Around Here | June 2015

Around here...

• Noah is officially addressing Brian and me as dad and mom. No more daddy and mommy.

• I'm overcooking pork again. Don't you hate it when you buy a huge chunk of meat from Costco and then cook it just a wee bit too long? Ugh. Wouldn't you know that during that same meal, I fried our instant read thermometer, too. I seriously think our kitchen gadgets get very, very scared when they see me enter the kitchen. I imagine they're thinking -- that is, if they weren't inanimate objects -- Oh no, she's back! Which one of us is she going to break this time? Ha!  

• Noah still loves to help with the dishes. 

• I'm seriously loving that Brian is cooking desserts like this amazing Pizookie in his dutch oven.

• Noah wants to know if there's a surprise for him every time a package is delivered to our home. Oftentimes, the answer is no, but last week, Noah got SO excited when a new ukuele arrived just for him. 

•  I'm experimenting with some new artists and music like: Chris Stapleton (traditional country), Passenger (love the tune, "Let Her Go"), Sam Smith (adore the song, "Stay With Me"), Rachel Platten (a big fan of her "Fight Song")

• Noah and I are listening to a Spanish CD in the car, and learning lots of new Spanish vocabulary as we cruise around town. (And I love that it's from the library!)

• Noah completed four private swim lessons (and loved everything about it -- especially teacher Natalie), and then proceeded to get his very first ear infection. Connection?  I think so.

• Brian completed the chicken's fenced yard, giving them 700+ square feet to run around and eat bugs and fly up into trees. (By the way, we discovered that we have 11 hens and one rooster. A rooster who loves to cock-a-doodle-doo at 6 o'clock every morning. Anyone want a free rooster?!)

• Noah is saying all kinds of cute and funny and silly things lately, so I've been busily jotting them down in his green quote journal. He's also asking, Why? A LOT, and Where does ______ come from? Insert: babies or cereal or paper or dogs or ...

• I'm so very, very excited that my youngest sister is going to be a mom at the end of November. (Congrats, Kate + Preston!)

• Brian and Noah fished at a kids derby and have been out on Brian's fishing boat twice now. (No fish yet, but lots of fun memories!)

• Noah is enjoying driving his John Deere motorized tractor around our front yard -- especially now that he's in the faster 2nd gear!

• Noah is dressing up as Jake and Santa and Buzz Lightyear and a monkey and a pilot. Our dog, Rudy, is not so sure about dress up. Ha!

• We're planting veggies in our side yard, and dreaming of ripe zucchini, tomatoes, and bell peppers fresh from our garden later this summer. (We're trying out liquid fence this year to keep the deer away; I'll let you know how it goes.) 

• We're reading stories and poems in High Five magazine over and over again. It's a seriously great magazine for toddlers. We keep a bucket of issues on the dining room table, so they are easily accessible before and after mealtimes. 

• Brian and I are preparing to sell our rental home. Roof repairs are happening this week and we hope to list it this weekend.

• Reading All the Light We Cannot See (thanks for the recommendation, Gina!), and loving that I've already come across two BIG words that I had to look up in a dictionary. I'm such a logophile!

 

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The Story

There's a story behind this photograph.

At first glance, you might think, There's Noah checking out a John Deere Gator.  And you'd be right.

But there's more.  

Five minutes before I took this shot, Noah was sitting in the sandbox at the park.

When he heard a rumbling sound off to his left, he turned and spied this John Deere Gator driving on the grass.

Without any hesitation, he got up and started walking toward it. 

For a split second, I thought, Where is he going?  And in such a hurry?

But when I looked off in the distance and saw the bright green and yellow vehicle, I knew.

With a chuckle, I jumped to my feet and headed off after him.

As Noah ambled toward the Gator, now parked, I heard him say "tractor," which at 16 months, comes out "rackur."  With a very guttural c sound like you hear in the German language.

"Rackur, rackur," he repeated, covering the 60+ foot distance as quickly as his little legs would carry him.

"Yes, it's a tractor," I said, smiling.

Just a week earlier, Noah had watched as his daddy drove a friend's John Deere tractor all over our property.  Noah got to sit on the tractor with daddy, and when daddy wasn't riding it around, Noah admired it in our driveway. 

This John Deere Gator was just as fascinating to him.  He touched the floorboard, rapped on the tires, and tried to climb up on the seat.  

One of the men working nearby, who was digging with a shovel, looked over and smiled.  

"My boy loves John Deere tractors, too," he shared.
 
I smiled.

"Up!" Noah said, tapping on the yellow seat.  "Up!"
 
"Baby, it's not ours.  We can't get up on it," I said, kneeling down to hug him from behind.
 
Noah shook his head and grunted, the way he does sometimes when I say no.
 
Just then, a stream of water off in the distance, caught Noah's attention.  

The sprinklers were on, shooting streams of water high up into the air.

If there's anything Noah loves more than John Deere vehicles, it's water.

Off he trotted toward the water. 
A minute later, as we were still making our way to the sprinklers, Noah heard the gator start up.

He stopped and turned around just in time to see the gator driving away.
 
"The Gator is going bye-bye, back to its home," I said.

"Ba-ba," Noah said, waving to the men in the Gator.

_______________________________________________________  



But the story doesn't end there.

The following day, Noah and I were back at the same park. 

This time, a man was mowing the grass on the baseball field riding a--you guessed it--John Deere lawn mower.    

Noah made a beeline for the chain link fence that surrounds the baseball field.

He stood there for ten minutes, watching the ride-on lawn mower drive back and forth, back and forth--clearly mesmerized by the John Deere vehicle.

Later on that day, I texted Brian who was at work, and told him about Noah's newest John Deere sighting.
 
His response: Maybe we should get him one for his second birthday.  Or Christmas?  Or better yet, he could get one for dad for Father's Day.

My response: Bahahaha!!!!!!

His response: It was worth a try.  How about a John Deere tractor toy instead?!

If Noah's obsession with "rackurs" continues, it would be so fun to surprise him with a John Deere toy tractor--just his size--for his second birthday.

P.S. Both photos were taken with my iPhone 4 and edited using PicTapGo.  I've entered the second photo in the iHeartFaces.com Photo Challenge.