Lalalalalala… we have a new fence. Yippee! Our house backs onto an alley and when we moved in to this house over two years ago it came with a chainlink fence. We chose not to do anything with our yard until after we had completed renovations so we had one white trash summer. Picture the chain link fence, a blowup wading pool and one of those coleman camping gazebos. Very classy.

Of course for now we will still have the blowup wading pool and the gazebo, but the difference is that people won’t be able to actually see us from the alley in our white trash glory.

Oh, and we have a little more security and privacy.

Next on the agenda… making the backyard habitable for active, growing boys.

Today was a bloodbath. Poor Woody was run over by a truck and a train is just about to take out the Transformer. I don’t know what was more disturbing – seeing it for myself or having an (almost) three year old explain what is happening in great detail.

My first thought when I saw this… why, when there is so much space in our living room, did Thomas decide to play on the couch right next to his sleeping baby brother?

Because his babies (toys) had to go to sleep too of course. In his shoes. Right next to his baby brother.

I took Thomas to his very first movie in a real movie theatre. We hit the 11am screening to make sure our presence impacted as few people as possible. There turned out to be just two other families in the whole theatre and one of the other families had a toddler with them so I relaxed a little.

My first mistake was to arrive too early so we had to sit through previews. Usually I enjoy the previews but this time I was all to aware of the fact that they were sucking up precious time from Thomas’ attention span. A couple of the previews were also a little too old and scary for a toddler.

The seats were too big. I had to help him hold down the front because his feet barely went to the edge of the seat.

The movie itself was a little scary and intense in parts which had me worried from the start. But Thomas seemed to enjoy some of it and he likes robots right now so it made an impression. The message was probably lost on him but I’m not sure he understands all of Toy Story either. And it was missing the same amount of humour that you can find in some of the other pixar movies.

He stayed in the seat for about 10 minutes before asking if he could sit on the floor in the aisle. I figured the floor couldn’t be too putrid during the first sesion of the day so I let him. That bought me another 45 minutes or so but then I started hearing the dreaded words (imagine the whiny voice). “I want to go now. I’m tired. Can we just go now?”

The problem was that I was now involved in the story so I wanted to stay. I managed to keep him in the theatre until the very end (we stood by the door for the last 10 minutes). As soon as we walked out of the theatre Thomas looked at me and said “That was great! I want to see another movie.”

It will be a while before we try it again. I think we’ll just stick to DVDs at home for now.

Thomas taking a moment to smell the roses. Such a cute photo.

This is called making a connection. Samuel responds well when you stick your tongue out at him. He also likes to be sung to and he even giggled when I tickled him today. He’s such a happy kid. In fact the only time he really cried today was when Thomas squirted him in the face with some water while they were having a bath together. As Kei said though, he’s going to have to get used to moments like that. He’ll just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that his big brother is likely to injure him on a regular basis – at least for the first few years.

The new ‘do. Darker and with a Fringe (Bangs for you Americans). It was about time I got something more mummy friendly. Samuel has quite the grip and is fond of grabbing large chunks of my hair and refusing to let go. So it looks like I will be wearing my hair back in a ponytail for a long time and it’s unlikely to look like this again for months.

I also have built up an impressive collection of sweat pants and flat shoes… sigh!

Poor Woody.

When I bought this doll (sorry, Action Figure) for Thomas earlier this year I had no idea how much of an obsession Thomas would develop for everything Toy Story.

The toy was cheap and it shows. The arm you can see has been taped to prevent losing the arm below the elbow. Unfortunately the other arm could not be saved and is buried somewhere deep beneath the Duplo blocks, likely never to be seen again (although it spent some time in Buzz Lightyear’s helmet which was a little creepy). Woody has also lost the ability to talk and his hat and guitar have disappeared somewhere in toy limbo. He is a poor beaten up toy who has seen better days.

Thomas asked for a new (bigger) Woody toy for his birthday and we are going to give it to him a little early so he can enjoy it during our upcoming vacation. I can’t wait to see him open it although part of me feels a little like we are feeding an addiction.

P.S. Thomas left Woody sitting in this position on our step stool when he left for daycare the other day. I took a photo but left him there to just watch the day go by until Thomas came home.

Have I mentioned how much I love the park near our house? The Portland Symphony played there last week and it turned into a daycare reunion after a bunch of kids and their families turned up to dance (and wrestle) along to the music. The symphony really just provided background music while our attention was diverted to keeping track of about eight kids. Though they WERE very entertaining.