Thanksgiving x 2

This year we had two celebrations for Turkey Day.
The first was a dinner with the extended family
the day before Thanksgiving at Grandma Sheree's house.
There were three options for seating:
the kid's table
where Orin spent the first part of the evening,
the adult's table,
which he graced intermittently,
and the "Man Cave," which he crashed multiple times
despite protests from his grandfather that he had not
obtained "Man Status" yet, and therefore was not allowed to be in.
But Orin was quick to retaliate,
siting that he should be granted access to the Cave
due to the fact that he knows how to say "beer"
and point to the appropriate beverage
(a skill that nobody will admit to teaching him).
Plus, it was his second cousin Faye's fault anyway...
she was steering the car, after all.
The next night, despite still feeling full from the feast at Grandma's
we dove into the holiday spirit and accompanying high doses
of tryptophan once more, this time at our house.
Having his grandmother over seemed like a great excuse
for Orin to pull out his new toy stair and show off his moves.
With unusually high levels of energy for a 8pm sleeper,
Orin climbed and jumped and yelled...
until eventually the food caught up with him
and his once exciting Skuut stair
mysteriously transformed into a feathery soft pillow. He could hardly hold off sleep for long enough
to ichat with his Grandpa George in Alaska,
but did manage to slip in a quick conversation in the moments
between finishing his bath and putting on his pajamas
All in all, I think it was a pretty good holiday,
and now, with our fridge stuffed with leftovers for the month,
and every dish that we own in the sink,
I am off to bed
at 8:30pm.

Early Christmas

Today, Casey bought Orin his first Christmas present:

A Skuut balance bike (it has no pedals).

We spotted a toddler riding one of these around last summer

and have wanted to get Orin one ever since.

As soon as Casey walked in the door and put it down,

I thought we would never be able to keep Orin away until Christmas.

He was all over it, jumping and pointing "bike, bike!!"

(actually, he can't say "bike" so he calls them "butt" instead,

but at least he is consistent)

The next thing I knew, he crawled on top of the box,

got properly positioned,

stuck out his hands for a spotter, and (after I obliged)

jumped off the box, shrieking with joy.

That's is when it dawned on me... Orin had no idea that the bike

was actually inside the box.

To him, Daddy just delivered a stair

with a nice picture of a bike on it.

Great, I thought... no trying to hide this for 6 more weeks,

no temper tantrums to deal with when I take it away,

we will just leave the box on the floor and Orin will be thrilled.

But even if he's not going to ride the bike until Christmas,

it doesn't mean he should have to play

without his new helmet.

After all, who said that helmet use should be limited to

bicycle riding and other potentially hazardous sports?

I have reason to believe

that helmets are a great addition to

pretty much any outfit...

A last video of the hippie hair baby

Now that Orin is rocking the short haircut,
I can't get lazy anymore and dig into the vault
when I am in need of post material.
So, I suppose it's time to empty its contents.
Actually, I don't have too much built up,
but there is one video that you might want to check out.
It's Orin torturing Purple again, but deciding to be nice in the end.
Hope you enjoy it.

The Hair Cut

Today I decided it was time to cut Orin's hair.

It has been getting a little long lately,
as you can see in the next video clip.

In preparation for the big event,
I watched a motivational/ instructional video

on cutting boy's hair.

I was practically glowing with confidence by the end

and snatched up the scissors.

Step one went great.

Step two... okay

and step three... well, step three didn't go so well.

It was those pesky bangs that got me in the end.

I still swear that it would have come out okay had I been given

the chance to fix it, but instead,
we opted for the easy way out and broke out the buzzer

-aka the never fail hair-cutting tool-

Well, pretty much never fail.

It can end up too short.

When Orin first saw the finished product, he was shocked.

But it soon began to grow on him...
and in the end, I think he decided it was A-Ok.
Thank goodness for hair buzzers.

Until next time,
I will be practicing step three.

Drying the Cat

Warning: This is not a joke.

Something terrible happened yesterday: I accidentally dried Trouble.
Here is the story, because I am sure that you are demanding
an explanation for this one.
Last night, I was drying our sheets in a load with Orin's fleece blanket.
The sheets were taking a long time, but the blanket was already dry,
so when I went upstairs to put Orin to bed,
I grabbed the blanket and left the sheets,
but I forgot to turn the drier back on.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was putting Orin to bed,
Trouble decided that the drier would be a nice place to take a nap,
after all, who can't resist curling up in damp sheets?
Anyway, when I had finished putting Orin to bed,
I noticed that I had forgotten to turn the drier back on;
not thinking twice about it, I closed the door and turned it on.
As I was leaving the laundry room, I noticed that the load
was bumping around quite a bit.
I figured that my sheets had bunched up (as they sometimes do)
and that they would need a quick fluffing if they were to dry properly.
So I opened the door and, to my great surprise,
was greeted by Trouble
trying to remain upright and
not the least bit happy.
I felt terrible.
I didn't know what to do, so after a bit of extra petting
I gave her a special cat treat
(of which Cali stole half,
even though she had not been subjected to the drier)
I think Trouble is beginning to consider
maybe
one day
forgiving me.
But it won't be anytime soon.

It is not Orin's birthday

There has been something fishy going on lately.

A stream of packages have been arriving at our door
over the last two weeks.
The packages don't look very suspicious
--plain, brown, medium-sized boxes--
until further inspection reveals that they have all been addressed
to Orin and they are from different places.

Is it his birthday? No
Did he win an award? No
Is this some group attempt to spoil him? Maybe

Let's have a closer look at the evidence:
The first box was a fleece Duke blanket from Grandma Elisabeth.
The arrival of the blanket made sense to me.
My mother is a die-hard Duke fan and, with basketball season
just starting up again, I understand if she felt the need to make sure
her grandson's allegiances were properly directed.
Now, with a blanket from both grandmothers,
(the RedSox blanket bought for him by Grandma Sheree)
Orin's crib was finally up to snuff.
As I carefully fluffed the new blanket in Orin's bed
I was still unaware that something strange was happening.
Then box two arrived.
It was from his other grandmother, Carla, and it contained clothes.
Lots of clothes, of which these are two of the highlights.

...so true...

Now, I figured that Carla had sent these because during her visit
I had mentioned that Orin needed some wardrobe additions
due to the change in seasons.
So I decided to just be grateful for the cute new things
and not think twice about it.

But then another box came.
This time from Orin's Grandpa Jack.
In the box, more clothes, all with a Cape Cod theme.
"The boy needs to know where his roots are."
My dad explained, convincingly.
Right.
But at this point I was starting to wonder...
had Orin somehow put them up to this?
Impossible.
I am just over-reacting.
Now he is warm and toasty and representing the east coast.
I couldn't possibly complain.

But then today, another box arrived.
This one was from his Grandma Elisabeth again.
Inside were two books,one of which was for reading, and one of which was to sit on.
"A kid can never have too many books," my mom defended.

No, but he can have too many presents.
Enough is enough.

If you add together all of the packages sent from his east coast family
with the constant showering of gifts from his west coast family,
what you end up with is a toddler who thinks that he is the
King of the Universe,
and the Sole Reason the USPS Exists.
Going into the Terrible Twos, I am not sure
this is the mindset I want my child to be in.

I just hope it is not already too late.

Hanger Man

Recently, Orin has been taking an interest in helping around the house.

He is very receptive when it comes to seeing things that need to
be done and will jump on any opportunity to get in on the action.
This, as you might imagine, is a mixed blessing.
Some things that Orin would love to assist with,
like unloading glasses from the dishwasher,
are chores I would rather do by myself.
I have, however, come up with one chore for Orin:
He is my hanger man.
It goes something like this:
I select a number of hangers and hand them to O.
He then proceeds to throw them all on the floor
in a wild burst of excitement.
Once he has calmed his initial enthusiasm, he collects a hanger
and passes it to me.
He then hands me another...
and another.
Sometimes I have trouble keeping up.
When we are finished putting the clothes away,
he is always a little disappointed,
but eventually recovers and heads off to the kitchen to see
what he can help with in there.

I follow close behind.

Utensil Practice

Lately, Orin has been practicing eating with a spoon.
Although I am not sure he has the manual dexterity to master
the skill-set yet, I am letting him practice for two reasons:
1) He will never learn if he doesn't, and
2) There are many foods that he absolutely refuses to eat
unless granted the privilege of operating his own spoon.
Yogurt, unfortunately, is one of these foods.
I would like to say that Orin is making progress in commanding
utensils, but he is not.
The main flaw in his approach is that he likes
to turn the spoon upside down before it reaches his mouth.
The result of this, as you may have guessed,
is that most of the contents of the spoon is deposited in his lap.
But, for all the skills he lacks,
he is extremely thorough... licking every part of the spoon
before deeming his meal over and throwing it on the floor.
Forks are up next.
This should be interesting.

A Natural Trick-or-Treater

This year for Halloween Orin was,
you guessed it,
a cow.

But he wasn't just any cow,
he was a crazy, motorcycle-riding cow.
A blaze-of-fire kind of cow.
A cow with a hoodie.
And spots.

Instead of trick-or-treating around the neighborhood
we decided to join Jon and Hillary at Trunk-or-Treat,
an event put on by their church where people
decorate the trunks of their cars
and pass out candy in the parking lot of the church.

Cole and Dakota went as Iron Man
and the Black Knight, both characters
from movies that I would know about if I was cooler.
Hillary and Jon were less lame that Casey and I,
who didn't even bother to dress up.
Hillary went as a cat and Paisley was either a bumblebee
or a criminal depending on whether or not you are color blind.

We arrived at the Trunk-or-Treat
parking lot just as it began to get dark.

As soon as we turned him loose, Orin snatched a treat bag
and took off like a rocket.

You would have thought he had been practicing
for this day his whole life.

He navigated around the parking lot with ease,
thrusting out his bag, receiving his prize,
and moving on to the next car without so much as a thank you.

We could barely keep up with him.

After he had visited every car (and some twice)
he sat down on the curb and began to sort through his goods.

He then carefully selected a brown tootsie roll pop
and a chocolate eyeball.

I think Halloween just aquired another fan.