Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Dragons, For You Are Crispy And Good With Ketchup

So I go in to check on My Precious in his Big Boy Bed last night, and he's not there. Not in his bed. Not on the pillows. Not on the floor with his face pressed against the heating vent. Fortunately I could hear him breathing, so I didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that someone had scaled the house, come into the window and stolen him. I follow the sound of his tiny snores and press down the giant couch pillows that are still right up next to the bed ... and there he is. In exactly the same position as he fell asleep, just under the bed instead of on top of it.


You see that gap? Yeah, I made that gap when I was looking for him. The first pillow had been up against the bed like the second one is.

There's no way he did this on purpose. I know him and I saw the way he was laying, and the only possible conclusion is that he rolled onto the couch cushion, his body weight pressed it down and dumped him under the bed, and the pillow fluffed back up to swallow him whole. And he never woke up. Not even when Phil pulled him out and put him back on top. Hilarious!!

I'm considering the advice to purchase some sort of rail, but the 11pm treasure hunts for my son are pretty fun, too!

Is It True That The Guy In The Red Shirt Just Wants To Be A Better Dancer?

Right now my big, big boy is asleep in his Big Boy Cozy Bed in his Big Boy Room! For the second night in a row! This is just incredible to me. I'd been taking my time with this transition, partly because it seemed so intimidating and partly because I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be down with the change. So on Thursday night, I decided to do his evening story time in his new room, just to ease into things. He loved being in there, so I hesitantly asked if he wanted to sleep in there, too, and he was thrilled with the idea. So we gave it a whirl.

The whirl lasted about an hour-and-a-half, but it was a good whirl. The only problem was that he was so excited about his new spot that sleeping was put way on the back burner.

We had lots of this...

...and this...


...and some festive rolling around on the pillow padding I put down, but in the end, it was back in the crib to bring on the sleep. He went on to have a couple of really good rest times (no sleep, but he was much calmer and obedient to the "don't get out of bed 'til I come get you" rule), so we gave nighttime another go last night.

Here he is about 30 minutes after I put him down:


And here is a couple hours later when I checked on him:


Ah, the pitiful cuteness! Phil and I just stared from the door for a while. As much as I hated to disturb him, I just couldn't leave him with his face on the air vent. Poor thing looked around completely bewildered for several minutes after I layed him back in bed, then it took about 3 hours to get him back to sleep. I'm hoping for a little bit smoother night tonight, but I consider last night a total success. He wasn't interested in getting back in his crib, and after he settled back down, he slept until 8:30 without waking up or rolling across the room. I'm so proud of my big boy, but part of me wants to go in there, grab him out of that bed, and rock him in his nursery chair 'til morning.

Here's the latest belly picture - me and my Nibblet at 6 months.

Within the last few weeks, I've noticed people giving me wary glances and asking me if I'm OK as though my water might break right in front of them. Ladies at church are patting my arm and giving me understanding and pained smiles and saying things like, "Are you ready to pop?" and "So, how much longer is it?" certainly expecting the answer to be in days or weeks. I think I'm going to have a t-shirt made that says, "I have 3 months to go, so save your pity for the beginning of April!" :-)

Oh, and here's a funny story I forgot to tell in my last post. On my trip to see family last week, Andrew and I stopped into a McDonalds for some lunch. The cashier, who looked to be all of 17 years old, took a look at me and said the following: "You know you're not supposed to lift more than 10 pounds ... (pause for condescending smile and pointed look at Andrew on my hip) ... and I'm pretty sure he weighs more that 10 pounds." Ten pounds?! I've never heard of such. I wouldn't be able to take my groceries in from the car. Heck, I wouldn't be able to lift Rhianna's sweet new baby who tipped the hospital scales at over 11 pounds. But seriously, even if I'd walked up there with Phil on my hip I would have been a little surprised by the chastisement.

Annie Roots' Back Flaps

Our trip to visit family was so lovely. I thought I'd start out with one of the major highlights - checking out all the new water pipes! These above are from my grandparents' house (Andrew calls my Nana "Aji," the Indian word for grandmother, so as to distinguish her from "Nina" and "Nannie"). I think he was especially pleased that he could so easily sit in the cabinet while "watching the water go down."

Aren't my grandparents beautiful? My Papa is somewhere in his mid-nineties now and is still full of health and humor. He doesn't even wear glasses except to read. My Nana keeps her days full leading Bible studies, e-mailing friends and family and traveling all over the world. I've already bombed out in the eye-sight arena, but I'm still daring to hope that just maybe I've inherited their skin.


I loved seeing Andrew get so comfortable with them. One of my favorite moments was watching Andrew and my Papa eat their grapes together at lunch, Andrew commenting with every bite that he was doing it "just like Papa" and each of them announcing grandly when they were "all done!" (Sorry Papa Mobley, I wasn't able to come up with another name for my grandfather fast enough, so we have two Papa's ... I think Precious will be able to sort it out)

My college suitemate, Georgia, was able to swing by for a visit with her sweet Spartacus*. Bonus!


They were especially adorable playing outside together with sticks in the bird bath. Ahhh! I could barely stand it. What's better than little boys running free outside together with sticks to splash in water filled with bird poops?! It's the way things should be.


Before we knew it, we were back in the car heading for the glories of Fountain Place - loving family, delicious food, and ... ah, yes! ... new plumbing!


When Uncle Mark saw how insanely enamored this little guy was with water pipes, he rooted around until he found some old ones for Andrew to have and to hold from this day forward.


Bathtime has never been this awesome. How long was he in the tub that night, Ashton? Forty-five minutes? Even then it was a sad moment when it was time to drag his wrinkled little body out.


Afternoon tea was greatly anticipated every day, The Precious taking his with cream and sugar in a boot. He doesn't look especially pleased in this shot, but trust me, a couple of ginger-lemon creams and a boot full of tea along side his Ashton made for one happy lad. (Could my extended family be any more good-looking? Seriously.)


Auntie's cooking is something to write home about. Nibblet loaded up with pot roast, lemon rosemary chicken, and baby back ribs, whose sauce recipe, I kid you not, required creating some sort of bacon-wrapped-around-fresh-herbs aparatus. Should you ever attempt such a feat, I must warn you that jute is NOT an acceptable alternative to kitchen string.

Here's Himself helping his Auntie peel potatoes.


I saved the most fabulous picture for the end. A kiss goodbye for his beloved cousin Ashton. Look at those lips!


In heaven I'm going to live a whole lot closer to my dear family. They are the best.

On a totally unrelated note, my dearest, darling husband recently checked into his San Francisco hotel, making it 2 trips to the west coast in less than a week. Blah. My lonely evening was, however, brightened mere moments ago by this text from him:

So I went to Chipotle and got it to go...
I neglected to get a fork when I left.
So, I'm eating it with my (washed with soap and hot water) comb.

I adore this man.

My Other Car Is Made Of Meat

How crazy is this? I now regularly play Candy Land with My 2-year-old Precious. It was a Christmas present from his Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jessie, and I was pretty sure I'd be storing it for at least a few months ... but no. He loves it. I confess, we don't exactly play by the rules. Even though he understands the concept of "next" (as in, move your ginger bread man to the next blue square) he often prefers to just move his guy to whatever blue first catches his eye. And he doesn't concern himself with getting to the end, he just looks forward to the next special card which sends him searching for the lolly pop or gum drop. We will play this for 20 minutes straight.

Another new fixation: The pipes under the sink. I was cleaning out the cabinet space in the guest bathroom the other day, and he climbed in to discover that not only could he see the bottom of the sink, but also THE PLUMBING! Who knew this was such big excitement? His little mind is thrilled by understanding how things work (not how his mommy's mind works at all, so it continues to boggle me), and when I told him that's where the water goes after it goes down the drain ... well, that was the end of toys for the day. He had to run to each bathroom to check out the pipes, then he wanted to see the water going down. I told him though we couldn't actually see it, we could hear it, and for a week now every time I wash my hands I have to stop up the water in the sink, turn off the faucet so that it's quiet enough to hear the water drain, then pull up the stopper. He would have me do this all day.

Below you can see him taking a break from his pipe-watching vigil to play in my make-up. He got into some sort of sparkly, powdery stuff that I think is supposed to go on my eye lids (that's what's all over his jeans) just as we were headed out for quesidillas.

Andrew also appears desperate to read. He's big into memorizing his books and often wants me to underline the words I'm reading with my finger so he can see where I am. And anything he finds with words on it he thrusts in my direction, pointing at the writing, wanting to know exactly what it says. I find myself reading out to him things like "package slip #AZ15782," "corrugated recyclables" and the ingredient list on the Cheerio box. He'll repeat it after me, fascinated. He knows all his letters and most of the sounds, and I occasionally will make pitiful attempts to show him how to sound out the words he wants to know, but I don't know what else to do to help him in his quest to become a freaky reading toddler nerd. I guess we'll just keep reading lots of stuff together as long as it intrigues him so.

He feels like such a big boy. We've been working to convert the guest room into "Andrew's Special Big Boy Room," which has been a lot of fun (well, a lot of fun for me since I wasn't the one hauling sofa-of-death up the stairs and the sewing-machine-table-of-death down the stairs). His fall from the crib a couple months ago made quite an impression - he understood clearly what he'd done to make that happen and seemed even less interested in repeating the event than I, so we didn't rush him to the toddler bed as originally planned. Phil just put it together a few days ago (thanks, Emmy, for sharing your bed!), and I think it's the cutest thing in the world. I especially love that the quilt my grandmother made for me (out of pieces from quilts my great-grandmother had made, no less) looks so beautiful on it.


He hasn't slept in it yet. I want to make the room a little more "his" before trying that transition. When I first mentioned him sleeping in this room (before the guest queen bed had been taken down, which I'm sure was what he thought I was talking about), he gave me a dark look and pointed emphatically at his crib and said, "That cozy bed." I'm a little more hopeful now that I've seen how much he loves to sit on his Big Boy Cozy Bed (as opposed to just Cozy Bed - the crib - or Tiny Cozy Bed - his pack-n-play). We'll see how it goes. If it stresses his little bickies out, we'll just leave him in Cozy Bed and put our Nibblet in a bassinet for a while.

In just a couple days we're off to see my Nana (the quilt-maker) and Auntie, Uncle and fabulous cousin Ashton. We can't wait!!!

Bossy Sprockets!

Our Christmas, in pictures. (Lots of pictures ... you might want to get a snack. Might I highly recommend something from the Twix family?)

Decorating Christmas cookies

Ready for the oven

Our first Christmas morning at home - the best! Here's Andrew completely in awe of the train (with crossing!) that my parents brought for him

Little Debbie Christmas tree snack cake breakfast, fresh from the stocking (another highly recommended snack option, come to think of it)

Checking out his new toy kitchen from Mom and Dad (that would be me and Phil, not my parents again)

Nana looking smashing in her new rhinestone-studded reading glasses

Playdoh bliss (thank you, Mema!)

Loving the Hopeland Garden lights with Nannie in Aiken

My favorite Quelf moment (what do you mean, you don't understand?)

Music lessons with Nannie (apparently he's some sort of musical prodigy, which I'm pretty sure is obvious from this photo)

The whole Mobley clan

Nibblet at 5 months
(I don't know if this poor non-maternity tank is going to make it - it shrieked in terror as it realized I was reaching for it)

And totally random, Ami, this is for you. This is the shallot monstrosity that had me so confused. I was actually a little disappointed when I got it all set up for the photo shoot - I was hoping, after all the discussion, that it would look basketball sized.