Comic books, meerkats and dinosaurs

A friend of mine was talking today about Free Comic Book Day, which was a couple of Saturdays ago. Comic book stores give away tons of comic books, including some for little kids, and they have costumed characters, people doing sketches and other stuff.

The most popular comic book store here planned an event at their store and an event at the science center. Biscuit has been getting into super heroes lately, so when we found out about the event at the science center, we decided to go. The only problem was that it was the morning we were supposed to leave for vacation.

I told Biscuit about it and asked if he'd like to go for a little while before we left on our trip. And of course, when he found out there would be heroes there in costume, he was all excited to go.

My friend and her husband went to the comic book store that day, and they said she got some comic books for kids that they thought Biscuit might like.

"Do you know if the comics from the store are any different from the ones they gave away at the science center?" I asked her. "We took Biscuit there."

"I didn't realize you went to the science center event," she said.

"Didn't you see the pictures I posted?" I asked. And then it occurred to me that I never posted any pictures.

So even though it's a couple of weeks late, here are some pictures:

You'd think that among all the worlds Thor
can travel to, he would've found a nicer wig.

Batman, on the other hand, was really cool looking.

Cat Woman and Poison Ivy are villains, so Biscuit
wasn't happy about having his picture taken with them.

I told Jeff he should've said to this
Storm Trooper, "I thought you'd be bigger."

After we saw the super heroes and villains, we went around to see
the animals. Biscuit and this meerkat were staring at each other.

This is a ring-tailed lemur.

This is a red-ruffed lemur.

Don't look now, Biscuit, but I think
that T-rex wants to have you for lunch!

This cool plane would rock back and forth as Biscuit moved the controls.

The lobby of the science center.

Looking back

Sometimes I get nostalgic, and I look back at previous blog posts. Some of them make me laugh, and some of the make me cry. But either way, it's fun.

So when I ran up on this video, I knew I'd have to share it. It was originally posted in May 2010. Biscuit was learning all kinds of words, and one of his favorites was "baby."

But for some reason, he always said it with a funny growl. I'm not sure why, but it was very funny.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I have no explanation for why he's doing this voice, but it's quite funny.

Out of the mouth of my babe

A few things Biscuit has said recently:



Either way, it sounds like fun: We were at my parents' house when my brother's birthday rolled around. We told him we'd do whatever he wanted to do on that day.

He made the plan and told us when we were leaving. As I was helping Biscuit get dressed, he asked where we were going. He didn't quite understand what I said.

"Did you say we were going to watch dragon racing?!" Biscuit asked with a very surprised look on his face. "I thought you said dragons were make believe."

"Dragons are make believe, baby," I told him. "We're going to watch DRAG racing."

"OH! DRAG racing," Biscuit said smiling.

Here are a few pictures from the races:

With his earplugs firmly in place, Biscuit enjoys a snack on the blanket.

This is only a test: Biscuit and I were watching a cartoon show where the characters were singing a song to remember the names of the planets.

Just to see how much he knows about the planets, I started asking him questions.

"Hey. What's the biggest planet?" I asked Biscuit.

"The biggest planet is Jupiter, Mom," Biscuit said. And there was no question in his voice. He said it like it was an absolute fact. Which it is, but I wasn't expecting him to be so sure about his answer.

"Which one has rings?" I asked him.

"Saturn has rings," Biscuit said.

"Which one do we live on?" I asked him.

"We live on Earth," Biscuit said.

"What color is Mars?" I asked him.

"Hmmm. I don't know that one, Mom," Biscuit said. "Can you tell me?"

"I'll give you a hint," I told him. "It's your favorite color."

"It's red?" Biscuit asked.

"Yep," I said. "It's red." Biscuit just smiled.

The next day, Biscuit and I were talking about dinosaurs. (Don't ask me how we got onto the topic of dinosaurs because with boys, a conversation about ANYthing can wind up being about dinosaurs!).

Back when I was a kid, we only knew about several dinosaurs -- T-rex, brontosaurus, pterodactyl, stegosaurus, etc. But Biscuit started naming off all the dinosaurs he knows, and I was having to look them up on the Internet to see if he was just making them up.

Imagine my surprise when I found out he wasn't!

He talked about deinoychus, triceratops, dromaeosaurus (this one has been Biscuit's favorite for a long, long time because he can run as fast as a horse), spinosaurus, diplodocus, brachiosaurus and corythosaurus. 

He said the names of these dinosaurs as easily as I can say "apple." I had a hard time trying to figure out how to spell them when I looked them up.

Who makes more money -- an astronaut or a paleontologist?

Charleston, Part 2

When I go to the beach, I want my room to have an oceanfront balcony. My reasons being that 1. I get sunburned by just walking out and looking at the sun, and 2. the older I get, the more often I like to just sit and watch when I'm on vacation.

Jeff and I got checked into our room, and after dropping our bags, the first thing we did was walk out onto the balcony to check out our view.

We weren't disappointed.

Our room had a kitchenette, so we got food at the grocery store for breakfast and lunch. And that meant that every day at breakfast and lunch, you'd find us on our balcony sitting at the table. Cheerios always taste better when you can hear the ocean waves!

It was warm enough to see lots of activity. There were sunbathers, little kids splashing in the water and building castles in the sand, kiteboarders, paddleboarders, kite flyers and more.

Except for my fear of water, this looks like a lot of fun. They
could go any way they wanted to go just by moving the kite.

This guy would take sharp turns and make big waves.

This man was flying two sets of kites. All the kites on the left were hooked
together in a vertical row, and all the ones on the right were hooked together.
But this one guy could make each group swoop and swirl all around.

There was also plenty of birdwatching.

Jeff loves his binoculars at the beach. He forgot to take his big ones, but he finally bought a small pair to leave in the car, and that's what he used at the beach.

He didn't really need the binoculars, though, because the birds hung out (even hovered) right near our balcony. Check out this gull. It was hard to take video of him, but you can see how he just hovered there, right near us.

Jeff checked out plenty of pelicans, too.

We got a treat one morning. We watched a paddleboarder row by, and then he suddenly stopped and started looking out into the ocean. It took us a minute to figure it out, but there was a whole pod of dolphins playing just off shore. The water couldn't have been more than 6 feet deep where they were playing. We had seen people wading almost that far out.

The ocean floor is really shallow for a pretty good distance where we were, so we were surprised at how close in the dolphins were swimming and playing.

We watched them for probably an hour before they moved on.

I wish I had an email address for this paddleboarder. I bet he would like to have a copy of this photo. He and the dolphin just looked at each other for several seconds.

From 6:30 to 8:30 a.m., dogs can run on the beach without leashes. So one morning, I had a great dilemma. There were dogs playing on one end of the beach, the beautiful ocean in the middle and some firefighters playing touch football on the other end of the beach. Where should I focus my attention? Decisions, decisions!

This black lab fetched about a million tennis balls from the surf.

I guess if you have to have a morning workout,
flag football on the beach would be quite nice.

Jeff and I worked from 5 p.m. to midnight for many years, and we always hated when housekeeping came by at hotels. Our sleeping hours were usually from 4 a.m. to noon, and the housekeeping staff would show up about 10 or 10:30 a.m. Imagine if someone woke you up two hours before you were supposed to get up. And trying to get checked out by 11 a.m. on the last day was always a huge chore.

Nowadays, with both of us working the day shift, we can make the 11 a.m. checkout time with no problem. And even with what we now call "sleeping late," we were awake every morning before housekeeping came by knocking.

I wasn't awake for sunrise a single day on our trip, but I did get this picture not too long after the sun came up.

The time we spent at the ocean was relaxing and fun, and I didn't get sunburned. I can't wait 'til we can go back again.

Out of the mouth of my husband

When Jeff and I went on our trip, we thought it would be fun to leave a little present for Biscuit for each day we were gone.

Mama gave him one each day, and when I talked to him the first day, he was very excited.

"Mom, I got a present from you and Dad," Biscuit said.

"Good! I'm glad you liked it," I said. "What was your present?"

"It's a surprise, Mom," Biscuit said. "I can't tell you."

"But Dad and I bought the presents for you," I explained. "So I know what they are. I just wanted to see which one you opened first."

"Mom, it's a surprise! I can't tell you," Biscuit said. "When do you come home?"

"We'll be back at Grandmama's on Friday," I told him.

"Then I will tell you about my surprises Friday," Biscuit said.

Anyway, one of the toys was a knight with a horse. He has removable armor and a joust.

We've been home for almost a week now, and some of the toys Biscuit got are still packed in his toy bag.

So I said to Jeff last night, "Well it's nice to know that the boy is enjoying his toys. They're still packed in his toy bag."

Jeff said, "Well, I know the knight has been out of that bag because he and E. coli had a fight last night."

I looked at Jeff, then just burst into hysterical laughter.

"Do you realize what you just said?" I asked Jeff. Of course, he was the one who decided to name that creature E. coli.

So I asked Biscuit this morning if Knight and E. coli were fighting last night.

"Yes!" Biscuit said. "E. coli was supposed to make sure everyone in the barn was safe, but he was not doing a good job. So Jessie went to check on the animals, and she fussed at E. coli for not taking good care of the animals. Then E. coli locked Jessie in the barn, and the knight went to help get her out. Then the knight and E. coli started fighting! So Jessie and the knight locked E. coli in the barn."

No wonder the knight and E. coli had a fight!

Charleston, Part 1

About 6 or 7 years ago, I took Jeff to Charleston. We hit all the touristy highlights and ate at all the well-known restaurants. We had a lot of fun and said we'd definitely go back sometime.

We had hoped to take a big, fancy trip for our 10th anniversary, but then we decided to redo our master bathroom. That sort of deflated our big plans, but we came up with a spending amount that was reasonable, and I set about finding us somewhere else to go.

I knew I wanted to go to a beach, and I knew it would need to be within driving distance. And I also knew we'd need to drop Biscuit off at my parents' house on the way.

 So Charleston was the place.

Charleston is on a peninsula with a river on each side and the harbor at the bottom. It has a busy port with lots of ships coming in and out. We wanted an ocean view, so we booked an oceanfront room on Isle of Palms, about 20 minutes from downtown Charleston.

I usually do the event planning for our trips, but we decided that for this trip, we'd play it by ear. I planned two things for the whole week -- a walking tour and a dinner with my best childhood friend, which were both set for Tuesday.

The walking tour was led by a former photojournalist who started her own event photography business. When she and her family went on vacation to a big theme park, her family didn't allow her to take her camera. So she told her husband that they were going to stop at every single one of the roaming photographers in the park AND buy the photos they took.

And that gave her the idea for her tour business.

Her family got off the boat in Charleston in the mid-1700s, and she has her camera skills. So she combined the two with a 90-minute walking tour on which she takes pictures of her customers. She bases the tour around her family's history and how the big historical events in Charleston affected them. I've done many tours there, but I learned a good handful of things I had never known before.

One of her stories was about her great-great-great grandmother. Now, you never know if these stories have been, shall we say, enhanced through the years, but even so, this was a good one.

Her great-great-great grandmother lived down near the harbor during the Revolutionary War. A British officer came up to talk to her. She said to him, "Perhaps you've met my fiance," and she gave his name. The British soldier said, "No, I haven't had the pleasure." To which she replied, "Well, if you should find yourself fleeing Charleston in a hurry, take a glance over your shoulder, and you'll be able to make his acquaintance."

At one point during the tour, I decided to make sure our guide was truly from Charleston. This probably wasn't very nice of me, but I found out that she is indeed a Charlestonian.

She had just told us about a man who taught himself how to do ironwork like the swirls and curls you see on the gates and fences around Charleston. He wanted to be able to make repairs to older ironwork, and he wanted to be able to make new pieces that looked old. So I just casually mentioned to her that some of the art students in Savannah had created sterling silver pendants of some of the prettier fencework there. She just looked at me for a second and said, "Uh-hunh," and started telling another story about her family.

I looked at Jeff and winked. He didn't get it at the time, but later, I told him, "People from Charleston don't like people from Savannah. They think Savannah is beneath them."

Jeff said, "You knew that and poked her anyway?"

"Yes, I did," I told him. "I just had to make sure she was the real deal."

The tour ended up being Jeff and me and one other couple, so the tour lady took lots of pictures of us.

As part of the tour package, you get downloads of two photos. Then, of course, you can buy others. We had 27 photos to choose from. I narrowed ours down to seven and had already spotted my two favorites. When Jeff looked through them, he picked the same two favorites.

Here are our two favorite photos:

The church in the background is St. Philip's.
It's the oldest church in Charleston.

Our tour took us down several back alleys
to see walls and iron gates and fences.

He's always on my mind

Biscuit feels completely comfortable at my parents' house. He walks in like he owns the place, and makes himself right at home.

So I was a little worried when Jeff and I got ready to leave on our anniversary trip last Monday morning, and Biscuit was a little fretful.

Biscuit was going to spend the night with my brother and his family Monday night because Mama had an early doctor's appointment Tuesday. Then he was going to spend the rest of the nights at Mama's. Well, I apparently didn't make the plan completely clear to Biscuit.

"Mom, where will I sleep tonight?" Biscuit asked.

"Here's how it's going to go," I told him. "This afternoon, your aunt will come and pick you up. Then tonight, you'll stay at your aunt and uncle's house. Tomorrow afternoon, Grandmama will pick you up, and you'll spend the rest of the time at her house. Got it?"

"I go to their house tonight, then I stay with Grandmama the rest of the time?" Biscuit asked.

"Yes," I told him. "That's the plan."

Grandmama and Papa support Biscuit and his imagination. They play restaurant with him. They evacuate when Firefighter Biscuit tells them they should. My Daddy plays guitar and sings with Biscuit.

And since Biscuit has been into stagecoaches and wagons lately, they didn't think twice about helping hook up his "horses" to his stagecoach (aka rocking chair) in the living room.

After Biscuit knew the plan, he didn't seem bothered at all that Jeff and I were leaving. It makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy that he's so independent and sad that he didn't care that I was leaving. But I guess if I'm truthful, I'd always rather him be independent than clingy.

Jeff and I went to Charleston, S.C., for our trip. I booked us a hotel room on the beach, thinking that since I showed Jeff the highlights of Charleston on a trip a few years ago, we  would have the freedom to either drive into town or stick close to the ocean. Two fine choices, I must say.

But Biscuit was never far from my mind. It seemed like everywhere we looked, we were seeing things that reminded us of him. And of course, I took pictures of some of those things.

I talked to Biscuit on the phone every day, but he's not much for chatting that way. He and I would trade a couple of sentences, then he would say, "Okay. Well, I love you. Bye." And that was that.

When we got back to Mama's on Friday evening, I could tell Biscuit had missed me -- at least a little bit. He was stuck to me the rest of the evening. Biscuit is a hands-on, lovey-dovey boy, anyway, but I couldn't begin to tell you how many kisses I got Friday evening.

Here are some pictures of things that reminded me of Biscuit:

Charleston is a port town, so we saw lots of ships from the balcony of our hotel.

Kiteboarders zoomed back and forth in front of our hotel.

We went to see the baseball teamers play Thursday evening.

Jeff stands with a cannon at the edge of Charleston Harbor.

A Charleston police car.

A Coast Guard rescue helicopter.

And of course, a firetruck.

Bathtime

My plan was to share some pictures and stories from our vacation, but by the time I made dinner and washed a load of laundry, I didn't have the gumption to tackle it.

So in the meantime, I'm going to share a video of Biscuit at bathtime.

Don't worry. There's no nekkid-ity.

Biscuit sings in the bathtub. And he sings LOUDLY! Usually it's Christmas songs, but tonight, he sang another song.

I don't know the official name of it, but it's a version of an old song done by the crooners. Except instead of singing the whole song, we sing a portion of it and make animal noises.

It goes:
"Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar. Or be better off than you are. Or would you rather be a ..."

At the end, you add the name of an animal, then you make whatever noise the animal makes.

Like ... Would you like to swing on a star. Carry moonbeams home in a jar. Or be better off than you are. Or would you rather be a duck? Quaaaack. Quaaaack.

Here's Biscuit singing at bathtime:

10 years and counting

Yesterday was mine and Jeff's 10th wedding anniversary, and neither of us can believe it's been that long.

Jeff and I met at the paper, became fast friends, then realized there was something else there. And I was the brave one who said so! And of course I don't let Jeff forget that!

We got engaged on a golf course and got married at the beach. And we have some great stories to tell about our time together.

Last year, we had talked about taking a big trip, just the two of us. Then we decided to renovate our master bathroom. That cut our trip budget back, but we still wanted to spend some time together for the occasion.

So this afternoon, we're driving to Mama's house. Then Monday morning, Jeff and I are going to the beach, just the two of us. We have an oceanfront room with a balcony, and we both decided that since we've seen all the touristy things around that area, we are going to play the whole trip by ear. As I write this, I can't even remember the name of our hotel (I guess I should write it down somewhere so we'll know where the heck we're going Monday morning!).

Biscuit is never upset when we leave him at Mama's house. He loves to stay there with Grandmama and Papa and his aunt, uncle and cousins. And it's nice for Jeff and me because we don't have to worry about leaving him.

So I'm not sure how much or even if I'll post next week, but meanwhile, here are a few pictures from our wedding ... 10 whole years ago.

And just so you know, Biscuit says that if he had been born, he would've wanted us to invite him to our wedding.

May 3, 2003 - It was cold and windy. Not quite what
we had in mind, but we did what we went there to do!

I shouldn't share this much detail, but I hadn't planned on wearing
a big ol' wedding dress. But Mama said she wanted me
to have one. We found this one for a little over $200 on the
sale rack at the same store where I got my first prom dress.

The day Jeff bought his suit, he stopped to get gas, but the pump
wouldn't work. He got about $4 worth of gas, then went to another
gas station. Then we went to buy his suit. Then we went out for lunch.
By the time he got home, Jeff had a message from his
credit card company asking if someone had stolen his card.

Our cake came from a grocery store bakery. The woman cut a sheet cake in
half and stacked it. She said she wasn't supposed to do that, but she couldn't
stand the thought of us having a sheet cake as our wedding cake. She said,
"It'll be kind of expensive, though. It's going to be at least $35."
Are you kidding me? That's a bargain!

Out of the mouth of my babe

A few things Biscuit has said recently:

Planning ahead: Sometimes Biscuit tells me things that he wants to do a really long time in advance. And most of the time, he doesn't change his mind. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a Biscuit thing, so there you go.

Last year in early August, he told me that he wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween, and he wanted to have a firefighter-themed birthday. Between August and October, he never changed his mind about his Halloween costume. And between August and November, he never changed his mind about his birthday party.

Biscuit and I walked to the mailbox the other evening, and on the way back, Biscuit said, "Mom, I want to have an 'Adam-12' birthday party this year."

I'm guessing this was spurred by a birthday party invitation he got from a little girl at his day care. She's having a Cinderella party, but "Cinderella parties are for girls, Mom."

If November rolls around, and Biscuit still wants an "Adam-12" birthday party, that's what we'll do. And part of the reason I'm writing this down now is that I'm interested to see if he does remember it.

Air travel: We're going on vacation next week, so we're trying to get the laundry done tonight. Laundry tonight, packing tomorrow night, heading out Saturday.

The tall plastic hamper that Jeff and I use was in the kitchen floor (It was on it's way back to our bedroom, but I got distracted.), and Biscuit decided to get creative with it.

He crawled inside and said he was an airplane pilot.

"Passengers, this is your pilot speaking," Biscuit announced. "Fasten your seatbelts. We are ready for takeoff."

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"Um, I'm going to China," Biscuit said.

About 30 seconds went by, then Biscuit looked up and said, "Mom, I'm not going to China for real. I'm just pretending."

It's a good thing he told me. Otherwise, I might be packing a bag right now.