"That's My Name!"

David has known his letters for quite some time now, years, I might even venture to say.  He also has learned to read his name, and even can tell you what letters spell his name, although he doesn't quite get them in the right order.  So I have to laugh every time I turn on a movie for him, and the "DVD" screen pops up, when he says without fail:

"D, V, D!  That's my name!"

Marbles Museum

This week my sister-in-law Jenny came to visit us with her daughter Anne Elyse.  We took the kids swimming, went for walks, went to the playground, got some awesome deals on clothes at Gymboree, and visited Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh.  What a fun place!

David enjoyed pretty much everything he did there, but hands down his favorite activity was the station where you built your own car out of tinker-toy-ish pieces and raced them down a track.  I had a hard time prying him away from that one!  Jenny and I both agreed as we were wrapping things up at the museum that it was an awesome place to visit and was well worth the $5 admission price.

Thanks for coming to visit us Jenny and Annie!

Little Gym Show Week

Today was David's Show Week at The Little Gym.  He seemed to prefer running around instead of waiting his turn to do his routines. I don't know if it was because of Friday the 13th, or some cosmic phenomenon, but he was not particularly focused on the performance.  I was also trying to juggle Daniel, take video, and take photos at the same time, so I'm a little limited on photos.  However, I hope you enjoy what I did get:

It Starts...

Ah the joys of a child becoming aware of the world around him, and having the vocabulary to express his wonder.  David started asking "Where did the playset come from?" on Saturday as it was being assembled, and over the weekend that question has broadened to other topics.  

Just now, for instance, he asked where his jigsaw puzzle came from as he put it together, pointed to his Thomas Train and said "Where'd this come from?" and then pointed up at the ceiling and asked, "Where'd the house come from?"  I guess I didn't give a satisfying answer to that one because he asked it three or four more times before going back to his play.

I'd better rehearse some answers to the inevitable, tougher questions...

Exciting Things Out Back

Here are the pictures from the playset being installed.  At the store we were told installation would take 2-2.5 hours.  It took 13!  David was super excited for his playset, and was remarkably patient with the whole process.

It didn't get finished until after 9 pm last night.  We were hunting for the guy's tools with a flashlight to make sure he had everything.  We half-woke to David running around this morning, then realized we didn't hear him anymore.  I went downstairs and found him outside playing on the set in his pajamas!  

It's Always Fun When Grandma Comes...

Two weeks ago Nathan's mom called and said she needed an (Other) Other Nashes fix and had booked a flight to come out the next week using frequent flyer miles.  Wow!  That was a fun surprise!  So she came out Thursday May 29 and just left yesterday (hence the absence of blogging... we were playing hard!)  Nathan took that Friday off and we all went to watch David at The Little Gym, then did our favorite around-town past-times, like taking David to play at the mall while we indulged ourselves at The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, and wandering around PetCo to see the animals.  On our way to PetCo, David said he wanted to look at elephants and giraffes because "they're neat."  We chuckled over that one, and then decided to take our first trip to the NC Zoo the next day so he could see some.  

The Zoo was lots of fun.  The forecast called for a hot day, but we stayed relatively cool most of the morning.  It was overcast, the walkways were shady, and there was a nice breeze.  Toward the end of our excursion it was getting pretty hot though, and that zoo is hilly, so we were very glad to take the shuttle back to our parking lot rather than traverse all those hills again in the smothering heat.

Monday was spent mostly doing daily hum-drum stuff.  By lunch I had a strong suspicion that Daniel had another ear infection, and a trip to the pediatrician that afternoon confirmed it.  That makes 5 this year.  (He's scheduled to get tubes in August.)  That night we got a sitter (that was a first since Daniel's been born) and went out to enjoy an adults-only dinner at Lonestar Steakhouse (another first).

Tuesday morning Mom Nash took David to a park while I straightened out some confusion at the bank, and then that afternoon she took him to the neighborhood playground while I flexed some culinary muscles at home.  Ok, not really, but the stuff I wanted to make took a good bit of time.  I was just finishing mixing the dough for freezer rolls when they came home, so I pulled off a blob of the dough for David to play with while I shaped the rest.  I added a bit of extra flour to his and ya know, it was better than play-doh!  Mom Nash helped him roll balls and snakes and make snowmen and eventually an elephant.  He thought it was pretty fun.

Wednesday and Thursday we went shopping for a playset to put in the back yard.  We visited the Creative Playthings showroom in Raleigh, where they have about 10 playsets built (and they let the kids play on them!)  David was in heaven, running between all the sets and exploring all the fun they had to offer.  Big slides, little slides, tunnel slides, rope climbs, telescopes, periscopes, gliders, trapezes, swings, trampolines, basketballs...  he was well exercised and very sweaty by the time we left there both days.

Those afternoons we also became acquainted with our neighborhood pool. (It's going to be a great relationship!) The kiddie pool was temporarily closed so we were hanging out in the shallow end of the big pool. David absolutely loved it. He had his first water gun in hand and squirted us endlessly. He also discovered jumping off the side into Grandma's arms was tons of fun and by Wednesday afternoon was very daring and had Grandma stand so far back that he could only reach her fingers after he jumped in.

This was also Daniel's first meeting with the pool. He squealed uncomfortably when we first got in, but after a minute he got used to the temperature of the water and kicked back and relaxed the entire hour we were in the water. Several times his eyes looked very heavy. We got him a little personal flotation device/boat for the second day in anticipation of me taking the boys to the pool by myself. That was one cool boat, and Daniel seemed to really like it.

Friday afternoon we had to take Mom Nash back to the airport.  David was very brave and cheerfully gave her lots of hugs and kisses when we dropped her off, but as soon as we pulled away he wanted to know where she was going and wailed that he wanted to go with her too.  He bawled all the home, and even after he stopped crying he told me constantly that night that he wanted to go on an airplane to Grandma's house.  We made a calendar for him to mark off the days until we get on the airplane for the Nash Reunion next month.

Thanks for the fun visit Mom/Grandma Nash!