A montessori guide (her) and a design snob (him) make for two very busy and opinionated parents! This blog is about their daily lives raising their family, Re-arranging the furniture and tackling home-improvement projects.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
bathtub
So i hope everyone has thrown out there plastic water bottles that have a 7 on the bottom of them for the recycle code. Those have BPA's wich are bad. Bad Plastic Acid is what BPA stands for. no. im just kidding. I bought a sigg water bottle from whole foods but theresa put a dent in it, so now its her sigg water bottle. Im going to buy another one once i can find it. i have been looking for the elusive Black Sigg. I have scowered all whole foods and whole earth provisions stores and REI's in the metroplex. But no luck. It must not sell well, or maybe it sells very well.
I am very brand loyal to the sigg as i loved my old coffee mug for years until i left it at some conference. Its prolly full of coffee too cuzz i must have been asleep to leave such a fine mug for the janitors.
Now you can't buy these online anymore because of the huge demand for them since the BPA news came out. Stores carry just a handful of the line.
we went to buy akello one likitty split but the sigg kids line is a bunch of non montessori imagary, like airplanes with faces and stuff. so we bought him a klean kanteen.
Morning snack Bagels with Cream Cheese and Fruit Spread
Lunch Pasta with Veggie Sauce
Afternoon snack Berry Tart
Man, i wish akello would get a togo container for some of this stuff!
this kid is eating like a king!
school is going well for akello he is enjoying it and it's so great to pick him up from school. He runs up to the door all, "DADDY DADDY!" Having your kid do that is one of the best feelings in the world.
Youve heard of the naked chef...now meet the naked gardner, a new show that akello is putting together for PBS.
"BATH OUTSIDE, BATH OUTSIDE!"
hey, if akello is willing to take a bath, i will put him in that bathe anywhere short of a moving vehicle. We threw the tub outside on the patio and he had a good time. Then he proceeded to reuse the bath water to water the plants.
Kello is beginning to want to walk wherever he feels like as illustrated in this pic taken at the pappadeux parking lot last saturday. Tia Anita took us out for fathers day and on top of that made me a cake. I ate the last peice today. It was amazing. Anita said she added two tablespoons of coffee to the icing mix and walaa, dunkin hines coffee cake. But you cant add just any coffee no! It must be Folgers Crystals, something about the baking process unleashes the crystals! Anyway...
so yeah, akello didnt want to leave the parking lot. He does this alot. We follow him to an extent and try to redirect to the car. "rice cake akello?" "those are in the car!"
look at this little gremlin! akello reminds me of those bad apple gremlins from that movie, gremlins.
See those teeth? those teeth are causing us stress lately. Akello has been biting recently. "teeth are for eating" theresa says in her gracious mother hen tone. I agree. Akello can and will break the skin with those snappers. There are a lot of reason toddlers at his age bite. I believe that akello bites out of frustration and play. We tell him what teeth are for, that it hurts us when he bites us.
One day while putting him to sleep he bit me and I went thru all that that i just told you, and then i put on a show of pain like a soccer player, or a los angeles laker, pretending that i was hurt real bad. He kinda looked at me, and then gently stroked my cheek and said, "i sorry dadyy, i sorry." I was pretty spellbound and didnt react for a bit as hard as it was. I was just overwhelmed by his language development.
AKELLO loves to eat at the dinner table and let mommy and daddy talk and talk and talk, and then he'll pick the worst word that we said and repeat it. so you wont ever hear him say, Amazing!, no, he says, "DANG!" giggles and then spoons more food into his mouth.
So my mom bought akello a harmonica and was also smart enough to buy me one to so as to model for him. The other day akello busted out with them and passed one on to me. This moment that you are about to see had us cracking up all night. A rare moment when I'm on camera.
You might have noticed that i have started to host my video on flickr. the same place that i host my pictures. I made the move for alot of reasons.
1. The video compression codec. blah blah, i mean the video looks way better. 2. you can download the videos straight off the blog, which you cant do with youtube. 4. It takes half the time to upload video, therefore i can show more video. 5. You can watch the videos full screen by clicking on that little icon in the bottom right corner of the video
Since I plan the meals around here...We have pizza lot. Don't worry, we have spicy chicken or supreme so akello gets his vegetables. Akello loooooves pizza as illustrated in this video.
We celebrated the way we did last year, with some small exceptions. We went to Cafe Brazil again but this time we went to the new Beltline location on addison's famed resturant row. I guess its not that famed. Only to those that work in the restraunt business like I do. Addisson is a suburb that we are really close too. Last time we waited for hours for a table, not this time. This time we also showed up at nine in the morning. Akello decided that he didnt want to sit with us and would rather be greeter to everyone that walked in the door. He was also fascinated by the block glass that "adorned" the entryway. You know, that stuff from the 8o's modern housing movement.
As montessori parents we let him do this for a little bit. As human beings we had to pick him up and put him in the hi-chair. he fussed for a bit but came round as always.
here is a picture and video from last years fathers day. Remember! you member!
We are starting to get situated here in Dallas. We like our little 485 square foot one bedroom apartment even though the people below us smoke inside their apartment and it funnels up to us making our clothes stink. At least they have to listen to Akello run around the apartment every day (run akello run!) There is a park very close by as well as anything else you can think of. whatever, its close by. very strange.
akello inspecting the grounds.
Things are very different this year being that we are so close to theresa's school, St. Alcuin. Akello goes there too so mama takes him in the jogging stroller in the morning and then walks down the hall to start her training. Then at the end of the day round 4ish she picks him up and strolls him back. This has left me with a large chunk of day to run errands and what not. I get to work out, scower craigslist for jobs, buy groceries, do laundry, throw trash, etc. I even have time to go to the movie theatre.
akello gets a lot of stair practice with us being on the top floor
But that was last week. This week will be a bit different as I just got hired on at Chilis to wait tables. This will be my third Chili's to work for and hopefully my last. I could coast by this summer on our government stimulas package but akello took all that plus a bag of organic pretzel sticks when we signed him up for Montessori School. Chilis is in walking distance so that was another plus to working there as starbucks didnt want to hire me. (wich was even closer of course)
I enjoy waiting tables and look forward to bringing home the bacon so to speak.
We bought akello this little ukelelee guitar just before we came to dallas, He has been so interested in theresas guitar but its so huge! Both of the guitar and ukeleelee are always out of tune as i couldnt tune the thing for squat and akello likes to strum them as much as he likes to tune them.
The other day akello and I were playing with the blocks and i built a pretty impressive fortress. Akello took one look at it and smashed it to bits with one swipe of his hand and then he said, "try again!"
AWHILE back. maybe two months ago, Akello and I were sharing a bagel and I took it out of his hand and told him, "Daddys turn". He let me take a bite and then snatched it back saying, "kello's turn"!
Akello is now endorsing Horizon Organic Cow's Milk (whole)
yesterday we were saying grace at the table and usually theresa and I take turns saying grace but this time theresa asked akello to say grace. He thought for a minute. Theresa asked him what he was thankful for and he said, "bagels...and raisin bagels".
akello and his great grandma and grandpa (on gils side)
LETS all go back in time for a minute. back to before things really started to get crazy for us. My Grandparents celebrated their 61st anniversary and Akello tasted tres leches cake for the first time. That boy learned the word cake pretty quick.
We had a good time rocking to these here mariachis.
we are in the process of making the move to dallas. T and kello are up there already while i had to come back and finish the school year and mow the lawn and other stuff like that before heading back up to join them.
Akello and his around the way girl Aivy
akello in my favorite shirt of his, the magnum pi shirt. if i could just find him a detroit tigers cap he'd be good to go.
akello the architect.
this summer in dallas akello will be going to school. the same school that theresa will be training at. We got an apartment a mile and half away from the school. We are excited about walking to and fro and saving on gas!
