Random Images of November

I made a shelf for these bins I've had since before Gordon was born - then painted the bins red and added a chalkboard painted front...now I need to find the chalk so I can write labels.

The train loving boy himself and "fuzzy" Thomas. A play date with his buddies

Thankfully all 3 boys are train lovers I guess Gordon was overwhelmed...

His first "unassisted" chalk drawing. What is it? What else - a train.

The artist at work.

I've heard artists can be tempermental, but this is ridiculous.

Contemplating deep thoughts I'm sure.

Playing with his birthday train set.Now for some truly random images...

Turning Four

My baby turned four this month, it is unbelievable to me that it has been four years, but then again, it feels like a lifetime ago in some ways.

The day was memorable. The day before the party I had baked the cake, but not frosted it. For some unfathomable reason I decided to paint the bathroom just days before the party...I like to torture myself I guess. I only invited four little boys, two sets of brothers, and their moms, so was keeping it small, but there is still a lot of work in making treat bags, decorating the cake, decorating the room with balloons and such, and most of all, cleaning the house for guests after a painting spree. The night before one of the mom's called and said they would not be able to make it, although we were disappointed, it was probably for the best considering how the day unfolded.

I was right on schedule to get all done and meet our friends at the Children's Museum for the first part of the party. I'd finished the cleaning and was just about ready to decorate the cake and then take my shower, when it happened. As I walked past the bathroom I saw an actual wave of water flowing toward me in the hallway...a wave of water? It was surreal. I ran to our rag pile and grabbed all of them and threw them on the spreading water just before it reached the hardwood floors in the hallway. I stepped on them and went into the bathroom to see where this water was coming from and was stunned to see a fan of water spraying out from behind the toilet where the coils go into the wall. I grabbed all the bath towels out of the closet and threw them on the floor and tried to turn the nozzles to shut the water off but it wouldn't stop so then took a trash can and tried to make the fan of water go in the trash can, it filled immediately so I stood there catching it and tossing it in the tub over and over trying to think fast how to stop this disaster. Gordon heard the commotion and came running. I told him to bring me the phone, he did. First call - Dad. He's 4 hours away, but will always be my first call in a crisis. Unfortunately he had no idea where our water shut off would be, just that I needed to find it. Next call - Shannon, at his mom's house in VA where he stays while working up there. Since he works nights he was sleeping so I had his mom wake him and said "it was an emergency". Gordon heard that word and caught on right away that this was important and ran around the house squealing that "It's an emergency! It's an emergency!" Shannon explained that there was no water shut off valve on the house, only in the water box buried in the front yard where the city access lid requires their key. Third call - the City of Greensboro - I just said "Hurry - I need someone to come and turn off my water" and they said they were on their way. Fourth call, the plumber we had at the house in October - Williams Plumbing Heating & Cooling. They actually just replaced these coils along with the flushing mechanism last month. I again used the word "emergency" which set off a new round of squealing by Gordon. All of this has been done while bailing water at a record pace to keep up with it. Within 20 minutes the plumber showed...I didn't have time at the moment to be embarrassed over my unshowered, barely dressed (in paint/cleaning clothes) appearance - I was bailing too fast and told Gordon to let the plumber in, he ran to the door, opened it and squealed to the plumber getting out of his van (and the whole neighborhood) that "WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY, MOMMY'S IN THE BATHROOM!" I've never been so happy to see a plumber. He stopped the water. I immediately felt my panic level come down a notch. He replaced the coil - which had been improperly connected somehow. The city workers showed up, but I told them "never mind, thank you for coming". The plumber didn't charge a thing since it was a problem from their work/part - but I highly recommend this company if you are in this area, they sure stand behind their work and have great response time too, plus everyone we had out here (we also used them for inspecting/tuning up our furnace in October) was very nice and professional. So he was on his way and life was back to normal...well except for the mountain of wet towels & rags, the undecorated cake, and the unshowered slightly stressed mommy & the hyped up 4 year old still squealing "we're having an emergency" over and over like it was the best thing since Thomas the Train. I called my friend with the two boys we were to meet at the Children's Museum. She came here instead so the boys could play while I got everything else done. By some miracle we were only running one hour behind. Shannon and his mom showed up just as we left for the museum. The boys had a blast playing together. My friend drove us, the three boys strapped in three car seats in her backseat - they sang and held hands on the way to the museum. In the parking lot they were so excited the three boys all hugged each other in a circle, it was the cutest thing I'd ever seen...it all allowed me to relax and de-stress. Seeing these boys have so much fun was all the therapy I needed. Here they are in the "big red chair":The youngest, turned three that same week, at the wheel of the postman's truck - Gordon looks a bit concerned.

Busy times in the giant sand box Changing tires on the race car

Firemen off to find an "emergency"

And Gordon's favorite of course, trains.

The last minute highly stressed decorating job I did on the Thomas the Train cake...next year...definitely ORDERING a cake...this is my last year attempting to be a cake decorator! Yes, Thomas the Train's face is yellow. I bought some fondant for the face...but it only came in a box of colored fondant, I didn't realize until I opened it that white was not included in the box...so he had a little jaundice...The birthday boy making a wish

And opening giftswith some help from his friends

Later before bedtime, he built his own train, out of blocks, he calls this his "tall" train...I'd say that was some pretty good engineering! All in all, it was a memorable, laughable, happy birthday I'd say.

Just a Day in January

It has been a fun year so far.

Gordon is doing much better at school - I think the chaos of the travel to Florida in November, having company, and the whole excitement of the holidays was probably not the ideal time to have him adjusting to his "new" class - he wasn't doing badly, just was not happy about going and it was starting to concern me. But now he's doing even better than before - loving school again (although he does have to be convinced to stop playing with his trains to go to school - but once I promise they will still be here when he comes home, he's game!)

• We've started a new habit - organized his room to make room for a chair beside his bed that I can sit in to read to him. He LOVES getting to pick out the books and then sitting in bed during story time. He gets very excited about the story now - before in the living room he would often get distracted by things in the room if the story was a little long, now he hangs on every word, frequently interrupting with questions or comments. Then we fold our hands and we say our prayers together and he quite happily snuggles down into his bed, waits for a kiss, and then says "good night mommy, I love you" while I turn on the cd and then shut the door - bedtime has never been so sweet :)

• Tonight Daddy is out of town - actually is for most of the week, again. So I picked Gordon up and decided we were going out on a date. I announced this to him as he was climbing into the carseat at school. He said "but I don't want to go on a date" LOL...nice. We went anyway - to Applebees so I could have a big salad. On the way we passed a horrible car accident, the kind where a large crowd of people are standing around, with 8 emergency vehicles assisting - there were 4 vehicles involved in the crash - the jaws of life were being used on an upside down SUV, which had another car on top of it and a third one was smashed into its side, the fourth one was into a wall. It is one of the worst I've seen in a while. I get very emotional when I see things like that - I feel for those poor people involved, no matter who was to blame - and I just pray to God I never have to be in another accident in my lifetime - and that Gordon is never in one. Having a child is the most amazing experience in life - and also the scariest - every fear I've ever had for myself or a loved one is multiplied when I think of something happening to him. I try not to think of such things, but I can't help it when I see such carnage on a street that I use every day to and from school with Gordon. Boy that was a tangent...of a tangent. Where was I, oh yeah, the date. So we went to Applebees - my little boy was such a perfect date - he held my hand, he sat next to me in the booth, we had great conversation - he was so polite to the waitress, every time she gave us something - drinks, napkins, dinner - she was treated to a quite loud and jolly "THANK YOU!!" She laughed every time. Then he got a balloon on our way out, he was over the moon.

• I had been wanting to stop at Target, so I asked my little date if we could make one more stop before going home to play with trains. He said we could stop at Nar-get. No one warned me that there was a huge clearance sale on toys. I was sucked into the Thomas the Train aisle. I thought I would like to see if they had any people to go with the train set - as in Sir Topham Hat. Gordon likes to pretend and I thought he might like that to go with the trains. No figurines. But momma fell in love with the trains that actually run - we have the "Take Along Thomas" - which I'm not loving. We have several of the trains which is why I got this system, I didn't want to have to buy all the trains when we have so many. But the 'take along' tracks aren't great - I'm just not impressed. But I fell in love with the Thomas Trackmaster trains & tracks! They fit together much better and the trains actually moving just thrilled Gordon. So I bought Duck, the train, and a package of Trackmaster tracks. Gordon was so excited he could hardly speak. From the toy aisle to the register and then to the car he clutched Duck to his chest with his arms and repeated how much he wanted to thank mommy for buying duck. I am such a sucker I know. I am spoiling him. I know. But it was soooo much fun! We opened up the track and popped a battery in Duck and Gordon's face was just pure joy when Duck whirred to life and whipped around the oval track. He loved it. And he was so thankful (so how can he be truly spoiled??) And - he still went to bed on time when I told him it was time to go. We'll keep the Take Along Set and this Trackmaster set and use both - he won't get any more train toys for a good while - I promise.