Mona Lisa and The Gizzard

Mona Lisa is my beloved dog. I have had her for 13 years through college, lawschool, marriage and the birth of H. She has been an incredible pet and an amazing companion. Mona Lisa has been very sick on and off throughout the years, but we have been incredibly blessed that she always seems to have a little life in her. She really is showing her age, but this is a common look in our house as she guards the cat food can. You may think the photos are the same, but they are not. She holds rock solid for hours with that can in her mouth!

This is Gizzie a.k.a. Gizmo a.k.a. The Gizzard. Nanni and Pa adopted the Gizzard about 4 weeks before we found out Nanni was sick. She is so cute, but she is an old girl who has had a hard life. She has many things wrong with her, but we are so happy that we found her when we did and that she has come to live with Nanni and Pa. We can't imagine her not being here!

The Twins!

H and his Nanni are like twins. They have the same haircut, the same phrases, the same expressions and sometimes they even dress alike. H loves his Nanni and his Nanni loves him. Its a great relationship except when H picks up "Nanni-phrases" like "What the heck" and "Oh, my gosh" which are not quite fitting for a 3 year old boy!

Nanni was the first person to babysit H and watched H exclusively when I went back to work. Nanni was the first person to give H peanut butter - at about 6 weeks not worrying about alergies. Nanni was the first person to give him a Reese's cup and Nanni was the first person to let H sleep on his stomach.

Nanni and H have had many firsts over the past few years and we are incredibly lucky that we live so close to Nanni. Unfortunately, Nanni received a horrible diagnosis a month ago and we are all having a hard time dealing with it - especially H who doesn't understand why Nanni can't play with him. They do still love to take long walks up the driveway when Nanni is feeling ok. H makes sure to give a running commentary the entire way!

Strange Things at Nanni's House

We spend almost every day at Nanni's house helping her with what she needs done and we have noticed some really interesting things in the past few weeks. The most unusual is how the butterflies and lizards (or Zardos as H calls them) are acting. I haven't caught the butterflies on camera yet, so I will have to follow up with that later. However, today I got some really great photos of H's Zardo friend listening in on my conversation with Nanni in the flower garden. Nanni and Pa have a great flower garden outside their front door and Nanni, Pa, H and I spend hours and hours sitting out there each day. Today, Zardo decided to join in!

The funny thing was that I really think he liked being photographed. He never moved and actually the first picture is the last one I took and he let me get right up on him. He stayed after that to add his two cents to our converstation.

The Masked Man

As I continue with this blog, I realize two things...(1) I want to stay away from using our names since this is a public site, and (2) I am getting really sick of not using our names! So, from now on my son will be referred to as "H." Not sure why I think I will like this better, but it is worth a shot.

In case you haven't picked up on it yet, H loves to have his face painted. I think its part of his acting side. Even in the post where is he showing his lion craft, he has a cow painted on his face. Since my brother in law showed me how to download my camera pictures, I have a bunch of backlog to enter. This particular one is from our trip to Disney at the end of May beginning of June right before Nanni got her diagnosis. We were totally oblivious of what we were going to face when we got home and we enjoyed every minute. These are some of my favorite photos of H taming his snake!!!


Can you tell how much H loves this? We were so excited to find that our resort had free face painting, so we took full advantage.

Coming up for a breather.

Up close at the work in progress. What a handsome boy!

H wanted to make sure the painter knew exactly what she was doing...notice his eyes checking her out.

Adding the snake's detail and sitting very still.

The finished product...but, wait...that doesn't look like the face of a snake tamer!

Ta da!!!! The snake tamer in action. H proceeded to go throughout the entire resort attempting to kung foo his snake on innocent visitors.

Never Drink Yellow Bath Water

"Don't worry, there is nothing wrong with this water...it just looks yellow!"

"See, taste...I told you so. Baths are important because you can also clean your teeth!"

"Why are you looking at me like that...the water tastes great!"

"Its so hard trying to explain things to kids younger than me....see how frustrated I get!"

These pictures really cracked me up. This is my son and his cousin who is 18 months and its their first bath together. They had a ball in the bath, but what I didn't realize is that the yellow Elmo fizzy tab would make the bath water look like "tee-tee" water in all the photos. Of course being boys, they loved it.

Boys Love Trucks!

Today was the classic all boy day. I straightened up a bit this morning while my son played "cars." This involves lining up all of the cars in a parade, parking all of the cars in a parking lot formation, crashing all of the cars together, and best of all making the cars flip through the air like the Dukes of Hazard. Lately after our morning routine, we have been heading out to Nanni's house to help, but today we did something a little different...we went to the pool.

We really love the pool although we find that we only go about once every other week or so. This morning, there were a few moms and many children my son's age. Now, you would think that my son would love to play with the kids, but NO! Instead, he gathered everyone else's toys and played with them, found a frog in the bathroom that he convinced the lifeguard to rescue, and best of all...he forced me into the water mushroom about 100 times laughing hysterically b/c I was soaked. Of course, I couldn't go in the mushroom in just my bathing suit....No, I had to bring my towel in case his eyes got wet.

So, there I was the ONLY mom playing with her child and the ONLY mom soaked from head to toe with a towel in the water. The other neighborhood moms must have thought I was a nut. Good thing I am usually working full time b/c they had no idea who I was.

After the pool we went to Nanni & Pa's house for the day. My son had packed all of his cars in his backpack, but realized when we got there that he had left "Snot Rod" at home. For those of you that do not have a little boy, Snot Rod is a big deal in the movie "Cars"...or at least to my son who thinks every single vehicle in Cars is a big deal. After unpacking all vehicles and introducing them one by one to Nanni (after telling her to stop talking during the introductions about 5 times), the parade, parking lot, crashing, and Dukes' jumps started all over again. This lasted for most of the day only to be broken by at least 10 trips up the driveway to see the "Diggers" constructing the house next door. This may seem like no big deal, but Nanni & Pa have a driveway the length of a football field. I got my exercise today!

The perfect day had a perfect ending as my son read Pa at least 4 Christmas books in the nude....Gee, did I forget that...about 3/4 of the day was spent in the buff. Not sure if its a boy thing or just a thing for my boy but he loves to go au natural! I finally convinced him back into his boxer briefs for the ride home, on which he immediately feel asleep and is currently asleep on my hubby's shoulder.

What a perfect day! For any of you that are reading this that are waiting to adopt a little boy from China - you are going to love it! I always thought I wanted ALL girls...there hasn't been a boy in my family for 62 years. I was so nervous the whole time I was pregnant that I would not know what to do with a little boy, but that changed the second I saw him. It was love at first sight and it gets better day by day - including my perfect today!

A Wise Man Once Told Me To Always Carry A Big Stick!

Granparents are great and my son sure has some good ones! My son simply adores his "Pa." They are like two peas in a pod and my son mimics him all of the time. Lately, we have been spending a lot of time at Nanni and Pa's house and my son loves it.

Nanni and Pa have a really long driveway so the other day Pa and my son set out for a journey up the driveway to see the diggers, which are building a house next door. Looking at the two of them together was adorable. My son chatted the entire way up and entire way down explaining to Pa what the diggers were doing and the best way to carry a stick.

"Pa, It's hard work carrying this big stick!"

"Look casual...never let them see you sweat!"

"Better catch up, I am taking the lead."

"Pa, you are so fast!!!"

"Pa, that was a piece of cake...just follow me next time...I am a pro!"