Guest Blogger: Aunt Dat

Tiffany and Steven are out celebrating Steven's 30th birthday in the Keys with Andre and Rita, Darren and Corrie, and other friends, so they flew me into town to play with Dylan and Isaac until they get back on Sunday. I'm not as good at blogging as Tiffany is, and I don't know anything about photo editing, so I think this post will mostly be for Tiffany, since she's homesick for her boys and wants to know everything they've done while she's been gone.

Right now we're a little past the halfway point of Tiffany and Steven's trip, and already I've learned quite a bit about these nephews of mine. Here are some random ramblings.

Dylan knows exactly which movies he likes and when he likes to watch them. “HOH-sees” means Prince of Egypt. “GAY-go RAH” means the movie about Diego and the dinosaur (a Dora the Explorer movie). And “DIS un, Dat” means “this one, Kat,” so he wants to watch the one in his hand. Oh, and “big ho!” means the “Deliver Us” song from Prince of Egypt, at the end of which the chorus of Hebrew slaves says “Hohm” in unison. Who would have thought a two-year-old would notice that and remember it? But every time that song plays, Dylan looks over at me with a big grin and says “big ho!” in anticipation. Then at the end of the song he tries to say "Ho" along with the chorus—and he’s usually not very far off.

The boys playing with Uncle JT and watching Prince of Egypt. Dylan was willing to give me a fake little smile for this photo, but he wasn't willing to turn away from his movie for long enough for me to get a good shot. :P

When Dylan asks for “bread an UH-nee” or “bread an BUH-duh” every other hour, he’s serious. He really can down a half a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich—minus the crust, of course, unless he’s REALLY hungry—that often. He can be talked into eating other things though, so he’s not really eating 8 peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches every day. Also, I figured out pretty quickly that "GEE-gog" means hotdog, but corndogs are an acceptable substitute. :)

Eating a corn dog with Uncle JT in Grandma's backyard. This was after swimming on Thursday afternoon. (And no, they didn't swim in the pond in the back of the picture. They swam in Grandma's pool.)

Whatever he's eating, Dylan knows that at "MYAH-mah's house" (grandma's house) he's supposed to eat on the "snack rug."

Isaac does NOT like to be taken out into the brightly lit kitchen when he’s trying to sleep—even if I’m taking him there to get his bottle ready. He’d much prefer I anticipate his needs by having the bottle ready before he starts fussing. Then I can give it to him in the dark and he’ll go right back to sleep rather than staying up for another hour in the middle of the night! (Wow, I was zonked after that first night. I was starting to feel kinda grateful that I’m still single and don’t have any kids of my own!)

“Uh-NEW-ning, Dat?” means, “What are you doing, Kat?” And Dylan asks it OFTEN!

Dylan has some kind of sixth sense that tells him when I have some kind of food I’m trying to hide from him. Even if I’m completely certain I’ve kept it out of his line of sight, he can tell I have something, and he wants it. Uncanny. Can’t I just eat my cookie in peace???

After 48 hours of this I think I'm starting to get the hang of things, but sheesh! I don't know how moms do this everyday! I haven't brushed my hair or put on makeup since Tiffany left, and the house isn't exactly orderly. Okay, it's not orderly by a long shot. It's a good thing I'm not the mom all the time!

So far I've taken the boys somewhere in the car four times, and there was definitely a learning curve on that . . . for me!

My first foray out I forgot just about everything. It was kind of a rush, because my mom usually takes Jonathan where he needs to go, but she was at the hospital with my stepdad, who was being admitted for an appendectomy. So at the last minute, when Jonathan realized that he needed to be at the church in 15 mintues, I got both kids (and Jonathan, of course) into the car, but that was about it. We weren’t even to the end of my mom's street before Dylan asked for his “Lett-lett” and I realized I hadn’t even thought about it. But Jonathan was already late, so we braved the trip without it. Dylan was a trooper and didn't even whine. When we got to the church, Dylan wanted to get out of the car and go play inside. It was then that I realized the blanket wasn’t the only essential I had forgotten. I hadn’t even grabbed a diaper bag, for pete’s sake! So staying and playing at the church wasn't an option.

My second trip went a little better. It was also a rush, since Jonathan called from the church saying that nobody was able to bring him home, so I needed to go pick him up--and he was ready right then. When he called, I had just gotten Dylan out of the bathtub and it was time to put Isaac to sleep. But I just got Dylan into his PJs really quick and stuck Isaac in his car seat. Thank goodness that child doesn't mind his car seat. He fell right to sleep. (Dylan kept me informed about that, saying things like "eyes closed" and "i-gick nigh-nigh." The trip was short and we didn't need anything in particular, but I remembered both the diaper bag and the blanket. Whew!

The third trip I also remembered not only both kids but also the diaper bag and the all-important lett-lett. But I completely forgot the Diego cup for our trip to play in the park. Poor little Dylan was soooo thirsty! We found a water fountain in the park, but it wasn’t a very good one. Dylan fell asleep before we got home, but when he woke up I made sure he had his Diego cup first thing!

Dylan had lots of fun swinging and running around the park getting all hot and sweaty, but Isaac didn't even wake up the entire time we were there.

The fourth trip was a success. We went to go visit a friend and her baby, and we had everything we needed. We had frozen mommy milk for Isaac, and we had Dylan’s blanket, Diego cup, and snacks. Dylan was so good the entire time we were there. He was really sweet with both Isaac and the other baby, and my friend said that she could tell Tiffany is a really good mom by how sweet her kids are. Isaac was absolutely perfect—smiley and cuddly and friendly with everyone.

And here's a funny moment for the day. My mom took Dylan outside for a while after dinner. I didn't know what they were doing, just that they weren't in the backyard anymore. Well, after a while they walked in looking like this. I saw Dylan's wet shorts first and asked, "How'd you get wet?" My mom thought I was talking to her, so she's the one who answered me. She said simply, "He watered me." Apparently Dylan was helping her water the plants, and when she sat down on her porch bench, he decided to water her as well. Her legs got most of the watering, but he even got her hair! Notice the wet jeans and shorts in these photos:


And here's my proud-aunt brag for the day. Dylan is a problem-solver, and he’s a smart one! Tonight he was trying to tell me something and I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. It sounded for all the world like “big juice,” but we don’t have any juice and I don’t know why he’d say big juice anyway. So I asked said, “What?” and he said “big juice” again. I told him I didn’t know what that was, so he made the sign for shoes and said very clearly, “s’patos.” When I couldn’t figure out what he was saying in English, he said it in both Spanish and ASL so I’d understand. He wanted his “big” shoes, a.k.a. his tennis shoes rather than his sandals. What a smart kid!