Good-Bye Old Lady Chic… hello, Middle Aged Lady Chic.

Once again our house is filled with men and tools. They are remodeling the upstairs bathroom. Most importantly, they are installing a tub (just in time -- we can only put about a cup of water in the baby bathtub before Alexander overflows it with his giganticness.) They also ripped out the carpeting and are installing tile. Who puts carpet in a bathroom? Well, I’ve watched enough episodes of HGTV's “Save My Bath” to know that carpet in a bathroom is ALWAYS a “before” and never an “after”.

We are not working with the same contractor that did our basement. (No surprise there. While we like to be loyal, we aren’t insane.) The new contractor is awesome. He shows up on time. His crew is friendly and hasn’t said one bad thing about their boss. We know the price of everything up front. He hasn’t once been condescending… although we have certainly given him ample opportunity for sarcasm. He’s…just… awesome. His competence brings a tear to my eye.

Hopefully in a few weeks I’ll have “after” pictures… but in the meantime, here are some “before” pictures:

Can’t decide between a floral design and stripes? Why not both!


Someone actually said, presumably while sober, “You know what this bathroom needs? A purple ceiling!”


And that same person said “Who wants cold tile when you can have plush carpeting? It’s totally worth the inevitable mold problems! In fact, I love mold!”



Goodbye, ugly bathroom… enjoy bathroom heaven. (Or should I say, enjoy Bed, Bath and BEYOND? Oh… I’m funny. *sigh*)

Novelty-size Praying Mantis Visits

This guy (er… gal) has been hanging around a lot lately. At about four or five or twenty inches long, and a jaw the size of my pinky finger tip, maybe I’m the one that should be praying.



I don't know how he got stuck between the window and the screen. It is possible he was born and raised there. It's sort of horrifying to think how many insects must live in the space between the screen and the window to support this insanely large praying mantis.

If you live on a lake you gotta expect a few insects that look like they belong in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade to float by. Cool but … ew.

Party Tricks

A few weeks ago, we discovered Alexander knows where his nose is. If you ask him, "where's your nose?" he grabs your hand and touches his nose with your fingertips. He’s gotta be like 90th percentile for nose-location-ability… but keep in mind that Tim has been telling Alexander where his nose is from day one. We just never thought to ask him if the lesson sank in until recently.

I also discovered about eight times out of ten he can identify the right picture given a choice of two. He knows some cards better than others, though. Here's what I mean...



I guess kids this age can understand a lot more than they can say. So consider this fair warning to watch what you say around the boy. He could be keeping a mental log of everything you say, just waiting for the most embarrassing moment possible to repeat it.


He often surprises me with what he says … For example, I showed him a letter “A” and said “what’s this?” And he said (I swear it) “A!”. He looked at one of his favorite books and pointed to a picture of Elmo and said (I swear it) “Elmo.” Are these just random firing of his mouth that happen to say the right thing at the right time? Maybe. To be fair, he says a LOT of things. He just looked at me right now and said “Booo-weee-DOH!” So… um, who knows. But I'm signing off so I can finish eating this burrito.

Breakfast of Goofballs

Alexander gets a bit goofy when he is tired. OK... that's an understatement...



Don't worry, he recovered from his head bump quickly, and went back to laughing like a tiny crazy person.

A few more steps…

Alexander is getting a bit more confident with his walking. Here he is toddling to grandma:




Our house looks like a Fisher-Price tornado blew through. Please ignore the clutter and focus on the yar.

He Knows Comedy

Shoes!

Now that Alexander is starting to walk, we had to cave in and buy him some shoes. Seriously, this is his first pair of shoes EVER.



By waiting so long, we completely bypassed all those super-soft super-cute baby shoes and went right to the hardcore “you could wear these to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro” shoes.

Some may call it being frugal, some may call it neglect. Honestly, I just didn’t see the point of shoes on a baby who couldn’t walk. That’d be like giving Mr. Clean a comb. (Although he could arguably use it for those eyebrows...)


It didn’t take him long to figure out how to pull up the Velcro and then yank off the shoe. In the baby world, this is a feat on the level of Criss Angel Mindfreak. (So annoying, is what I am saying.) Maybe we should have gotten a baby shoe version of "The Club" so he couldn't take them off so easily. Or someone needs to invent a baby shoe LoJack system so we can find missing shoes when they get tossed behind the couch. There is a million dollar idea that you got for FREE just by reading this blog. You're WELCOME.



I still haven’t gotten a good video of him walking. Here is a super brief walk. If you blink, you'll miss it. I think his record is 5-6 steps before either grabbing something or falling on his butt. This is probably just one step, but it’s cute anyway…

Groovin’

Alexander likes to dance and sing along to any song. Even hummed half-remembered tunes…

Quick Trip to Iowa

Tim was planning to attend a wrap party for a movie he recently worked on, so we all decided to come along on a roadtrip to Iowa. Alexander was once again happy to be facing forward.


And he was super excited about getting to stay in a hotel room. He thought their flimsy $20 metal crib was far more fun than his Amish-built solid wood crib at home. I won’t tell our Amish friend… and he probably doesn’t read this blog.

His manic enthusiasm was short lived and he completely crashed in the hotel room before the party even started. So Tim went to the party, and I hung around the hotel room and watched a marathon of Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel. (Never quite got the "History" angle of watching a beefy bearded man who calls himself "Bear" drive big rigs in dangerous conditions, but it was surprisingly entertaining.)

While in Iowa, we were able to make two quick pitstops. One to see Great Grandma (AKA GG)


And one to see my good friend Amy and her family. Enjoy this picture of none of us looking at the camera, squinting, and being generally disheveled. We were all a bit tired and full of IHOP goodness.

Handybaby

Alexander helped to assemble the wagon his Grandma and Grandpa got him for his birthday. He has a screwdriver that makes cartoonish sounds when twisted. If the technology exists, I simply do not understand why carpentry isn’t the most whimsical of all professions.


Now, with the magical power of the internet. *Pooof* The wagon is assembled. Ta-da!


Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!