Darr Family Blog

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. 😉

We had a pretty down-to-earth week, just plugging away at every-day life. To make today (Veterans’ Day) special, we decided to have an all-fun day. First we went to Bass Pro Shops. Paul needed some more ammunition, so Joseph and I went along so that he could see all the “stuffed” (taxidermy) animals, the big fish, and (as a surprise, since we didn’t know) apparently the Christmas decorations (they always decorate the entire store).

After that, we had plans to go to Sea World, but we found out that they were closed (the Sea World here is only open on weekends during the fall/winter/early spring…late spring and summer are when they’re open all the time, but they are usually open on holidays, so we were a bit surprised that they weren’t open today), so we decided at the last moment to drive out to the zoo. I’m glad we did, because they were letting military people in for $5/ea. today (and Joseph is still free since he’s not 3 yet), so it only cost us $10 (parking is free). Joseph had so much fun! He loves looking at all the different animals. We grabbed a quick bite to eat on the way home for Joseph’s nap time.

After Joseph’s nap, we decided to head out for dinner. There are several restaurants that offer free entrees to veterans on Veterans’ Day, so we decided to go to Chili’s. After dinner, we headed over to La Cantera (an outdoor mall) because we found out that Build a Bear was also doing a special military discount. I’ve been considering getting Joseph a bear for a while, but they tend to be a little on the expensive side, so we decided to wait until Joseph was old enough to appreciate the whole process…and I’m glad we waited, because he had quite a bit of fun tonight. We picked the bear for him (he loved watching them put the stuffing in it), but then he helped put the heart in it (the process of warming it up, giving it a heartbeat, the whole 9 yards), and gave it a “bath” (at their bathing station). We didn’t pick any clothes for it, since he seemed to like the bear just like it was. Because of that, the bear was actually on the less expensive side. He and the bear were inseparable from that point on (I had to sneak a couple of his other stuffed animals out of his crib so that there would be room for the bear).

Cute stories from the week:

1) Paul has an app on his phone that makes it so that he can say, “Okay, Google” and it will open up a search window. After that happens, you can say something and it will search for it. Or, if there is music playing, it can identify the song. Joseph thinks this is super cool. Every once in a while, I would see him holding his play phone up and say, “Okay, Google”…except it came out more like, “Okay, Goigle”. 🙂

2) Joseph has been singing a lot more this week. I catch him singing his ABCs (he misses a few here and there, but it’s still awesome, I think) and different church songs. Yesterday, Paul and I were talking while on the way home from church and there was a lull in the conversation. During that lull, we could hear Joseph singing along to “We’ll Bring the World His Truth”, which was playing in the CD player. Even though I couldn’t understand all his words, I could still feel the Spirit very strongly.

3) Joseph was playing with his toy knight and then started singing the song “I Feel Better” from a show he likes called Doc McStuffins (a show about a little girl who can bring toys to life and then if they get hurt she fixes them. After they get fixed, they always sing that song). At first I was confused, but then I remembered that a few days earlier, the episode had been one where a toy knight had been hurt. Joseph put that together with his toy knight. He amazes me more and more each day.

4) I have yet to step on Legos, since we don’t have any…but the other day Joseph had (unbeknownst to me) spread out his little green army men. Yikes! I almost felt like he sabotaged me! 😉

This week in pictures: a bit of an overload since there are zoo pictures in here. 🙂