Check it . . .

Two newly remodeled bathrooms.

Bathroom 1:

Bathroom 2:

Both have new paint, flooring, hardware, fixtures, and newly stained cabinets. Bathroom 2 has a new faucet and newly textured walls.

Ted did most of the staining, and the rest was handled by a contractor. We love the end product.

Take it easy . . .

. . . sayeth the King. Little Ted enjoyed the BK crown his grandparents brought to him while they were here in town last week for spring break.

More spring break pictures and stories coming soon.

More Music

Can you tell that we like to film our son singing and dancing?  After our serenade of "When You Wish Upon a Star," we listened to the next song on the film, "Little Wooden Head."  Little Ted acts out the scene in the clip; Jiminy Cricket is whistling the tune Geppetto sings, and he gets caught in the middle of one of Geppetto's cuckoo clocks (hence Little Ted's taps to the head that you see at the beginning of the clip).  Beware: Little Ted's whistles are very high pitched; you may want to turn down your volume. 

Sweet Music

This evening, Little Ted serenaded us before dinner.  Here's his song.

Puppy Love

After today's rugby match, Little Ted got to play with a puppy that belongs to one of the players.  He was in absolute heaven and was so sad when we had to leave.  He asked about the puppy when we returned home and when he woke up from his nap.  Before long, he will probably start pestering us to get him a puppy of his own.

Courage

One of Ted's favorite cartoons is Pocoyo, a Spanish cartoon that also has an English version.  The main character, Pocoyo ("little me"), is a toddler whose best friends are a duck ("Pato"), an elephant ("Elly"), and a dog ("Lula"). 

Typically, we watch the cartoon on YouTube.  Below is one of Ted's favorite episodes.  The "gang" decides that it wants to play on a large slide, but Pocoyo is too scared to get on the slide.  His friends don't want him to be afraid, so they ride with him, and Pocoyo learns that the slide isn't as scary as he thought.



Little Ted had a Pocoyo-like moment last month on one of our outings to the zoo.  The playground there has a large slide that comes out of a tree house.  On our last outing, Ted noticed the slide for the first time.  There were lots of kids his age at the playground, and they were enjoying the slide, so he decided that he should check it out. 

We worked our way into the tree house and looked down the slide.  The slide is high and big, and people move down it pretty fast.  Little Ted wasn't too sure that he wanted to try it out. 

We let other kids take a turn, and I tried to get him to ride with me.  He wasn't having anything to do with that.  In fact, he tried to push me down the slide without him.

Then, a little boy about a year older than Ted came into the tree house.  He was waiting for his mother to reach the bottom of the slide so he could take his turn.  In the meantime, he decided to talk to Little Ted.  He told Ted that he was going down the slide, and that his mommy would catch him.  Then, Little Ted watched him take his turn.

That was enough to convince Ted that the slide wasn't so bad.  He decided he wanted to try it out, so we called daddy over, and he caught Little Ted at the bottom of the slide.  Not surprisingly, he enjoyed himself and wanted to try it again.

I was very proud of my munchkin that day.  He had the courage to face his fears - with a little encouragement - and tried something new.

Toddler Dances

Many of you know that Little Ted's favorite movie is Up.  Really, he seems to like the music more than anything else.  Here, he's dancing to the part of the soundtrack on the DVD.  Sometimes he has to do that before he can enjoy the movie.

Artistic Works

You may have noticed from the last blog post that Little Ted is in a "creative phase." In the picture below, he had just discovered that a dry erase marker would also mark his skin. You can imagine how excited he was to figure this out.

I think it's time we look into getting him an easel - with a chalkboard. . .

Valentine Projects

Courtesy of Little Ted

More RG3

RG3 at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast.

Strange Cravings

On Thursday, Little Ted started requesting doughnuts ("no-nuts" in Little Ted speak).  I was caught off guard - that morning, he woke up extra early, I had gone to bed late the night before, and I had to shake off my semi-conscious state so I could keep office hours that morning.  I asked him to repeat himself, and, sure enough, I hadn't misunderstood him.

Little Ted knows what doughnuts are - they are part of our Saturday morning routine, along with College Game  Day and college football (in the fall, at least).  But he had never requested them before.  Since I was in a rush that morning, doughnuts just so happened to be convenient, so we all indulged.

When I returned from work later that afternoon, the first thing he said to me was, "no-nuts?"  This continued all day on Friday, and it wasn't until Friday afternoon that I figured out why he was so keen on doughnuts.  

Earlier in the week, we picked up a new Thomas the Tank Engine DVD for Little Ted at Sam's Club.  This particular DVD had a bonus episode, and one of the characters mentions his love of doughnuts in the episode.  Thank you, DVD, for putting the idea in my son's head.

*On that particular DVD, the engines also prepare for a festival, which leads to a crash involving an engine and a freight car loaded with ice cream.  That probably explains Little Ted's request last night for ice cream in place of dinner . . . I guess "food advertising" is as effective on toddlers as it is on adults.