Giddy for Garbage and Grasshoppers

Today was trash day and you know what that means...okay...so you probably don't know what that means. Allow me to tell you what trash day is like around here. Trash day is the day Eli and I spend on the front porch gasping at the sound of every diesel noise within earshot.

And when one of those roaring vehicles is finally the big garbage truck, Eli runs out to the edge of the driveway to get a front row view of the show.

There's a lot of giggly jumping that goes on as the truck makes its way to our house.

We're practically on a first-name basis with our garbage man. I like to think it brightens his day a little bit to see that my son basically thinks he's a super hero.

As we were waiting for the garbage man, I ran in to get my camera after Eli started terrorizing a grasshopper. I'm glad I did because this may just be my favorite video of all time.

Did He Just Say...?

This morning we were singing The Snowman Song (from nursery). Eli was doing the motions along with me and at the end of the song started flapping his arms violently.

I stared at him confused, wondering what kind of hand motions they've been teaching him in nursery.

Then Eli ran into the kitchen, arms still flailing, followed by several frustrated screams.

Me: "Eli! What's wrong?"
Eli: "AAAAAAHHHHGGGG!"
Me: "Tell me what's wrong."
Eli: "CAN'T DO IT!"
Me: "Can't do what?!?"
Eli: defeated "Fly."

You gotta give him credit for trying.

Cry About It

When Eli was 9 months old he did this weird thing at night where he woke up hysterically crying for no apparent reason and was completely inconsolable when we tried to go in and comfort him.

After 3 weeks of that, I asked his pediatrician about it during one of his well-child exams. The pediatrician suggested it was time for Eli to "cry it out."

Eli was cured of his sleep issues with two surprisingly short nights of crying it out. After seeing how successful the method was, I remember saying to my mom, "I don't know why I didn't do it sooner! It was a couple bad nights but now we're all sleeping so well and so much happier!"

Then child two came along. He was so good at sleeping at night until he got a cold and started waking up every two hours. The cold disappeared but left Carson with several habitual night feedings. And let's not get into how he's been waking up for the day between 4:45-5:30.

You should see the bags under my eyes.

I made excuses for why Carson wasn't ready to cry it out -- he'll wake up Eli, he won't be able to fall asleep unswaddled, he'll cry for hours, he's too little.

Then I read an article that said 4-5 months is the best time to sleep train your child because they're old enough to sleep through the night but little enough to not put up too much of a crying fight.

And then Carson started falling asleep without being swaddled.

And then I remembered telling my mom I wished I would have had Eli cry it out sooner because it wasn't as horrible as I expected.

So poor Carson had his first night of crying last night. He cried for a quick 20 minutes at 12:00, 5 minutes at 3:00 and then he slept in until 7:00 which has left me once again wondering, "Why did I not do this sooner?!?"

May my 5:00 mornings be over and Carson's wakeful nights be behind me. And may this be another mental note to myself that a couple nights of crying it out is totally worth the sleep!

Potty Prize

Look who earned his trip to D.I!

Yeah. I'm talking about you mister. And that awesome bike that cost a whopping $2. I'm never paying full price for toys ever again.

 He was making hilarious faces at me while showing off his potty prize.

 This one was my favorite.

I bought myself a potty prize for enduring potty training -- a footer for my sewing machine. I had to laugh when I saw this on the packaging:

Never have I known complete instructions to be a bonus. But I'm sure glad they included it!

Freeloading It

G&K Services has managed to suck every member of my family onto its payroll at one point or another. They even managed to get a few hours of work out of my mom over the past month. I have this strange sense of satisfaction that I'm the only Thomas Family member who has not sorted hangers, sewed labels or done whatever else they do over there.

I did however take advantage of G&K Services' Lagoon Day on Saturday. I hope participating in the G&K activity didn't ruin my reputation of being the only Thomas family member who's managed to escape the luring ways of the company.

Even if I did lose my reputation, it was definitely worth it for a free day at Lagoon!

Eli was a big crab cake the whole way there. He kept telling Jeff he was driving the wrong way. Then he scowled at me for taking pictures of him.

Carson loved watching the rides. Good thing, too. Because that's all he could do!

Here's Eli getting on his first amusement park ride of all time. I was so so so so so scared he'd figure out a way to jump off mid ride. I think Jeff had the same fears.

He insisted on using both steering wheels and the concentrated look on his face throughout the ride had us convinced he really thought he was driving that spaceship.

He loved it and didn't jump off. Whew.

It was so fun to watch Eli have fun. And yeah, I wore a baby carrier for a small portion of the day. I heard baby wearing is trendy these days so I didn't feel too weird about it. ActuallyIdidandputCarsonbackinthestrollershortlyafterthispicturewastaken.

Eli recounting to his copilot how awesome the ride was.

Eli looked hilariously unamused all day. I think it was slightly overwhelming for him which resulted in a dazed face most of the time. But I'm fairly certain he had a good time.

Jeff took Eli on the deceivingly fast dragon ride. Eli had his arms up the whole time.

Cutesies. Eli had a love hate relationship with that hand stamp.

See. Emotionless face. All the other kids were smiling on the rides and then there was Eli.

Almost a smile. Whales are not as awesome as rocket ships apparently.

Carson slept for most of the day. Maybe that's why he was up most of the night. He. Hates. Sleeping.

Eli found a splash pad which brought out the biggest smiles we'd seen all day.

We met up with our sponsors so I could ditch the kids and go on a few rides. Jeff was feeling sick so he stayed back with Eli.

This ride was probably his dream come true -- being behind the steering wheel of a car that's actually moving. He loved it if you can't tell by his typical unamused expression.

We had a nice, lazy Sunday today to recover from our Lagoon day.

Carson is getting so big! He can already sit up for several seconds on his own and I think he's getting a tooth on the bottom. My sister and I always joke about how every mom says her child is teething all the time. So to make myself not sound like one of those moms, I am not saying this because he's been fussy or drooly or had the basic symptoms of being a baby. I'm saying this because I'm 99% sure I can see the tooth coming up! It was a big surprise since Eli didn't get teeth until he was 11 months old so we'll see if it really is a tooth or if his mouth is playing tricks on me.

Until we know for sure, I'll go ahead and blame the fact that he never sleeps on his tooth bothering him. Surely after he cuts all his teeth he'll finally be a good sleeper.

Yay for fun G&K sponsored weekends! I'm one step closer to becoming their next victim.