a "throwback" deal that was only $5 a car to get in. It's $15 on the weekends and $10 on regular weeknights. So we picked Biscuit up from day care, grabbed some car-friendly dinner food and headed over to take part in the special deal.

Biscuit didn't really get it at first, but as we kept going, he started seeing things like snowmen, rocking horses, Santa. That's when it got fun.

We stopped halfway through at the gift shop, which was in a renovated barn. Believe it or not, the prices at the gift shop and concession area are very reasonable.

They had a big bonfire out behind the gift shop, and for $1.25, you could buy a stick with five marshmallows threaded on it. Since roasted marshmallows are one of my favorite things ever, I got a stick. My freakish husband doesn't like marshmallows, so I splurged and bought him a cookie for $1. I should've told him he could eat marshmallows or nothing! But I guess that wouldn't really be in the Christmas spirit.

Biscuit was getting tired by the end of the display, and he was fast asleep within about five minutes of us exiting the park.

The evening definitely put me in the Christmas spirit.

Here are a few pictures of what we saw:

At the entrance gate.

Snowflakes.

Lots of pretty archways over the road.

Reflection in the water of a ship, lighthouse, whale and dragon.

MARSHMALLOWS!!!!!

Biscuit called these "spider web lights."

HORSE!!!

Nativity scene.

A dream for us all.

Birthday party #3

2011-11-21T22:19:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me when I mentioned Biscuit's stick horse, that I never wrote about Biscuit's third 3rd birthday party.

We went to my parents' house for a combo party weekend for my niece and Biscuit. Their birthdays are a week apart.

My niece turned 13. She had a sleepover that Friday night with eight of her friends. NINE 13-year-old girls! My brother and sister-in-law either love their daughter or they're truly gluttons for punishment!

While my niece was having her party, Biscuit got to open presents from his Grandmama and Papa. He got a stick horse that makes galloping and whinny noises and a pair of character rain boots. It's funny because his fire boots are technically rain boots, too, but Biscuit will argue with you about that. He says his fire boots are fire boots not rain boots. But his character boots ARE rain boots.

Jeff was covering a basketball game that night, and I took a picture of Biscuit riding his horse with Jeff's game in the background.

For this party, Biscuit got one of my Mama's chocolate pies. It's really not fair to show you a picture of it because you can't possibly imagine how good her chocolate pies are!

My niece and Biscuit both loved their birthday treat, and Biscuit was so worn out that he slept through almost all of our 2 1/2-hour trip home.

Birthday celebration 2011 ... complete!

Cowboy Biscuit rides the range

2011-11-21T21:09:00.001-05:00

"Mom, I'm going to ride the range, okay?" Biscuit said to me this evening. "I'm going to yah my horse and ride the range."

It's funny to me that Biscuit turns a lot of words into verbs.

He yahs his horse to get it to go. And when he's he's telling us a story about a bear chasing a horse, he says the bear "roars" the horse instead of the bear roaring AT the horse.

In other cowboy news ... Biscuit's favorite thing to watch right now is a very tame Western that Jeff has on DVD. The DVD's box has sepia-toned scenes from the movie on it. So when Biscuit wants to watch it, he asks Jeff for the "brown cowboy movie."

The cowboys in the brown cowboy movie ride the range, and they often wave their hats around as they get their horses moving. So Biscuit does the same thing.

And since he got a stick horse from his Grandmama for his birthday, he gallops everywhere he goes, whether he's on his horse or not.

Anyway, I got some pictures of him as he yahs his horse.

Now THESE are cowboy boots! A friend of Biscuit's handed these down to him. He swaps several times a night between these boots, his brown cowboy boots and his fire boots. Spoiled? Nah!

Thank-you-for

2011-11-20T21:35:00.001-05:00

"Mom, I want to be a firefighter for Thank-you-for," Biscuit said to me one morning this week."

"What is 'Thank-you-for,'" I asked him.

"Thank-you-for is a howiday when you say thank you for, um, things," Biscuit said.

"Do you mean Thanksgiving?" I asked him.

"Um, yes. Thanksgiving. I want to be a firefighter for Thanksgiving."

I tried to explain to him that you don't dress up for every holiday, only Halloween. He doesn't believe me.

I have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, so my parents come here for the holiday. They get here Thursday morning, then Mama and I cook, and we eat about 2 or so. Mama and I usually hit a couple of sales Thursday evening. Friday morning, I go to work. I finish up in time to meet everybody for lunch. Then we take Biscuit to see Santa Claus. Then the boys (my Daddy, Jeff and Biscuit) go home, and Mama and I hit some more sales.

We've had this tradition for a few years now, and I'm really getting used to it. So much so that when Mama asked what we were doing for Thanksgiving, I said, "What do you mean?" She claims she was teasing me, but I told her that I'm a creature of habit, and she can't go messing with my habits!

I've been wondering how Biscuit will respond to Santa this year. The first year he saw Santa, Biscuit was too little to really understand. He sat on Santa's lap and just couldn't seem to stop staring at him. As a matter of fact, the photo we got was of Biscuit and Santa looking at each other. Last year, the look on Biscuit's face was priceless. He was on the verge of tears, but couldn't quite let go enough to cry. On the picture we got, you could tell Biscuit's bottom lip was quivering. Poor little man.

Biscuit has already told me that Santa is bringing him some firefighters. We haven't discussed Santa with him, so I have no idea where he heard about it. Day care, I'm guessing.

Anyway, I guess we'll see how it goes Friday.

Random stuff

2011-11-18T22:51:00.001-05:00

Timing: Biscuit doesn't really get the time thing yet. I can tell him "just a minute" and to him, that might be next month.

For the past couple of weeks, Biscuit has been testing out some timing words. But he's been stuck on "last week."

"Biscuit, we're having muffins for breakfast. Do you want one?" I asked him.

"No. I ate muffins last week," Biscuit said.

"What about yogurt?" I asked.

"Nope," Biscuit said. "I had yogurt last week."

Hello: The phone rang at our house one evening this week. Caller ID said it was a telemarketer. We let Griffin answer the phone.

Griffin: Hello? (pronounced heh-yo)

Caller: Hi. Can I speak to Kim?

Griffin: Kim?

Caller: Yes, is Kim there?

Griffin: Is Kim there? Is Kim there?

The caller hung up. What a shame.

Healing powers: Biscuit stumbled over his feet and hit his ear on the wooden arm of my rocking chair. I was sitting in the chair, and I heard the thump when he hit it. His ear and the side of his neck flushed a bright red, and the shriek that came out of his mouth was ear-numbing.

I held Biscuit and rocked him. He asked me to kiss his ear, so I did.

A few minutes later, still crying, Biscuit slipped down off my lap and said, "I'm going to go into your room and calm down, Mom."

At first I didn't understand what he said. "You're going to my room to do what?" I asked him.

"I'm going to calm down, Mom. Dad, can you come with me to calm down?" Biscuit asked.

Jeff got up and went with Biscuit to our bedroom.

Jeff said no sooner than Biscuit had crossed the threshhold, he stopped crying, smiled and said, "I'm calm, Dad. I'm all calm down now."

Apparently, our bedroom has super healing powers that kick in just by walking through the door.

Part monkey: Biscuit's body is becoming able to do things that his brain doesn't know he shouldn't do. He can run and jump and climb and wreak havoc, all the time having no idea that he's not invincible.

Biscuit and Jeff were watching TV in our bedroom while I was watching TV in the living room. I heard Biscuit's feet pitter-pattering down the hall into the living room. He was behind my chair, so I couldn't see him. But he was awfully quiet, so I turned around to see what he was up to.

I found him standing ... STANDING ... on the piano stool, reaching for an "Adam-12" DVD box.

"GET DOWN FROM THERE!" I yelled at him. "You're going to fall and get hurt."

"I'm just getting the peace car movies for Dad and me," Biscuit said, in a sweet little voice with his hand turned up.

That child is going to break his neck!

On standby

2011-11-18T22:26:00.001-05:00

I lit the gas logs this evening, and I guess Biscuit wanted to make sure the fire stayed contained in the fire place. He moved his "fire station" and his biggest fire truck into a ready position.

Puzzle time

2011-11-16T22:56:00.001-05:00

This is a puzzle:

This is a puzzle turned into a fire station:

Jeff's brother, his wife and their two kids gave Biscuit this puzzle for his birthday. Educationally and physically, all the latches and locks are supposed to help improve fine motor skills. But more importantly, it's fun.

For some reason, Biscuit decided that when all the doors of the puzzle were open, it became his firet station. As you can see, he has parked a fire engine or rescue vehicle of some kind in every open door.

In his pwn words, "I'm ready to rescue everybody!"

3-year-old checkup

2011-11-15T22:53:00.001-05:00

Biscuit had his 3-year-old checkup Monday. The doctor said we have "a little superstar" on our hands. And who am I to disagree with a professional?!?

Biscuit weighs 29 pounds and is 36 inches tall. So now that the fair has come and gone, Biscuit is finally tall enough to ride the kiddie rides. He was only 35 1/2 inches tall in September, so he couldn't even ride the little cars that go around in a circle. Next year, I'm going to buy him an unlimited ticket and plunk him down on every kiddie ride in the place!

After his weigh-in, Biscuit had an eye exam. They have a chart with shapes on it for little kids. He answered circles, squares, hearts and triangles, then there was a shape that looked like the outline of a house. The nurse pointed at it and asked Biscuit what shape it was. Biscuit said, "That's an octagon."

Not exactly the answer the nurse was looking for, but at least she could tell that Biscuit realized it was a shape different than the one before it and the one after it. Toward the end of the test, Biscuit even made up his own shape. The nurse pointed to a different house shape, and Biscuit said it was a "circlegon." We realized at that point that Biscuit's attention span had reached its limit, and the nurse called it with 20/40 vision.

The nurse stepped out of the room for a minute, and when she came back, she had the tiniest blood pressure cuff I've ever seen. I explained to Biscuit that it was going to squeeze his arm and that the nurse was going to listen to his heart. He seemed a little skeptical, but the nurse did the whole thing so quickly, Biscuit didn't really have time to fret too much over it. It occurred to me that I had no idea what a normal blood pressure would be for a little kid. Now I know that Biscuit's 89 over 52 is well in the normal range for a 3-year-old.

Biscuit had to get his finger pricked to check his hemoglobin and iron levels. He cried a little bit over that, and I don't blame him. I'd rather somebody stick a needle straight in my arm than to prick my finger! He got a cute bandage and walked around for the rest of the day with his finger held up in the air.

The rest of Biscuit's checkup was a little different than previous ones. It was way more physical. He had to jump up and down. He had to touch his nose then touch the doctor's finger, then touch his nose, then touch the doctor's finger (which the doctor had moved to a different spot). He did that with each of his hands.

The floor tiles in the exam room were mostly white with a few scattered colored tiles. The doctor told Biscuit to walk over to the red tile and jump on it with both feet. Biscuit did it. Then the doctor asked him to do the same with the purple tile and the green tile. This was partly to see that Biscuit can recognize color and also to see how he would respond to multi-part instructions.

Then the doctor asked Biscuit a bunch of questions.

Doctor: What's your favorite color?

Biscuit: Red.

Doctor: What's your favorite food?

Biscuit: Pizza.

Doctor: What's your favorite animal?

Biscuit: A horse.

I told the doctor to ask Biscuit his favorite dinosaur. Biscuit said, "A dromeaosaurus because it's fast like a horse." The doctor laughed and said, "Holy cow." And I laughed and said, "I KNOW!"

Doctor: What do you do with a shovel?

Biscuit: You scoop up dirt with a shovel.

Doctor: What do you do with a hammer?

Biscuit: You tap with it (and he made a tapping motion).

Doctor: What do you put in the refrigerator?

Biscuit: Um, milk. Milk goes in the refrigerator.

Then the doctor handed Biscuit a small specimen cup with a lid on it and said, "Can you throw this to me?"

Biscuit grabbed the cup and drew it back to throw it. Then he dropped his hand by his side and turned around to look at me. Biscuit can throw squishy balls in the house, but he's not allowed to throw anything else. So when the doctor asked him to throw the cup, he had to check with me to see if it was okay. After I gave my blessing, Biscuit threw the cup with one hand then the other. Then he had to kick the cup with each foot.

Like I said, it was a very physical appointment.

Anyway, the doctor said Biscuit is a very bright boy and is in great physical shape. That boy makes me so proud just being his own little self.

Biscuit's big plan

2011-11-14T22:08:00.001-05:00

Biscuit spent his first night away from Jeff and me Saturday night. Biscuit was fine. Jeff was fine. I was a wee bit nervous.

I've spent the night away from Biscuit while he was at home with Jeff. And Jeff has spent the night away from Biscuit while Biscuit was home with me. But we've never both been away from him for that long.

I should say that Biscuit stayed with my brother, sister-in-law and their three kids. Not exactly like shipping him off to boarding school or summer camp, but even so, it was hard sending him home with someone who wasn't me.

Sunday morning, Biscuit went to church with his aunt, uncle and cousins. My sister-in-law teaches Sunday school to kids who are a bit older than Biscuit. The kids in the class were talking about heaven and hell, and one of the kids said something about hell having lots of fire.

My sweet Biscuit baby, who is a wannabe firefighter, stood up and said, "I'm a FIREFIGHTER! I'll put out that fire."

I know most parents have high hopes for their children, but MY son plans to extinguish the fires of hell. Top that!

Random stuff

2011-11-14T20:03:00.001-05:00

Some random things about Biscuit:

No hugs for Mama: Jeff and I can't hug if Biscuit is anywhere around. When he sees us hugging, he runs up and says, "I need to hug, too. I need to hug, too." We have to scoop him up and squeeze him in between us. Although I love hugs with just Jeff, I can't say our family hugs are a bad thing.

Costumes: Biscuit doesn't understand that not all holidays require costumes. He was so excited about being a firefighter for Halloween, he announced tonight that he wanted to be a firefighter for Thanksgiving and Christmas, too.

Wittle bites: Biscuit tries to eat like a polar bear. He chews twice (if that) and swallows. Every once in a while, he makes that gagging face that will scare you to death because you think he's choking. So we've been working with him, talking about the size of bites and how you have to chew a lot before you swallow your food.

So on a recent morning, Biscuit came up to me and made this declaration:

"Mom, Dad teached me that if you take BIG BITES, you choke. But if you take wittle bites, you won't choke. BIG BITES, you CHOOOOOOKE! But wittle bites, you don't choke."

I wish I could've gotten a video of him saying it because every time he said "big bites," he stood up really tall and said it in a loud voice. And every time he said "wittle bites," he bent over a little and whispered.

Full belly: Biscuit is just starting to understand that his food goes into his mouth but ends up in his belly. After breakfast one morning this week, he walked up to me and pulled up his shirt.

"I'm full, Mom. My belly is full," he said. Then he poked his belly button. "This hole is full, Mom. I'm all done because this hole is full."

Nekkid boy: Jeff and I swap off bath duties for Biscuit. Bathtime is usually pretty fun ... unless Biscuit is acting like the stereotypical toddler, of course.

We start with a few questions: bubbles or no bubbles, quick bath or long bath, train towel or dinosaur towel.

Then our little creature of habit has a few demands of his own. He must turn on the water. He must climb into the tub instead of having us lift him in the tub. When the bath is done, he must count to 10 before he pulls the plug (sometimes he has us count). And he must lie on his belly and watch the water swirl down the drain. After we dry him off, he takes off running through our bedroom, down the hall, through the living room, through the dining room, through the kitchen and back into our bedroom.

If I'm sitting in the living room when he runs through, Biscuit will stop beside me and stand there buck naked. I pretend for about 10 seconds that I don't notice anything. Then I'll gasp and say, "Oh my goodness! You don't have any clothes on! You better go get your clothes on before I get you!" Then the chase ensues.

Biscuit lets out an ear-numbing squeal and takes off running. He gets so tickled when we chase him, and I swear, I think he runs in mid-air for the first three or four steps.

Once he's back in the bedroom, we work toward getting him into his pajamas. You'd think getting pajamas on would be an easy task, but there's tickling and pretending that we don't know how his pajamas go on. There are lots of kisses and razzies blown on his belly. There's toe counting and enough giggling to erase any trace of a bad day.

And I bet you thought bathtime was all about getting that boy clean.

Happy birthday, Biscuit!

2011-11-09T22:46:00.001-05:00

Today is Biscuit's third birthday. And as cliche as it sounds, I really can't believe he's already 3.

I said Biscuit was having three parties for his birthday, but I forgot about his party at day care. We'll call it Party #2 1/2.

I understand why the policy is the way it is, but I was disappointed because I couldn't bake something to take for Biscuit's day care party. Any kind of treats or sweets you bring in have to be store-bought in their original packaging.

My Mama was a grade mother when I was in elementary school. Grade mothers were in charge of holiday parties, and if I'm remembering correctly, we would have one birthday party sometime during the school year to celebrate everybody's birthday. The Mamas would always get really creative with whatever they brought.

I remember one Easter party when Mama made cupcakes with green icing. She put three or four jellybeans on top of each cupcake, then bent a pipe cleaner from one side to the other to make each cupcake look like an Easter basket.

For Biscuit's birthday, I found some mini cupcakes at the grocery store. His teacher said as the class sang to him, Biscuit was singing along. Then they got to the part where they say his name, and she said Biscuit started looking around smiling at everybody, like "Yeah, it's my birthday!"

Today was Biscuit's last day in the 2-year-old class, and I'm pretty sad about it. We just really loved his teacher, and I think she loves him, too. As I was leaving day care this morning, Biscuit's teacher was holding him on her shoulder, rubbing his back and talking to him.

Biscuit accomplished so much in the 2-year-old class. I know he'll be learning all new things in the 3-year-old class, but I spent a lot of today thinking about how much Biscuit has changed over the past year. The first two years of his life were all about physical learning -- eating, talking, crawling, walking. But this past year was filled with brain power -- alphabet and letter sounds, Spanish, counting objects, types of animals (remember dromaeosaurus?), shapes and lots of other stuff. His little head has been like a sponge, seemingly soaking in everything he sees and hears.

Anyway, before I get too weepy, here's a glimpse of Biscuit so far:

Birthday party #2

2011-11-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

Biscuit's second 3rd birthday party was the biggest. We invited three of his friends and 11 of our friends.

What?!? He doesn't even have 11 friends yet. Plus, five of our friends are parents to the three friends of Biscuit's we invited.

A couple of month's ago, I started giving Biscuit choices about his party.

"Biscuit, for your birthday, would you rather have dinosaurs or horses?" I asked.

"Horses!" Biscuit said.

A few days later, "Biscuit, for your birthday, would you rather have trains or horses?" I asked.

"Horses!" Biscuit said.

A few days later, "Biscuit, for your birthday, would you rather have fire trucks or horses?" I asked.

"Horses!" Biscuit said.

So the search for horse decorations was on. We got a red cowboy hat for each of the boys. I found some plates with horses on them. And I made some cupcake picks with horses on them.

Biscuit really liked the cowboy hats. He asked to wear his cowboy boots to the party. He was looking good. But then about halfway through the party, my diva baby had a costume change. I went looking for him and found him in our bedroom changing his shoes and hat. He went in our bedroom as a cowboy and came out a firefighter.

We had chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing, and cheese doodles, of course. After they ate, we took the boys outside to play. After they burned off the sugar of the cupcakes, they came in for present time.

The present opening was a little hard because the first present Biscuit opened was a horse sticker book. Biscuit would've been fine stopping at that. I wish I had a picture of his face when we took the sticker book away so he could open other presents. It was pitiful with a tinge of confusion and anger, like "How could you DO such a thing?!?"

Biscuit got lots of games and books and toys, and after everyone left, I took him on a tour of all his presents. I explained what everything was, and we read the cards, complete with one that had a fire truck on the front.

Overall, it was a fun afternoon.

Here are a few pictures:

Sharp dressed man

2011-11-07T21:47:00.003-05:00

Jeff just finished giving Biscuit a bath. He combed Biscuit's hair, then had the following conversation:

Jeff: With your hair combed like that, you look sharp, boy.

Biscuit: No, Dad. I'm not sharp. Scissors are sharp. I'm not scissors.

Birthday party #1

2011-11-07T21:39:00.001-05:00

By the time we're done with Biscuit's birthday, he will have had three, count 'em three birthday parties.

My brother and his family came up this past weekend, and we threw a little family party Saturday afternoon. Biscuit's big party was Sunday afternoon. Three of his friends were there, and a handful of mine and Jeff's friends were able to come, too. Several of our friends don't have kids, and I think Biscuit's birthday is an excuse to get to peruse the toy department! I don't blame them. I was overjoyed when Biscuit unwrapped a board game that I loved as a kid.

The third party will be this weekend at my parents' house. Biscuit's birthday is Wednesday, and my brother's oldest daughter's birthday is next Wednesday. So we'll have a combo party for the two of them Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from Biscuit's first party.

Potty training? Check!

2011-11-05T23:12:00.001-04:00

About a month ago, Biscuit's day care teacher asked us if we thought Biscuit was ready to start potty training. It was a complicated question.

We had been working with Biscuit for a while, but he was showing no interest whatsoever. We read potty-related books to him. We let him accompany Jeff to the bathroom to get an idea of how things are done. We bought him big-boy underwear. A friend of ours gave him some character underwear, thinking it might be an encouragement. But Biscuit wasn't have any of it. A friend even gave us a potty training boot camp program. We used some of the techniques, but with Biscuit in day care, it just wasn't something that we could be consistent with. When you only have evenings and weekends to work on it, you lose the benefit of repetition.

And this probably makes me a horrible mother and person, but I had absolutely no desire to deal with the whole potty training thing. Maybe if Biscuit had been a girl, I wouldn't have been so freaked out by it. It wasn't the physical stuff that bothered me, it was that I felt completely clueless about how to go about the whole thing. And believe me, if we got one piece of advice, we got a million. And a lot of it was contradictory.

So Jeff and I talked about it and figured having help at day care was the way to go. Actually, we didn't even have to talk about it. I told Jeff that Biscuit's teacher offered, and we both looked at each other and said, "Okay."
Let me say that it was clear that Biscuit's teacher has done this before.

The first day, I dressed him in big-boy underwear, and before we could leave for day care, he was wet. I had to change his shirt, his pants, his underwear and even his socks. Once he was re-dressed, we headed off to day care with a backpack holding three complete changes of clothes.

When I picked Biscuit up that afternoon, he was wearing different clothes, and there were two dirty outfits in a bag in his backpack.

Biscuit has a small waist and hips, so finding pants that fit him right now has been quite a struggle. So after realizing that he had gone through four pairs of pants in that one day, I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to do laundry fast enough to keep up.

But thankfully, my worries were eased. The next day, Biscuit wore the same outfit all day. And it happened again the day after that. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Biscuit has had two accidents since then. He woke up wet from a nap at day care. His teacher said he was pretty upset. He kept apologizing, and she kept telling him that it was just an accident, and sometimes accidents happen. It has made me feel a lot better knowing that his teacher has the same no-pressure frame of mind that Jeff and I do.

We refer to the other accident as a puppy accident. You know how puppies pee when they get too excited? Well, as I was walking with Biscuit to the bathroom, Jeff got home from a long day at work. Biscuit was so excited to see him, he bypassed the bathroom and ran to Jeff.

Surprise, Dad!

There have been a couple of other situations that I won't go into detail about. I just chalked them up to the learning experience. They're funny stories when told in person, but I don't want to embarrass Biscuit.

Overall, we've been very lucky that Biscuit has tackled this whole thing so quickly. But I think the timing only seems quick. Biscuit can be very studious about learning new things. He tends to think on things for a while before he makes an effort to actually do anything. I think he likes to get all his ducks in a row before he starts putting what he's learned in to practice.

We were warned that even though Biscuit had conquered No. 1, that some kids had more problems with the No. 2 process. So I was very surprised when on the third day of his training, Biscuit told me he needed to do business. And he did.

Biscuit is very independent about the whole thing. He wants to do everything himself. Part of that is because of his teacher. She has a very methodical technique.

The boys have to lift up the seat, then pull down their pants and underwear. Then they lean forward and put their hands on the lifted seat. The lean puts them in the perfect position for good aim. That in itself is very helpful to the person who cleans the bathrooms at my house (which would be me). But then, and this is my favorite part, she teaches the boys that moms and sisters use the bathroom sitting down, so after they pee, the boys have to put the seat back down. She's training them right from the get-go.

I've heard that kids who are doing very well with being potty trained can revert for one reason or another. And if that happens with Biscuit, we'll figure it out.

But for now, we are rejoicing in our Biscuit baby's accomplishment. We are very proud of him, and he is very proud of himself, too.

He went into the bathroom the other day to pee, and when he was done, he said, "Mom, I'm very proud for me to pee in the toilet." (Which he says as "toi-wet.")

I actually teared up a little bit. I'm very proud for you, too," I said to him.

Out of the mouth of my babe

2011-11-03T20:52:00.000-04:00

A few things Biscuit has said recently:

What's your talent? Biscuit just watched a TV show about finding your talent. The show went off, and Biscuit came running up to me, struck a very hero-looking pose and said, "Hey, Mom, being a firefighter is my talent. I'm the BEST firefighter."

Bad throw: "That was your fault, Dad," Biscuit said as the football flew past his head.

"Why is that Dad's fault?" I asked.

"Because he just threw that ball BAD!" Biscuit said.

Big burger: "Mom, I have a big burger," Biscuit said to me on the way to the car this morning.

"A big burger?" I asked.

"Yeah, what should I do with it?" Biscuit asked.

"Um, I don't know. What do you WANT to do with it?" I asked him.

"I want to get it out of my nose, Mom," he said.

I turned around to see him pull that big burger out of his nose and show it to me. I am getting better at not being shocked or surprised when things like this happen.

"Can you just throw it down on the ground?" I asked him.

"Yep. Can I have a tissue, Mom?" he asked.

"Yes. You sure can. Let's get one from the car," I told him.

And with his nose fresh and clean, we were off to day care.

Rounding Turn 3

2011-11-02T23:32:00.001-04:00

Biscuit will be moving up to the 3-year-old class in a couple of weeks, and I'm not ready.

I love his 2-year-old class teacher, plus the 3-year-old class just sounds too grown up for my little man.

When you walk into the day care building, you're standing in the lobby. The kitchen is off to the right, and the office is off to the left. There's a door directly in front of you that leads to the main hallway of the building. The first room on the right is the infant room. That's where Biscuit started. He was 12 weeks old, and I cried every day for a week when I had to leave him there.

He learned how to sit, crawl, walk, eat baby food and say "Mama" in the infant room.

The next room on the right is the 1-year-old class. Been there, done that. Dealt with Biscuit getting bitten four times and him doing the biting twice. He also started calling his friends by name in the 1-year-old class. Well, he attemtped to call his friends by name.

Each time Biscuit has moved up, I've been so nervous. What if he doesn't like the class? What if I don't like the teacher? So far, I'm happy to say that my worries have been needless. We've loved his teachers, and Biscuit has learned so much.

The next room on the right is the 2-year-old class. In there, he has learned his alphabet, letter sounds and words that start with each letter. He has also learned colors, numbers, body parts and emotions in Spanish. I teased his teacher by telling her that she was on the verge of teaching him more Spanish than I remember from college.

Now, it's time for the 3-year-old class, and once again, I'm not ready.

The 3-year-old class is on the left side of the hallway. Biscuit has been visiting that class for a week or so. They move the kids to different classes gradually, so it's not much of a shock to them. They don't have a process like that for the parents!

When Biscuit leaves the 2-year-old class for good, he will cross the hall. That might not sound like a big deal, but so far, he's been working his way down the hall. Moving to the other side means that he'll be working his way toward the door. He'll be in the 3-year-old class, then the 4-year-old class, then kindergarten, then he'll graduate from college and leave home. I'M NOT READY!!!!!

The first day Biscuit visited in the 3-year-old class, he stayed for about 5 minutes then told the teacher he needed to go back to his class. They didn't pressure him to stay. They let him go back to the 2-year-old class. A couple of days ago, he was visiting the 3-year-old class, and they were ready to go outside. The teacher sent him back across the hallway to get his jacket. And what did Biscuit do? He sat down and started playing with blocks. The teacher in the 2-year-old room said, "Are you supposed to be in here?"

"Yes," Biscuit said. But this time, they sent him back to the 3-year-old class. Luckily, he didn't put up a fuss. Some of his friends are already in the 3-year-old class, having moved there around their birthdays, so I think that helps.

This morning, when I took Biscuit to day care, something surprising happened. We were in the 2-year-old class for a couple of minutes, and I was getting ready to leave. Biscuit wouldn't let go of my hand. I finally leaned down and asked him what was wrong.

"I want to go in my other room," he said. He wanted to go to the 3-year-old room. Of course I was excited. But I also had this sad little part of me that wanted to tell him he wasn't big enough to be in the 3-year-old class.

Biscuit and I will be just fine with this change. He's well on his way already. I'm just taking a little longer to get there.