Thomas & Bela

Central Oregon

We spent this last week in the high desert of Central Oregon. We rented a small house on an acre in La Pine and spent most of our time there, but also spent a little time in Sunriver and Bend. It was all about r.e.l.a.x.a.t.i.o.n... We had a fantastic time.

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We have friends whose toddler sleeps in a closet in their loft. It sounds like it's larger than a typical closet because it is also where the washer and dryer are located, but I always thought it was so funny that it was their daughter's *bedroom*. At our rented house, there was only one bedroom so we made up a little bed for Thomas in the closet. It was a deep closet and he actually seemed quite comfortable in there. One night when I asked if he was ready for bed, he walked back to the bedroom and sat in the closet -- on his *bed* -- waiting for me to read to him before he went to sleep. He never fails to surprise us (and keep us laughing with these antics!).

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summer reading

Thomas completed the library's summer reading program this week, earning some fun things along the way. The final prize for completing all the reading was this t-shirt. He'll get to wear it when he's about 4 or 5 years old.

New trick! ["I can't hear you."]

Where is Thomas??

Thomas begins to do really silly things when he's tired. This evening before starting our nightly bedtime routine, he was walking in circles with his sleep sack over his head and laughing...

sitting pretty?

Every day we find the girls' food bowls in places other than where they should be. Thomas loves to carry them from room to room and put his toys in them. I've often thought I should be photographing all the things he puts in the dog bowls. It might make for an interesting collection of photos. We've seen everything from his sippy cup to a shoe to a stuffed animal. The girls were understandably quite concerned the first few times they found their bowls on the sofa or on top of the dining room table, but now they seem to go with the flow and have faith that we will put their bowls back where they belong when it's time for them to eat.

Earlier this week I found Bela's food bowl in the laundry basket full of clean clothes. I asked Thomas if that's really where it should be and he pulled it out and placed it on the floor adjacent to the laundry basket. Later, he was standing in the area of the bowl, walked backwards and fell. His bottom landed perfectly in the dog bowl. And he was stuck. Being the mom that I am, I took several photographs of him before helping him out. He was not very happy.

Grandpa's car

Thomas loves cars so when Grandpa asked him today if he wanted to see his car, Thomas was all over it. He circled it. He touched it. He repeatedly exclaimed CAR!. He helped look at the engine, check the oil and fill the radiator with water. He got into the backseat. Then he got in the front seat. I'm sure he could have spent hours *playing* in and around the car. Soon enough little man, soon enough...

day at the beach*

*Okay, so maybe not the beach, but I told him that's where we were. The annual Sand-in-the-City charity event is this weekend so we went downtown this morning to check it out. Thomas enjoyed pointing to the objects he recognizes and shouting out what they are. Car! Choo-Choo! Car! Choo-Choo! He also got a kick out of pointing and shouting Choo-Choo! every time the light rail went by. I never realized just how frequently the Max trains pass by Pioneer Square. It seems there is one every five minutes or less.

Some of our favorite sand sculptures this morning...

14 months

Thomas really enjoys bath time. Every evening I ask Are you ready for your bath? Sometimes he'll actually reply Yeah, but he always gets up and walks straight down the hall to the bathroom door. He'll stand there with his hand on the door, waiting for me to follow and open the door for him. Pretty much anything involving water ranks up there as a favorite pastime.

music worthy of clapping

We packed a picnic dinner and headed for the riverfront park tonight for some live music. Playing tonight was a '30s swing jazz band called The Stolen Sweets. It was a popular event -- perfect weather for an evening out, nice crowd and great music. Thomas must have agreed because tonight he clapped for the first time! It seems that many babies clap earlier, but he hadn't yet (though he seems to do many other things early - go figure). I'm guessing he needed some good live music worthy of clapping. Of course, now he can't stop...

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We started the day at OMSI with his playgroup. I didn't know it could be so fun for him. He had a fantastic time! His favorites were the puppet theater where he entertained his friend Clara and, of course, the water station. Boys and water go hand in hand, don't they?

Chinatown

The Classical Chinese Garden provided a wonderful respite from the warm weather this afternoon. We wandered the site looking at the beautiful structures, plant collections, artwork, stone walkways and the extensive waterscape. Neither of us had been there before so it was especially fun to experience it together with Thomas. He seemed to enjoy walking along the paths, across the bridges and inside the structures (they echo!).

The Chinese Garden is based on a garden built in the city of Suzhou, China during the Ming Dynasty (1369-1644 AD). Most of the materials were brought in from China and most of the work was created by Suzhou workers. Quite authentic and very beautiful.

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Afterward we continued the Chinese theme with dinner at a Chinatown restaurant. Thomas enjoyed banging the table with his chopsticks while I fed him steamed rice and things out of my soup. Yum!

The Talented Miss Bela

She reads.

She plays the piano.

She holds the ball for Greta to chew on.

slip slidin' away

Two Sides of Thomas

Thomas is at such a fun age. These are two of the views of him we see most frequently. Either he's peering at us from upside down and between his legs or he's coming towards us full steam. He's so silly.

constant motion

Thomas has been trying all kinds of new things these last few weeks. His favorite seems to be climbing. The sofa is still a tough one, but he's climbing up on the stroller, scrambling up our stairs to the second floor and getting up on everything else that he can.

He's also been seen crawling under his highchair like it's a tunnel and moving chairs around. He really seems to enjoy "putting things away". Some things are stashed under the sofa, while others are placed on top of tables and chairs. This morning I found a shoe on the dining room table, a sock hanging on a plant in the living room, and some of his books and toys under the sofa. Vocabulary also continues to grow with words like shoe, sounds that we understand to be duck and signs for things like hat. Exciting stuff!

Every day seems to bring something new.

morning hike

They look evil in this photo and were running way too fast to snap a non-blurry image. With tongues flapping and legs moving as fast as they could, Bela and Greta had a fantastic time on our morning hike.

s'mores, please!

M often tells me I'm an advertiser's dream. If they say I need it or I see an ad for something, I am suddenly convinced I need it and/or want it. The same holds true for this t-shirt. When I see him in it all I can think about are s'mores and how yummy one would be right now...

Thomas walks backwards! Not a step or two, but the entire length of our hallway. This morning we saw him walk backwards while pulling his 'push car'. He always does everything the hard way.

summer colds

It's been a long week for both me and Thomas. His nose started running Sunday afternoon and I've been sick since Tuesday evening. He's handling it better than I am though. He continues to run around and looks happy while I am the complete opposite.

I snapped some photos of him today in this fancy new sweater. The woman I usually see at the nail salon made this for Thomas so I wanted to get some photos of him wearing it to send in a Thank You card. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness!

Hot Kids in the City

Today's high temperature broke the previous record by 8 degrees. At 102*, it was hot. Fortunately we have central air conditioning in our house, but frozen fruit bars and playing in the swimming pool have also kept us cool during this heat wave.

Thomas loves Grandma

Thomas had his first sleepover at Grandma's house this weekend. From the sounds of it, they had a great time. His cousin E was there for awhile so they all walked over to the park to play and had dinner together. Later in the evening, Grandma gave him a cool bath and then he settled down to sleep on the living room floor. We were pleased to hear it all went well and found him napping on Grandma when we went to pick him up. Looks pretty content, doesn't he? There's no place quite like Grandma's house (or arms!).

Tiny Tot

The local library's storytimes have resumed! They were on hiatus for a few weeks so the librarians could visit local schools and sign up students for the summer reading program. Prior to the hiatus, we had been going to the Book Babies storytime which is geared to the under 12 months, non-mobile set. Thomas enjoyed them, but the last time we went all the other babies were under 6 months and it wasn't as interesting for him.

Today I took him to the Tiny Tots storytime and, though he was clearly the youngest one, he seemed to enjoy it more. He wasn't able to follow along with some of the physical movements related to the singing, but he enjoyed walking around and watching the other toddlers. During the actual reading of a book, all the children sat with their guardian except Thomas. He was the first one to walk over to the librarian and really involve himself in the reading (the others quickly followed). I was so proud of him! He seems to go through periods where he's more bashful than other times and it was great to watch him jump right in like that.

Thomas has completed the first path on the Summer Reading Program gameboard! We've been done for a week, but finally were able to take our boardgame in this morning for validation and a prize. He chose this red ball pictured above. Balls are his new interest and a word he's recently added to his vocabulary.