Is 7 o'clock too early for bed on a Saturday night?

We have had a pretty busy few weeks.  Valentine's Day, a quick visit from Grandpa Doug, and a weekend down in Leaburg with Grandpa Gerts have been the highlights.

So far we have kept holiday celebrations pretty mellow because I figure that Trey is too young and a) doesn't get it or b) won't remember, so why bother?  But as he is getting older I feel that it is time to start celebrating the holidays and creating traditions.  I got Trey a few little things for Valentine's Day (his favorite is the stuffed Cookie Monster) but didn't do anything crafty or sentimental.  I figure I'll do this when he can appreciate it and/or remember it and/or react sufficiently to my efforts.

Trey and I made Randy some brownies for Valentine's Day.  

Trey really loves mixing things (thanks to Amy E.V. who unknowingly let me know that Trey is not too young to do this) and watching me cook in the kitchen.  

I gave Trey a piece of brownie and some whipped cream that night after dinner.  He was only interested in the whipped cream and wouldn't even touch the brownie.

Below is a series of pictures that was taken in a very short time period.  If anyone doubts me when I complain that Trey is being moody, just remember these pictures:

Loving his whipped cream

 Really wants the can of whipped cream on the counter

 Happy boy

GIVE ME MORE!!!!!

Randy's parents have several orange trees in their backyard.  They have named each one after a grandchild and haven't let us forget that there is one tree left to name.  Last week we got a shipment of oranges in the mail, and Trey loved them!  He took them out of the box, lined them up on the couch, and when he saw them back in the box (darn Mom!) he took them back out and lined them up again.

Randy's dad was in town on Friday for a few hours between his drive to Portland from Walla Walla and his flight back to Riverside. He stopped by for a quick visit and got to have an early dinner with us.  I wish I could have captured the expression on Trey's face when he got up from his nap to find "Ba-pa" sitting on his couch...a mixture of shock and awe.  I think he sort of thinks that Grandpa Doug lives in the computer due to our Skype time, so to have him live in our house threw him off a little bit. 

 Playing "catch" with the basketball

 Discussing the important things in life - Elmo and Cookie Monster

 Lining up the oranges again

Bapa and Trey practicing their counting skills

One of the new things Trey loves to do is dump out all of his blocks and put the bag over his head.  He thinks it is hysterical.   Randy cut some slits in the bag because we read somewhere once that you aren't supposed to let your kid play with their head in a plastic bag...

On Saturday morning we drove down to Leaburg to see my dad and Sandy (and also for me to get a haircut and Randy to go fishing, but those were secondary, promise).

I am proud to say that this is Trey's first time eating in a fast food restaurant (proud because he hasn't done it before) and even prouder to say that he refused to eat any of the food.  That's my boy.

Trey and his other "ba-pa" cuddling in the man chair

Now Trey has a thing for chickens and ducks.  I have no idea why but "ka-ka" (duck) was one of his first words, he loves the chicken and duck puzzle pieces so much from his wooden puzzle that he carries them around, and he loves pictures of chickens and ducks in books.  I think he might be drawn to them in part because he has seen them in real life.  Heidi and Kelly live next door to my dad and Sandy and they have a shitton of poultry.  I honestly can't think of a better way to say it.  This picture does not do justice to the amount of birds they have in their hen house.  (And I am pleased to report that Kelly is supposedly going to get rid of a few of the roosters because they woke him up in the middle of the night.  Finally.  I hate those f-ing roosters.)  

Julie, Tim, and Grady came down on Sunday for the night.  Here is sweet Grady at 4.5 months.  I only got to hold him a little bit, and I felt a little deprived.  I seriously need to find a way to spend more with this boy.  

So some final thoughts for the week....

I don't really get Pinterest.  I know a lot of my friends really love it and rave about it, but I can't wrap my head around it.  I think that this is because I am a little limited in my web browsing and I don't look at the right stuff.  When I'm on the computer I do email, Facebook, news, and blogs.  I really like reading people's blogs.  But when I look at my friends' Pinterest pages, they have all this really cool stuff pinned and I think "Where in the hell do they find this stuff?" I wouldn't even know where to start.  And, to be honest, looking at those things (especially the crafty kid stuff) is just another way to make me feel like a deficient mother.  

I'm in the middle of a phase where I feel a little bit like a bad mom (and this isn't even related to my guilt about things like fluoride, vitamins, baby sign language...).  I feel like I spend my entire week counting down until the weekend so I can spend time with Trey, and then the weekend comes and I feel like I spend my day counting down until naptime or bedtime.  I love being with Trey and he makes me laugh so much (lately his tiger growl gets me every time), but he is being so whiny and can't tell me what he needs or wants.  I know this is his age and not being able to express himself, but I honestly feel like I spend my day trying to read his mind and not being able to meet his needs.  It's very frustrating and very exhausting and makes me feel bad.  

I get really annoyed with bikes.  I think it's great that so many people ride bikes around town for transportation.  Great.  Really, I do.  But I think if bikers want to be treated like cars, they need to act like cars.  Today Randy and I were driving in Multnomah Village and these two bikers were riding directly in front of us on the road.  Like right in front of us where there was nowhere for us to go.  I'm thinking "Oh, they think they're a car."  But then we get to the stop sign and they blow right through it. "Wait a second," I think, "I thought you wanted to be a car!!!"  We then saw them blow through another stop sign at the bottom of the hill.  I'm sure they went from there to continue riding their bikes down the middle of the freaking street.  Makes me crazy.  

I mentioned above that I like blogs.  I really like reading Mom blogs.  Makes me feel a little more normal.  I just discovered this one and really like this post.   I also liked this post on urbanmamas from last week: Working Mothers, Hipsters, and What We See When We Look At Other Moms.   Wow, and while working on this blog post, I just read this post: The Sanctimommy and I like it too.