Life in the Boonies

Frank calls Timmy Timster!

At the grocery store, Frank wanted to buy yogurts.  I said they are not on sale.  He said, “nevermind then.”

Today Frank tried out his pedal bike with training wheels on the Tommy Thompson trail with his friends.  Three little ones on bikes.  Then when one of the girls got hurt and didn’t want to ride anymore, Frank pulled it with a jump rope.  We tied the rope on the bike and around Frank’s tummy.  He pulled it all the way back to the parking lot.

Frank says actually alot.  Sentences just start with actually.

Frank is putting his milk at the top of his plate but he says it is at 12 o’clock.  He always wants to know what time it is.

We went to the Fidalgo Pool and Frank held on to a float board and floated for a few seconds.  I told him to take his water nap so he laid his head on the board and that flattened his body enough to float.  Then Nat tried to have Frank jump in with the board and Frank let go of the board so he went under.

Timmy says mewmew for cat; gadung for truck; moon; noo; moore; sues for shoes.

Timmy climbed down two rungs on the bunk bed ladder.  He can get up there without help.  Our bed got a new topper and now Timmy can’t climb on.  So Frank helps him by pushing Timmy butt and boosting him up.  The start of their partnership in crime.

Frank helps Timmy all the time and Timmy laughs when Frank comes.  They chase each other around the house in circles.

Don’t worry, we will enter you into the witness protection program.

Who is the guilty one?  BOTH!

Frank wanted to build a boat out of the couch cushions.  So we did.  Then I sat and started to row row row your boat.  Frank said no wait, it is still tied to the dock.  Then he had to pack a bunch of things.  Annoyingly, I untied from the dock and was rowing away again waving byebye.  Frank said no wait I have to bring the diaper wipes.  Then we rowed away together but then he forgot something so we came back and tied to the dock again.  So I started to row again and Frank said, “mommy, just stay here peaceful” while patting my head.

Now it is hard to keep Timmy in the shopping cart so we let him walk with me holding hands.  At Costco today, he explored and then found a place inbetween the furnitures and the boxes of the furnitures and hid in there.  I could not fit in there so I told him to come out.  I’m leaving… Going to the car… Nothing worked.  So I left.  Well I hid behind something.  He waited patiently.  No panic.  Then he slowly came out.  Then he saw me, and back he went giggling.  Well I’m not playing peek!  Let’s try again and find a better hiding place.  Well it didn’t work.  I’m not fast enough to get to him when I hid to far away.  Well now he thinks it is a wonderful game.  Finally Nat comes along and snatches him up before he saw him coming since he was looking for me.  Back in the cart he goes.

At home he opened the cupboard and decided that was a good place to hide.  Except you can see him sitting in there with the door mostly closed.  I took several pictures and then he comes running out to look at the camera.

He hid at the foot of our bed with the comforter over his head.  The bed is just about his height so you can see a little head lump if you looked carefully.  He was under there for a long time.  Nat comes in and after awhile says, where did Timmy go.  This whole time Frank is jumping on our bed of course.  We found him soon enough.

Timmy also found the secret space in our closet that is a weird shaped storage area cuz it is under the staircase.  Now he goes into our room and hides in there.  But now we know about his secret spot.  He also hides in his room’s closet that has the funny room with all the stuffed animals.

The two boys plays tag in the house except they don’t know how to play tag.  One runs into my room and the other runs after the first one.  Then one runs out and the other runs out after.  One ends up in the kitchen and the other on the couch.  Repeat.  Lots of laughing and stomping.

Frank is a talker.  He talks nonstop.  I can’t believe at 18 months I was worried he wasn’t talking.  He asks why and how come on everything.  When I say I don’t know, he says how come you don’t know.  You have to know.  When I tell him the answer he contradicts me.  No mommy, that is not why.  Why do you think then Frank?  I don’t know.

Frank loves our new “Once upon a time…” stories that I invented cuz I was too tired to read him stories at nap time.  I make up stuff about his bunny, about trips to the dock house, kayaking, peacocks, fishies and deers.  It has a mix of true experiences and made up things.  Sometimes Frank would add his version or correct my version and the story changes.  I usually never know where it is going or how it will end at the start of the story.  It always end with “The End.”  Then he wants another one about … We only do these for naps and for awhile they would be enough to get him to lay down with me and then eventually fall asleep.  This week Frank said he will only nap on garbage night days so he can stay up late and help do garbage night.

Sometimes we do pretend and I tell him to ask … (inanimate object) about something.  So he does.  Then I ask him what did … say?  Frank would say, “It didn’t say anything.”

Frank is bossy.  Always telling us “You don’t talk” and “Go back to work daddy”.  One time I told him to just tell daddy “stop antagonizing me”.  Frank said “even if I tell daddy to stop antagonizing me, he still antagonizes me.”

Where goes the blue stuff comes from?  I finally gave up saying the same thing over and over again and asked Frank to tell me.  He said it came from the garbage.  It hops out of the garbage can and into the car.  Then drives to the ferry boat.  Waits in line.  Gets on the ferry boat.  Sails to Friday Harbor.  Then gets off and drives to the dock house.  Then gets out of the car and hops into the water.  Hmm, what color is the car I ask.  “Blue of course!”  Of course.

My little baby is no longer a baby.

Communication

He holds his hand up to request my help or to lead me somewhere.  He pulls on my shirt trying to get me to stand up so he can take over my chair or to get me to carry him.  In the morning, he hands me my glasses to tell me to get up.  They are now slightly bent out of shape.

He says many words/sounds.  Yaya is his giraff.  Dodo is boat.  Biaabiaais bike.  Byebye is bye bye.  Often he waves and says byebye and then waits.  When you say byebye back to him he hops on the rideon or climbs into the basket that is his dodo.  Frank has also figured this out so when Timmy says byebye, Frank gets on the rideon or in the basket before Timmy.  Timmy has been taking it well so far.  Didi is bird.  NeiNei is horse.  He likes to sit on me or a stuffed animal and say that.  Dagdag is dog.  Dada is daddy.  (sniff sniff) is flower.  Wahwah is water with sign.  Same sign but no wahwah sound is actually orange juice.  Took me along time to figure out why he was throwing the water cup I keep giving him.  He finally found a board book and pointed to the orange and did the sign.  Carrrr is car.  He can roll his Rs.  Buuuu is airplane.  Dah is truck.  He is saying meme and woa lots.  Sometimes Woa is rock maybe.  Sometimes he is about to throw something and says woa. Peas peas with rubbing tummy is please.  Ballball is ball.  Almost anything that is round is ballball.  Blahblah with tongue sticking out is garbage.  He will hold something and say that then go throw it in the kitchen trash can. Ha is hat.  He likes to hold all kinds of things over his head and say ha.  Bakbak is chicken.  DakDak is duck.  Shuz is shoes.

When he doesn’t want to be put down, his legs stand up in the air.  When he wants to be picked up, he stands in front of me with arms up and says ahah for up.  He understands lifevest.  He really wanted to go down to the dock and I kept saying we have to go back to the house for the lifevest.  When we got inside I started to tidy up something and he pointed to his lifevest and then to the door.

Play

Timmy likes to hide.  He likes to go under the blanket.  He was sitting next to the bed with the comforter over his head and just one little feet sticking out for a long time before I found him.  He laughed so hard when I found him.  He likes to play catch me if you can, especially at bed time or he has a smelly diaper.  He is very evasive.  He stops and watches which way I’m going before bolting the other direction.  He runs!  Just today both him and Frank were running like crazy and the next thing I know a big crash and Timmy in tears.  No one saw it but probably smashed into each other and Timmy toppled over.

When reading stories Timmy like to climb into my lap.  He will also sit in his dodo and play.  He likes little corners.  He was sitting in the corner of a play structure playing with a rubber band he found.  He goes up and down the stairs holding my hand or the railing/wall.  He likes to stop once in a while on a step and do a stomp stomp stomp stomp.  Timmy loves light switches.  On and off, on and off.

Loves to drive cars.  Both the rideon ones and the small ones.  He now takes his trike up the driveway and zoom it down with max speed.  He likes to crash into me.  I run away and says no crashing into mommy.  He thinks it is a fun game to chase me down.  He loves Frank’s two wheel bike.  He was steering and zooming around as dad held on for balance.  No fear.  Even Frank won’t ride that bike yet cuz he can’t quite pedal yet.

Hates putting on clothes.  Tries to pull the shirts off his head and screams until it is all on him.  Loves bathtime.  He has finally figured out what mom means with “heads up”.  Now water doesn’t get in his face when rinsing the hair and he is much happier.  He likes to dump water on his tummy.  Climbs on the bunk bed ladders.  Can make it to the top with almost no assistance but I fear for his life.  I think he knows too (since he has fallen off before) so he only goes up when I’m right behind him.

Timmy can and will eat an entire popsicle, an entire corn dog.  He now wants to feed himself with a spoon.  So he gets a bowl and scoops.  He gets a yogurt and when he can’t get anymore out of the jar, he sticks his whole hand in.  Half of it is on his front anyways.

We begin July by packing up all the things Wed night to head out to the dock house first thing in the morning.  Hopefully the July 4th weekend ferry traffic has not yet started.  Timmy of course wakes up at 5am.  He lied quitely next to me for an hour without falling asleep.  By 6am things picked up as we packed the cooler and dressed the children and piled in the car.  Frank says, “First Thursday we stop at the donut house and buy some donuts.  Second Thursday we go to the ferry boat.”  This is after having donuts on Sunday and then requesting it every morning thereafter until we agreed to Thursday.

Not yet crowded so we got in line and then ate our donuts by the beach.  Then we threw some rocks and watched the other ferry boats come and go until it was our turn.  While waiting in our car to get off the boat, Timmy fell asleep.  Justing sitting in the car and watching the other cars drive by.  He must be so tired.  We got to the dock house and Timmy continued his nap for another 3 hours.  We unpacked, kayaked, rode our bikes, played ball, etc.  After dinner we had a camp fire and toasted some marshmallows for smores.  It was a good thing we came early cuz the web cam at the ferry terminal showed long long lines going out to the street from 2pm til darkness.  Some people had to sleep in their car to get the next morning ferry.

Our next morning we went down to the dock and Frank filled his bucket full of water from one side of the dock and dumped it to the other side.  He says, “I need to fill up that side so it is not low tide when grpa’s boat comes.”  He also tried to fill up the ocean with the watering hose yesterday so it will never be low tide.  Everyone arrive just after lunch and the scene picked up.  Frank was shy at first but it took almost no time to warm up with everyone especially Kelsey.  Timmy’s first impression of Uncle Eric is blowing raspberries so everytime we saw Uncle Eric after that Timmy said “phheww”.  Timmy kept peeking at the girls from upstairs.  He goes down a few steps holding me hand and then back up again.  Maybe shy too?  Finally we made it down and he played with Cheyanne while Frank threw balls with Kelsey.  All the same scene:  Timmy going Peek-a-Boo and laughing while a blue ball was going everywhere; then Timmy was spinning round and round laughing while Frank was jumping on Kelsey.  All this before dinner.

By Sat Frank went off to Roche Harbor with our guests on his bike.  No mommy or daddy and no grandma.  There he ate an entire ice cream cone and came back with no room for lunch.  But also exhausted so he actually took a nap.  More camp fires and smores and kayaking and visiting the isthmus.  Frank saw some blue stuff in the water and wants to know what it is.  Oil streaks shining under the sun.  Is it from the kayak?  Frank says, “no grandma, kayaks don’t have motor.  Don’t be silly.”  Down by the isthmus a car drove by.  Grandma said, “look Frank, it is a silly car.”  Frank says, ” no grandma, that is not a silly car.  It is a minipooper.”  He means mini cooper.

By Monday everyone else was leaving to Victoria.  Frank was so sad after the boat pulled out.  He recovered and we played ball, watched Cars, packed everything back in the car, and cleaned up the kitchen.  We zipped out around 3 but did not catch the 5 o’clock ferry (which we knew).  We had a wonderful dinner at a Mediterranian restaustant.  Timmy and Frank both got the kids meal but Timmy liked mine better.  We sat outside with the view of the bay and the ferry.  The tables were bar height so Timmy sat in the bar stool.  He stood on it and leaned over and started to pick out the food on my plate.  Lamb, carrots, chickpeas, mushroom.  Frank tried some but thought the curry was spicy.  Not Timmy.  He loved it and was all over my plate.  Our ferry left on time and it was not even full.  So we could have pulled in at the last minute and still made it.  Oh well, you just never know.  We had a nice meal in town so it worked out.