Day 33-- Zoo and a Hot Stove

My daughter has some special talents. She doesn't say much or move around much, but she's like a homing pigeon when it comes to nipples. Even non-functional ones. Pick her up, and within 20 seconds, somehow she's managed to get into a situation like this:

My son has some special talents, too. I don't know what he was dreaming about, but when we woke him up this morning, he said "Edgar want to play organ!" ...uh... okay.

This is him working my guitar pedals with his feet while rocking out on the organ. I believe he was playing and singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

We went to the zoo today!

It was a beautiful day, although a bit cold. After doing a bit of research, Jen and I decided that buying a zoo membership was a really smart way to go. Now, we get into the zoo free for the next 12 months. We also get to bring one guest for free and get discounts on other guests, so if you want to go to the zoo with us, hit us up! Also, we get discounts or free admissions at lots of other zoos nationwide, including the Winston Wild Animal park (We're planning a trip for next month), and the Salt Lake Zoo.

We saw all sorts of animals. For the first little bit, Edgar kept asking "Zoo is?" (Edgarspeak for "where's the beef... I mean zoo?) I wonder what he was expecting.

Edgar was very excited to see all the animals. Close up encounters with bears, bald eagles, beavers and ducks (!), otters, tigers, orangutans, elephants, you name it...

Jen, Edgar, and Mama cougar. We watched Baby cougar tackle Mama cougar.

Watching the otters in their den. Edgar tried to kiss them a couple of times.

Driving a tractor.

The Amur Leopard was our last stop on the way out. Edgar didn't want to leave.

Sabrina, on the other hand, stayed snuggled up as a pappose on my chest in the baby bjorn. It was very sweet. It's surprising how little she weighs.

This is what I saw all day.

The kids were hungry and ready for a nap, but we weren't worried: with our new zoo membership, we can go back often, so there was none of the compulsion that I usually have of we-have-to-see-everything-today...


Edgar surprisingly stayed awake for the drive home. This was very good news: We could all nap inside. Edgar picked out a CD to listen to during his nap (part of the new routine). In keeping with the zoo theme, he chose this Talking Heads album:

Upon seeing the monkey on it, Edgar declared, "I love this CD!"    ...someday in the future, dad will introduce him to Remain in Light.

Edgar woke up from his nap with a solid half hour of crying "I want-a mommy!" A solid half hour in which he wouldn't let me hold him or pick him up (or shove a bottle in his mouth to plug the sound). Finally, after about 35 minutes, he changed his tune to "I want-a He-Man Movie. I want-a Daddy. I want-a He-Man Movie." before switching back to Mommy. At that point, he was willing to let me pick him up, so we watched some He-Man.

I cooked his dinner-- hot corn and a hard-boiled egg, by request. Edgar wanted to supervise cooking from a stool. After the egg was done, I turned off the stove, and turned around to rinse and cool the egg. While my back was turned, I heard Edgar yell.

He had burned his hand on the still-hot stove. It immediately blistered. I got it under cold water immediately, and got him settled, still screaming for Mommy. Jen arrived on the scene and helped comfort him, and consulted all the online stuff about what to do in case of a burn. We're not too concerned. All kids go through something like this, and we're darn lucky that it wasn't worse. It did make a good teaching moment, and I doubt he'll ever touch a hot stove again. I wish he'd take our word for things, but I'm afraid this will be a pattern with this boy.

Once the blisters had raised, I could see that he burned the four fingers on his left hand. We got him a bowl of cold water to soak his hand in, and let him eat his dinner and watch TV:



We kept it cold for quite a while, wrapped his hand in gauze, and put a mitten over it for him to sleep. It was a tough night, between an in-pain, acting-up Edgar and his fussy sister, and two exhausted parents. Here's hoping he sleeps through the night.

Day 26-- Bjorn Again

This morning was similar to many recently, in that Edgar and I got up and let Jen sleep in. She slept in quite a long time.

Edgar and I went to his play group. I didn't have a lot to talk about with all the stay-at-home-moms this time (and there were an awful lot of them), but Edgar had fun. I'm not sure it was the best use of either of our morning, but whatever.

Came home, and I fell asleep with Sabrina on me waiting for Jen to fix lunch. (One thing we've sorta naturally slid into in our almost-9 years of marriage is that Jen does almost all the cooking. I sure could, but I simply care a lot less about meals, and therefore we all end up hungrier if I'm left to do the cooking. So, now that Jen's recovered (mostly) from having a baby, she's back to being the cook. I'm slacking a little on dishes today, but that's mostly my job)

Anyway, Edgar woke me up for lunch, then I fell right back asleep and had a really long nap.

The more I get used to this, the more I realize that what I will miss most about these 42 days is the regular 3-hour naps every day. That's my FAVORITE part.

I was awoken from my nap by a yelling baby lying next to me. Apparently, we were alone in the house. It was a beautiful day, so I found our baby bjorn, strapped her in, and took her outside. Oustide, I found Jen and Edgar visiting the neighbors.

Came back inside, and put on a Phil Collins record, wore some ski goggles that were giving me problems up on the mountain, and attempted to do dishes with Sabrina strapped on my chest and asleep. It didn't work out too well, but I hope you have that picture in your mind, because it was awesome.

After a wonderful dinner provided by our upstairs neighbors (Thank you! It was delicious!), we attempted to go as a family to the grocery store.

For the record, two kids with two parents at the grocery store is about twice as hard as one kid with one parent. I have no idea what it would be like to try to take both kids alone.

We stopped by the toy aisle, and bought Edgar a plastic sword.

I can't describe enough how happy that made him. He did "Power of Grayskull!" every 10 seconds until we left the store. We bought two swords, so that Edgar and his dad can have swordfights. Edgar was even trying to recreate the He-Man opening monologue: "Magic sword, say 'Power of Grayskull!' kssshhhhh!!! Have Power!". We had to pry it from his hands to put him to bed tonight. It also came with a lecture from mom on how we never ever hit baby sister with the sword.

After the kids fell asleep, we watched a fragment of the Jackie Chan movie we've been working through, but Jen quickly succumbed to sleepiness. I think I'm next.