Little Engineer, Little Mommy

Austin has a ton of Thomas trains. SO SO so many of them. But they have been one of the best investments we have made. He plays with them almost every day, for a loooong time. It's been this way for 3 1/2 years now. Today he was making various tracks. Often he makes up stories to play with his trains. Sometimes he "acts out" stories he's seen on the Thomas videos, just like a play, using his trains and calls them train shows. Tonight he had a terrible time focussing on eating his dinner, as he was deep in thought. (By the way, I was having a hard time not chuckling about this. He is definitely all BOY, only able to focus on one thing at a time!! ;) ) Brian and I had to keep reminding him to eat when the rest of us were long done. Austin said he was planning a train show. Brian had put on a Little House on the Prairie DVD with an episode about a runaway caboose with three kids in it that was about to collide with a train. Austin said he wanted to put on a train show just like that. And he proceeded to tell us how he was going to do every detail!

Here he is with Sir Handel. AND our big boy lost his first tooth yesterday! Look at that cute little smile. Julia didn't get her first baby tooth until shortly after her first birthday. At the time, I had many little old ladies tell me that was a good thing, because she would lose them later. (I guess the logic being that it would be that much longer before she got her permanent teeth, so they wouldn't decay as fast???). She lost her first tooth at 6 1/2 years old. Austin got his baby teeth on a more typical schedule, and here he is losing his first one at 5 1/2. I wonder if there is something to what those ladies were saying?



One big track he made today. I couldn't get it all in the picture. He called it a "double double double track". I think, because it had six loops...?? Three sets of double loops...??



Brian got down a bunch of infant equipment from the attic earlier this week: The bouncy seat, swing, Snuggli, carseat, bathtub, crib mobile, etc. The kids have been quite interested in all these things. Every one of them stood by the crib staring at the mobile spinning around with its music playing yesterday. :D Today Lauren got out her Bitty Baby, Baby Emily, and played with her in the bouncy seat. Oh the fun they'll have when we put batteries in it and it plays music and the toys move.... LOL


She went on to play with Baby Emily much of the day, pretending they were going to dance class, grocery shopping, to Costco and the Merry-Go-Round (consignment) store, etc. When Lauren had to go potty she said she was going to share her potty seat with Baby Emily so she wouldn't have to go to WalMart to buy a new one! Lauren also said Baby Emily came out of her tummy on her birthday. And that her tummy was big like mine, and then Baby Emily came out.

Lauren wanted these pictures with the kitty and Baby Emily. In the second one, the "ktitty" is giving "Baby Emiwy" kisses. Because the "ktitty wikes Baby Emiwy." :)


Yesterday the kids and I did a LOT. I had a doctor's appointment at 10. Then we went to Costco in SLO, where we ate lunch afterwards. The kids liked eating at their outdoor food court. The one in Santa Maria is inside, so this was something new. Ha ha I'd brought two ice chests with ice packs so I could put the cold food in them while we were at swim lessons from 1-1:30. They absolutely love swim lessons. Austin was not happy to find out they only have four more this summer!

After swim lessons we headed down to Santa Maria to Toys R Us/Babies R Us. Since Brian had taken our infant things down from the attic, I washed the seat covers for the swing, bouncy seat and carseat. But when I went to wash the one for the carseat I saw that it was slightly torn (in several places) on the back, plus the entire foam back piece had come unglued from the carseat! That seat does have an expiration date (7 years about, from when we bought it, which was before Julia was born), but I was always pretty skeptical about that. I mean really, how can a carseat expire?! It hasn't been in any accidents after all, though I do realize that safety standards change a little from time to time. Anyway, it is no good anymore. Maybe after 6? 7? 8? years the glue dries up and the seat falls apart?? Obviously that happened to this one. So we had to get another one, which is why we went to TRU.

This is the one I ended up getting. Brian and I decided on the specifications, and I chose the fabric. ;) I have to say, the practical side of me would wonder when I saw a baby in a gender-specific colored carseat/stroller/front pack, etc., why would someone buy a pink stroller, for instance, unless of course they knew they were only having one child. After all, what if the next one was a boy? ;) Well, here we are with a pink carseat (BUT a "next one" would come as a big surprise, or maybe shock....soooo.....). I asked Brian what he thought about that, and he said, "Well, she is a girl...." and "I sure hope the doctor was right and the baby comes out a girl!"

This carseat's manual actually says to throw away the base and to not use the seat after the date (7 years, Dec. 2015) imprinted in the seat! Is this expiration thing a way for the the carseat companies to make more $$$? Or is there really something to it? While we were at TRU I registered for a very few things for the new baby. I had a coupon for a $10 gift card if I registered, and hey, $10 is $10, so that is what we did. The kids thought that was fun, "shooting" the scanner gun at the bar codes, and they all took turns doing it!

We stopped at Michael's just quickly, and I bought picture frames for our main bathroom. I'll have to post pictures of that soon. Next we went to Vons for just a few things, and then back home. I made a double batch of lasagna (one to freeze) for dinner, and oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies (also froze half of them) later that night. Austin and Lauren had no naps since we were gone all day, and they were exhausted last night. So was I!!