in my room

We had big shopping plans for today, but Dennis had a little fever this morning, so we stayed in today. We have all 3 been so puny this week, what with the stomach bug and then the cold and David's bad back trouble. So large parts of today were spent playing with Dennis in his room. We set up the train track and city station and watched as Dennis played Godzilla (Babyzilla?) and stomped through the town dismantling track and eating it. We played with the farm animals. We read his Touch and Feel Farm book (and touched and felt it) over and over at his insistence. We set up his racetrack and rolled cars on it, and this distracted him some, but all he really wanted to do was climb inside the big red plastic bin that the racetrack came in. He alternated between this and dismantling the cars.

We had a psychic moment today, too. Julia and Steve had some sad news--Steve's mother passed away and the funeral will be Sunday. David and I were sitting at the table wondering if Dennis was up to the trip or if he was still too sick to go. It looks like we'll be waiting to make this decision based on how he is tomorrow. At any rate, I mentioned this afternoon to David "maybe we'll go to Russellville (where the funeral is)." This was the first mention of Russellville in front of Dennis, and we didn't say Steve's or Julia's names, I just said the name of the town. Steve and Julia don't live there, so this was the first time Dennis had heard the word Russellville coming out of our mouths. When he heard it, he put down his toy, looked up at us and said "Steve. Steve?". Unbelievable!

Dennis had so much fun playing that it's hard to believe that he's actually not 100% well. He is snotty-nosed, though, which is gross. Every time I look at him, the skin under his nose is slick and shiny, and half the time has large boogerish objects plastered to it. It looked especially bad after he ate a chocolate chip cookie earlier and the chocolate mixed with drool and ran down his chin and he smeared it all around his mouth with his hand. Chocolate boogers. Very attractive. I didn't give him much chance to taste, though, as I baby-wiped him as soon as I saw what was going on. I don't know how a person so small can make so much mess so quickly. I've wondered this very thing since the first week of his life, but the mess I was thinking of then was diaper-related. These days it's his room, his clothes, his high chair... It was a 2 bath day. Spaghetti prompted the first bath and the chocolate chips the second. This is why he's in a diaper in his pictures. He demolished the outfit we had him dressed in just moments earlier!