Darr Family Blog

I thought it was cold before…what we had two weeks ago was nothing compared to what we had at the end of last week (and continuing into this week). Yesterday we didn’t get above 41 degrees. For South Texas, this is just obscenely cold weather. Having said that, I LOVE it! I’ve always loved bundling up during cold weather. Because of the weather, we didn’t go out and do too much until the weekend. Paul’s brother, Jason came to visit (because it was less expensive for plane tickets the weekend before Thanksgiving as opposed to Thanksgiving weekend.) We took picked him up from the airport on Friday night, went out to eat (at Jim’s, one of our favorite Texas diners), and came home in time for Joseph’s bed time. Saturday, we bundled up and went to see the Alamo and the River Walk (we didn’t walk too far along the River Walk because it was just so cold). We then had lunch at Whataburger (a Texas burger-chain that has pretty good food). After that, we went home so that Joseph could take a nap and Paul could put the turkey breast on the BBQ (we had an early Thanksgiving dinner) and then did a bit more sight-seeing (we took Jason to Old Town Helotes) before settling down to our early Thanksgiving dinner. Sunday brought church (we all went to Sacrament meeting and then Paul ran Jason out to the airport while Joseph and I stayed for the rest of the block of meetings). Joseph loved having “Unka Jashun” visiting. We have some pictures of family on a bulletin board in his room and we practice every night saying who each family member is, so he recognized him almost instantly. His first words on Saturday and Sunday morning were “Unka Jashun?” (asking if he was sill here) and he was kind of bummed when he realized after church that Jason had gone back to his house in California. He kept saying Jason’s name in a forlorn sort of way. We’re looking forward to getting to spend some time with Jason and the rest of our CA family when we go for a visit during the upcoming holidays.

Joseph-isms for the week:

1) We’ve been watching a lot of Charlie Brown since Joseph loves Snoopy and Woodstock. Lately I’ve been catching Joseph saying, “Oh, brother!” and “Good grief!” hahaha 🙂

2) This morning Joseph came up and said that he had an “owie finger” and showed me his finger so that I could kiss it better. I teased him a little bit by saying that I had an owie on my finger (I really did…I pinched my finger pretty badly in the buckle for his booster chair a few days back). Without prompting, he leaned over and kissed it better. 🙂

3) A few nights ago, I was singing Joseph to sleep and he asked me “da back?” which means that he wants me to rub his back under his shirt. I did so while I was singing and then for a little while after. Then he leaned back to look at me and said, “thank you, Mommy,  da back.” Talk about melting my heart!

Weird story for the week:

So…two of the keys on my piano just randomly stopped working (a C and a C# if you’re really curious). They didn’t come back up after being pressed and they sustained the note (so I knew the strings weren’t broken or disconnected, which was good). I finally called in my piano tuner, He was able to come the day I called (he just lives in the next neighborhood over) and he took the top of the piano completely off (something he didn’t have to do when he tuned it…in that case, he only had to take part of the top off). Well, what we found inside was totally surprising. We found a good-sized handful of rubber bands! One of the rubber bands had worked itself in between the two keys, which is why they randomly stopped working). I was mystified because, well…we don’t have any rubber bands. The tuner and I came to the conclusion that they must have been in there from the previous owners (since we bought the piano after moving to San Antonio). Maybe they had a mischievous child who figured out that he or she could make the rubber bands “disappear” and just kept doing it…at any rate. the tuner didn’t charge me anything for the fix and we had a good laugh about it.

This week in pictures:

The weather has decided that it’s not going to make up its mind whether to be cold or warm. The first half of the week was pretty cold by Texas standards: highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s. Then this last weekend came and we were back to highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s. I shouldn’t be surprised, since there is a saying that goes, “If you don’t like the weather in Texas just wait 10 minutes”, but I still feel thrown for a loop.

Joseph Funny-isms for the week:

In one of my last posts, I mentioned Joseph’s new bear. I underestimated the love of the bear…a lot. He has taken that bear everywhere with him this week. It came with us while running errands, while going to do fun things, while going on walks…everywhere! Most of the time, I convinced him to leave the bear in the car when we got to our destinations, sometimes I didn’t (I’m now an even bigger believer of picking my battles). He’s just now getting to the point that he’s okay leaving the bear at home…sometimes. 😉

Going along with the bear theme: the other morning, I was trying to convince Joseph to go into the bathroom so that I could brush his teeth, so I told him the bear wanted to watch him get his teeth brushed (I was desperate, I tell ya’). This somehow worked! I set the bear on top of the toilet lid and got Joseph’s toothbrush ready. Then Joseph wanted to brush the bear’s teeth. Enter sort-of-long discussion explaining why we couldn’t brush the bear’s teeth (started with “he’s a stuffed animal” and ended with “he doesn’t have teeth…see?”). Joseph solved the problem by pretending to brush the bear’s teeth, by rubbing his pointer finger back-and-forth in front of the bear’s mouth.

Joseph has become a really great mimicker. The two instances that really stick out on my mind both happened while he was watching Elmo’s World (part of Sesame Street). 1) He noticed Elmo was pretending to be a frog, so he had to pretend to be a frog; hopping around and “ribbiting” included of course. 2) At the end of each episode of Elmo’s World, Elmo plays the piano and sings a song that has to do with the theme of the episode, but always to the tune of “Jingle Bells” (don’t ask me why…I have no answers for that one). Well, as this was happening, Joseph decided to “play” the “piano” (by strumming his fingers on the edge of the coffee table) and singing along (except he said “na-na-na” the whole time).

Today I came into the living room to find Joseph standing up, but he was bent over at the waist and had his head (and hands) on the ground. I asked him what he was doing and he told me “I upside-down.” Duh, Mommy. 🙂

Sometimes he’ll walk up to me and say, “Mom” in a very matter-of-fact way. I’ll say, “Yes?” and then he’ll answer in complete gibberish. I really wish I knew what he was saying, because I’m sure he thinks he’s saying something.

I was tired of Joseph commandeering my flip-flops, so we went on a search to get him his own (but a larger size so that he still feels like they are meant for play). We lucked out and found a $1 pair at Walmart. He loves them and I no longer have to go on an extended expedition to find both my shoes. 🙂

He REALLY loves bread, so I decided that I’m going to make bread on a more regular basis. I didn’t buy any bread at the store last week and I don’t have plans to buy any this week, either. It’s so easy to make, and I know that there are no preservatives in it, so it’s slightly more healthy than store-bought, right? 😉 I don’t think we’re going to save a fortune, but I’ve decided that the quality is what I like. 🙂 Joseph and Paul are pretty happy, too.

Odd Moment of the Week: Two keys on my piano randomly started sticking (I would hit the keys and they would just stay down), so I called my piano tuner. He came out and took the top of the piano off so that he could see the felts and hammers…and found a pile of rubber bands (one of which was wedged between the two troubled keys)! I didn’t recognize the rubber bands, so we came to the conclusion that they had been in there from the previous owners…maybe a mischievous child in their home managed to get them in there). We missed seeing them when the piano was tuned because he didn’t need to open the piano up completely. I was glad it was such a simple fix, and he didn’t even charge me for it!

This Week in Pictures:

Oh, you lucky people, you! You get a bonus blog post this week, because there are three funny stories that I keep on forgetting to write about Joseph:

1) We are normally Target shoppers, but every once in a while, we end up needing to go to Wal-Mart (if we know something’s cheaper there, if Target doesn’t have it, etc.). I don’t know why, or when it started, but Joseph loves Wal-Mart. I mean, really LOVES it. Sometimes when I say that we’re leaving to go somewhere, he’ll get exited and say, “Wal-Mart?!” One time, he decided that we were going to go there, even though I hadn’t told him our planned destination (luckily it was actually Wal-Mart), and as I told him we were going to leave, he ran over to where a pair of MY shoes was, scooted his feet into them, found his “keys” (a bunch of old keys that Paul and I have given him on a key ring), ran over to his Bath and Body Works bag (I let him keep a small B&BW bag in which he keeps a bunch of old papers, receipts, and treasures of all other sorts), scrounged out a WAL-MART RECEIPT and then announced to me, “Okay…Wal-Mart!” If we are driving in the general area of Wal-Mart (and oh, boy…he KNOWS) and we do not actually GO to Wal-Mart, pretty soon we hear this forlorn little voice from the back, saying, “Wal-Mart?”, really stretched out and sad. Seriously. I don’t get it.

2) I have started to get back into my walking routine with Joseph, and for some reason he has picked up that when you see someone, you say, “How are you?”, which he says every time we see someone while on our walk. I can tell what he’s saying even though the words are all run together (“Howeeeyu”). It’s pretty cute.

3) Once or twice, when Joseph hasn’t wanted to nap, I hear a hopeful little voice through the baby monitor saying, “Oh, Toodles!” If you know anything about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which I could explain in much more detail than I will, because I don’t want to bore you or admit to just how much I know about MMC), you know that Toodles is the little Mickey Mouse-shaped head that comes to the rescue when Mickey and his friends need to solve a problem (he’s got Mouse-ka-tools which they use). Part of me wonders if Joseph thinks that he’ll get rescued from his crib if he calls for Toodles. 🙂

And there’s your bonus blog. You’re welcome. 😉