Icky but funny

Rand is on Day Three of potty training. He's done great -- only one accident the first day, and none since then! This morning he was going potty and he dripped a little bit on his underwear. He looked up at me with his big blue eyes and said, "Uh-oh! Spill!"

Zoo Photos

We had lots of fun at the zoo on Saturday. We hadn't been in ages because of the heat, so everything was practically brand-new to Rand!

We saw turtles

And looked through tunnels

And sat on a frog

This is Rand showing us the frog's toes

And, of course, we had to play in the water!

Daddy helped Rand rinse off his sandy shoes

Big boy!

It's underwear time! So far, it has been a big hit and pretty painless. We set the timer for every 30 minutes and as of 2:23pm, he's made it to the potty every time.

This week

Our computer went on the fritz for a couple weeks. It's all better now, but I still don't have my photo-editing software, and I refuse to post pictures that need to be cropped or have red-eye taken out. This limits the photos that I can post by quite a lot. But isn't this a cute picture of Rand from the wedding?

Rand's talking continues to increase dramatically. He uses 2 and 3 word sentences on a regular basis: "Mommy, sit down." He also has started saying, "You're welcome" when he wants to give me something, because he knows that I'm going to say thank you. Like yesterday he wanted to hand me his banana peel, and I wasn't paying attention, so he started saying, "You're welcome! You're welcome!" very loudly until I turned around and realized what he wanted.

He also has decided he doesn't want to sit in his high chair any more. Occasionally when Bella comes over, I have her sit in the high chair and put the yellow pages on a chair for Rand to sit on. He now prefers the yellow pages so I think we'll be getting a booster seat this weekend.

Rand fell off of his stool a few days ago while potty training and split his chin open again. This time it's on the other side, so he'll have coordinating scars.

It rained really, really hard this morning so it's nice and cool. We're going to take advantage of the "nice" weather and go to the zoo this afternoon.

Big Yellow Circle

We got out Rand's little train track the other day for the first time in a month or so. He's now just the right age for it. Rand spent over an hour playing with it, continuously saying: Train! Choo-choo! Circle! Yellow! Big circle! Over and over and over again.....He's played with it every day since then. I think it is now his new favorite toy. Thanks, mom and dad!

Matching Shirts

Grandma gave both John and Rand matching t-shirts after our Asilomar vacation. In my thank-you note, I wanted to include a picture of the two of them wearing their shirts. Easier said than done!

Big Mama

Rand has equated "big" with "heavy." I think this is because he likes to pick up rocks, and whenever he picked up a big one, I'd ask him if it was heavy. Yesterday I was carrying him to our house, and I said that he was heavy! He said, "Rand big!" I agreed. Then he said, "Big mama! Heavy mama!" No, no, no, sweetie.

A Lovely Evening

Last night the three of us went out to dinner at Oregano's. It was delicious. I had the biggest ravioli that I have ever had in my life, and Werner had a fantastic pizza. But the best part was that they give kids a lump of pizza dough to play with while you're waiting for your food. Rand had so much fun squeezing and smushing and poking and stretching that pizza dough that when his little cheese pizza arrived, he didn't want to stop and eat it. I think it was the first restaurant meal with the three of us where we ate the whole meal seated at the table. It was wonderful! Rand was very sad when it was time to leave the pizza dough. I think that we will be making Play-Doh this week.

After dinner, we drove to Papago Park, which isn't really a park but more of a wilderness reserve. We took a lovely half-mile meandering "hike" along a little trail. We saw quail and rabbits and (of course) lots of bugs. Rand walked almost the whole way and stopped at just about every hole to look inside it. It was by the Phoenix airport, so we saw lots of airplanes. Every time Rand sees an airplane he goes through the same five phrases: "Big airplane! Heavy! Up high! Bump down! Bye-bye!"

The park is just far enough away from everything that it's very quiet and peaceful. It was a great ending to a relaxing Saturday.

Help you!

Yesterday, Rand was playing in his room and I was reading on the couch. All of a sudden, Rand dashes out of his room and runs toward the refrigerator, frantically yelling, "Help you! Help you! Help you!" (He gets "help me" and "help you" mixed up). I went into the kitchen and realized he wanted the towel that hangs on our fridge handle. I handed it to him, and he ran back into his room.

I follow him, and Rand is on the floor, using the towel to clean up some milk that spilled from his sippy cup. So cute!