We Are Klassee

Yep. We are a klassee bunch. Take a look at our after dinner entertainment (and be sure the sound is on.)



Duane said to be sure that everyone knows who is making the sound effects, but I'm sure you all know already!

How to Give a Stinky Bear a Bath

I finally figured out how to get Wesley to willingly part with Stinky Bear long enough to give it a bath! Wesley was helping me unload the dryer today. You have to understand that to Wesley, "helping unload the dryer" means to take the lint out of the lint trap, throw it on the floor and occasionally take some clothes out of the dryer and put them in the dirty laundry basket. Today when Wesley emptied the lint trap, he emptied it right on Stinky Bear - who was nice and moist from being sucked on. Now, I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this, but lint does not come off wet fabric very easily. Wesley started to whine as the lint stuck fast to his stinky friend. "I'm sorry," I told Wesley, "But I think the only way we are going to get the lint off is if we wash Stinky Bear." Wesley immediately reached up and plopped Stinky Bear in the open washing machine. "Wash Stinky Bear!" he demanded! Well, that was one order I was happy to take. Less than an hour later we had a much less stinky and, more importantly, lint free bear.

Toddler Love

Wesley has a new girlfriend. Sorry Elaina, the long distance web-relationship just wasn't working. ;-) Wesley has now met Jana, who is the niece of Aunt Sus (she's my brother's wife's sister's youngest daughter) and apparently they are quite the item.

Last Saturday Wesley went to COSI with Uncle Kirk, Aunt Sus, Grandma H. and a whole slew of Aunt Sus's family. How fair is it that while I was at work dealing with power surges and small fires, Wesley got to hang out at COSI????? Jana and Wesley spent a great deal of time in the Little Kidspace together - sigh- their first date. Aunt Sus reports there was much hand holding, going down the slide together and even sharing of snack. Jana (eager to impress her little man) even tried some of Wesley's dried pea and corn mix.

It sounds like their second date has been planned too. Jana informed Aunt Sus that they (Jana and Wesley) needed to go to zoo. But Aunt Sus could go too "okay?"

Washington Recap

I'm home from DC! Of course, with the exception of a 1 hour nap, I've been up since 4:30 this morning (after going to bed at midnight.) I feel like I have been gone much longer than 24 hours!

I flew out yesterday morning (7:45 AM flight) with a bunch of people from the library. We got to DC, checked into our hotel and I spent the rest of the morning at the convention center. Since I was only at ALA for one day, I had an exhibits only pass. That was fine by me as the exhibits are my favorite thing. I called my friend, former co-worker and fellow blogger Kate so we could spend some much needed time together. We hooked up and spent the next 3 hours visiting vendors and eating overpriced cheese steaks. The highlight of the exhibits was meeting the author of the Skippyjon Jones books, Judy Schachner. We got autographed books, Skippyjon masks and finger puppets and inflatable toys. In case you don't know, conferences have TONS of freebies for librarians - especially children's librarians.

Of course, I was there for the Library of the Year reception - which was a blast!

Me, Molly, Debbie, Wendy, Amy and Sarah ready for the prom - I mean Library of the Year reception!

Me and Kate sans Skippyjon masks

Kate and Sarah (aka Colin's mommy and Isaac's Mommy)

Me with the White House in the background - way in the background!

That picture with the White House in the background is pretty much the extent of sights I saw. We drove past the Jefferson Memorial, and the National Archives on the way to the airport and I could see the Washington Monument from the gate. That was my sight seeing.

Summary: great trip, great friends, great honor!

Scattergories - Wesley style

I stole this from a blog I read. I thought about doing it for me, but decided to do it for Wesley instead.

Rules: Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following.

1. Famous singer/band: Weird Al Yankocivc (Mommy and Daddy love him!)
2. 4 letter word: Want (hey, he is a toddler!)
3. Street name: Wall Street
4. Color: White
5. Gifts/presents: Water toys
6. Vehicle: Winnebago
7. Things in a souvenir shop: Weird t-shirts
8. Boy name: William
9. Girl name: Wendy
10. Movie title: Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken
11. Drink: Water
12. Occupation: Welder
13. Flower: Water-lily
14. Celebrity: the Wiggles
15. Magazine: Wild Animal Baby
16. U.S. city: Washington DC (where Mommy is going tomorrow)
17. Pro sports teams: White Sox
18. Fruit/vegetable: Watermelon
19. Reason late for work: Waiting for late bus
20. Something you throw away: Wet diapers
21. Things you shout: WOW!
22. Cartoon character: Winnie the Pooh

You Know You're a Parent When

You know you're a parent when you spend your Friday evening watching "Elmo's Potty Time." To think, I used to pay money to go to the movies.

Tastes Like Pizza

Trickery works wonders when feeding toddlers! Wesley loves pizza so much that a lot of things are "pizza" at our house. Breakfast burrito? Nope! Pizza! Tonight I made chipotle pork tacos with corn salsa for dinner. Wesley was not the least bit interested in the pork I put on his plate, but wrap it in a tortilla, add some salsa, call it pizza and voila! It's a dinner fit for a picky toddler!

A Few Words from the Little Dude

, wkkk..........................,,knjkkkkkkkkkkwkxxxxxxkxxmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm89,mmq444444444444444444444444444t5e5555555y6680[
/////////////////////////////////////////////////99999999999999999999999999999999999kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvm888o89999ml00000=-=0p00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000900ppooo


OK, Shakespeare he's noT, but he types really well with a spork

RDRRMN JKFH;

Just Call Him Emeril

Wesley has been quite the little chef today. He is obsessed with his kitchen set - especially the fake egg and the spork. Whenever Wesley is at his kitchen, he is busily cooking an egg. Sometimes it's fried, sometimes it's an "egg samich" but it's always an egg.

There are some upsides to Wesley spending so much time in the kitchen. First of all, I now have someone to tell me when the cats have knocked the baby gate over. Wesley will come say "Mom! Downstairs broken!" That's pretty handy information. Also, I now have lots of pretend eggs to eat - after all, every great chef needs someone to eat his creations. However, if I'm too full to indulge in Wesley's latest masterpiece there's always the backup taste-tester. See the picture below!

Power Napping

Ok, so I know Wesley isn't napping in this picture, but it's so cute, I had to put it on the blog.

Remember me whining about Wesley's four hour nap on Monday? How can one kid need so much sleep? I thought that toddlers were supposed to be working on giving up their naps, not increasing them by hours! I worked a split shift today so I got to pick Wesley up at 1:00 and spend the afternoon with him. He was asleep on Grandpa H.'s lap when I walked in, but apparently had only been sleeping for about 5 minutes. I figured he'd wake up when I picked him up to go - nope! So I carried him to the car, figuring he'd wake up when I put him in his car seat - nope! It was such a beautiful day that I told myself if he woke up we'd drive thru somewhere for lunch and have a picnic at the park - no luck, he slept all the way home. He slept when I took him out of his car seat. He slept as I carried him in the house. He slept when I put him on the couch.

I took advantage of the nap at first. I ate some lunch, did some laundry, and worked on a list of things I need to do around the house. But finally, I gave in to what I really wanted to do - I curled up on the couch with Wesley and took a nap snuggled up with the boy. The phone rang twice, but it didn't wake Wesley up.

At 3:15 I decided that a 2 1/2 hour nap for Wesley was probably long enough. I rolled off the couch and he woke up crying. YIKES!!! He screamed and cried and cried some more. He finally calmed down and ate lunch at 3:30. Maybe Daddy will hook him up with the park while I'm at work tonight.

Tell Me About It

Wesley is saying new things everyday. Today he tickled my heart several times on the way to Grandma and Grandpa P.'s. Here are the highlights.

• We were driving along the freeway when Wesley started saying "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!" "What Wesley?" I asked. "I see big truck!" was the response as we passed a semi.
• Monday mornings mean a Starbucks stop on our way to Grandma and Grandpa's. Most mornings I go through the drive thru to save time or let the boy sleep, but since we were ahead of schedule and Wesley was awake, I decided to go in. As I was taking Wesley out of his seat I told him that we were making one quick stop because Mommy needed coffee. We took our place in line and after a few minutes Wesley loudly announced "Mommy need coffee." The woman in line in front of us turned around and sighed "Truer words were never spoken."
• Wesley also practiced his manners at Starbucks. When I paid for breakfast at the register, Wesley said "Thank you very much!"

Of course, his FOUR HOUR nap tickled Grandma and Grandpa! Wesley had a very busy weekend with very few naps, so I'm sure he's just making up for lost time. But if he is up at 3:00 in the morning I think I know who I'll let him call! :-)

Congratulations Sasha

We spent this afternoon and evening at our friend's Rick and Sasha's house. Sasha recently passed her test to be a nurse's aide and they had a cookout to celebrate. Wesley loves Rick and Sasha and quickly made their house, his house. He terrorized - I mean loved on- their cats. Cochika doesn't like kids, but Spaggy put up with the boy pretty well. Especially when you consider how many kisses that poor cat had to endure. Wesley also loved the wood floors throughout the house and the very open floor plan that allowed him to run around and around and around and around.

We discovered that Wesley really likes bratwurst. He kept saying "More brat please." He also ate a lot of pretzels and chips and fed them to everyone else. Thank goodness our friends are used to toddler manners and didn't mind.

Brett and Alyssa

Ray and Krystal hamming it up

The best part of the day for Wesley was swimming in the pool. He had his first dip with Aunt Sasha. It was hard to tell who was having more fun. He got in the pool a few hours later with Daddy, Rusty and James.

I got stay dry and give Wesley a nice sun-warmed towel and cuddle him dry.

We ended the evening by chasing fireflies - Wesley's first time. What a great night!

We Can't Do Molly Woos

We went to Molly Woos with a large number of the family tonight - Grandpa and Grandma H., Aunt Sue, cousin Josh, Aunt Christie, Uncle Dave, cousins Jonathan and Cherie. I love the atmosphere and food of Molly Woos, but I HATE to got there with Wesley. It's the type of restaurant that they don't rush you through - which is great - but a 2 hour dinner is about and hour and 15 minutes too long for a toddler! Duane and I end up walking around with Wesley and are never at the table at the same time, Wesley barely eats, and I leave with a headache. On the up side, I did learn a couple things tonight.

1) Wesley thinks he's ready to try chopsticks

2) Chopsticks make GREAT drumsticks!

3) A toddler can eat coconut cream pie with chopsticks, but will eventually discover that it is MUCH quicker to pick it up with his hands and shove it in his mouth!

The Big News Revealed!!!

After making you all wait for weeks on end, I can finally tell you the big news! The library I work at has been named "2007 Library of the Year" by Library Journal!!!!! For those of you not in the library biz, this is the equivalent of getting the Oscar for Best Picture! I am super excited!!!! I wasn't allowed to say anything until today because this is the day Library Journal publishes the LOY issue. The library held a big press conference this morning and now we can tell everyone on the planet (and after 4 years of being a finalist, but not winning, we are definitely telling everyone!) I'm assuming you can go to their website and check it out, but I'm not sure.



I'm extra excited for a couple of reasons. First of all, there is a big banquet at the ALA conference in Washington DC to honor the winning library. Even though I am not attending the conference this year, the library is flying me out the morning of the banquet and home the next morning! I GET TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going shopping tomorrow for the perfect dress and shoes to wear! I can't wait!!!!



I'm also excited because a photographer came at the end of May. We were told it was to take pictures for posters and internal publicity, but the photos were really for the LOY issue of Library Journal. That means the pictures of the storytime I did might be in the magazine! Wesley, Grandma H., Aunt Cathy, Sho and Kei were all there too, so they might be in the magazine as well!!!!



Hope none of you are disappointed in the news - I've been on cloud 9 since I found out. I hope you are at least half as excited as me!

Silly Mommy, Silly Wesley

I may crawl around the floor and pretend to be a lion. I may cry loud fake tears when a character in a book cries. I may sing the "Jaws" theme when I am about to tickle Wesley. But Wesley laughed at me last night like I was the goofiest mommy in the world. What did I do to that Wesley found so funny now (but will no doubt embarrass him to no end in 8-9 years?) I was doing the dishes last night and rocking out to 80's hair band music - Poison to be exact. This included head banging, hair shaking, spinning and shaking the dish towel. Wesley was powerless to resist the lure of the hair band. He started stomping his feet and dancing with me.

Yep, Mommy may be one goofy lady, but at least I don't put numbers on my head like some silly boy does.

Time Out

It's a day for the history books. Wesley had his first "time out" tonight. After throwing a fair amount of his dinner on the floor, and repeatedly pinching both me and Daddy, I scooped the boy up and took him up to his room for a little alone time. He screamed bloody murder and banged on the door for about 30 seconds, then calmed down and started playing the music thing in his bed. When I went to get him two minutes later, he was a much improved little boy! He even picked some flowers for me outside. Awwwwwww.

Plan B

We had planned to go to the Rose Festival at park in town yesterday, but Wesley's pink eye kind of shot that plan down. We figured it would be better to stay home and not get anyone else sick. To pass the day, we got out Wesley's new sandbox. He got it for Easter, but we just got around to putting it together. Since we didn't have any sand, we filled it with water and let Wesley splash around to his heart's content. We went through two outfits and lots of smiles.

Let's see, we played with his boat and sang "Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me!" Wesley dunked his head a couple of times and kept trying to drink out of the plastic cup we put in there for him to play with. He actually did remarkably well with it - but I was still glad he was outside.

After all that splishing and splashing, Wesley and I crashed hard on the couch! Not too bad a day.

Murphy's Law of Motherhood

Yesterday was the first day of the Summer Reading Club - translated: the second busiest day of the year if you are a public children's librarian (the busiest will be Monday). This past week has also been really hot and humid, meaning that Duane (who works in heating and air) had to work yesterday too. Now you have the setting - it's 6:45 AM, Daddy is already at work, Mommy is getting ready for work, and Wesley wakes up with his sticky goop coating his eyelashes and his eye is swollen. Guess who has pink eye!?

Grandma and Grandpa H. still took Wesley for most of the day. Grandma H. is a retired public school teacher and pink eye doesn't faze her. Luckily, the Children's Hospital Urgent Care Center did not require a parent to take Wesley in. The doctor saw the boy and prescribed eye drops - so much fun for a toddler.

Grandma and Grandma P. (retired public school principals - also fearless) were willing to brave pink eye and watch Wesley while Duane and I went to a play after work. Apparently, pink eye didn't slow Wesley down one little bit. He ran around and was going strong until after 10:00!!!

We had a great time at the play. We went with a bunch of people from my work as the webmaster was acting in it. The theater is in a small, converted country church so the atmosphere is very laid back. The whole group of us tailgated in the parking lot before the show. It was so much fun! The weather was perfect and the food was delicious! We thoroughly enjoyed the play too. We were warned the character Stephen played was "slightly slimy" but that was a lie - he was totally slimy!!! It was great! I work with some of the greatest people. Who says librarians don't know how to have fun!

Fun Friday

I had today off work, so Duane took a vacation day so we could go to the Arts Festival. Since the festival didn't open until 11:30, the W. family walked up the street to an excellent diner. It's only about a block from our house, and is pretty well known in our city. Wesley thought walking up the street with Mom and Dad was awfully special. He was so good! He held one of our hands the whole way. For his breakfast, Wesley ate some waffle, eggs, toast and jelly straight from the container - what can you do?

Going to the Arts Festival with a toddler is completely different experience than going as a couple. Even though Wesley slept in the stroller most of the time, we kind of hurried through things. Not that we had money to buy anything, so I guess it didn't really matter. I saw some beautiful photographs of places I'd love to visit, great Christmas gifts I couldn't afford, and some pieces of art that just made me happy for no particular reason. Wesley did wake up long enough to eat the bread of my sandwich and explore a little.

Wesley took a moment to look at the river from up high.

"Hum.....Could rain. I'd better put my umbrella up!"

"What? Road Closed?"

"No problem for me!"

After we walked through the festival, we ducked into COSI for a little bit. Wesley hasn't been to COSI for long time, so he had a blast! He kept bringing balls to Duane. Duane would roll them through a tunnel, then Wesley would run around to the other side, retrieve the balls, and take them back to Duane. They must have played that game for half an hour. The rest of the time there Wesley pretended to feed me water from the water table. Yum.

This afternoon was naptime for Mommy and Daddy. We both managed short naps thanks to a Dora DVD, but Wesley woke us up by climbing on us, walking on our heads and (my personal favorite) stepping on my bladder. I think he learned that from Sanders. Daddy retreated upstairs to continue his nap, but I had brownies to bake so Wesley hung out with me.

We ended our Fun Friday at the library to finish decorating for the Summer Reading Club. Wesley loves the ramp in the lobby and he wore himself out! Time for bath and bed!

8 Random Things

I know this blog is supposed to be about Wesley, but this entry is going to be all about Mommy. Maybe he'll read it someday and learn something new about me! Some of the blogs I read have been doing "8 Things" so I thought I'd play along.

1. I am completely addicted to bread. I love pretzels, bagels, tortillas, rolls, you name it! I've even been known to eat an entire baguette in one sitting!
2. My favorite color is yellow because it seems happy. Duane even teases me because a lot of the houses I like are yellow.
3. I have lived in this city my entire life - and I love it! I think the farthest I'd move would be a suburb.
4. If I were to move someplace else, I'd want to go to Chicago.
5. I go to bed really early - usually by 10:00. On the other hand, I get up early too - usually around 7:00 without an alarm clock
6. I have a secret passion for slightly tacky shoes and purses
7. My current favorite candy is See's Scotchmallow, but I love chocolate and will gladly indulge in Vosges, Godiva, or plain ol' Hershey.
8. I'm a total girly girl - give me flowers, dresses, and frills and I'm a happy woman!

Nature Lesson

Wesley received a rather graphic nature lesson this morning. We following our normal Wednesday morning routine of getting up, sitting on the potty, talking to the cats that come visit Wesley while on the potty and reading books on the potty. Suddenly, Sanders lost interest in being adored (very uncharacteristic for a cat) and began batting at something on the floor. I looked and discovered Sander's new toy was a spider. I don't think Wesley's ever seen a real spider before, so I pointed it out to him and began to sing "The itsy bitsy spider...." when Sanders devoured the spider! YUCK! Wesley looked at me with a puzzled face and said "Sanders eat spider." Great! My son is going to think his cat offed the one and only Itsy Bitsy Spider!How am I going to explain that one to his future therapist?

Grandma's Tent

Wesley hung out with Grandma and Grandpa P. again today. They made their first ever tent in the living room and Wesley loved it!

Party at Wesley's Crib

For the past two nights, Wesley has been the last one in the house to fall asleep. He's not having a fit, crying, nor is he sick. He has been staying up talking to his stuffed animals! These new found conversational companions have made our bedtime routine even easier than it was. We read one or two books (rather than 6-8), and as we say our prayers, Wesley climbs into bed. Once in bed he gets his puppy, Frank, his blanket and happily says good night to Mom and Dad. Then the fun begins! He talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks and talks - my family says he gets this from me. The monitor goes crazy with it. Last night Wesley was even using different voices for his animals. Now if only we could understand what he's saying. All we could make out last night was "Mom" "Dad" "puppies". I wonder if that was a hint?

Twice the Fun

We are babysitting our godson James this evening. James is almost exactly four months younger than Wesley and only lately have the two blond boys started interacting. James' Mommy is expecting another child in October, and his Daddy has two boys from a previous marriage. Long story short, the older boys weren't home tonight and since it's much easier to get a sitter for one boy verses three - James' Mommy and Daddy got to have a date night!

James has done really well considering we've never had the honor of babysitting him before. He cried for about 15 minutes when his parents left, but that was it. I was a little surprised to see that James' tears made Wesley spring into action. Wesley would hug his friend, pat him on the back, kiss him and bring him toys to try and make him feel better. Wesley even fed James bites of biscuit during dinner! It almost made me think Wesley would be just fine with a sibling.

After we ate, we all headed outside for some playtime. The boys had a terrific time on the slide and with the bubble machine! Now we're kicking back in the jammies with some chocolate milk and a Dora DVD. I'm not sure it gets much better than that when your a toddler.

Check out the video of Wesley, James and the bubbles!

Say What?

I have a feeling there will be a lot of posts about the cute things that come out of Wesley's mouth as he begins talking more and more. I'm always so amazed by what he says and does. I could watch and listen to him for hours (which is good, because the boy talks A LOT)

• This morning Wesley sat on his potty as usual. WARNING POTTY HUMOR AHEAD. We always make sure that his penis is pointed down so we don't get a fountain effect instead of things going in the potty. As soon as Wesley sat on the seat, he made the adjustment and said proudly "Penis down!" Yes, I know he'll be mortified by this when he's older, but it was so cute!


• When we got to Grandma and Grandpa H's house, Wesley ran in the door and into the kitchen/family room area yelling "Hi!!" Unfortunately, no one was downstairs to greet him. Wesley turned to me and said "I say hi." Then he started looking for his grandparents, calling "Gamma, Pop. Where you?" Seriously too cute!

More News!!!!

I hate to do this to all of you (especially Kate) but I have even more exciting news that I still can't reveal until June 15th. I'll just say that when I found out about it I starting jumping up and down and couldn't stop smiling!! I think I actually screeched!

Here are some more hints/torturous clues:

1. I am NOT pregnant (or adopting)
2. We did not win a house, a cruise, or any other fabulous prize
3. I will need to go shopping
4. I am NOT pregnant or adopting
5. I will have to do the "suck it up" dance and do something I don't really like to do - but I don't care!
6. I'm so glad I scheduled a haircut before I even found out about this!
7. We are still not moving
8. No one I work with, or am related to, is pregnant to my knowledge (sorry Kate, I know this blows one theory to pieces)
9. I will be REALLY tired on June 26th and 27th
10. I and NOT pregnant or adopting