Clayton @ MindSay 
This year was no exception. As we had my nephew for the first time, my mom and I overscheduled him. We ended up paring the night down to accommodate a more 2-year-old schedule, but we still had a blast.
I got dressed up in a costume I invented the night before, I went as a superhero. SuperLibrarian to be exact! I looked very cute if I do say so myself. My first stop of the day was to visit Clay and Lewie. I had seen them a couple weeks earlier and Clay was talking about how he couldn't wait to see my costume. I asked why he thought he'd see me and he said that he did last year......And he was right. So I went to visit in costume and was there while the boys got ready.
Clay dressed as a red ninja--and though he is posing for me, he can't help but smile. He is one happy little ninja. I think it was the swords. Lewie went as Darth Vader. In this picture I asked him to not smile and give me a Darth Vader face. This is what I got. So damn cute.
And their mother was smart enough to get a picture of SuperLibrarian with the boys. Strange enough they are the only kids I posed with all night. Somehow, even Kelly didn't think of it.
Once I got home, Simon was still sleeping. We had to wake him up to get him ready to go see Victoria and Christian. Turns out, waking my nephew is a BAD plan. He ended up having a tantrum of epic proportions and was crabby for much of the night. And he wanted nothing to do with his costume. I was pretty sad because he had the cutest costume of the night....after me.
We finally got him out of the house and off to Kelly and Mark's, but we were already very late by that time. He cried again when we got there but eventually settled down and played with the kids.
This is the best shot of the three kids that I have...I haven't seen Kelly's yet. Christian is BamBam and Victoria is Scooby-Doo. They both looked very adorable in their store bought costumes. (Hehehehe). Christian especially....the kid actually looks like Bam-Bam. That costume was perfect for him.
After leaving, we headed over to my sister's house where they were home waiting for trick-or-treaters. They live in a great neighborhood for it and their next door neighbor estimated they'd have about a hundred kids. They planned accordingly and were left with tons of candy as they only got about 70 kids.
We got there and Simon cried again. After settling down, I was trying to teach him how to trick-or-treat and he wasn't having it. But then I explained what we do when kids come to the house. He liked that part and spent a lot of time helping Uncle Chad pass out candy. Every time the bell rang he'd scream "Kids are here" and run full steam for the door. Then he'd open it and get all shy and let Chad give out the candy.
Eventually, after much coaxing and battling we got him into his ENTIRE costume for a total of one minute before he started tearing it off.
As you can see, he was pretty full of attitude once we got him in, but all said and done, how cute is that damn costume? I told my sister she better like bees because in a couple years her little tadpole is going to wear that same costume. Since this one was hardly worn. 
I did manage to get this shot from the front. He wouldn't look at me and was being distracted by coloring, but look how cute! Seriously, those pain-in-the-ass wings turned out amazing. Everybody took Simon trick-or-treating and I stayed behind to give out candy. They got him to do four houses before he quit. At the first house he chose Uncle Chad to go with him to the door. He pushed the bell (he likes doorbells) and then before they could open the door, Simon turned and ran away, scared. Uncle Chad wasn't as quick and the people opened the front door to see a grown man standing there without a costume and no child. Poor Chad.
Emily tried to explain to Simon that it is trick-or-treat not ding-dong ditch. He did the next houses fine, but wouldn't actually say trick-or-treat.
When they got back, Simon was finally in a good mood and I managed to get a quick shot of him with a smile on his face. Whew! He doesn't hate Halloween after all. Or maybe he just senses the evening is almost over. Once the trick-or-treaters started to subside, we headed up to Applebee's to see Uncle Zack and to get some dinner.
Again, Simon was distracted by coloring, but at least Uncle Zack smiled--that's rare enough. After dinner, we headed home and it was about 9:30. It didn't take Simon long to crash. I think he was relieved the bee torture was finally over. Good news is, we know for certain the boy likes candy bars!
And here is a quick shot from my friend Sonya, who we didn't get to see. Dylan the chicken and Jaysa the ladybug are good friends of Simon and we were hoping we would get to trick-or-treat with them, but it just didn't work out.
All in all, it was a fun Halloween for everyone NOT dressed in a bee costume. And did anyone else notice that I was the ONLY adult dressed up?
I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!
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If you're a regular reader, you've certainly heard mention of my favorite little guy....Clayton. Well, Clay turned 5 in the beginning of April and in light of this "big boy" birthday, I decided that he and I should do something special. Instead of some lame gift, I took him out for an entire day of fun, no parents or little brothers allowed!
We started out our day by visiting the Twin Cities Model Train museum. It was really cool, for both of us. They have miles of tiny tracks and they run multiple trains at a time (the most we saw was five, but they have dozens of trains.). Clay thought it was fun to chase a train around the entire track and watch its route; which, when you're 5 is probably a whole lot of fun.
Of course, being Clay, he had about a billion and one questions, most of which I couldn't answer. I did my best and read the signs posted around the room (as to how fast they go....there was a sign to figure it out, but that wasn't math I could do in my head....) but model trains are really not my forte. So we found the guy who runs the model trains and I let Clay at him.
Here Clay is by the switchboard peppering the guy (you can see his arm/sleeve on the edge of the picture) with questions. After about 6 or 7 minutes of solid questions, the guy finally ran out of answers for curious Clay and eventually shot me a "help me!" look, so I convinced Clay that it was time to go. I thought it was funny that he can even exhaust the experts with his curiosity--his poor parents!
After that, we headed off to lunch at Wendy's--Clay's choice. He got a happy meal with a kids deck of cards for playing Crazy 8's. Which was then the focus of our conversation from there to our next stop. "Why is it called Crazy 8s?" "How come the 8s are crazy?" "Is there a game for crazy 1s?" (and 2s and 3s and 4s, etc.) "How do you play?" "Is it fun?" "Why is it fun?" "Do you like it?" "Why do you like it?" "How do you know how to play?" "Who taught you?" "Who do you play with?" "Does your sister know how to play?" and on and on and on....that is really only a fraction of the conversation that we had about Crazy 8s. He is truly the most inquisitive child, he literally cannot stop until he feels he has learned every aspect of the thing he is focused on.
Then we got to the movie. Monsters vs. Aliens. Which I decided that we'd go see in 3D because we could and I haven't seen a 3D movie in forever. Actually, the last time I saw one they still had cardboard glasses with one blue lens and one red lens (remember those?). They're way more updated now. Of course, in telling Clay that we were going to see a movie in 3D, I then had to try to explain the concept of 3D to him-which I did, though rather poorly. But he figured it out when the movie started. He was full of questions once it began, but fortunately, the Saturday matinee is filled with dads and kids (I am guessing weekend dads who don't know what else to do with the kids all day) so it wasn't a big deal if we talked about it during the movie. Plenty of kids in there talking....plenty.
Next we stopped at my house to let my dog out and for Clay to change his clothes (he was covered with bright, orange powdered cheese from the cheese popcorn I bought him). Then, as we were driving to the next destination, Clay was pretty quiet in the back seat. He hadn't napped all day, so I was content to let him rest and process, but I still wanted to check on him, so I made a quick peek at him.
And that's what I saw. He was riding in the car, wearing his 3D glasses. I was able to snap a picture over my shoulder while driving. How freaking cute is that?
Then, because he saw me take the picture, he wanted to take one of me, soafter we got to Maplewood Mall and parked, we did this:
Is that cute or what?
Then we were off to the arcade. This was the part of the day that Clayton was most looking forward to. He loves video games but has never been to an arcade before. We played pretty much every game in there and many of them more than once. Clay really liked the violent games, shooting games and the game where you pressed a button and punched the ducks and the one where to take a mallet and hit the creatures (sharks) as they pop up out of their holes. Boys sure are different. Me, I just wanted to play Skee Ball.
Then we did a motorcycle racing game together where he beat me soundly. For real....I don't let him win, he just was better at it than me. He has awesome hand-eye coordination, which I really don't.
Then he did a snowmobile racing game:
And I just love the look of intense concentration on his face right there. He won that game, too. Came in first place. It amazes me that he's actually that good at them, it isn't like he's played them all before or anything.
After winning our 375 tickets (plus the 40 that some guy gave us just to be nice) we headed off to buy our "prizes". I let Clay pick out whatever he wanted and I think even he thought they were lame because he had trouble spending them all. But we did and then we were done at the arcade.
We made a quick pit stop at the carousel where one of us got to ride for free. I am not sure who, but the guy only charged us for one ticket but still let us both in.
Fortunately, I was smart enough to get a picture before the ride started, because once it's going, it is pretty tough to do:
See? I guess movement doesn't agree with my cameraphone. Ah well, this is still cute, even though it's blurry.
After leaving the mall, we headed across the street to Toys-R-Us, which was a special request that Clay made. He had gotten $25 for his birthday and in an effort to teach him about money his parents told him he could spend it on anything he wanted. Well, we went to the store to spend his dough. We were in there for a LOOOOONG time, as we had to go up and down every single aisle, with Clay pointing at things that struck his fancy and going, "can I afford that?" Yikes! He had originally said that he wanted someting from Planet Hero, so that's what we were looking for. Clay finally had to ask someone because we couldn't find them, and that's where he found his dream toy. It's some sort of space station for his action figures to play on. It cost $24.98 and when I told him he could afford it his whole face lit up and he tried to grab this giant box off the shelf. I helped him and we headed up to pay.
By the way, while wandering through all these aisles, I managed to find a toy that I just couldn't live without. A Tom Brady action figure! No kidding! It's awesome. Clay thought it was hilarious that I was buying myself a toy. He kept saying, "but you're an adult!"
So, as we're waiting in line to pay, the lady in front of us is standing there with her (roughly) 3-year-old. Clay is hammering me with questions about my toy. "Why are you buying it?" "What are you going to do with it?" That kind of thing. I told him that Tom Brady is my favorite football player and that's why I was buying it. He wanted to know why he's my favorite, so I said, "because he's really cute and I love him."
There was a moment's pause and then Clay looked at me and said, "you can't love him, you don't even know him." The lady in front of us burst out laughing (clearly she had been listening in) and looked back at Clay, kind of measuring him up. I think she was dreading the years to come....when they start to get smarter than you. As for me, I just sort of stood there, put in my place by a 5-year-old. After a moment I eventually told Clay that he was right, I don't really love him, but I sure do like him alot. And that seemed good enough.
We left the toy store with about a 15 minutes left to get home, which was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that as we passed a Dairy Queen, we had just enough time to get us each a Dilly Bar (Mine, chocolate-his, cherry) to cap off our perfect day.
As we were driving home I asked Clay what his favorite part of the day was and he said, "beating you at those video games" without missing a beat. He really does crack me up. Then he asked me what my favorite part was and I said, "spending time with you."
And that's true. I can't wait for our next special day.
36 days.
Birthday season is upon us, at least in my world. It always seems that my birthday kicks off a reaction of birthdays. Yay me!
As of now, I owe a happy birthday to my darling nephew, Simon, who turned 2 on April 4th. I have a couple cute pictures of him from his celebration at Grandma's house.
Here's the first: the naked birthday boy. He was showing me something out the window and completely ignoring Grandma who was trying to get him into his jammies after his bath.
And I wanted a cute picture of him from his second birthday (I had to work so I didn't even get to see him until bedtime) but he wouldn't look at me and smile. This is as close as we came.) But he sure is cute!
Next, a happy golden birthday to my little buddy Clayton. He turned 5 on April 5th! I had to work during his party, so I don't have any pictures, but fear not, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.
Also, a very happy 30th birthday to my friend, KB. She turns 30 today. At almost exactly three weeks younger than me, it is fun to go through these things together. There will be some pictures coming; her celebration is this Saturday.
There are plenty more birthdays coming--just wait and see. But for now, Happy Happy, to all those celebrating the first week of April!
24 days.
"It's the most wonderful time of the year...."
I got a phone call tonight from one of my favorite people in the world, my favorite little friend, Clayton. For those who aren't familiar, Clay is the 4 1/2 year old son of my friends Mindy and Tom. If you know me well, you know that I have LOTS of friends with kids, and while they are all very special to me, Clay will always have a special spot in my heart because he was the first to come along. Plus, I nannied him for the first few months of his life, so we have a bond going back to the first hours of his life.
Having said that, I got a message on my cell phone tonight, from Clay. Recently, his parents have taken to letting him leave messages and handle his own phone calls, and it is adorable. Verbally, Clay is pretty advanced and always has been, so he isn't difficult to understand at all. Conversationally, he is at supremely high levels, it's like talking to a mini-adult.
I called him back as soon as I got the message and he had a question for me: who did I give last years snow globe to? Eeeyikes! Well, since Clay was born I have bought him a snow globe for Christmas (he also gets a fun present, but I wanted him to have a present with special meaning, not just silly toys that he'll grow out of). I look for snow globes that represent things he is interested in (wait until he gets this years Superhero snowglobe!!!) and if I can't find that, then I look for ones with lots of moving parts or that light up and play music. Anything to attract a small child. And it works. I got an email from his mom this weekend that they had hauled out their Christmas stuff and Clay has been going nuts for his snowglobes, playing with them and winding them all up at the same time. It touches my heart that this is a gift that has meaning to him and is the beginnings of traditions that could last his whole life.
So back to the phone call. Well, last year, I evidently decided to buy one snowglobe that would be shared between Clay and his little brother Lewie (who was celebrating his first Christmas last year)--stupid, stupid, stupid. I know better than that. These kinds of things aren't for sharing. The snow globes are for Clay and they are something that are between him and I, while for little Lew, I will need to rack my brain to find something special just for him. I feel a bit bad that I didn't think this through last year and start a tradition for me and Lewie at his first Christmas, but we'll start it this year and the year of the shared snow globe will become a funny holiday story for when they are teenagers and have no more interest in sweet memories like this.
But for now, it was the highlight of my Monday to be able to chat on the phone with Clay. We talked for quite a while (well, a while for a small child with a low attention span), made longer by the fact that he kept hanging up on me....I am not certain if it was on purpose or the pitfalls of a cellphone, but he did it like four times. Once I said "we seem to have gotten disconnected" and he said "what does disconnected mean?" oops, forgot for a second that four syllable words are a bit out of his league. But I explained it to him and then when it happened again (I suspect on purpose) I called back and he was giggling like a madman. He makes me smile.
At one point, he asked me when I was planning on coming over to see him and I said "how about Saturday?" His mom and I had previously planned to take the two boys downtown to Macy's to see the holiday display that they do every year. His response, "will you bring me presents?" It cracked me up. Not so much because he asked for presents, he is a little boy, after all, but because when he said it, I immediately heard his parents in the background telling him that it is NOT okay to ask people to bring you gifts (they sounded a little exasperated). I told him that he'd get no presents from me until Christmas (but it isn't like he was being greedy...I pretty much always do bring him presents when I visit). He seemed fine with that, and I get the sneaking suspicion that it is me that he loves, not the presents. Certainly, the reverse is true.
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