Leaving

It's not always (or ever) easy to leave Chase.  Particularly if he's upset, asking for me and/or clinging to me.  Luckily he doesn't do that very much anymore (sniff, sniff).  Which is a good thing.  However, if there is a morning when I drop him off at Leslie's where he's particularly clingy, we encourage him to go to the window and wave to me.  It always works like a charm.  And (ignore the annoying glare) but look at this sweet sight:

It is absolutely the cutest thing to see Chase and Samantha's big grins in the kitchen window as I'm driving away in the mornings.

 

It makes going to work a little more bearable.

 

Knowing how happy he is makes leaving that much easier.

conversation with a 2-year-old

I absolutely love the cute, 2-year-old way that Chase talks right now.  I love the way he exclaims, "I have GUN!" when he's happy and having fun.  Lately he's been saying really sweet things that make me melt...But then there's the naive meaning behind some things that are just plain "gunny".  :)

Here's an example of a conversation I had with him last week when we were on the way to the airport to pick up Matt from a work trip:

Mama, you're pretty.
Aww.  Thank you, buddy. (I swear, I have the. sweetest. child. on. earth.)
He then thought for a second, looked out the window, sighed, then looked back at me.
Dada is pretty.
I laughed a little- while trying to keep a straight face- and said: Yes, he is.  Dada is pretty, too.
 And I'm pretty, too.

Ok.  Yes he's sweet but I'm not so sure he thinks I'm 'pretty' in the way that I thought he meant.

At any rate, it was 'gunny'.

Labor Day weekend

We didn't do a whole lot last weekend for Labor Day weekend.  We celebrated Abby's birthday (and the announcement that she's having a boy), we celebrated Bebe's birthday, we went to Marbles Museum, and we went to the pool.  It was a pretty nice weekend.

 

Chase did well in the pool and enjoyed hanging out mostly by the steps, where he felt the most comfortable and where he had the most control.

 

He especially enjoyed putting the chlorinated pool water in his mouth and either spraying it out of his mouth (while giggling) or swallowing it.  

Gross.

I'm not doing anything, Mama...

I kept telling him to stop it.

 

Which didn't exactly work.

 

This little charmer gets more and more fun with each age and stage so far.  People told me that would happen but now I know.  :)

Friends

Chase and I went over to my good friend, Laurie's house a couple weeks ago to play.  Anna Grace is just a few months older than Chase and Daniel just turned 1.  It was a fun time.

  

As is the case with most kids, I had a hard time getting them all to look at the camera at the same time.  

 

Anna Grace was ready in most of the pictures but Daniel and Chase were more concerned with playing.  :)

Yard work

Always the big helper, Chase was excited to pull out his lawn mower last weekend when it was time to cut the grass. 

 

Friends on a Friday

We had a Friday play date last week with Wes and Parker.  Despite their 17-month age difference, Chase and Wes absolutely love playing together.  Chase was showing his love by stroking Wes' arm while they were eating dinner and watching cartoons so I had to get a picture.  Pretty funny.  :)

Big Boy Bed

Ok, folks.  Here you go.  The Big Boy Bed.  Well, not really.  It's just the 'toddler bed' that his crib turns into.  He was ok with the change from the mattress in the floor to this exciting 'new' bed, so that was a relief.

As you can see, we didn't put a rail up yet because we need to buy one.  It was only the 2nd or 3rd night in this picture so Matt and I thought we'd just see how he did (and maybe we wouldn't need the bed rail after all).

 

Around 9:30 I heard a pretty loud noise but I thought it was maybe Matt doing laundry downstairs.  Then I looked at the video monitor and saw that Chase was no longer in his bed.  This is what I found when I went in his room:

He'd fallen off the bed, stayed asleep and curled up into this position (with all 5 blankets still in tow).  He didn't even wake up when Matt picked him up to put him back in his big boy bed.

Needless to say, we'll be purchasing a bed rail this weekend.  :)

ABC's and Distractions

I love that Chase is talking up a storm.  Even more than that, though, I love the cute 2-year-old way that he pronounces things.  Sometimes it makes it hard to understand but it's just so darn cute.

Here is a video of me trying to get him to sing his ABC's but as you can tell he has a hard time sitting still.  It's also pretty funny that this video captured how inquisitive he is lately ("Mama, what IS that?").  I needed a video because I want to remember this phase.  :)

Palate dilemma

So I recently mentioned that Chase has been having a blast sleeping on a palate at his Bebe and Pop's house each week.  He even convinced Matt to make a palate for us to sleep on at our house a couple of weeks ago, which was fun (Remember 'Family Fun night'?).  However.  That palate lasted for just one night.  It was fun to camp out in the living room and all but it took him almost 2 hours to fall asleep. And he's such a great sleeper (in his crib) that I wasn't exactly unhappy to resume our regular bedtime routine the very next night. 

Well, take a look at this:

 

Yes, that is Chase's crib.  And, yes, that is his mattress.  And yes, it is in the floor.  And, yes, maybe I've lost my mind...

I took the mattress off the bed when I was changing the sheets last week and he got so excited that he demanded it stay on the floor ("My Palate!!  My Palate!!!").  So I thought, 'ok.  fine.'  The next day I tried casually putting the mattress back in it's place, hoping that he wouldn't notice (yeah, right.).  Big surprise: It didn't work.

Surprisingly enough, he doesn't exactly look uncomfortable.  He took a nap that next afternoon and he managed to roll into the corner.  Beside the trashcan.  Ugh.

 

I was hoping that this would just be for one night but now I'm not so sure.  I went in to check on him last night before Matt and I went to bed and he was completely off the mattress, pillow, and had rolled to the center of the room.

Kristina, I think we will take you up on your offer to let us borrow a toddler bed after all.  

Stay tuned, folks.  We may have a blog post entitled "Big Boy Bed" coming soon.  

Yikes.

Boo boo

 

That is what your legs look like if you are a 2-year-old little boy who runs everywhere (rather than walks).  Ouch.

And this is what that cute little boy looks like after bath time, during teeth-brushing, before bedtime.

He's so cute I can't even stand it.  :)