Yesterday was Simon's day with Karmen and Tyler. Since Monday was Karmen's birthday we wrapped up some of the (non slobberful) cookies. When Karmen arrived Simon ran over and got the plate of cookies, handed them to her and said "Happy Birthday, Karmen!" Before she could get out the words thank you Simon had continued with, "Will you share with me?" Ha! She said she'd give him a cookie in the car so it was the easiest goodbye ever. Here are some pictures...
Where are you?
At the park with Tyler.
It was a rough nap time, with some tears and wanting mama. But another cookie made it all better.
On Monday afternoon Simon and I made cookies. I choose snickerdoodles as his first real cookie experience because not only is there mixing, but there is forming a ball and rolling in cinnamon sugar. No surprise - he totally loved it. He did all the scooping and dumping, I did all the mixing. Then we both did the rolling of cookies onto trays. He did a whole tray all by himself. I'm pretty sure he ate a tray's worth of cookie dough too. Toward the end I was more closely watching the intake of cookie dough I caught a few pieces in his mouth and raised my eyebrow. He would look at me wide eyed and slowly take the cookie dough out of his mouth and slowly put it on the tray beside him. I had such a hard time not laughing. Don't worry, the slobbered on ones we saved for Alan. :)
Here are the steps to perfect cookies:
Get some dough out of bowl...
Make sure it's the right size - eat any extra
Roll dough into a ball. If the dough accidentally smashes in your hand, eat dough and start over.
Smash dough into cinnamon/sugar mixture. One side is plenty.
Place carefully on corner of cookie tray that is closest to you. When you aren't looking they magically disperse on the tray.
Clap for yourself. Carefully inspect your hands for left over cookie dough. Eat any dough you find. Repeat.
Simon's tray of baked cookies. The super tiny ones contain extra love (*cough* slobber).
I asked Simon to stand still so I could take a picture of him in his new outfit and he bargained with me that if I took pictures of him then he should get to take pictures of me. So below are my pictures of him wearing his new shirt from Gaga and Papa Basque and new jeans from Auntie Colleen. Further below are Simon's pictures of me. He even took a couple of baby sister. He easily took 50 pictures, so I just included a couple.
Mama making breakfast (34 weeks)
Most pictures looked like this or were just floor. It does a great job showing his perspective!
We tried almonds Monday morning with no issues at all. He loved them to boot. We had a couple, then made breakfast then had some more during breakfast. (Breakfast ended up being banana pancakes, pear and almonds.) Then for every meal he asked for almonds.
On Sunday I really wanted to go to the Southport Taco Festival. It is in easy walking distance and who doesn't love a good taco?! Simon napped until 4pm that afternoon but we decided to push it and go anyway. Unfortunately the taco festival was a bust - the lines were just so long it would have been impossible to stand in them and not have had a crazy toddler and a crazy mama before we got through. We walked up the length of Southport hoping to find a shorter line when we came across... HORSES and a CAMEL!
Obviously when you see ponies and a camel for the first time you need to pause and collect yourself, and that is just what Simon did. We stood near them and watched them give pony rides to kids and camel rides to adults for about 20 minutes. In the first couple minutes we offered a pony ride and it was a decisive no, however after realizing that none of the children were coming to any harm at the 20 minute mark Simon changed his mind and did want to go on a ride. Luckily that line was short. We walked right up and Simon handed the lady the 5 dollar bill (after some time of comparing the sign asking for five dollars and the five dollar bill in his hand to make sure the numbers were the same). Then Alan put him up on the horse and away they walked. Simon LOVED it. In the video I didn't do a great job catching him saying 'bu-bump bu-bump" as he tips his head side to side but he is.
Gooooooo!
Since we didn't get tacos at the Taco Festival we went to Burrito House to get our taco fix. The whole walk to burrito house Simon talked about his pony Andy (who is a horse from a library book) and ba-bumped and when asked if he liked it he told us happily, 'He didn't even lick me!'
We left Burrito House around 7pm - so late for Simon. When we walked out of the restaurant he started laughing and pointing at the sky and it took us a minute to figure out what he was saying. The sun had just set so one half of the sky was light but as we faced home the sky was DARK. He hadn't seen dark sky before and was laughing because he thought the dark was funny and the Sun was silly or sleepy or both. I wish I had gotten a video of that, it was wonderful.
Here is his summary of the day when we got home, but he was so tired it's a bit disjointed and we had to prompt a bit.
I was checking an email before I headed out to work and needed to run to the bathroom. Simon offered to hold my phone (so kind) and I was sure I locked it before I handed it to him. But when I looked at the pictures to write a post I found a ton of pictures of Mr Simon's eyes and even a nice little video. Made me laugh so I thought it might make you laugh too.
Karmen is great about sending pictures when Simon's with her and this week she sent a little video too. The resolution isn't excellent because it came to me via text, but it works. Karmen speaks Estonian to Tyler and I told her to feel free to speak it to Simon too but she usually just speaks English to Simon since he already knows it. Apparently just speaking around Simon is enough because he figured out how to say 1,2,3 and was repeating it to Karmen. Here he is saying it for us.
