Johnny warms up to a dog

The past few days have been busy but overall fairly uneventful.  Our washer stopped working in our apartment this past weekend and the maintenance guy (very cute! but I love John best. :)) fixed it after he pulled out a shredded Johnny sock from the motor or some other part of the washer.  Now it is working fine, which is good because those few days got me behind on laundry.  Today, however, Johnny and I had a playdate at my friend Kristen's house.  It was really laid back, but fun.  Kristen just adopted a dog named Roxy who is really sweet and gentle around children.  Johnny warmed up to her immediately and loved her, which was surprising since he is usually afraid of dogs. I'm glad though; he even put his hand out for her to smell before he petted her, just like I've been telling him every time we've encountered dogs in the past.  He loved chasing her around the yard and wrestling and tickling her.  He really loved her.  We'll still never own a dog because neither John nor myself is a dog person, but at least Johnny won't be afraid of dogs in the future, which is good. :)  

Now, I'm going to get back to my date night with the husband since he's back from the store with ice cream. :)  We watched Valentine's Day - just as good as when I saw it in movie theaters!  We're about to start watching The Road, which I'm sure is going to be scary and sad.  We both loved the book, because it was well-written, not because it was uplifting or anything.  In fact, I'm terrified of post-apocalyptic movies, but the book was so good that we figured we'd watch the movie too.  I think it is going to be tough for us to sit through it though, because when we read the book I was pregnant with Johnny, and that was hard enough.  But now that we have Johnny here and know him and we have a face to envision in our heads, I think this will be a tough movie to get through. John has tried to read the book again since we've had Johnny and he couldn't get past the first couple of pages because he kept picturing Johnny.  Well, anyway, I don't want to leave you all on a disturbing note or anything.  Just wanted to let you know what we were up to and what we were watching.  Have a good week everyone! :)

Our Sunday

I had a lovely morning at mass and then a late breakfast/lunch with my two favorite guys.  John had to work from 3 to 11pm again today, so it was just Johnny and me.  I had plans to check out the Cherry Blossom Festival, which celebrates Japanese American culture, but by the time we were able to go, most events were already over.  I still wanted to get out of the house with Johnny, but I didn't want to go and sit out in the sun (I need a break from the sun!), so I decided to take Johnny to the Flatirons Mall.  He always really enjoys climbing on the dinosaurs in their indoor play area!  I'm really glad that I decided to go there today because I ended up meeting a really nice mom there.  :)

There were some snobby looking rich moms there in a group and they were gossiping incessantly while their children ran amok in the play area.  One of the little girls from the group (three or four years old) was running around bullying little kids - shoving them and yelling at them and getting her friends to gang up on kids.  Well, Johnny decided he wanted to be friends with this girl and was trying to play with her and was skipping along behind her to each dinosaur and she got really angry with him that he was following her.  Johnny doesn't really understand when kids don't want to be his friend, so unfortunately he wasn't deterred by her yelling at him and calling him names.  He still wanted to play with her.  Then when he would go and play and do his own thing, she would climb up on whatever dinosaur he was trying to climb down and get in his way and just sit there so he couldn't get down.  With a huge ugly scowl on her face.  All while the moms talked away about boob jobs and which other friend cheated on who; completely oblivious to the little monsters.  The little girl would get really mean to a kid and then get her friends and her older brother to come and push them over and they would all huddle around the kid and yell at them with angry faces.  Then Johnny went over to show her his Spiderman toy, and the girl yelled at him and then shoved him down on the ground.  She was calling over her posse to join her, when I came over.  They all scattered.  

That was when I met the nice mom - she had been sitting right there and witnessed the whole thing.  She offered to help me if I needed to go and talk with the parents of the girl, because the little monster had been shoving her daughter too and other kids.  The little girl then proceeded to follow Johnny around and shoving him.  That's when I got really pissed and was about to yell at the girl, when she ran off.  I ended up sitting with the nice mom and her daughter (who is eight) ended up playing with Johnny.  What a sweet and patient girl she is, that she helped Johnny climb up onto dinosaurs and slide down them!  The nice mom - her name is Kristen (and this may get confusing with posts, since my other friend is named Kristen, and they both have the SAME last name!!) - and I started chatting while our kids played.  We had resolved to talk to the mom if her daughter tried anything again, but luckily, they all decided to leave a little after we started talking.  Once them and their huge group of wild kids left, the entire play area calmed down a lot and you could feel the sigh of relief among all the remaining parents.  Kristen and I wanted to clap when they left.  Anyway, Kristen is really nice, and her daughter is super adorable.  We only chatted for a little bit before she had to leave, but we exchanged contact information and we have a coffee date or a playdate in the works for the near future. :)

You see the little girl on the right?  The one with the scowl on her face? That's the bully. 

 After they left, Johnny lost interest in playing since he no longer had a buddy to play with. So, I got him a milkshake from the food court (I rarely do this, but I thought it would be a nice treat for a hot day), and he loved it!  He was saying "ice cream" (which coincidentally sounds a lot like "awesome") all the way to the counter and then all the way to the car, in between sips.  For dinner, we had pizza (homemade) because that is what Johnny wanted. :)  We spent the rest of the evening playing and watching some cartoons, before he finally fell asleep.  We missed John a lot, but it was still a good day considering.  I love my little boy!

Puddle Jumping

It has been a really busy but laid back sort of day.  This morning I got up really early and met up with my friend Kristen and we went to yard sales again - it was a lot of fun! :) We actually founds some really good deals.  I ended up with this awesome fire station with firefighters and a fire truck for $2, a giant car mat for $2, a Spiderman action figure for a quarter, a transformer for a quarter, a Buzz Lightyear action figure for a quarter, a Ninja Turtle doll for a quarter, various other toys, the movie Over the Hedge DVD with no scratches for $1, some cute clothes for Johnny (a tad big for him now, but he'll grow into them), some decorative items for the apartment, and a couple of board games for $1 a piece.  I spent under around $15.  It was really awesome! I had a lot of fun chatting with Kristen and doing some thrifty shopping.  Johnny really enjoyed his new toys too. 

Once I got home, around noon, I hung out with my two favorite guys and we had lunch together.  John had to leave for work before 3pm and was working until 10:45pm tonight, so it was just Johnny and me.  I had been planning to take Johnny to the Cherry Blossom Festival (a free Japanese-American celebration) today, but it was raining a little bit off and on, so we stayed home instead.  I'll probably take him to the festival tomorrow, if the weather is better.  We hung out and watched Finding Nemo and his new movie Over the Hedge from the yard sale.  He even let me fall asleep for a little bit of a nap too, and even managed to stay out of trouble during that time.  That was nice since I had gotten up so early and had spent a few hours walking around in the heat to go to yard sales. :)  For dinner he got to share a spicy chipotle chicken sandwich with me (Panera Bread) on our way to Target to pick up a couple things we needed, and he loved it.  That kid loves spicy food!  

It was pouring rain the entire time we were out running errands, and I loved it!  I miss the rain so much here in Denver.  It rarely rains here, and it is usually associated with thunder and lightning.  For this stretch of time, it was just rain however.  So, once we got back home, I took Johnny upstairs and changed his clothes and put him in his frog rain boots and we went puddle jumping.  Yes, puddle jumping.  To say Johnny had a blast, would be an understatement!  He stomped those puddles, he splashed, he kicked water at me, he made his new Spiderman action figure stomp the water, he ran through them, he found rocks to throw into the puddles, and he even sat in the puddles.  Boys will be boys! I just let him do whatever he wanted to do in the puddles, because I wanted him to have as much fun as possible.  I have been wanting to take him puddle jumping for a while, since he's old enough now to enjoy it, but it has rained all of twice since we moved here almost a year ago.  That is pretty ridiculous.  I was even inspired by a friend of mine who took her daughter puddle jumping recently as well.  So, I've been waiting and waiting for a rainy day that didn't involve lightning, and today was that day!  I'm excited for another rainy day so I can take him puddle jumping again. :)  We even saw a rainbow after the rain stopped!  So beautiful! It must have been exhausting work jumping in puddles, because he passed out fairly quickly after his bath (he enjoyed splashing around in that too!) - it wasn't even dark outside!  

Here are the photos of the puddle jumping adventure.  I don't ever edit my photos other than cropping or adding a softer edge to the border, but I decided to play around with the contrast and color in these photos, so I hope you all approve. :)

 

Johnny didn't want to come back inside from puddle jumping at all.  He was filthy from head to toe, and when I plopped him into the bath tub and let him splash around and get clean, he looked up at me with a huge grin and said, "aye oo, mama" (="I love you, mama").  It's moments like these that I want to remember...