Merry Christmas!

At school this year, Jackson's class made a big list of what everyone wanted for Christmas. Jackson's wish was for a Fire Truck. Even though we had already done our shopping, we rushed out to Target and bought the biggest, shiniest fire truck we could find to put on the fireplace on Christmas morning.

A few days later, Santa came to visit his school. While we were walking over to see him, I said, "Jackson, are you going to ask Santa for a fire truck?" "No!" he answered, "I want a kite." "Ummm..what, baby? I thought you wanted a fire truck." "No, I want a kite," he said. When Santa asked what he wanted, he firmly said, "I want a kite!"

My dad and I drove down to the beach with me a few days before Christmas, and we managed to locate a kite (they're hard to find this time of year!). But on Christmas morning, Jackson just seemed confused. He kept asking, "Where my kite?" I can only imagine that he had envisioned the kite floating around the room on Christmas morning.
That didn't stop him from thoroughly enjoying his gifts. He couldn't open them fast enough, and had trouble waiting for everyone else to open theirs (and believe me, the vast majority were for him anyway!).

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

The Best Day to Visit the Zoo

After spending a long weekend in Disney, we were sick of huge crowds and lines. So we were pleasantly surprised to find that the best possible day to visit the zoo is actually Christmas Eve! We just about had the whole place to ourselves.

Jackson got to pick any animal on the carousel (and could take as long as he
wanted to pick).

This experience was a little freakier then it looks...these birds are loud and
aggressive!

No need to strain through crowds to see the animals! Most of the time it was
just us.

We actually got to feed a giraffe with our hands! Amazing!

Me and my baby...I think this is where Santa was supposed to sit....

Christmas in Disney World!

On the spur of the moment, Matt and I decided to book a long weekend in Disney World a couple of weeks before Chrismas. Despite a little bit of rainy and cold weather, December is a wonderful time to visit Disney. They have so many beautiful holiday themed displays and shows, and the crowds are reportedly smaller than usual in the weeks before Christmas (I've heard that the weeks around Christmas and New Years are actually among the busiest). I say reportedly because I really can't imagine them being any larger. Even on a supposedly quiet week, Disney is pretty darn busy. One of the bonus parts to our trip is that most things in Disney World are free for kids under 3, so it was a great time to go because Jackson was old enough to really get into the magic of it all, but young enough to be FREE. We had an amazing time and are talking about making annual visits.

EPCOT HAS A BEAUTIFUL LIGHTS DISPLAY THAT IS SET TO MUSIC

MORE EPCOT LIGHTS TO ENJOY WHILE WAITING (ENDLESSLY) FOR DINNER RESERVATIONS

THIS GINGERBREAD HOUSE IN EPCOT IS MADE OUT OF 100% EDIBLE MATERIALS. IT SMELLED AMAZING!

THE CASTLE AT NIGHT IS SO MUCH BETTER THEN I REMEMBER FROM MY OWN CHILDHOOD. THIS MIGHT NOT BE A SPECIAL HOLIDAY DISPLAY, BUT THEY MADE THE CASTLE LOOK LIKE IT WAS MADE OUT OF ICE.

Honey We Shrunk the Kid Playground

Jackson loved Disney World, but we noticed that he spent a lot of time sitting - in his stroller as we raced across the parks (and this is a child who has not ridden in a stroller for months), in rides, on boats, on buses...it's a lot of walking for mom and dad, but a lot of sitting for toddlers. So I think Jackson was thrilled beyond belief by the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground at Hollywood Studios. It's designed like a gigantic garden and you are the size of an ant inside of it. They have tons of cool caves, slides, webs, and other neat things to discover. Jackson especially liked these grass stubs (I guess that's what they are...) that made chiming noises when you jump on them. I'm not kidding when I say that at least half of the kids there left crying because they wanted to stay longer. Here are a few highlights:

Disney World Rides

One of the the things that really surprised me about our Disney World trip was just how many rides they have for little kids. Jackson isn't the largest two year old, and pretty much the only things he couldn't ride were the really big roller coasters. Heck, they even have a roller coaster in Disney's Toon Town that is designed just for kids, and Jackson loved it so much we actually did it twice (and while it's no Six Flags ride, it's pretty thrilling even for adults). Matt's favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean (he's so old school). My favorite was the new 3D Toy Story ride at Hollywood Studios - so cool. One of the other surprises was that the line for most rides was 20 minutes or less (we used Fastpass a lot on the popular rides, which definitely helped). Here are few that we managed to get pictures of:

MY CRAZY HUSBAND ACTUALLY LET JACKSON

DRIVE THE CAR ON THIS RACE CAR RIDE

THIS

ROCKET RIDE WENT REALLY FAST -

IT WAS EVEN EXCITING FOR

THE ADULTS

THE AFRICAN SAFARI RIDE AT ANIMAL KINGDOM IS REALLY COOL, BUT GOES BY WAY TOO
QUICK CONSIDERING HOW MANY COOL ANIMALS THERE ARE

Character Mania!

One of the reasons that we haven't hadn't Disney World before now is that Jackson was absolutely terrified in characters in costumes. I envisioned walking around the Magic Kingdom dripping sweat while dragging a terrified and exhausted child behind me. But we recently ran into our local baseball mascot at our Children's Museum, and he wasn't afraid at all, so I knew it was safe to make the trip. One of the things that I didn't realize was that the characters aren't just wandering around the park waiting to scare small children anyway. For the most part you have to wait in lines to meet them, so really they could be mostly avoided if you have a phobic child. Plus, I think they must hire tiny teenage girls to play the characters because most of them are really quite small, despite the big masks. Anyway, Jackson decided that he loved meeting the characters, so we toted him around from park to park so that he could hug them. He kept asking, "He going to talk? Why he not talk?" but otherwise was pretty awed by the whole thing.

THIS WAS THE FIRST CHARACTER THAT JACKSON MET, AND HE JUST ABOUT BURST OUT HIS LITTLE FLEECE PULLOVER IN EXCITEMENT. LOOK AT THAT GRIN!

JACKSON WAS CONVINCED THIS WAS AN OCTOPUS...NO CLUE WHY...

THE TOY STORY MEET AND GREET WAS PROBABLY ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP FOR ME. THE CHARACTERS WERE SO SWEET, AND CHECK OUT THIS AWESOME PICTURE ON ANDY'S BED:

WE ALSO DID A CHARACTER BREAKFAST WITH THE LITTLE EINSTEINS AND JO JO. JACKSON WAS VISIBLY DISAPPOINTED THAT HIS FAVORITE CHARACTER ANNIE DIDN'T MAKE AN APPEARANCE, BUT WAS SO HAPPY TO MEET

LEO, JUNE, JOJO, AND GOLIATH.



THIS PICTURE DIDN'T COME OUT THAT GREAT, BUT I WILL LOVE WINNIE THE POOH CHARACTERS FOREVER BECAUSE AFTER WE MET POOH, EEYORE, AND TIGGER, THE HOSTESS TOLD US THAT JACKSON WAS THE BEST BEHAVED CHILD THAT THEY HAD HAD ALL DAY. I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH THEY PAY HER TO SAY THAT: IT MADE MY WHOLE WEEK. LUCKILY SHE DIDN'T SEE HIM TWO DAYS LATER WHEN HE HAD A FALL DOWN DRAG OUT TANTRUM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAGIC KINGDOM BECAUSE MATT PUT KETCHUP ON HIS HOT DOG (OR SOME OTHER EQUALLY INANE REASON - WE WERE NEVER QUITE CLEAR ON IT).

The Best/Worst 8 Dollars We Spent In Disney World

The Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney has this great marketing ploy where they basically force you to hang out in their gift shop while you wait to be seated for your meal. It's a really cool gift shop with lifesized animals that move, so it's actually not that bad of an experience. Anyway, we spent about 35 minutes there on our first night in Disney World, and Jackson fell in love with this hideous, remarkably real looking snake. I should add that Matt and I are both terribly disgusted by snakes, and my fear actually borders on a true phobia. So the fact that we purchased this creature for Jackson is a sign of how obsessed we are with our child (if the fact that we've devoted an entire blog to parenting him didn't already clue you in). Matt got the snake as a surprise for him while Jackson and I were being seated, and that animal did not leave his side for the next five days. It ate dinner with us, slept with us (or worse, slept curled up next to our bed in a horrifyingly realistic manner), and went on every ride that Disney has to offer. If you want to have a little fun with our Disney pictures, you can play a Where's Waldo type game with the snake. Here are few to get you started....

Luckily the snake has lost it's favored status once we got home, and frankly after spending 5 days in Disney with a realistic looking toy snake, I'm not as afraid of them anymore anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jackson's daycare had a big Thanksgiving feast on Friday and invited all the parents. Matt worked from home so that he could attend, and I baked a pumpkin pie (and by baked, I mean I opened the box, stuck the frozen pie in the oven, and left it in there for 65-75 minutes). Jackson was super excited about the special day. How cute does he look?
We've always sort of suspected that daycare was telling us tall tales when they marked the little box next to "I ate all my food" on his daily sheet, just because he really doesn't eat all that much at home. It turns out that they don't lie. Matt said that Jackson ate so much that he started to get worried that he would be sick. He was still eating when the rest of the class had gone back to get ready for their naps, and the three year olds started setting up for their feast.

We have many things to be thankful for, and one of them is his awesome daycare. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

My Maid

Ok, so if you've ever lived with me (I'm talking to you Mom), you know that neatness isn't exactly my thing. I drop my clothes on the floor when I take them off. I leave the cupboards open in the kitchen. I am incapable of pouring anything without spilling at least some of it. So I knew I hit the jackpot when I married Matt. If you've ever lived with Matt, you know that he is very, very neat - - in a good way - not a Sleeping with the Enemy or OCD kind of way. What I mean is that he washes the pots before we even eat dinner. He empties the dishwasher whenever it is clean. He rarely spills anything or leaves a mess. No, you can't have him. He's mine. Anyway, not to make anyone jealous, but it turns out that I hit the jackpot twice when I got my mini-Matt (AKA Jackson). He follows behind me and closes cabinets and doors while I cook. When I want to make him happy, I hand him a Clorox wipe and ask him to clean the counter. If he sees a spot on the floor, he'll go wet a paper towel and try to clean it. He even puts things away when he's done using them. Frankly, it's pretty awesome. So anyway, we took him to the park the other day, and he found this little house that he just loved. He kept putting pebbles on the table and then brushing them off. When I asked what he was doing, he said, "I cleaning Mommy!" Sweet!

We Don't Need No Education

Every day when we pick Jackson up from daycare, his folder is full of all kinds of drawings, worksheets, and projects for us to take home. I recently commented to Matt that his art seems to be getting worse and worse, and then we realized that they are probably actually letting him do more and more himself. Seriously, we have received art projects in which we really couldn't discern what part a two year old possibly could have contributed. The intricate cutting? The carefully drawn labels? The perfect glue job? Anyway, we go quite a surprise this Monday when we went to Jackson's folder and found a blank worksheet entitled "Homework". Not only a blank worksheet entitled "Homework", but one involving matching numbers of items that Jackson couldn't possibly be expected to do. We both chuckled over his first homework assignment and I dropped the "Homework" in the recycling bin along with the rest of his "art" and the junk mail.

But the laugh was on us the next day when we came to pick Jackson up. "Did Jackson do his homework?" his teacher asked. At first I panicked. I pasted a big smile on my face and looked at Jackson, "Jackson did you do your homework, honey?" Then I realized how incredibly mean and ridiculous it was for me to blame my parenting failure on Jackson; it sort of felt like telling the teacher that your dog ate your homework. So I confessed, "Um...I guess we didn't get to it last night. We'll do it tonight for sure." I may as well have worn a t-shirt that said, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT MY CHILD'S EDUCATION." I rushed home and dug the wretched worksheet out of the recycling bin. Over dinner, Matt and I tried to explain squirrel math (certainly 3 or even 4 year old work, right?) while Jackson yelled, "I don wan do HOMEWORK!!."

The next day, the three of us proudly turned in Jackson's homework. Matt and I chuckled about the whole thing again, and hoped that was the end of 2 year old homework. That afternoon, we found this waiting for us in Jackson's box:

I don't know what's funnier: the fact that they graded an assignment that he clearly never could have done on his own, or that fact that he got 100/100 as his grade.

The Donner Party

When the weather is not brutally hot, our favorite weekend activity is "hiking" (AKA relatively short walks in wooded areas). The last 6 months have been a bit a of a challenge because Jackson no longer wants to be carried in a backpack, so our progress is incredibly slow. Every few feet he either trips and cries, stops to kick some moss, or, inexplicably, walks backward. Even when he does let us carry him, 29 pounds on your hip or shoulders gets heavy pretty quickly.
So today we decided to explore a "nature trail" that we had not done before. At the beginning, we lightheartedly noted that the trail was so covered in fall leaves that it was difficult to follow. But like the heroine in a horror movie that just can't resist going into the basement when she hears a spooky sound, we proceeded anyway. Predictably, we lost the trail within 20 minutes. We didn't really want to turn back because we doing so would mean a longer walk back to the bathrooms and car. So we plugged along, stopping frequently to say, "this sort of looks like a trail, doesn't it?" and "I'm pretty sure we're headed in the right direction anyway, aren't you?" Just when our jokes about cannibalism were starting to give way to real desperation (I had to go to the bathroom really badly), we came up on the paved trail and made our way home. Disaster averted. I would say "lesson learned" except this isn't the first time this has happened to us, so I'm guessing it won't be the last either. Some people never learn.

Election news

Well, you know when you've been overly consumed by the election when your husband asks, "Who's this?" (with a picture of Obama) and your son replies, "President O'Mama!"

Slide Therapy

Jackson has always been amazingly un-afraid of slides. I say "amazingly" only because he tends not to be the most adventurously soul in most other aspects of his life (and really, I can't imagine where he got THAT from...), but he has always been willing to go down any slide no matter how tall or steep. So we were really surprised when we took him to the park this weekend and he was suddenly too scared to go down the tallest slide. I decided that this was a good sign - a sign that he recognized that it really IS tall and really IS a little dangerous. Matt disagreed and embarked on a 20 minute therapy session that involved doing the slide together, and then slowly fading himself out until Jackson could do it on his own. I swear he really misses doing therapy even though he says he doesn't.

Here are some photos from the "slide therapy" session:

And here are some photos documenting treatment success:

VOTE!

When we picked Jackson up at daycare today, we were greeted with a roomful of not-so-subtle reminders to do our civic duty. Even in a state where the election is all but decided before the polls even open, there was a lot of excitement this year. Matt and I waited two hours to vote, but it was worth it since Jackson's daycare teacher demanded we show our "I VOTED!" stickers when we came to pick him up. We're both a little scared of her, so we were relieved that we could comply. Happy election day, everyone!

PS Yes, that IS a bowlful of miniature sherbet scoops. Our little pollster is still demanding daily rewards for potty training and we are more than happy to comply.

Trick or Treat

Jackson really go into Trick-or-Treating this year. Despite some early protests regarding his costume, when the time came he put it on proudly and couldn't wait to go to the neighbors for candy. We did a lot of practicing with the whole "Trick or Treat!" and "Thank you!" thing, but he still had trouble getting it right. Matt says that the person would open the door and Jackson would proudly announce, "Thank you!" to them. Ah well. Here are a few pictures from the big event.