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May 28: Andrew won’t nap. He’s been in his bed for about 15 minutes, shouting, “Daddy, WHERE ARE YOU?”  It’s a little wearing on us all.  Poor bubby needs to take a nap!  We had a fun morning, though.  We biked down to the Monona Memorial Day parade where we saw politicians and beauty queens and clowns and fire trucks, and (Andrew’s favorite) a person dressed up like a moose.  Then we biked into Monona and played at an amazing community-built playground.  Andrew had great fun in the sand box (I think it was his first sand box experience).  On the bike ride home, he fell asleep for the last couple blocks, so I think that made nap time the torture that it is.
Now he is singing, “Bah bah black sheep…”  At least he’s not super sad.  Sometimes he says, “Daddy, come play!”
Not really what you want your napping child to be thinking:)
I have a couple of new albums up in the gallery.  One is of a party we had with our neighbors last Wednesday night, and the other is of random moments from the last week including a field trip out to a beautiful piece of land in southwestern Wisconsin on Friday.  I can’t believe May has come and gone!  We got the rest of our vegetable garden planted yesterday, and we cleaned out a little weed patch next to the garage and planted cosmos and Rudbeckia seeds.  It was a perfect day.
And now, on to June!

May 21: I missed posting on Mother’s Day by about a week, but I do have some pictures from that general time period in the gallery.  It’s interesting that this holiday is coinciding with another very Daddy oriented time for Andrew. Back in January and February, he really wanted very little to do with me.  It was as if Daddy were the sun in his world.  For the last few months, I’ve been back in the loving, good graces of our young son, but these past few weeks, my suit seems to have fallen out of favor.  He’ll let me play with him and give him baths, but for example, this evening, he suddenly needed his Daddy.  I mentioned that Dad was in the back yard.  So Andrew stood at the screen door yelling, “Daddy, DADDY.  Where ARE you?  WHERE ARE YOU?”  Sweet boy loves his dad.  And I love them both:)

May 15: I just had to share a song that Andrew has been singing.  He is starting to modulate his voice, so he actually sort of sings the song,

“Twinkle, twinkle little star.  I would like; chocolate cake.”

Not sure where he came up with it, but it cracks me up.  Note: Andrew has never eaten chocolate cake.

Also, last night, Bryan and I were curious about how many animals Andrew can identify, so I sat down and counted, and I came up with about 75.  The boy loves his animals.  It makes me so proud.

Uncle Bubba (Michael) put up a fun post on his blog about spending mother’s day with Andrew, my mom, and me.

On Thursday, we’re off to Bayfield!

May 12: I never got around to posting last weekend, but I wanted to share the story of Andrew helping me to make a rhubarb pie.  We were out in the yard, and I decided to pick some rhubarb.  Andrew was quite a sight as he purposely tromped back to the house, holding two big, leafy rhubarb stalks in each hand.  He loves to help, and he was a good helper as I chopped up the rhubarb.  I gave him some pieces of rhubarb dipped in sugar, and he gobbled them up.  Then he started pulling handfuls of raw rhubarb and eating them too.  He helped me stir up the pie mixture, and he nearly ate the pie crust by diving into it, mouth open.  I had to feed him niblets to keep him from taking a handful out of the middle of the topped pie.  He seemed to enjoy the cooked version (along with Michael’s custard) as much as he liked helping to make it.
You might also enjoy seeing a picture of Andrew’s pouting lip.  He has begun folding his bottom lip out whenever he is unhappy, and it’s so cute, it’s hard not to smile.
Pictures from the last couple weeks are in the gallery.

May 12:  Andrew was a sick boy today.  Even with a good dose of medicine, his fever was in the 102-104 range.  He was so sleepy and cuddly, and HOT.  Several times today, he fell asleep in my arms.  I am very thankful today for DVDs.  Back in January when he was sick, and then again today, I’ve found that there is no better way to get through some tough hours.  When I tried to read to him, he would find a reason to sob (I turned the page wrong, I picked up a bad book, I asked him what the animal says).  He watched Animals are Beautiful People and both Fantasia movies.  When his medicine kicked in, he would come over and ask to read.  I felt like watching his shows let his mind tune out and helped him feel maybe a little less miserable.  If only there were numbing treatments like that for life’s larger crises.  “Wake me when it’s over,” one could say.
Before supper, Andrew and I took a stroller ride, and he was clearly feeling a lot better.  I’m hoping he wakes up in the morning feeling more like himself.  And I’m also hoping that Bryan and I don’t come down with it!  It doesn’t look like much fun!

May 12: For the last six months, Andrew’s leaving-the-tub routine involves Bryan or myself making up a baby burrito to wrap Andrew in.  In the last week, we’ve stopped doing bath time burritos, so I wanted to record that routine for posterity since it was such as constant in our lives.
It all starts with the towel (the tortilla).  As bath time wraps up, Andrew would announce (rolling his “r”s) “Brrito!”  Brandishing the towel, one of us would lay it down on the floor and ask Andrew what should go on this burrito.  Andrew has a pretty standard ingredient list.  Once upon a time, prompted by us, he put beans, cheese, onions, or sour cream on the tortilla.  The final ingredient is always a baby.  That’s why it is a baby burrito.
These days, he’s gotten much simpler and more bizarre.  Andrew always requests beans.  And usually rice.  And onions.  Then more beans and more onions.  More onions.  More onions. More onions.  “Andrew, we’re out of onions…what else?”  “Oranges!” “Oranges?  That’s a funny thing to go on a burrito, oh well, oranges it is.   What else?”  “Onions!”  “We’re out of onions, honey, what else?” “Beans!”  “OK, beans on the burrito.  What else.”  “Beans!”  “OK, beans. What else goes on the baby burrito?”  “Beans!”  “Out of beans, hon.  What else?”  “BABY!”  “Excellent, my favorite part!  A baby goes in the burrito. Wrap him up tight.  Mmmm good.  Who wants a delicious baby burrito?”
Recently, other strange toppings include milk, lots of oranges (including an orange on top), burger, butter, and water.  The game was getting excessively long, and Andrew often didn’t want Mommy to do it.  “Daddy do it.  DADDY DO IT!”  So I have started holding out the towel and asking him to be a horse and jump into the towel.  How quickly the burrito has been forgotten. Tonight when he was done with his tubby time, he said “Horsey, towel.  Jump.”