Planes, trains and automobiles

Today Donovan and I went to the Museum of Transportation to see Donovan's favorite things, TRAINS and TUCKS! There were lots of trains and a few old trucks and cars and Donovan had a great time! He did a pretty good job of walking like a big boy most of the time but the other half he spent throwing his body in front of mine and demanding to be picked up. Baby steps. We got to explore lots of trains and enjoy the beautiful weather. Here are some pics from the day.
Checking out a chair in the caboose.

Playing by the big train.

Taking a dead sprint between the trains.

Looking at the cool airplane.

The sticker on his back is the sticker we had to wear to say we paid to be there. He kept taking his off so that's where I stuck his eventually.


This adorable video is from yesterday. Donovan is really into playing in our cars right now (supervised of course). He loves to pretend to he is steering and says "Vroom, vroom!" while doing so. Check out our little race car driver :)

He just keeps getting bigger

Lately Donovan has been doing several things that make me realize that he is getting to be such a big boy. One is that he now tells us when he wants to eat by going over to his high chair and climbing up on it. It is nice in a way because we know for sure what he wants but it is also not nice because today he rocked his weight so much that he knocked the chair over on himself. He cried but he was not hurt and I am sure he did not learn any lesson from it. Here is Dono a couple mornings ago letting me know it was breakfast time.




He also has been insisting on drinking most of his water out of a regular cup. He does really well actually. Sometimes he even uses just one hand to hold the cup while he is drinking. The problem comes when he decides to shake the cup or run with the cup. He still doesn't understand that if it doesn't have a lid on it, you can't do that.

And lastly he now knows his name and points to pictures of himself (well, and some other kids too) and says "Dono". It is adorable! When I took those pictures of him climbing on his highchair he ran over to me after I took every one and said "Dono", meaning "Show me the picture of me mommy". How can you not oblige that? When we look at the professional pictures of us as a family (his newborn ones) Donovan points to everyone and tells us exactly who we are. "Dada" Momma" "Dono". Man I love this kid.

I don't want to jinx anything but it looks as though the terrible two's phase left as fast as it came. For the past week and a half Donovan has been the cutest and sweetest little boy. And thank the Lord for that! I was NOT ready for the terrible two's yet that is for sure.

Laundry Helper

We found out tonight that Dono has an affinity for tossing the clothes over from the washing machine to the dryer. He's really good at it, too! Check it out!



Up next: mowin' the lawn!

UPDATE: I suggest clicking on the title of the video on the upper right part of the video so that it takes you to the youtube website to watch. Otherwise it is a little cut off if you watch it on the blog site.

New pictures

I figured I was overdue with posting some Donovan pictures so here you go. The first set are from yesterday's trip to the bird sanctuary. The highlight for all of us was resting on a very special bench. For my parent's 30th wedding anniversary 3.5 years ago Tom, my sister and I bought this bench and dedicated it to them. There has been construction near the bench this whole summer so we couldn't get near the bench to take a picture of Donovan on it until yesterday. He was such a clingy crabby butt the while we were at the sanctuary until we got to the bench. Then he just sat and swung his legs and crawled around on it and was happy as could be.

You'll have to click on the pic to enlarge it and see the plaque on the bench.






Today we had a play date with Claire which of course we did not bring our camera to. Sad. What I really wish we had was the video camera because Donovan was trying to wrestle with Claire the most I have ever seen him try. There is this child size chair they always fight over so he would sit there, and wait for her to come over and then he would grab her and squeeze her or tackle her. It was adorable, although Claire was a little unsure about it most of the time so I think we need to take Dono over to the 3 yr old neighbor boy's house again for some real wrestlemania. Anyways the kids took a bath together and Tom forgot to put in some spare clothes so Dono went home in a 2T sleeper that was the only boy thing they had in the house. It was too big on him but it was super cute. Check out the size of the feet on this kid!

Poor Parents

So right after we wrap up 7 days of Donovan having diarrhea he decides that he would like to warp to a time in the future. A time that many parents refer to as the "terrible two's". But Donovan is just 16.5 months you say? Yeah I know that and you know that but his attitude does not. We are now able to expect at least a handful of full out hysterical fits daily. And boy are they gems. Anything can set him off really. Me not letting him take a cup full of ice into my car when all he wants to do is play in the drivers seat and spill the ice. Me not helping him play with the radio, me not letting him get out another cup when he already has 5 out. He throws his body to the ground and lays and screams and cries until you either move him and distract him or you just ignore him and he gets all his demons out, which generally can take 10-15 minutes. He started doing this a few days ago and at first I thought he wasn't feeling good still or something else was wrong with him but it is clear that it is just a fit because if you catch it fast enough and give in he will quit and be happy. If you don't get it fast enough he just is inconsolable for a while. It's just so hard because I feel like you can rationalize with a 2 year old to some degree. I don't feel like you can do that with a 16 month old. The worst part is is that he has now started to wake up in the middle of the night many times screaming and is very hard to get him back to a good sleep. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH! What have we gotten ourselves into?

On a cute note Donovan has also started using the word "No" in the past couple days. He uses it correctly a lot so it is really nice and helpful sometimes. Other times it is just amusing. For instance this conversation I had with him on one of his diarrhea days.

Donovan: (Toots)
Me: "Donovan did you just poop your pants?"
Donovan: "No" (shaking head)
Me: "So was it just toots?"
Donovan: "No" (shaking head)
Me: "So there is poopy in your pants?"
Donovan: "No" (shaking head)

For the record it was just toots that time. Also on Sunday the diarrhea was at it's worst. Donovan woke Tom up in the morning and when Tom went to go get him Donovan was standing in the crib, crying with poop allover his bed and running down his leg. Sad. Then later Tom said he had several other diapers much the same so as soon as Tom heard any booty music (tooting for you heathens) he would jump up and grab Donovan before it got too messy. Once he jumped up only to see Donovan look at his leg and say "Oh, No!". Poop had already run down his leg. At least he used "no" correctly :)

How to feed your dog, Donovan style

First step: Take Petey's food from his bowl and put it in a cup.

Second step: Make sure food looks appetizing for doggie.

Third step: Give food to doggie. You may do this several ways.
1. Hand it directly to the doggie
2. Throw it in the doggie's direction at approximately 60 mph
3. Slide it down the slide in the basement to the doggie

Fourth step: Make sure you have a great doggie that will play along

Poor Baby

Poor baby had a traumatic little Labor day. We had our good friends, John, Emily and Ian over for a b-b-que to celebrate and all the boys were outside grilling. John had just brought Ian man in and Emily and I were talking when I heard Donovan scream. I was paranoid about him being outside near the grill so I thought I was going to see Dono with burns on his hands. Instead I see Tom busting in the kitchen door saying "We had an accident" with Dono screaming in his arms with blood pouring out of his mouth. Apparently he was playing on a folding chair that was not on a stable surface and pitched over the side, cushioning his fall with his bottom teeth and his lip. Poor man was so upset. I held him and tried to comfort him, clean him up, put ice on him as well as assess the damage but he wanted none of it. He was inconsolable for a while. I can't blame him. I was worried his teeth went all the way through his lip but after I was able to get a good (.5 second) look at the damage it turned out he had a scrape on the outside but a VERY good gash on the inside of the lip. I considered taking him to the ER because I definitely think he could use a stitch or two but the thought of what he would have to go through to get that and the fact that mouths tend to heal faster I decided against it. After about 10 minutes he calmed down enough to take some Tylenol and suck on a Popsicle. It was his first Popsicle and all things considered, he liked it. Then I sent Tom out to get him a chocolate shake since it was dinner and he needed to eat and I thought he probably wouldn't get much in feeling how he was feeling. And a shake is cold so that would help numb the lip too. He did do much better at dinner then I thought he would. He ate a piece of cheese and some beanies and weenies but he would bump his lip and start crying all over again. Then he would want to be picked up and comforted, then eat, then get hurt again and cry and the whole cycle all over again. Once daddy got back with the shake it was happy times. Donovan did not remove his lips from the straw until it was 2/3rds gone. After that we put on some "Elmo's World" and Ian and Donovan were in heaven. Thankfully after all of the commotion Donovan did manage to salvage the rest of the evening and had a great time with Ian and then his Auntie Jenna later. He even bumped his lip enough to make it bleed again right before bed but didn't even make a peep. Now he is sleeping soundly aided by some Motrin. Did Donovan learn any lessons from his traumatic injury? Nope. He was using me as a ladder to climb up on top of his changing table right before bed. What a smartie.

We did manage to snap a few cute pics of the boys once they were both happy. They did a little wrestling together and actually played together (insted of just near eachother) for the first time. Donovan had Ian in a headlock at one point and at another, Donovan was standing on his scooter in the basement and Ian pulled him around (ok it was only about 2 feet but still adorable).

Donovan scooted right on over next to Ian when they were watching Elmo, then before you know it, Ian man was slumped on over onto Donovan.


"You can stay here, but I am going to put you in a headlock"


Ian man rocking the sunglasses look.

Notice the "fresh to def" shoes Ian is rocking as well.


One thing else that was cute was Donovan had his first wrestling session with a kid yesterday. We hung out with our neighbors and Donovan and the soon to be three year old Trevor got along great. They played trains and cars together but once they discovered the fact that the other one liked wrestling, it was all over. They had a blow up bed surrounded by couches and big people to catch them if needed so it was fun times. Trevor would grab Donovan and pull him down or give him an elbow drop and Donovan thought it was great. Dono's main moves were rolling over onto Trevor, and head locking him as well. Neither one of them got hurt and they were smiling and laughing the whole time. Boys are so much fun!

Things we have been doing lately

1) Going to Suson Park
I don't have any pictures from the actual trip, just the coming and going as I had no idea if Donovan would even tolerate being there for a few minutes. You see one really mean mommy (me) pinched Donovan's finger between the car doors as we were leaving. I felt HORRIBLE and it was so pathetic how hard he cried and how he was trying to get away from his finger and the pain. He got over it in a few minutes, however he did not get over the injustice I forced upon him by making him wear a band-aid on that finger. This is the before Suson park picture of Dono yelling about his band-aid.

We had a great time at Suson. For those of you who don't know what it is, it is a free park with farm animals and a great playground. Dono loved looking at all the animals and had fun telling me what they all say. It was there I discovered he knows that a horse says "neigh", sheep say "baaa" and cows say "mooo". His favorite part was looking at all the ducks and geese, or ducks and ducks for us. He walked right up to them and tried to touch them but I didn't let him since he already had one injury for the day, we didn't need a duck bite too. I also had to be on constant alert because Donovan tried to jump into the lake about 16 times. Fun. Here is our happy and sweaty pic from after the visit.



2)Eating summer foods
Donovan cannot get enough of two main things, watermelon and chocolate shakes. He usually won't eat anything else after he sees the watermelon and will eat about a pound of it if you let him (and we often do). Here is Donovan shunning all other foods and stuffing in the watermelon.


"Cheese!"


As far as the shakes go, that's my fault. I love them and let Dono have a try once and from then on it was over. Now when I get one to share with him, he thinks he is being nice if he lets me get a few sips. And the night we took these pictures, we were sitting on the couch sharing it (after the pics) and Tom said "I am surprised he doesn't get a brain freeze" and about a minute later Donovan did a full body shiver which was scary at the time (because I have never seen him do that) but very funny looking back. We decided that meant he was done for the night with the shake. Next time he will have to have more than a diaper on when we drink our shake (he is wearing a diaper in the pics even though you can't tell).

"Ummm, could you please stop drinking my shake mom? I want it back"




3)Grant's farm
Today was a gorgeous day in St Louis. 70s and blue skies. Tom took the day off work and we went to Grant's farm together. Dono did a lot of the same as last time with Grandma and Grandpa B, refusing to walk and only wanting to ride in the stroller occasionally. That means mommy and daddy were holding him most of the time. And since he is still in a mommy phase, I got to hold him the most. He did go on a Carousel ride with daddy but I didn't get any good pictures because they were on the inside lane blocked by some other people. Oh well. His favorite part of the day was hanging out in the beer garden (shockingly, this was his daddy's favorite part too) and climbing up on a chair at a table next to the one Tom and I were sitting at. I guess you can never be too young to think your parents are uncool. He also really liked petting the clydesdales.

Checking out the Llamas.

Tom at his happy place.
Funny face. Something tells me this isn't the proper way to ride in a stroller.
Too cool for mom and dad. Two people came and sat at the table and he didn't care. He was like "I was here first!"
Petting the baby Clydesdales.

Trying to get closer to the big rig truck that he spotted.
Looking at the horses? No. Looking at the truck.
Finishing up the afternoon with some sprints up and down the fence. It took a big rig to get him out of our arms and happy about running around.