Little Rock Air Show

One of the few redeeming qualities of our current location is that there was an Airshow this weekend and the US Navy Blue Angels were in town. I’ve always loved watching them perform and would drag whoever I could up to Beaufort, SC when we were in GA. We took the boys, of course and they had an absolute ball. (We must apologize to Nick for his unfortunate sunburn – still not sure how it got as bad as it did…)

The US Army Golden Knights kicked off the show. Later, Jake got to meet each one of them and Matt & I were SO impressed with their PR skills. Even though he’s at LEAST 16 years from any sort of military service, they each squatted down to be at Jake’s level, talked to him about his Cookie Monster Sweatshirt, or the planes and even asked him to say parachute, which he did, while they each signed his picture. Matt & I were attired in our UT shirts, so the Golden Knights (including a FEMALE!) had no idea that Matt was active duty, much less a Major. Save for the Blue Angels, that might have been the highlight of my day.

Jake got to go into all kinds of airplanes (stairs made it tough to take Nick in all of them) and he got to sit in a Huey. He was horribly disappointed when he couldn’t RIDE in the airplanes. He had a great time watching the Blue Angels (after a quick snooze) and could even point out their tail numbers for us.

It was a long day – but the sky was beautiful. (If you’re interested, I have about 100 pics of the clear blue sky trying to catch the Blue Angels with my camera). We had a great time – and had a pseudo picnic under the wing of a C130.

Nap time or Art time?

So, I went to pick Jake up from school on Friday (Nick, too, of course). They were outside playing. As I looked at him through the door, I noticed something on his face. The closer I got, the more it became clear that it was marker in a "U" shape right above his nose. That's wierd, I thought. One of his teachers came up to me as soon as she saw me and explained that Jake decided to use a permanent marker and have arts and crafts time instead of nap time. he colored his arms, his jeans, his face - as well as the floor, his cot, etc. He's something!

What a day...

Jake has gratefully been doing better at daycare - running to play in the morning instead of crying and clinging (history says this will happen until he gets sick again - then the clingy starts over...). His wonderful teacher has been working with him on potty training. About 1/2 the time, he's had an (as in ONE) accident all day - for clarity's sake - that's one accident at school (home = another story entirely). Pretty good, I'd say. Today, she says it's time to start sending him to school in his undies - no more pull-ups. My insides say NOOOOOOO - not all those messes!

I buck up and decide today is the day - we're keeping the undies going. I set the timer for 30 mins to remind us both. At 15 mins - he wets himself. We get changed and before the timer that I didn't reset can go off, he goes again. I'll spare the details - suffice it to say, I had enough clothes to run another load of laundry - and had to because we'd used up ALL the undies at home. All in less than TWO hours...

in between the every 15 min mopping (luckily, we were in the kitchen the whole time or I might be writing from the nut house...) Nick is teething and having a hard time. I managed to get a dose of tylenol in that poor guy, some cherrios and a bottle. Then the glass repair guy came to fix my windshield...

We were all glad to see Daddy get home. We sat down to dinner, quite late due to our distractions. Matt corrected Jake with something at the table. Jake proceeded to tell Daddy "NO Daddy!" Matt said, "don't tell Daddy NO" not the first time Jake has heard that. I thought to myself - we're gonna hear that again some day.

Sure enough, I moved on to get the tired sore Nick ready for bed. As I'm sitting in the living room putting Nick down with a bottle, I heard Matt tell Jake no for something and then that sweet little voice said "Don't tell me NO, Daddy" - I thought I was going to fall out of my chair. Thankfully Jake couldn't see me...

How fast they learn!