Aquarium

So last Sunday we decided to visit the new aquarium that just opened in KC.  I highly recommend it.  We had a lot of fun.  Also, I recommend that you buy your tickets in advance online.  They are cheaper and you get to go to the front of the line to pick them up (not have to wait in line with all the people there to purchase tickets).  The only disadvantage is you have to plan the day and time you're going to go and buy your tickets about a week in advance.  You can also buy a combo ticket for the aquarium and legoland but since Elijah is still a bit too small for legoland, we just did aquarium this time.  I tried to get some good pictures but 1) they don't like you to use a flash since it supposedly bothers the fish (although many people were using them and the fish didn't seem to care) and 2) my camera battery died halfway through.  So I scraped together the pictures we took on my camera and the ones Mike's mom took and this is the best we got.  Please forgive all the obscene shots of my cleavage.  I can't really help it anymore.

At the petting pool

Touching a starfish

I wish that I had gotten a picture of him with the jellyfish because when he saw them he started calling them bubbles.  And there was a big tank with stingrays and eels that he was laughing at, but alas by that time the camera battery had died.

What a morning!

So today was supposed to be nice outside and on the way home from the aquarium on Sunday (which I fully intend to blog about, I just need to get copies of the pictures Mike's mom took) I saw a park at 70th and Holmes that I thought looked a bit more smaller-kid-friendly so I thought we'd try it this morning.  Brilliant idea for a woman who weighs 9000 pounds and can barely walk up and down the 5 steps in her split-level home without feeling like she needs a shower and nap and a back rub, right?

First we got up and got moving kind of late.  Normally Sesame Street comes on at 9 and I let him watch it.  Today I was planning to skip it so we could head to the park and get back in time for lunch at 11 but since we were running late, Sesame Street got turned on and then I hated to stop it in the middle for him.  So instead I had another brilliant idea to pack a lunch and take it with us to the park.  So of course as I'm attempting to cut up fruit and stuff to take with us, Elijah is throwing all sorts of things around the kitchen making more mess for me to clean up.

Finally, the lunch is packed and I run upstairs to use the bathroom before we go since baby #2 likes to headbutt my bladder all the time.  Now, I must inform you of Elijah's latest escapade.  He likes to climb up in his booster seat and try to click the snaps that hold him in it, which is fine with me as long as he sits down to do it.  He does not always obey this rule.  So while I'm upstairs I suddenly hear a loud bang and he starts crying.  So I hurry to pull my pants up and run downstairs to find that he has tangled his foot in the seat snaps and is hanging over the side of the chair.  So I'm trying to unsnap it but his foot is right against the snap so it's making it impossible to get my fingers around it.  Just as I'm considering getting a pair of scissors and just cutting the stupid thing, it finally unsnaps and he is free.  Hugs and admonishments of "that's why Mommy tells you to sit down in the chair, not because she's trying to spoil your fun" followed, but of course by that time I'm insanely frazzled and wondering if the park is even worth all this.

We did finally make it to the park and had lots of fun.

 He was tentative about the slide at first.

I tried to get a picture of it, but this was the best I got.  When we first got there I touched the steps with my hand to make sure the sun hadn't made them too hot and I must have said "are the steps hot?" or something like that because Elijah began saying "hot!" and blowing on the steps.  Yes, that's right, I said blowing, you didn't read that wrong and it's not a typo.  The reason is when we give him food that is too hot, Mike blows on it to cool it off, so now he thinks everything that is "hot" needs to be blown on and any time you blow on something, it must be because it's hot.

Finally gave the slide a try and loved it!

A little after 11 we sat down to eat lunch.  One really nice thing about this park is that they have these little benches for the kiddos under the jungle gym thing.  And since I'm 3 feet tall, I was able to sit under there with him. (I'm not really 3 feet tall, I'm just short.)  So we sat in the shade and ate lunch.

After that we played some more and tried out the swings.  Elijah's still a bit tentative on the swings.  I'm not really sure why.  He likes it when he first gets in and then wants to get out pretty quickly.  Maybe it's because it's too passive for him to just sit there and be pushed.  He likes to move around a lot.

I was planning to stay until noon and then head back and put him down for nap, but after awhile he started getting a bit red in the face.  I put bug repellant lotion on him before we left but not sunscreen because when we drove by the park the other day, it looked like it was all in the shade.  Well not so today.  And I hadn't brought any sunscreen with us.  (I know, I should win mother of the year, eh?)  So once he started to look red, I decided we'd better go home before he got really burned.  I did remember to bring water for us to drink, though, so there's that at least.

It wasn't quite time for nap when we got back but finally naptime arrived and he's asleep and now I've taken a shower and blogged and I think it's time to go pass out on the couch for an hour.  Toodles.

Elijah Language 101

Here are the few words Elijah says that I understand.  He talks a lot but I can only understand a few words.

"ah!" = hot
"dah-zie" = doggie
"dah" = Dad/Dada/Daddy
Mama
"bah" = ball
"Buh-boo" = bubble
"aye!" = Hi!
"cah" = car
poo poo (of course we learned that one)

Nursery Art Project

So today I managed to get together the stuff to do the final art project for the new baby's nursery.  I was going to wait until this week to work on it but then when Elijah went down for nap I had some free time so I started working on it and managed to get it all finished.  Since I already had paint leftover from when we did the wall stenciling, I just had to buy three blank canvases and some paintbrushes.

The first thing I did was sketch the pictures on the canvases in pencil.  The nice thing about this is even if it looks crappy and I can't erase it completely, it's not a big deal because I'm going to paint over everything.  Here are two of the sketches I did.  I forgot to take a picture of the stoplight in sketch mode.

They're kind of hard to see since it's just pencil.  I blocked the flash a bit in the second one to make it a bit easier to see but then it came out looking orange.

Lest you think I am some kind of real artist, I found pictures online that I modeled the car and truck after and the stoplight was merely a matter of a ruler and the inside of a roll of painter's tape to make the lights.  After I got the sketches how I wanted, the painting began.

That took the most time but since these are going up in a nursery, they didn't need to look super precise and fancy, which is good because I am not an artist/painter.  95% of the artwork in my house was done by my dad (who actually IS a good painter) and the few pieces that aren't came from like Kohls.  Anyway, it turned out pretty good, I think  Here are close ups of the completed pieces on the wall.

I added the "Beep! Beep!" and "Honk! Honk!" last with a sharpie.  Now that wall doesn't look so bare.

Another Day at the Park

I've been looking for a park to take Elijah to now that the weather is a bit nicer.  There is a playground at the elementary school that is like literally 20 steps from my house, but there are no baby swings and the jungle gym is really designed for older kids (i.e. there are no easy up steps and the slides are really long and steep).  So I've been trying to find another one and so far my best find has been this little park at 69th and Ward Parkway.  So we went there today to check it out.

They had baby swings but Elijah doesn't quite get that he's supposed to sit towards the back of the swing so we only swing for a little while before he starts to protest.

They had a little toy on the jungle gym that allows you to play notes.  He had fun banging on them a bit.

There were some other kids there and when they stopped to have a snack, we decided to sit down and eat some goldfish, too.  I felt kind of bad because he was sitting over on the bench all by himself (except for me, of course).  It was just kind of sad that he was all alone while the other kids were playing together.  Of course, they were older so I don't know that he could have played with them much anyway.  But it makes me wish I could find a playgroup to take him to.  I have looked but so far haven't had much luck.

Anyway, we don't want to end on a sour note so I'll say that it was a pretty fun trip to the park.  He actually tried sliding down one of the smaller slides.  I didn't get any pictures of that because I had to help him a lot with it so I couldn't have my hands free to snap pictures.  I think he would have liked to stay longer but after an hour, his 900 pound mommy was completely worn out so we headed home.