June 2011 Tidbits

During Family Home Evening I (Ryan) asked Tess, "What are some things that you can do with your hands?"  Her first answer: "You can say 'all done' [making the ASL sign for 'all done' by twisting her hands back and forth a few times]."

Tess, pointing to her old Winnie the Pooh toothbrush: "Why he [Winnie] eat honey all the time?" 
Ryan: "Because he thinks that it tastes so good.  Do you like honey, Tess?"
Tess: "No, Dad, I like [jumps in the air] HONEY MUSTARD!" 

Sometimes I (Ryan) tease Tess by using one of her expressions, "That hurts my pro-o-o-blems!"  Her reply last night: "Dad, I don't say that anymore." 

Tess, referring to Drew: "He's so GORGEOUS!" 

Drew has a funny new face that he makes when he's excited or acting goofy. He stretches down his top lip and says, "Ooo, Ooo, Ooo." He kind of looks like a little baboon.

T: "Mom, you been to Egypt?"

M: "Nope, I've never been to Egypt. It's a long way away."

T: "I not been to Egypt either. We need to get a car and drive a long way. We need to go visit all the countries and towns."

Tess has a new pity laugh for when we are only mildly funny: "Heh, heh, heh."

Tess' predictable reaction when she seems something she adores: She sucks in air with a huge gasp, covers her mouth, starts laughing and says, "Awwww--that so cute! I can't believe it!"

I asked Tess to sing me "Happy Birthday" last night during my birthday dinner, but she refused because it wasn't time for the cake yet. When Ryan dished the crab cakes, she perked up: "Hey, these can be our cake!"

"Mom, someday we can get a dog."

"Mom, I so get-cited to be 4 so I get BAPTIZED!"

"Mom, why that word say play?" Add it to the list.

Ryan and Tess have been reading the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series for her bedtime story, and they just finished the last of the 5 books. Now they're starting in on "Charlotte's Web."

After our recent endeavor to renew my driver's license, Tess has been playing "DMV" with her doll. "See, she sit right here and wait for her number. Her number is E43."

Tess is very excited about our discovery last night that Drew has started to cut a tooth. When she woke up this morning she asked me, "Drew got 2 teeth now? You know why I so get-cited for Drew have 2 teeth? So he can crunch."

I was proud of how Tess handled a big disappointment when we got turned away from the overcrowded puppet show at the library today: "I know! We can go home and paint our own puppets!" And that we did.

Tess pointed to the home page on our computer and said: "Google. That a funny word!"

Tess was washing her hands in the bathroom and I asked if she needed her stool. "No thanks, Mom. I'm a big kid now."

I was looking at Mom & Dad's blog today when Tess pointed to the screen and said, "Mom, why that say Dipsy?" I guess we can add that to the list of words she can read.

A refrain I hear from Tess nearly every day: "Mom, I got good idea in my head! We can have a party celebration! [Jumping up and down.] I can do decorations and we have balloons and CAKE!"

Tess wanted to do a craft, but Drew was screaming and I needed to get him a bottle. Tess' solution: "Mom, I do my craft myself. You can feed Drew a bottle and watch Oprah."

Tess kissed Drew on the ear and said, "You know, Mom, that my favorite spot?"

When I told Tess it was time to get ready for bed, she said: "I no like night-night time! It not my favorite weather."

At dinner, Tess reached her foot out to touch Drew's foot while he was sitting in his highchair. "Mom, I'm giving Drew a foot snuggle."

Tonight Tess prefaced several of her comments with "I'm sorry." As we walked inside the house, she said to me (Ryan), "I'm sorry, it's a mess." Later she said, "I'm sorry, Mom got you this snack bar" and she handed it to me.

Tess, speaking of our recent visit to Comet Ping Pong (a restaurant with ping pong tables): "Dad, you know you was good at playing ping pong. I was bad at playing ping pong."

"I have an idea! We can have a beach vacation here! We can get out towels and relax and have chairs. Ahhh! And you have a drink and sit like this [stretching her legs out with her hands folded behind her neck.] You wanna do that? You wanna relax here with a beach vacation?"

Tess has been talking quite a bit about what kind of worker she wants to be. I mentioned to her that she could be a doctor, and she immediately said that she wanted to be one. Tess asked me to set up an doctor's office for her, decorated with paintings of butterflies or rainbows. I asked her, "What kind of doctor do you want to be, Tess? You could be a doctor for the eyes or the ears or the brain or the heart." Tess replied: "I wanna be a doctor for the brain. I love brains." {RKH}

Sunday morning, Dipsy was showing Tess kids' drawings from the Church's Children's Art Exhibit online. I overheard Dipsy explain to Tess: "See Tess? That's a picture of someone getting baptized! Wait. Um, is that a turtle? I think it's actually a picture of a turtle." Something tells me that kid doesn't have much of a future as an artist.

A Few More Days at the Beach

Just Another Day at the Beach (Nags Head)

These pictures make me really want to go back!  This was such a fun (albeit windy) day at the beach.  Everyone was a little braver.  I made a sand "bucket" seat for Drew by basically digging out a hole in the sand and sticking him in it.  Drew was more comfortable putting his tootsies in the water (he cried the first day when we took him to the water).  He was also more adventurous with the sand, wanting to grab it with his hands as well as his toes.  Tessie did more shell collecting, castle building and played with Dad in the water.

Cape Hatteras

We reserved a whole day to explore pretty much the entire Outer Banks.  We took a drive down scenic Highway 12 to Hatteras and then hopped a ferry to the last, remote barrier island, Ocacroke.  The whole drive took a good 1 1/2 hours and the ferry ride was 40 mins. long.

At the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, we were treated to a presentation on sea turtles by one of the park rangers.  Tess was pretty engrossed by this, and she kept repeating back to me everything the ranger said as if I were not sitting there listening to it too.  (Though the whole trip Tess repeated everything I said to Ryan, as if he were not sitting there listening.)  I let her pick out one surprise in the gift shop, and she picked a tiny rubber sea turtle.  She imaginatively named it "Sea-Tur," and we spent the rest of the trip searching for it in the car every time she dropped it.

Ferry to Ocacroke Island

The ferry ride was an event in and of itself.  Tess was excited because, "You know I like ferry boats?  Like Tinkerbell?"  She spent most of the trip inside the passenger's lounge, where they had a table with pictures of OBX lighthouses on it.  She made up a game that involved identifying the lighthouses we saw.

Ocacroke Island

I had been a long day and we were pretty tired once we finally reached Ocacroke, but Tess got it in her head that the point of this whole outing was to go to the beach.  We first made a quick stop to see the wild ponies of Ocacroke (similar to those of Chincoteague and Assateague).  She named these 3 ponies "Brownie," "White Chocolate" and "Dark Chocolate."

Then we headed over to the most beautiful beach I think I've ever seen.  The sand was very fine and the water was a clear, blue-green.  The way the surf crashed created a long stretch of wading area, perfect for Tess to splash in.  There were different shells than we'd seen before and the shoreline was covered with tiny clams that were washed up with each wave and would burrow into the sand.  Tess could have stayed for hours playing in the surf, making "sand angels," and collecting shells.

We stayed too long and drove home in the dark, because we didn't want it to end.  That pretty much sums up how we felt about our time the beach!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Mom just told me that she and Dad are getting me an iPod for my birthday!!!!!!!

How get-cited am I?!!!!!!!

OBX 2

Beach at Nags Head

We had a lot of fun at this beach just a couple blocks from us.  Our umbrella set up worked pretty well (at least until one particularly windy day).  Tess was much braver in the water this year and loved kicking and splashing in the small waves.  In this video, Ryan asked her to pick a silly word to yell while they were running away from the waves.  She loved the sand too--boy, was she ever sandy when we brought her home!

Coquina Beach

This unique beach was just a few miles down the road.  We happened on it in the evening and stayed until it was dark--we just didn't want to go home!   I noticed Tess was writing the word "TOP" in various places all over the shore.  When I asked what she was doing, she said she was making a "STOP" game and then asked, "Mom, you can draw the "S" for me?"  (She doesn't like drawing "S's.")  After I drew the S's she explained the game:  you run all over the shore until you come to a "STOP" and then you freeze.  Repeat.  It was actually a pretty fun game!

Wright Brothers Memorial

We spent a morning at the memorial at the Wright Brother's memorial in Kill Devil Hills, just a few miles up the road from us.  They have a small visitor's center there, so I told Tess we were going to visit an airplane museum.  "AIRPLANES?  An airplane museum?  I LOVE airplanes!"

So, of course, her expectations were high.  They did have one replica of the Wright Brother's glider, but that held her interest for only so long.  "Let's see what else they have."  The rest of the room was filled with portraits of famous aviators, so we looked at those for a while.  Then Tess got all accusatorial on me:  "Mom, you no telling the true!  This not an airplane museum--it an ART museum!"  I stand corrected.

We tried watching a film on the Wright Brothers, but finally had to leave because Drew was laughing so hard no one could hear the movie.   Tess liked the trek up the big dune memorial.

Dinosaur Golf

From our deck, we had a view of a dinosaur-themed mini golf place.  Its unmistakable identifying feature was a huge, grotesque, bright green T-Rex statue.  Once Tess spotted that T-Rex, mini golf was on our agenda.   On the way to the golf place, Tess came up with a game we all had to play:  "You look for dinosaur and when you see it you yell, 'DINOSAUR GOLF!  DINOSAUR GOLF!'"

Tess played pretty well, in spite of her awkward golf grip (she insisted on holding the club backward and refused Ry's attempts to help her).  It was Mir, however, who won this round of golf [gloat, gloat, gloat].

When the last hole took Tess' red ball, she ran off the green and stole a red ball from a group on a neighboring hole.  I think she really thought it was her ball, but it was the start of a meltdown that led to the end of that family outing.  She was crying so hard when we left that the cashier took pity on her and gave Tess a red golf ball to keep.

Nags Head at Sunset

After a good nap, Tess was in a better mood, so we headed over to the beach at dusk.   Tess insisted on wearing her swimsuit even though it was windy and cold.  She was freezing when we got there, so I had her wear her longsleeved pajama top and I buried her legs in the sand to keep them warm.  Tess had fun with a house sand mold that Dipsy found before our trip.  Tess enjoyed making "beach houses" and decorating them with shells.