Easter

We spent the weekend at my in-laws' house in New Jersey. Our weekend would be best described through pictures.

Here is baby Doodle collecting plastic eggs filled with jelly beans (which I have been enjoying) at the town-run Easter egg hunt on Saturday. The 0-3 year old hunt consists of about a hundred eggs scattered across the tennis courts of the community park. Baby Doodle collected seven eggs in his bucket.

The town brought two fire engines and an ambulance to the Easter festivities. Here BD is sitting in the ambulance.

Here he is standing on the fire engine with yards of hose above him. He was a little overwhelmed by the number of people and cool things to look at, including a man dressed as a dalmation complete with a fire hat, gloves and coat. Baby Doodle thought he was the most memorable part of our entire weekend. He gave him five during the egg hunt. Now when you ask him what he did for Easter he says, "saw giant fire dog wearing mittens and fire hat."

After the Easter egg hunt we went to Point Pleasant for their once a year discounted tickets sale. My in-laws bought baby Doodle 280 tickets (they don't expire) at half price for the rides on the Point Pleasant boardwalk. The rides were up and running for the weekend. Baby Doodle, though he was frightened of the carousel the first time he rode one, loved the ride and was looking on at the other rides he wanted to go on when this one was over.

I won't put pictures of every ride he went on, but this one is significant because he rode it alone. There wasn't a single moment of fear or skeptisim. I have to admit I got a little misty eyed watching my boy ride all by himself. What can I say that's what motherhood has done to me.

After an attempted nap in a big boy bed baby Doodle had to "sleep" in the too-small-for-him pack and play. He talked to himself for a little while, then cried for me to come get him. Here he is coloring eggs for the first time. He dropped them into the ceramic mugs without caution for their fragile shells. All of them were cracked and the egg salad we're working our way through is pastel. He enjoyed himself though. He found his eggs hidden around the house when he woke up the next morning.

Donning his new sunglasses from the Easter Bunny. The tie he's wearing I made from one of Mr. D's old ties. He was dressed in his church clothes when he woke up because he had soaked his pajamas, sleep sack and sheets. He loved the tie and wore it for the whole day.

Pictures of Baby Doodle

I haven't been keeping up with taking and downloading pictures lately. Here are a few from the past month.

Baby Doodle wearing Mr. Potato Head's glasses posing on his giant panda bear.

Reading Richard Scarry with Dad.

Doing head, shoulders, knees and toes at gym class.

Doing a handstand at gym class.

selling a car is a bitch

We are trying to sell our car. We posted it on Craig's List and two parties came to look at it and test drive it. The first wasn't that interested -- he really needed a four-door to cart his 3-year old around. The second test drove it, said they were interested and asked me to bring it to their mechanic -- a half hour drive away. Luckily, my mother was visiting and she stayed home with baby Doodle while I hung out at a Starbucks for an hour while their mechanic inspected our car. The mechanic wrote up a "report" and claimed the car was worth $600 less than we were willing to let it go at. It didn't occur to me that the mechanic was going to suggest a price to the buyers, but I'm naive. We agreed to a price $400 less than our "won't take less than" price, which I thought was generous. And I had driven it out to their mechanic legitimizing a lower price with which to negotiate. So we agreed on a price.

I suggested meeting at a notary public's office between Philly and their house, granted it is a little closer to our house than theirs. They suggested meeting at a notary public in their town, across the street from their mechanic. They have two teenage kids, one of whom would get the car they're buying from us. We have an almost 2-year old who would have to come with us to do the transfer because someone has to drive Mr. Doodlebug home.

This morning I got a call from the woman who asked if we'd be willing to say we're selling the car to them for $1000 so they don't have to pay the tax to the state. She apologized for springing the issue on us and I told her I felt a little uncomfortable with it and that I'd call her back.

Mr. D and I discussed it and decided we weren't willing to lie to the state to save these people some money. We called them back and said that we were not willing to do that. The woman asked if we'd be willing to say they are only paying $3000. No, we said. It's the principle, not whether they'd say they paid $1 or $5000. They called us back and asked if we would accept $200 less than the price we all agreed to. Mr. D hung up and we decided we weren't going to lose $200 because they didn't want to pay the state the tax that is legally owed.

While all this is going on, we called our neighbor who had expressed interest in the car after we already had a conversation going with these people. She said she was very interested and if the deal fell through she would want to buy the car, and do the right thing by paying the sales tax.

We told the original potential buyers the car is theirs for the price we agreed to, but no lower and that we have another buyer who we have put on hold because we thought we already had a deal. We're still waiting to hear back from them -- it's been about two hours. I actually hope they don't take the offer so we can sell it to our neighbor who we'd rather have own the car anyway.

23 months -- four days late

I can only describe baby Doodle's 22nd (and beginning of 23rd) month as determined independence. He has in mind what he wants to do and if you try to help or you do it a different way he whines and cries and acts like it's the end of the world. Yesterday, after we got back from Trader Joe's he had one of their balloons tied to his wrist. He was "helping" me take the groceries out of the bags and putting them "away." He complained that he wanted me to remove the balloon string from his wrist. After I put the two containers of milk away I cut the string. He went directly to the bag out of which I had just removed the milk and sunk to the floor in dismay because he wanted to take the half gallon containers out of the bag himself. I apologized and asked if he could help me take the other food out of other bags. He complied reluctantly.

He uses the potty when he "is naked boy" but refuses to sit on it when he is wearing a diaper. He asks to be naked boy like it's a superhero whenever I get him dressed in the morning or Mr. Doodlebug gets him undressed at night.

There isn't much else to say about his vocabulary except that it keeps expanding and stunning me. His memory is also incredible. We went to the Flower Show today and we took 676 to get there. Once we exited onto 676 he said, "go over big bridge" which is what he calls the Ben Franklin Bridge that we occassionally take to get to Jersey (we don't go that way to get to my in-laws house).

He fully participates, in a very cute toddler way, for every song and book we sing and read at story time. He does the hokey pokey almost perfectly -- he uses the same hand and foot for right and left.

When he's playing with my phone he holds it with his cheek against his shoulder and says, "Hello, it's Doodlebug (insert my real first name) and baby Doodle (insert his first name)." I'm not sure that he's making the connection that Doodlebug is Mommy or if he just thinks that's what you say when you first get on the phone.

He asks Mr. Doodlebug for a hug and a handshake before he leaves for work "in Philly," said jubilantly. He was an angel when we were away last week. He napped well, didn't complain about being in the car for long periods of time and behaved at restaurants.

He was in time out for the first time last week for hitting me. The threat of being put in time out has prevented further incidents. Most of the time he is delightful and full of life. I love staying home with him and have decided not to pursue any job until our second born is two years old. This is not an announcement of any kind, just a plan for the future. Since BD loves to sweep the floor and clean the table and other things I think he'll be a great big brother one day.

Less than a month until his second birthday. He says, April first, when you ask him when his birthday is, and he's finally saying, two, when you ask him how old he'll be (he was saying three and holding up five fingers).