The UGG-ya

I think Jack is getting just as creative at making up stories as his sister! It all started a few weeks ago when he told me the Big Bad Wolf drank all of my iced tea (actually, it was Jack himself who drank it). He then said the wolf was going to blow our house "all in pieces" but that he would catch him and eat him up.

I was pretty impressed. Jack hasn't been talking in sentences for very long, so it really stuck out when he suddenly told me a long story.

Today, he did something even more creative. He was down stairs in the playroom by himself. He came running upstairs and told me there was an UGG-ya in the basement and he was scared. I was on the phone with my mom at the time, and neither one of us could figure out what he meant by UGG-ya. I asked him if he meant "ogre" but he said "No, its a UGG-ya." I asked him what it looked like and he said "Come down with me."

I followed him downstairs and into the playroom. He walked about 4 feet from the door and then pointed out the door into the laundry room (which was dark). "It's in dere." I said "Where in there?" and he said "Oh, it's some clothes!" He ran out of the playroom and headed up the stairs. I started pointing at the various items of clothing in the laundry room. Was it Jim's shirts hanging on the clothes rack? No. Was it the pile of handwashing on top of the dryer? No. Was it the pile of clean clothes that Jim inexplicably dumped on the floor in front of the dryer? No. Was it the folded clothing on the table? No.

Finally, Jack said "I wanna go uptairs. I scared the UGG-ya!" I thought he meant he was too scared of the UGG-ya to stay in the playroom, so we both went back into the living room. Once we got there, this is what Jack told me about the UGG-ya:

The UGG-ya says "UGGGGGGG (deep growl) YAAAAAAH! (yell)" He is littler than Jack by about six inches. Jack is not scared of the UGG-ya because Jack "scared him away" when we were down in the basement. The UGG-ya is his friend Mimmo.

I was on the phone with mom the whole time and Jack's little story was cracking us both up. We both think he must be trying to say "ogre." He was just so serious about his story!

Kids. They act like little terrors one moment and then they tell you about the battle they won with the UGG-ya. It's moments like these that make me s glad I'm staying at home with the kids.

UGGGGGG-YAAAAAAH!

Now for the Cute and Funny

I like to balance out my posts with a good one about the kids after I bore you non-knitters with my knitting stuff, so here are some cute shots of Lily modeling the new sweater her Grandma Deeds made for her. One photo also features the matching purse (somewhat stretched out by the pounds of change she poured in there from her piggy bank). Also, it's hard to see, but she insisted on posing with two of her Barbies in a couple of the photos.






That was the cute, in case you couldn't tell.

This is the funny -- here are a few things that the kids said this week that I found amusing:

Lily, talking about how God filled up the rivers and ponds: "He must have used his mother's garden hose!"

Jack's stock response when asked about school: "I play with friends, I play with fun mag-a-nets, I play outside, I have 'nack, I play with fiahfucks." Translation: mag-a-nets = magnets, 'nack = snack and fiahfucks = firetrucks.

Jack, talking about an upcoming trip to North Carolina: "I go walk with Papa to the rainmoo. Papa show me the rainmoo." Rainmoo = windmill. Of course, Jim isn't going to North Carolina, and the "rainmoo" is actually at the home of Jack's other grandparents! He's a little confused. I doubt he remembers the last time he visited North Carolina, but he sure remembers the "rainmoo" in California!

Lily, explaining why she doesn't cry when I drop her at school now: "I don't have to cry if I don't want to." Too bad she didn't feel this way for the last six months.

Finally, time to make fun of myself a bit. Remember that one time that I complained about Jim? And his scraping of cream cheese and two olives? Remember how annoyed I was? Well, I guess I believe in karma because yesterday Jim had good reason to be annoyed with me. He called me at about 8:30 (shortly after he left the house) and asked me to put the steak tips in to marinade. The catch? I was supposed to look on the internet to find a recipe and make the marinade myself.

As some of you may be aware, I am not a good cook. In fact, I can barely make macaroni and cheese from a box. Baking? Love it. Cooking, on the other hand, usually leads to me setting something on fire. Anyway...I was not thrilled about having to find a recipe and put together a marinade, but I agreed to do it and hung up.

Within about 15 minutes I completely forgot about the conversation. I'd like to blame my heart medication or lack of sleep. One or both of them probably contributed to my forgetfulness. If I'm being brutally honest, however, I suspect there was some element of a subconscious passive-aggressive desire to forget about it! Either way, I did not give the matter a second thought until Jim arrived at home and told me he was going out to start the grill. I didn't even remember it when he mentioned the grill! Then he asked "Did you remember to marinate the steak tips?"

Oops. He seemed a little annoyed and he said with a sigh, "I suppose I can try to marinate them while the grill is getting ready." He did and they tasted great.

Later, as I was telling my mom about the incident, she told me you can marinate steak tips in Caesar dressing. Umm, that would have been easy, even for me! I mentioned it to Jim and he said with a tone of annoyance "I know, that's what I ended up marinating them in." Good to know. Perhaps he should have mentioned that option to me instead of suggesting that I hunt down a recipe and make marinade from scratch.

So, seeing it from Jim's perspective, he probably has even more reason to rant about me than I have about him. Although, I would like to mention that those two olives? They're still in the fridge and no one has made a sandwich out of them to date.

Just a Few Jackisms

As a preliminary matter, today was a much better day than yesterday. Jim is indeed still alive. He claims that he was planning to use the TWO olives in a sandwich. Right.

Anyway, it was beautiful outside today and the kids had a lot of fun playing outdoors. We had popcorn for a snack, and I noticed Jack continues to refer to it as "Cockcorn." I thought it might be time for a list of the latest Jackisms.

A Peeter: Computer.

A zeeyum: Museum.

Book Man: Butcher (man).

Gwapes: Grapes.

Cop-too: Helicopter. See also Heh-cockter.

Cockcorn: Popcorn. A favorite snack.

Dig-ooh: Digger, one of Jack's favorite construction vehicles.

Heh-cockter: Helicopter. See also Cop-too.

Hi, Doo doo: Jack's way of saying "hey, dude." It morphed from his initial "hi, dude!"

Jan Fwandich: Jam sandwich, Jack's lunch preference.

Manana: Banana.

More-tayto: Tornado. Said as Jack spins wildly in a circle, chanting "More-tayto, More-tayto, More-tayto!" Not to be confused with Tayto or MyTayto (see below).

MyTayto: Matteo, a little boy in Jack's preschool class.

Panpake: Pancake, Jack's favorite breakfast. Often paired with the word "house" thusly "Panpake House" to indicate he would like to go to IHOP.

PIE-at Booties: Pirate Booty, a favorite snack food.

RAD-doo: Used interchangeably to mean radio or radiator.

Stick Toes: French Toast Sticks, another preferred breakfast. A bastardized form of "French Stick Toast," which is what Lily calls them.

Tayto: Mr. Potato Head.

Happy Jack

I'm finally starting to get back into my pre-holiday and pre-illness routine. Today, Jack and I dropped Lily off at school and went on our usual Monday errands -- grocery store, butcher shop and fishmonger. Jack spent the entire trip to the grocery saying "Papa - P! Papa - P!" We've been practicing letters and we told him his special letter is J, Lily's is L, Papa's is P and mine is W (or "doubles") as he calls it.

When we got to the store, Jack yelled "Shopping! Yay!" Is that my child, or what? Once we got inside, he pointed to everything he recognized and told me what it was -- apples, grapes, oranges (anj-ooos) and bananas. A lady heard him and was holding up her things for him to name. Then we stopped at the deli where his favorite deli worker gave him cheese. He said "Jackie LOVE cheeeeeese!" This is usually his favorite part of the trip. As usual, he sang to the music for most of the trip, pausing only to point things out, like chicken and juice.

One thing we've noticed him doing lately is talking in a whispery voice whenever someone other than his immediate family addresses him. He was singing and talking in a normal (even louder than normal) voice until a lady came up and said hello, at which time he practically whispered "Helloooooo." He also makes his voice get really high pitched when he does this. Weird.

I started this post yesterday, and it serves to remind me how quickly a toddler can go from a delight to a terror. Today, Jack was all about breaking and hitting things with any stick-shaped object he could get his hands on. If it weren't for the days when he was a sweet, weird little comedian who loves to cuddle with me, I don't know what I'd do.

Christmas (and Why I Hate Photo Blogging)

I'm going to tell you all about Christmas Eve and Christmas, but I'm going to complain about freaking photo blogging first. AAARRRrrrrghhhhhh! (That was me screaming while grasping the hair on both sides of my head). I took 400+ photos on our trip. I spent an hour downloading them onto my laptop and honing them down to 24 photos that really represent our trip. Then I tried to upload them to my online photo storage account so I could blog them.

45 minutes and one computer crash later, they are still uploading. Actually, as I typed "still uploading" they "finalized" and now they are up. Still...after almost two hours of futzing about with the photos, don't expect to see them in this post. Typing is soooooo much better.

Anyway, I can't remember where I left off in our trip description, so I'll just start with Christmas Eve. Lily and Jack got to play with their "cousints" all day long. Lily and Claire seemed to get along very well, and the Buddha Baby (Andrew, who is delightfully baby-pudgy) kind of laid on the floor and laughed all day. Jack was his usual destructive self. He broke the little windmill he got from Grandpa and told everyone very sadly "Jackie Breaking RainMOOOO." He still speaks about it after more than a week. It was a sad day for him, because he now loves rainmoos almost as much as kites. Jack also fell down and clocked his head on the french doors TWICE. The second time, he got a scrape that bled and had to be bandaged. This becomes important later on, so remember it.

We all had a family photo, which you can look at through the Creston Deeds link at the side of this page. It was nice to be with everyone, and we were sad that Jon and Marcy had to leave before Christmas, although with their hectic schedules recently, we totally understood the need!

We checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo. We were really happy with the room, especially since it had a bathroom that opened onto the living room instead of into the bedroom. The kids were pretty worn out from playing with their cousins all day, so they went to sleep just fine. When we woke up, we dressed them and drove back to Creston.

Lily loved her Mooshabelly doll and was so excited about her princess dressing table. She also loved her camera and the little pet shop toys her grandparents bought her. Jack didn't really get Christmas this year, although he knew the hot wheels set was for him. I'd love to give you a detailed description of all the wonderful things the kids got, but they were boxed up that evening and shipped out, and still haven't arrived here. It will be like Christmas again when they arrive (hopefully tomorrow).

We had a lovely Christmas dinner with a terrific soup that Aunt Nile made (please send us the recipe) and other dishes all contributed by everyone in the family. It was delicious. We left as early as we could to get the kids in bed before the five hour drive to San Francisco. The kids were wiped out by all the excitement.

The next day, we headed out to San Francisco. The kids were amazingly well behaved and amused themselves with some of their new toys during the drive. We had no set plans for a rest stop, so I asked Jim if we could stop at Fry's Electronics. I'd been there once about 10 years ago and wanted to check it out again.

It was such a bad idea. Fry's was packed. Lily wanted some little stuffed animals on a sale rack and we ended up having to wait half an hour at the register while our holiday temporary cashier tried to figure out how much they were. By the time we got into the car, everyone was cranky. We decided to stop at the Aviation Museum just outside of San Francisco, eat a late lunch and look at the exhibits.

The nice restaurant next to the museum only served dinners, so we ended up at Burger King. Then we went next door to the museum. What a fun place! They had a lot of exhibits and the kids loved running around the hangar and climbing in the hands-on exhibits. Unfortunately, we didn't get there until a hour before closing, so we didn't have much time for the kids to play.

Ten minutes before we left, Jack ran toward a mock-up of a plane in the kid's play area and cracked his forehead on the metal carpet transition. Remember how he cut his head in Creston? Well, now he had a bandage on his temple from his earlier injury and a giant goose egg right between his eyes from his fall in the museum. We ended up calling Dr. Brewer (our Melrose pediatrician) and asking if it would be safe to take him on the plane. Based on our description of Jack's latest injury, Dr. Brewer told us not to worry. Actually, my real concern was that someone would arrest us for child abuse because it looked a lot like Jack had been beaten about the head by someone.

We were really dreading the red-eye flight, but I think it was a good plan. Lily stayed awake for about an hour watching the Cartoon channel and then fell asleep. Jack fell asleep about 10 minutes into the flight. They both slept until just before landing. Jim and I even managed to catch a few winks. We got home at about 6:30 and all went to bed for a few more hours.

Anyway, I hope to show you some pictures in my next post. There are some great shots -- Jim at In-n-Out Burgers, Lily dancing on the wharf in San Francisco and Jack staring in fascinated horror at the laughing automaton are just a few of them. Keep your fingers crossed that I can get them all posted on here in a manner that makes it easy for you to see them. I've been having some trouble with Blogger and photos recently. It wants to either make them extremely large or to cut them in half. It took me hours of epic battle to post the last pictures, and I ended up just uploading them into Blogger. That option has limits, so hopefully I will be able to do a little fooling with HTML codes and work it out this time. Stay tuned.

Road Trip to Creston

It went really well! We didn't even have to break out the DVD player. We had originally planned to stop in San Jose at an amusement park/zoo and wear the kids out. I realized last night that the amusement park portion was only open on the weekend during December, and neither Jim nor I was that excited about going to a zoo. Unfortunately, there weren't many kid friendly places open between San Francisco and Creston.

Once we got everything loaded into the Gold Behemoth, we set the kids up with some cold drinks and snacks and set off at about 9:30. By the time we hit the San Jose area and got near the zoo, both kids were having a great time entertaining themselves. We decided to skip the zoo and keep going until either the kids got fussy or it was time to stop for lunch.

Shortly thereafter, Lily had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped in Gilroy (the Garlic town) at a little garlic store off the highway. They had a lot of neat stuff in there! After a bathroom break, we bought some garlic stuffed olives, garlic chips, a lip gloss for Lily, some lollies for the kids, and some terrifying hot sauce from one of Jim's colleagues called "ANALize this!" They had some other ones, like "Fire in and Fire out!" and "See Dick Burn." You get the general idea.

After our pit stop, we hit the road and headed toward Salinas, where Jim and I always stop for In-n-Out burgers. We did briefly debate eating somewhere else, since we had In-n-Out on Wednesday, but both of us knew what the outcome would be. Lily only wanted the french fries, but Jack immediately grabbed his burger and said "BIG BITE!" A man at the next table saw him and pointed him out to his buddies, because he kept saying "BIG BITE!" each time he ate some burger.

The kids started to get a little fussy about twenty minuted before we drove into Atascadero. Poor Lily got car sick and threw up into my (giant) soda cup. Jim foolishly took the cup away too soon, so Lily also ended up throwing up on her jacket and into the open carry on bag that was stored on the floor under her feet. Yuck. It was my happy job to clean up all of the vomit as soon as we arrived in Creston, of course! Fortunately, she didn't get it on the car.

The kids immediately settled in with their Grandpa and Grandma. Lily was in heaven because Grandma played Polly Pocket with her for what I'm sure seemed like hours to Grandma! Jack entertained himself with a wooden train and some foam toys, but his favorite activity was the bus that winds up and goes. He shrieked with joy every time that it ran and said "FUNNY!" I think he wore Grandpa out making the bus go about 100 times in a row.

We all slept in the rig, which Jim named the "Night Night Truck." Both kids did fairly well, although Lily wanted to go to sleep in the big bed and had to be moved later, and Jack woke up twice, and wanted to stay with us the second time. The first time he woke up, I think he was confused because he didn't know where he was. When we was in bed with us, he kept reaching his hand up and patting my cheek throughout the night to make sure I was there.

Jack's Umbrella and the Breaking Man

I forgot to tell you about a couple of funny moments we had today. While we were eating lunch, an elderly man came up and offered the kids each a balloon sword. Sweet, right? After each kid excitedly took one, he turned to Jim and said "Money." Nice.

Anyway, the kids were holding their balloon swords for most of the afternoon. Lily was waving hers around like a sword, but Jack was poking his into the ground as he rolled along in his stroller, and chanting "BRE-la. BRE-la. BRE-la." We soon realized he was calling his sword an umbrella. We told him it was a sword, and he said "NOOOO. JACK-ee's BRE-la." He is so odd.

This evening, both kids were watching Scooby Doo. In this particular episode, the main character was an evil snowman. Jack was VERY concerned about the snowman. He referred to the snowman as "BREAK-ing MAAAAAN." He did not like the Breaking Man, and he wanted us to notice the Breaking Man and repeatedly grabbed our arms and pointed at him, saying "UH-ohhhhh. BREAK-ing MAAAN!" We finally figured out that in Jack's world, breaking not only means broken, about to be broken, opened, and taken apart, but it also means "bad." Apparently, since he knows breaking things is bad, a bad snowman is a Breaking Man. At dinner, more than an hour later, he repeatedly assured us the that the Breaking Man was bye-bye.

A Brief Lexicon of Jackisms

For those of you who will be spending some time with Jack this Christmas, I've decided to create a helpful guide to Jack-Speak.

Adaddy: Granddaddy.

AIM-ah: Our neighbor, Emma. He seems to have a crush on her.

BEE: His binky. He can't be bothered to say the entire word, so he just refers to it by its first initial.

BEF: Our neighbor, Beth.

BIIIIIke: Bicycle, tricycle or motorcycle.

BOOboo: An injury. Often accompanied with a gesture indicating that he would like the injury to be kissed.

BOOK: What he wants read to him 24-7.

BREAKing: Most commonly used to describe actually breaking something. May also be used to mean taking apart, knocking over or opening something.

BUHee: Bird.

CAH: Car or vehicle with wheels.

CACKee: Cracker.

CAKE: Might mean cookies, cake or any type of sweet dessert. Also used to refer to anything that looks like it might be a sweet dessert. Variant: CAKE-ee.

COAT: An essential if he will be going outside. Usually accompanied with a gesture towards his stomach.

CUCK-ah: Yucky. Usually refers to a poopy diaper or something he knows he should not eat. Often used by us to deflect him from wanting things like candy or cookies.

DOWM: Down.

DownTARE: Downstairs. Indicates he would like to go into the playroom.

eye-CREEEEEM: Ice cream.

EYE-TEEE: Iced tea or any adult drink.

Foam: Telephone. Something he is obsessed with.

FUNNNeee: Used to describe himself whenever he does something he thinks is amusing.

HAT: An essential if he will be going outside. Usually accompanied with one hand pointing to his head, in case you don't understand.

HELP: Usually said when he is stuck somewhere, which is fairly often. See also STUUUUUCK.

HOWS: House.

KANGee: Candy. He loves candy but rarely gets any. He is often told that candy is CUCK-ah.

KAY-CUE: Thank you. Used without prompting if we're lucky.

KAYee: Kitty. See also OSHee and meOW.

KITE: Any flat item that is in the general shape of a kite. Also refers to shredded Kleenexes thrown into the air.

KUCK: Truck. Includes heavy equipment.

LEElie: Lily

MAma: Me

MEOW: The sound a cat makes or just another word for cat.

MESHee: Messy. Usually used to describe the state of his clothing after a meal. It is always an understatement.

MILK: Any type of drink. See also EYE-TEEEE.

NACK: Snack.

NIGH-NIGH: The act of going to bed.

OSHIE: Oskar

PApa: Jim

PEEE: Please. Used without prompting if we're lucky.

RANG: Rain. Variant: RANGing. Used to describe rain or the act of something liquid falling down from above, i.e., RANGing MILK (pouring milk from his high chair onto OSHIE).

RANG-ee: Grammy

RASHee: Rash. Lately he claims to be rashy on his chest, but we see no evidence of it.

SHOOOO: Shoe. An essential when going out and a preferred item of clothing indoors. Often refers to shoes he is wearing that belong to Mama, Lily or Papa.

snOOOOW: Snow.

STICKee: Sticker or sticky, depending on the context.


STUUUUUCK: Usually said in an extremely frustrated tone. Often leads him to ask for HELP.

TI-BOY: His version of tired boy. Used to describe himself when he is extremely sleepy.

UHoh: Something bad or disappointing has happened. This word usually precedes the discovery of a huge mess or mass destruction.

upTARE: Upstairs. Indicates he would like to go to bed.

WAH-fool: Waffle. His favorite breakfast food. May also be used to describe french toast and pancakes.

He does have a lot of other words he uses, but these are the ones we seem to hear most frequently. Especially "UHoh."