midnight Frog call

Last night in the middle of the night, I heard "ribbit, ribbit..... RIBBIT!" over the baby monitor. I don't know if he misplaced Froggy in his sleep and decided to call him in his own tongue or what. After that I heard that baby sigh and infrequent snoring that indicated he'd gone back to sleep. I'm not sure he ever actually woke up.

He has discovered videos of himself and LOVES to watch them. He insists "watch Dennis" and parks himself in front of the television. I recorded his egg hunts on Sunday and another movie of him playing for when Uncle Denny couldn't have him visit in the hospital, and I kept copies for ourselves. Dennis is fascinated with watching himself on television. When the movies are on, I'm never sure if I'm hearing him call me in real time or on the movie. It's Dennis in stereo (well, surround sound actually)!

I'm sorry for the poorer quality images that I post sometimes. When I don't have good signal for high speed internet, I can only post the tiniest files. The pics I snap with my cell phone do well for this but don't look as good as real camera photos. But it is a good way to illustrate my blogs, so I post them anyway!

telephone orders

He must have done a million cute and noteworthy things today, and I loved and appreciated each one. I think I'd be really lonely without Dennis in my life. Sure I have lots of family and friends who love me, but Dennis is my constant companion now, one who never despairs of talking to me, one who is always glad to see me. He always makes me smile. I love him beyond all reason and my heart just fills up with joy when I hear his happy chatter and see his smile. He is a two year old, so I do have those moments of exasperation at his constant motion and significant inquisitiveness (when we're in places where those qualities put him in danger), but he makes me happy in a way I never knew I could be happy.

I have a Garfield telephone. Remember those? It looks like Garfield lying down and the handset comprises a large part of his back. Dennis discovered it in my closet and hauled it out and set it in my bedroom floor, right in the middle of the new (to me) beige shag rug that I've put over the bare concrete (in my pregnancy, due to my heightened sense of smell, I insisted that the old carpet stank and must be ripped out or I would be moving to another house, so now my side of the room is bare concrete that I will one day paint). Dennis loves that phone. He goes into our room, plants himself on that rug, picks up the phone and says the following (with occasional slight variation):" Hey, how are you? I'm fine. Daddy works. Hello? I'm fine. I want a double stack and chicken and oranges." As often as I've heard it, it never fails to make me giggle (inwardly, so I don't appear to be making fun). He always orders food over the phone!

Happy Easter!

What a big day we had today. The Easter Bunny showed up really early this morning, as in before 8:00, and Dennis was delighted with the goodies in his basket: blue Peeps, green M&Ms, a tube of Fisher Price Little People Easter characters (Michael and a rabbit), a chocolate bunny ("hot chockey rabbit"), and eggs containing Cheetos and goldfish crackers all nestled in a bed of edible banana-flavored yellow Easter grass (yuck).

After the basket-opening party in Dennis' room, we got dressed and ready and went to church. He led us straight to the nursery and went right in and commenced playing without a second glance at us. They tell us he was very good and he was returned to us wearing a purple star sticker that said "Way to Go!". I think he actually learned something in nursery this morning. This afternoon in the car he was singing "Yes, Jesus", but that's all he said. After a few refrains of this, I decided he must have learned the song 'Jesus Loves Me' this morning. So I sang it for him and he joined in. Very cute.

We did a small egg hunt here at the house after lunch (David cooked a wonderful Easter lunch for us) and then went to the hospital to see Uncle Denny, who is finally in a room that allows visitors of the very young variety. Dennis climbed all over the hospital room, happy to see his uncle again, and even more delighted to discover that the Easter bunny had also left him a prize here (Reese's eggs and a bunny car). After our hospital visit, we went to see the Dennis relatives in Birmingham and Dennis learned to say "Jake" and "Nate" after giving each of them a dozen hugs. He also learned "Alan" and gave him several high fives. Rodney and Bradley competed in teaching Dennis their names, and since they are identical twins, it was funny to watch him looking over at Rodney while Bradley was trying to convince him to say his name (we had just left Rodney after he did the same). Dennis looked back and forth at the two of them and just stared, and then shook his head. By this time he was too tired to comprehend it!

Back to Clanton and another egg hunt in Gran's garden, then off to Pizza Hut with them for supper. He's been asking for pizza for almost 3 weeks, so I'm glad he got to finally have some. It was delicious and that was one tired little boy we brought home and tucked into bed! What a wonderful day we had, seeing so much family, and what a wonderful reason to celebrate. He is risen! He is risen, indeed!!

the egg in the mail

My sister-in-law is the coolest mother. Today we got an envelope in the mail that contained a construction paper egg from Caedmon and Mirella to Dennis. He was ecstatic and held it and cuddled it, even rested it against his cheek and said "nice egg". I wish I could think of projects like this to do so that we could send cool things to Caedmon and Mirella in the mail. Dennis does color every day (and discovered that dry erase markers work on windows just beautifully and make a stained glass effect), so maybe the time will come when we'll draw something special and put it in the mail.

We had lunch with Dennis' Grandma, Great Granny, and Aunt Karen, and Dennis got yet another birthday present. He tossed the tissue out of the bag, tossed the clothes out (very cute shorts set) and homed in on the paint book and the Thomas stickers. He was THRILLED to get a Take Along Percy. We had a Percy already, but when we looked closely, the one he got today was a special Happy Birthday Percy, and he loves loves loves it. Percy is covered in stars and streamers and sports the phrase 'Happy Birthday' along his side. When we got into the car to leave, Dennis picked up the Percy that lives in the car seat and then put it back down and demanded "I want Percy stars" until I got out the new one and handed it to him. He then said "Happy Birthday" a few times. Another successful birthday present for Dennis! I think this might possibly be the last one. But the Easter Bunny comes tomorrow, so I don't think he'll be too disappointed.

purple-licious

Last night we made a new friend. After the disaster that was our attempt to go to the Maundy Thursday church service, we stopped at Burger King for supper. Dennis' kids meal came with a Sponge Bob (excuse me a moment while I report that he is right now trying to get my attention as I write this, saying "happy birthday ducks"--I don't know why). We don't really watch Sponge Bob, but he comes in two of the colors that Dennis likes to say best. He's yellow and has purple (square) pants. Dennis played and played with him and we were a little worried that he might start calling his new grandfather Sponge Bob when we got to the lake and he was holding Sponge Bob and saying "go see Bob, go see Grandma". He looked at Sponge Bob and said "Bob" and then pointed to the cabin and said "Bob", and you could see the wheels turning.

He also kept saying "purple pants". I think he likes to say the word purple very much. Today we stopped in to see Gran and Pop and Gran had on a purple shirt. Dennis said "Hey, Gran" and followed her in the kitchen and then announced "purple Gran". I had to translate a bit for her so she didn't think he was calling her 'poo poo Gran' (sometimes he garbles the word just a bit). We praised him for getting the color right and he said "Yay, Dennis!" and applauded himself.

Tonight at supper we were trying to keep him entertained and he directed all of us to play patty-cake with him, pointing to those of us who weren't clapping and insisting we join in "POP--PATTY CAKE!". This is the second dinner (in a restaurant) where he's played Patty Cake Marshall. Dare I point out that he himself was NOT clapping? Hmmm...

little helper man

We didn't head to the hospital today but things are still going very well according to all the reports I got. We stayed home, Dennis and I, and did some much needed chores. Dennis helped me empty the dishwasher and gave me a couple of scary moments watching those chubby baby hands grabbing the big stoneware dinner plates out of the dishwasher to hand them to me. There were no casualties and he was so proud of himself for helping which he let me know by repeatedly saying "thank you Dennis" every time I thanked him and a big "Yay Dennis!" when we finished.

He made me very proud when he cleaned up his toys unasked this morning. We were playing with the trains and he announced "want to play farm" and suddenly began putting all the trains and tracks away before getting the farm toys down from the shelf. When he finished playing farm, he cleaned it up before getting out the potato heads and cleaned them up before getting out the legos. I'm SO proud! And after watching him pick up after himself all morning, I picked up after myself while he was napping! I did a few loads of laundry and a load of dishes and cleaned off our table and bar, just maintenance cleaning that needed doing, and I felt so much better to see it done!

Tonight our church had a special Maundy Thursday service, a living Last Supper drama that they put on every year. We enjoy it and went tonight, and Dennis was enchanted by the costumes and music, excitedly pointing out "Jesus!" (after we convinced him that it wasn't "Mary" up there). That lasted for about 15 minutes before he was yelling to get down and go see trains and fire trucks and so he and I walked the church for a while, tried again to watch, and then spent 15 minutes in the car before going in just in time for communion (where he yelled "EAT CRACKER"). No nursery available tonight. Clearly, no Good Friday service for me tomorrow! At least we'll be there to celebrate Easter. No one in the church would have gotten angry if we'd stayed, but it was intended to be a reverent and meaningful service and I wanted to guarantee that the people sitting around us had every opportunity to enjoy it as such. David certainly got a lot out of it, and I am very glad he did.

the waiting game

We spent another day in the vicinity of the hospital in the hopes that Uncle Denny would be moved out of the ICU and into a regular room. If this had happened, Dennis could have gone in to visit. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. The hospital is at maximum capacity right now--no rooms available! But I got to see him while Dennis visited with his Gran and Granny and one of Uncle Denny's good friends in the waiting room, and I was so happy to see him in such good spirits. Dennis and I walked the halls at the hospital for a while, waiting on everyone to finish their visits (only allowed 15 minute visits every two hours in the ICU) so that we could hang out together again.

Dennis enjoyed a bunch of shopping today between hospital visits and tried his best to try Gran's patience while Mommy snuck off to use the bathroom in peace. He kept throwing down the train toy he'd picked up and yelling "Mommy!" at the top of his lungs. Other than that, he was wonderful and I was very proud of him. He politely asked for more chips (constantly) at supper at the Mexican restaurant, and he sweetly said "Thank you, Uncle Kim" every time the bowl was passed his way. I know he's tired of the trips up north, and he asks over and over to "go see Uncle Denny please, Mommy". Surely he'll be able to soon.