Funny thing Harrison said

The other day we were standing in the living room when Harrison goes up to Cliff and says "Daddy, you ride horse". Now this may not be so funny if there was a horse, stuffed or otherwise, anywere in the house, but there wasn't so it was very funny and it came out of no where.

Creamy Cone

On Sunday I think we ran Harrison ragged. After we woke up and got dressed, we headed out for our weekly Target run. I had a few things that turned into $200 to get. Boy, I swear, I can not walk into that store with out doubling or tripling what I went in there to buy. But that is a whole different discussion. After we did our shopping, we had lunch at Target....Hot Dog for Harrison and tacos for Cliff and I.

Then we took Harrison to the playground to blow off some energy. He loves it there but he still can't quite understand patience. We told him we were taking him to the playground as we were walking to the car from Target and apparently the playground was to magically appear right there int he parking lot. Well because it didn't, Harrison threw a tantrum...screaming PLAYGROUND!. We kept telling him we were going but we had to take the car there. Once we got him in the car I think he understood because he was very excited and said "Here we go, Playground!"

Once there he was all over the place. He really likes to climb and he loves the slides there. So we did that alot. When it was time to go, it really didn't go over very well. He wanted to stay, but it was nap time and we were all very tired.

After Harrison woke up from his nap, we decided to take a walk to Connie's Creamy Cone. They have amazing soft serve ice cream...and 25 flavors of soft serve...crazy! Harrison loves ice cream so he was so excited when he realized what we were doing. He just thought we were going for a walk. I learned from earlier in the afternoon not to tell him until we were there as to what we were doing. He devoured his ice cream cup. He ate everything.

Good Time Abby

During the crab feast Harrison had a play date with Abby, at Abby's house. Abby's parents were at our house at crab feast. What we were actually doing was poaching their baby sitter. It actually worked out very well. Their sitter was actually a husband and a wife, so it was 2 on 2. They took the kids for a walk around the lake where Harrison told me he saw ducks. They had every toy Abby owned on the floor and they had dinner together. I picked him up at his bed time. So he went to bed in his own bed, since we were home it was no big deal. I just left the party for about 1/2 hour. When we got in the car to go home Harrison told me he had "Good time Abby"! Even the next morning when he woke up he talked about having fun with Abby. I am glad that they were able to get along so well!

Our 3rd not-so-annual Crab Feast

On saturday we hosted a crab feast. Cliff and I flew in a bushel of crabs from Obrykis in Baltimore Maryland. We had about 25 people over to enjoy the yummy goodness. I was a bit afraid that it was going to rain. It was threatening all day and we were really worried. I prepared the garage just in case we had to make a run for it. Crabs are really not something you can eat inside, unless you are a restaurant and prepared for the mess. But thank goodness it did not rain. We had 4 tables covered in news paper and we used our smoker grill to reheat the crabs. The smoker worked really well. It was so much easier than the other times we had crab feast where we were constantly running back and forth from the kitchen. Now this is a down and dirty meal. There is nothing neat about it. It is all finger food and the crabs are covered in Obrykis amazing spices.

You can also get your aggression out as well. You have to pound at the claws to get the meat. Which proved quite interesting because we only had one mallet. We found that the bottom of a beer bottle works very well. All but 2 of the whole bushel was eaten.

Betty brought an amazing dessert called Snickers Salad. It had chopped up snicker bars, apples, cool whip and pudding. Sounds weird, but totally AMAZINGLY DELISH!

After all of the Crabs were devoured the party somehow split in half. They guys on one end of the yard and the girls on the other. It was totally weird. Kind of like a grade school dance. I can only vouch for the ladies circle but we had some great conversations. One of the best led to a field trip to my neighbors basement where one half was decorated like an hawaiian cruise ship and the other like a log cabin.

The party ended around 10:00 pm and we cleaned up very quickly which was very nice. I hate waking up the morning after a party to having to clean it all up.

Sentences

Harrison is really speaking in sentences now. He leaves out the occasional word, but you almost can have a conversation with him. Except he doesn't really answer your questions. Well he does, but if he doesn't want to answer your question he doesn't. His favorite thing to do is to identify everything and who it belongs to. Like "Mommy's chair" "Daddy's car" "Harrison's train" ect. Frequently Harrison like to claim your stuff as his. But he isn't too resistant when you correct him. His favorite sentences are "Harrison Take bath now" and "Harrison outside play with Darby" and his all time favorite "Birdie bite Harrison's Finger". He also claims that everyone bites his finger. He has told me that Darby, Daddy, Brady, Mommy, Abu and Carol all have bitten his finger. That is alot of finger biting.

Pretend you are a dog

In Gymboree on Saturday they started a new curriculum which is going to focus alot on imaginary play. Harrison doesn't pretend too much but I am hoping this will get that part of him going. They started off with dogs and wanted the kids to pretend they were dogs. Walk like a dog, bark like a dog, pet different things that were pretending to be dogs and point to the pictures of dogs. This didn't go over too well with the kids. But the best part about it was all of the parents were walking around on all 4s and barking like dogs to try and get their children to copy them.

We also got a parachute for Harrison to play with from Gymboree because we signed up for the session early. Harrison loved playing with it and pretending we were at Gymboree. I guess he does like pretending, but not like he is an animal.

He can count!

So one night after Harrison's bath while I was drying him off and getting him ready for bed I asked Harrison if he could count. He started saying, 1, 2, 3 (while he was doing this, I was holding up my fingers along with the numbers), 4, (this is where he usually stops - and often begins saying the alphabet), 5, 7 (I then corrected him and told him he missed 6), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I couldn't believe it. He really counted to 10 with only one small piece of assistance from me. It was clear and not mumbled. I got so excited. He was really proud of himself. But, I have tried to get him to do it again, and we haven't gotten past 4. But I heard it once, and counting to 4 before he is even 2 is really amazing, I think!

My funny, funny son

One afternoon we were all outside when Brady started rolling around on the grass to scratch his back. He does this very often. But I think this may have been the first time Harrison noticed this behavior. Harrison started laughing hysterically and said "Brady funny - Harrison do it". So then Harrison proceeded to lie down on the ground and roll around like Brady. These are the times I which I had the video camera out and ready to shoot.

Labor Day BBQ

On Monday we invited Ken and Shannon and Abby, and Linda, Mark and Henry over for a BBQ. Cliff made ribs on the grill and used his new grill w/ smoker box. They came out very yummy. Abby, Henry and Harrison played together very well. We gave the kids wagon rides around the yard. Played on the slide. And my favorite, was when Abby, Ken and Harrison were playing Ring around the Rosey. Harrison just loved this game. Abby got upset becasue she didn't want Harrison to play with her and her dad but Harrison would butt in and try and pry Abby's hand out of Ken's hand so he could insert himself in there. It was hysterical.

This wasn't the only time Abby and Harrison didn't get along. Harrison wanted to do and undo the buckles on Abby's stroller. Abby absolutely did not want Harrison touching her stroller at all. Well, there was no compromise, because Harrison was insistant on doing the buckles and Abby was insistent that he not do it. So we put the stroller out of site from the both of them.

My other favorite was when Harrison and Abby chased eachother around the yard. They were laughing the whole time. It was so much fun to watch.

I just love that we are at the stage where the kids can interact and play with each other. I just can't wait until they learn how to share and to take turns.

Labor Day weekend theme

The theme for our labor day weekend was having lunch at stores we were going to. On Saturday, after we left the park we headed over to Target. It seems as if every weekend we need something from Target. So we were all hungry and they had a food area that sold Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and kids meals. It was great. Harrison had his usual, a hot dog. And Cliff and I shared Tacos. On Sunday, after a relatively sleepless night because of the storms, it was still a bit rainy so we decided to browse around IKEA. I love just walking around the store and looking at everything. But what I love the most is their cafeteria. We all pigged out. Cliff and I shared sweedish meatballs. Cliff also had gravlax and I had a salad. Harrison had, you guessed it, a hot dog. He also had a Lingonberry mousse dessert. It was all very yummy.

The big slide

On Saturday morning we took Harrison for a wagon ride over to our neighborhood park. This is a great park for kids. It is brand new and has play areas for kids of all ages. Harrison just loves it here. There are always other kids to play with and there is sand that he can throw (his new favorite past time). Every time we have come to the playground he likes to climb to the top of the big kid aparatus and go down the slides on Cliff's lap. That is until today. He got up enough nerve to go down the open air cork screw slide all by himself. I don't think that slide is intended for a 21 month old, but my little daredevil didn't care about that. He did it. He was very cautious and held on to the sides, but he did it. He went down about 12 times. Cliff stayed at the top of the slide because there are open areas and we didn't want him investigating those and falling out.

On one particular time, before he began his assent to the top he went over to the playgound phone, the basic equilivant to 2 cups and a string, where you talk into one end and the person at the other end can hear you. Well, as I was saying he went over to it and screamed into it, "HI DADDY!". In fact, Cliff was at the other end of the "phone" and responded to him "Hi, Harrison." Well, needless to say, Harrison loved this and continued to do it for quite a while, having a great conversation with Cliff.

After an hour, we decided we had enough of the playground and headed home.

On Monday morning, I headed back to the playground with Harrison by myself while Cliff stayed home to get some rest. We had a great time and made a new friend, Jake. They played alot and this time Harrison went down both of the big kids slides all by himself. He loved it!. He also tried to play telephone again and went to the end and yelled "HI DADDY". But Cliff wasn't on the other end. It was quite sad to watch, but he tried anyway. We stayed for an hour. We only left because there were no kids left for Harrison to play with so he started getting bored.