Abby's Walking - Officially!

She cruises up and down the hall and has mastered the art of navigating around corners and through doorways - just a few weeks shy of her first birthday. On Sunday, Jackson played "chase" with Abby. It was hilarious to watch her try to escape her brother's clutches, waddling as quickly as she could around the kitchen and laughing hysterically all the while.

Scott videotaped her new skill and used his masterful editing skills to create the attached movie. Four things to note:

1) Listen to Jackson saying "She's walking, Dada," in the background. Ridiculously cute.
2) Enjoy the crusty nose and Abby's ladylike nose-picking.
3) Dance along to Abby's groove scene, creatively edited by her proud papa.
4) Enjoy the music of Swell Season's "Falling Slowing." Seemed a pretty appropriate pick for this clip, as Abby stumbles around like a drunk and is always on the brink of falling.

Aquaphor Update

Sadly, the $80 we spent for professional carpet cleaning was all for naught... Jackson's rug will soon be banished to the dump, unless someone's interested in a rug that's entirely covered in a fine layer of petroleum product?

My LEAST favorite product this week.

Oh, goodness...what a day we had yesterday! I put Jackson down for a nap around 1:30. I shut his door and walked into my office to work, as usual. Around 3 p.m., I heard some racket in his room and figured he was playing - not sleeping. Scott happened to be home at that time, so I asked him to go into Jack's room and put him back in his bed.

From my office, I heard Scott say/yell, "Jackson, what are you doing?!" I walked in to find that Jackson had undertaken an art project of massive proportions: he was painting. His canvas? His bedroom and all of its contents. His medium? AQUAPHOR! He had smeared two jars of the thick, gooey, greasy stuff all over his carpet, his bed, his furniture (including INSIDE the drawers and cabinets), the doors, the walls, his potty, etc.

Scott and I stood in shocked silence, eyeing the damage, for several minutes before we attempted to clean up. Mere water doesn't make a dent with Aquaphor...we had to bring out the big guns. Scott found a heavy duty degreaser/cleaner called Nature's Orange among our household cleaning products. That seemed to do the trick, though I have since discovered several Aquaphor globs we missed yesterday (not a pleasant discovery, mind you). We didn't even attempt to clean his rug, as it's covered with a thick layer of the stuff (did I mention this rug was custom-made for Jackson's room?). We've scheduled a carpet-cleaning service for Friday morning.

Needless to say, Aquaphor is not my favorite product at the moment. What's funny, though, is that we used Aquaphor on Jack's bum last night before bed...only a few hours after finding our little Picaso and his Aquaphor masterpiece. It is the BEST product for healing diaper rash and skin irritations. We originally discovered it after Jackson contracted rotavirus a couple of years ago. His sweet tushy took a serious ravaging, but it healed up right away once we began using Aquaphor. It's great for use on a child's bum...but not for children's hands.

Scott's Masterpiece

As many of you know, my husband is an artist. He is an award-winning, critically acclaimed creative director and owns his own ad firm in San Francisco. Suffice it to say, he's a rockstar.

Despite the industry awards lining the shelves of his office, the piece of art of which he's most proud is this Jack 'O Lantern. Admittedly, it is rather extraordinary. Scott could barely contain his glee when we learned his pumpkin was the most popular at our neighborhood Jack 'O Lantern showcase.

I wish we could say this was an original design, but it is not...Scott found a picture of a cannibal pumpkin online and had to create his own!

One funny tidbit: our upstairs neighbors have a darling 4-year-old boy named Quinn (and a 2-year-old, Hadley). Quinn asked several times, "Why is the pumpkin eating his baby?" Cathy provided brilliant, well-timed answers such as "pumpkins eat their babies when they don't go to bed," or "pumpkins eat their babies when they don't eat dinner." I'm actually laughing out loud just thinking about it. I used this tactic with Jackson on numerous occasions, but, either he's still too little to understand my intimation, or he simply knows he's the boss around here. Unfortunately, the latter is probably true...

Halloween...Roar!

Halloween was fun, but - whew - am I glad it's over! We were committed to getting our money's worth out of the kids' 8-zillion-dollar costumes, and that we did. I break a sweat at the mere memory of maneuvering their impatient arms and legs into their costumes!

Jackson had the opportunity to wear his monkey and tiger costumes several times. And while he liked the polar bear at first blush, it was too itchy and bulky to wear much longer than five minutes...good thing the camera was handy! Jackson was HILARIOUS in all of his costumes. He roared loudly and incessantly. I think he liked the tiger best - simply because it provided the most roar opportunities. He did try out a fierce growl while donning the monkey, but it didn't go over quite as well. It confused his friends at preschool (don't monkeys say "ooh ooh ahh ahh?") and it likely annoyed their parents!

Abby was absurdly beautiful in her white tiger costume. The colors perfectly complented her pink cheeks and rosy lips while a fringe of white-blonde hair peeked out from beneath her hat (is it obvious that I'm in love with my girl?). She was thrilled to be dressed up, but my OCD was flaring hotly, as she insisted on crawling over various filthy surfaces (i.e. gymnasium floors) in her pristine white costume - the one I had decided was more important than her college education! I picked it up from the dry cleaner today...I haven't inspected it closely, as I'm afraid a few of the smudges didn't come out.

The day after Halloween was one for the record books. Read: exhausted after a late, late night (the kids went to bed at 10:30 p.m.) compounded by a sugar crash much like a drug-addict's withdrawal.

Click on the first image below to see the animation of Jackson roaring in his tiger costume!

Roaring polar bear.

Sweet polar bear - I love his tootsies in this picture!

Jackson as Dash Incredible last year - he thought Dash should roar, too!

Most precious baby girl...now taking her first steps unassisted!

Unbelievably sweet mug.