Archive for November, 2005

...jiggity jog. (We've been reading lots of nursery rhymes lately.) We're back home, after spending Monday morning visiting in Starkville, and Monday night and Tuesday back in Memphis again. Visiting everybody was lots of fun, and the whole week on the road was one of the best holiday trips we can remember… mostly because we went through the entire trip without anyone coming down with a cold, like the last four or five times.

We went to the mall in Memphis with Granny Tuesday morning, and James and I had a great time roaming around while the girls shopped. We explored the Santa exhibit while he was away at lunch, smelled the wares at the Yankee Candle store, watched lava lamps undulate in the Spencer's Gifts window, and misidentified fashion model headshots at trendy clothing stores as his uncle. ("I saw Benjamin in that store, Daddy! That Benjamin is huge!") Hands-down, though, the escalators were the highlight of the trip, though… we must have made forty round-trips outside Penney's; enough that the lotion-cart lady stopped smiling maternally at us and started refusing to make eye contact. James managed to tire me out… on the escalator, mind you… because he insisted on climbing up and down the steps as we moved along, thereby hastening our arrival by entire fractions of a second. We only made it four or five steps before any given ride was over, but we did this forty times.

Best James quote of the day: while passing a ladies' stockings display, he became very excited: "I see feet, Daddy! Those are feet! Those feet don't have any persons on them!"

It's Sunday evening, and we're checking in from Starkville, MS. We left home Wednesday evening and spend the night in Memphis with Lauren's family, then headed down for Thanksgiving lunch in Philadelphia, MS, with my mom's family at Mammaw Barrett's house. Thanksgiving with my dad's family in Prentiss was going to be sparsely attended this year, so Mimi and Aunt Fran came up to Philadelphia with Mom and attended the Barrett family gathering, where A Good Time Was Had By All. We went back to Jackson with Mom and visited there for a couple of days with her and Robbie and Jill, and then came back to Philadelphia Saturday night to spend the night with Mammaw Barrett on our way to Starkville. We got up early Sunday and made it to Starkville in time for church, ate chicken tenders at Oby's for lunch, and then hung out with the Richardsons the rest of the day.

Whew!

James has been in top form this weekend, showing off his charm and vocabulary in equal measures. Here are just a few of his escapades:

• As we were leaving home, we stopped at Arby's for some chicken-bacon-n-swiss for the road. They were horribly slow, and James sat patiently in the car with Lauren while I stewed in line. At one point, Lauren realized James had been quiet for a long time and turned around to check on him. He was staring off into the distance, mesmerized, and Lauren asked him, "What are you looking at, James?" He said, "I'm watching the big TV!"... and pointed across the street at the billboard with the rotating slats that was changing pictures every five seconds.

• At Mammaw Barrett's house, James sat in my lap and helped me eat a slice of lemon pie. After the first couple of bites, he looked at me and said, "Daddy… this apple pie is sour!"

• Later that afternoon, we had made several false starts at getting on the road back to Brandon, and had to delay one more time to change a dirty diaper. I was feeling harried and James kept twisting around and trying to look over his head and generally making a messy job even more frustrating. After several admonitions, I eventually growled, "James, stop," through gritted teeth, and probably sounded more stern than I intended. He immediately stilled, and then looked up at me with wide eyes full of reproach: "Daddy, you made me sad. You made me sad when you said 'stop' low to me. Don't say 'stop' low to me, Daddy. Can you say 'stop' high?"

• Walking through Toys-R-Us in Jackson, Lauren was holding a very sleepy James in her arms when we passed by a large Homer Simpson display that apparently was rigged to some sort of motion detector. Just as they got in front of it, it said "D'OH!", and Lauren just about jumped out of her skin. James was also startled, but didn't seem very upset…. until the next time she circled down that aisle, and they were again startled. "D'OH!" This time James was really not happy, and repeatedly told Lauren, "He said 'No!' to me! He said 'No! Go away!'" Being groggy and half-asleep seemed to make it even more traumatizing. Lauren got him calmed down relatively quickly, though, and for a change of scenery, he ended up riding around in the shopping cart Mammaw was pushing around. This was fine for almost ten minutes, until all of a sudden he just freaked out… flopping around and screaming that he wanted down. He doesn't usually like riding in a cart for very long, so the sentiment wasn't unusual even if the intensity was, but when he hit the ground he bolted down the aisle, still crying and screaming, which is just extremely uncharacteristic. I was thinking he was just worn completely out and was in desperate need of a nap… but when Lauren caught up with him, he buried his head in her shoulder crying, "He says no to me, Mama!"... and we realized that Mammaw had inadvertantly turned the cart down the aisle with Evil Homer looming at the end of it. After that, we abandoned that side of the store and spent some recuperative time on the singing and dancing Elmo aisle. But for the rest of the day, many hours later, James would out of the blue pipe up and remind us, "That man said 'No, go away!' to me!"

• Lastly, roaming around the Richardons' living room in Starkville, James happened upon a Willow Tree figurine, and stopped and studied it carefully, then turned around to announce the results of his examination: "They don't have any mouths! They don't have any mouths on there!" After we agreed that, in fact, they did not have any mouths, he reassured us that "They're still hungry, though."

James climbed into our bed yesterday morning to wake us up. Then he asked a strange question:

• JAMES: Can you wink, Mama? Can you wink?
• LAUREN: Yes, can you?
• JAMES: Yeah! [squinches both eyes closed and painstakingly reopens only one]
• LAUREN: That's great, James! Who taught you how to do that?
• JAMES: God did!

I had tried to teach him how to wink several weeks ago, but he just never quite got it. I thought my siblings must have been working with him, but they said no. Maybe God really did teach him how to wink! We have been talking about how God made the clouds, and sky, and trees, and James, and Mama. James then claimed God made the houses, too.

As we were leaving church yesterday, I asked James what they learned about in Sunday School (they have been learning about some of the parables):

• JAMES: Jesus told a story.
• LAUREN: What was the story about?
• JAMES: Jesus!

Eliza, 3 months

James, 2 months

Eliza, 4 months

James, 2 months

We mentioned before that James and Eliza looked a lot alike as newborns, and infant Eliza still looks a lot like her brother did. Here are some more pictures for comparison. They aren't from exactly the same ages, but they're the best I could find in similar poses.

We think they have almost identical noses, but it's hard to tell because almost all babies have cute little button noses. (We spent an hour the other night looking through genealogy photographs, trying to figure out how noses run in our families. The conclusion was, we have no clue. Some people have exactly the same nose as a parent, and some people… like mine and Lauren's… seem to be a blend of several grandparents and great-grandparents.)

Their eyes are similar, but Lauren thinks Eliza's are rounder. Their general head shape, chin, etc. seems to be mostly similar. I don't think they're going to get away with claiming not to know each other when they grow up!

Eliza went to the doctor today and she weighed in at about 13 pounds! She is also tall at 25 inches. She was very good for her shots—she didn't cry for the first one, she fussed a little at the second, but she was pretty mad about that third shot. I would be, too! She is such a sweet baby, just like her brother used to be! What happened to him? They grow up too fast!

James's bedtime prayers are starting to transcend the original memorized routine of "T'ank you God for Mama an' Daddy an' Eliza." When we first began, he would occasionally get creative, but it was mostly an exercise in noun-listing: "...for pillows an' tables an' balls an' chicken nuggets an'...". For the past few weeks, he has been checking with us to make sure he was doing it correctly: "And for Mama… right? And for Mammy's house… right?" And at the same time, he has shown a rapidly increasing grasp of the concept; more and more, we thank God for highlight events from earlier the same day. Like tonight, for instance, the three things we thanked God for were: (1) pooping, (2) Alayne, and (3) "getting the bad guys".

Big-boy potty time is always made into a big deal with lots of positive reinforcement, so I guess the fact that it made the list means that we're making an impression. We ate lunch after church at the Mayos' house, and I suppose his Aunt Alayne was particularly friendly today. And "getting the bad guys"? When we went to gather our possessions and offspring to leave after lunch, we found James deeply engrossed, holding down the joystick and pounding buttons to fire the shotgun and rocket launcher on the family computer, where Uncles Benjamin and Gerald were teaching him to play "Doom". (Sigh. Luckily, he was running in tight circles and never hit anything but the wall.) We ended up thanking God for taking care of bad guys for us, and sang an enthusiastic rendition of "God is Bigger Than The Boogeyman" (from VeggieTales, of course) before calling it a night.

Mama's baby

Eliza has turned into such a mama's baby! She has also become much more aware of her surroundings. This morning I was taking her into the church nursery. She was pretty happy in her carseat, but as soon as we walked in the door of the nursery she stuck out her pouty lip and started to cry. I might have thought it was just a coincidence, maybe a little tummy ache or something, but she has done that every time I have taken her to the nursery the past 2 weeks! She knew I was going to leave her there, and she was upset. One of the nursery workers at my Bible Study Thursday morning says, "She doesn't like me. She frowns every time I look at her!" But I know it's just that she doesn't like the nursery, and it's amazing to me that she can tell at this age. I keep thinking… she's too young to be starting this now! James was always happy to go to the nursery until he was almost a year old, but Eliza is completely different—sometimes she doesn't like me to even hand her to someone else.

James has become very possessive when it comes to Eliza. Tonight at our "community group" meeting, his friend Anna Kate was trying to play with Eliza. James told her, "No! That's my baby!" She is so cute that he can't help but love her, just like the rest of us! James is constantly learning new things, and his memory continues to amaze us. He goes around singing much of the time, and he knows a lot of songs! The other day he was belting out "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder". I never know what he might sing, or say, next. The other day he kept claiming to be a "bad guy", and told me that I was a "cute guy". In other news, we took him to the barber shop yesterday for his first professional haircut. The lady cutting his hair was very impressed because he sat still the whole time, but I'm pretty sure he was scared to move.

Last night I was invited for my first bunco experience with a group of ladies from church. I must say I feel quite the socialite! I did have fun talking to people, but the best part was getting to have a couple hours without the kids! (Thanks, Jay!) I'm not sure if I could do it regularly, though—I am such an introvert that it took a lot of energy, even as much fun as it was. I'm apparently not very good at the game; I came in second-to-last place so not only did I not win, I didn't even get the loser's prize! At least I got to see what girls do at a bunco party!

Aren't we cute?

Halloween costumes

For Halloween James was a lion and Eliza was a lamb. We went to a carnival at Gerald's school Friday night, where James played games and rode a pony, and got lots of candy, of course! On Halloween night we went to our church which was having a carnival called "Trunk or Treat", where poeple have games set up at the back of their cars. But it rained and so they moved everything inside, and boy, was it crowded! We had a lot of fun and got lots of compliments on the costumes.

Eliza is growing and learning so fast! She has just recently started reaching and grabbing things. She also likes to hold a toy and watch it. Yesterday she even switched a toy from one hand to the other, although she usually just plays tug-of-war with herself. She really is getting good at controlling her hands and feet! This morning Eliza was kicking the mobile above her cradle after she woke up from sleeping a 9-hour night! Eliza is such a joy to be around—her face just lights up when she sees someone. She coos and laughs and shows her cute little dimple. She loves to watch James and he likes to make her laugh. James is usually very good with her, although he does sometimes want something she has or he gets a little too rough ("James, you're hugging her too tight!"). But I feel very blessed to have both of them!