Drop it, Pick it up

Source: Amazon

This morning, I was reading J's favorite book to him, "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton (I think we'd like her other books too!). At 7 months, he mostly likes to stare at the pictures and gnaw on the pages. This morning, he reached a milestone (I think) because when he dropped the book, he looked down to see where it had gone. Of course I picked it up..and then he promptly dropped it again. Why do babies love this game?

T-shirt from Harveys

I can't believe I won one of these tees from Harveys (maker of my beloved seat belt bags).

Month 6

At J's 6-month checkup, the nurse was surprised that Jacob only weighed 20 lbs - she was thinking more like 25. Then, the pediatrician kept calling him Chunky Monkey. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned.

I know, I know, I'm over-reacting.

But to calm my fears, I decided to plot J's growth on CDC's weight-for-length chart to see if J was heavy for his length.

Turns out, he's somewhere near the middle…so I can stop worrying.

6 month
Height 29 in (above 95th percentile)
Weight 20 lbs (75-90th percentile)
Head circumference 17.5 in (50-75th percentile)
*** Online percentile calculator

Privacy for kids' potty

This is hilarious! Originally from intheknowmom.net

French company, Pirouette Cacahouète has designed a cardboard hut of sorts to unfold around your little learner’s potty, creating an instant ladie’s room.  This toilet-tent is 100% recyclable (duh, cardboard) and comes in 7 pretty colors.  Not only the outside of the house is beautifully designed, but the inside as well, making toilet time a little more pleasant.  Give your child the secret throne he/she deserves.

It's 46 Euro (about $63 USD) online...I wonder if I could make this...

Boarding an airplane

I selected seats toward the rear of the plane on my recent trip to Las Vegas thinking that I'd get to board first. My logic was that boarding passengers toward the rear of the plane first would lead to less "traffic jams" in the aisles. I also remember that on other flights I've been on, this was the boarding logic. Oh, but not US Airways 438 or 439! Passengers in the rear of plane were called last. I guess it wouldn't really matter as long as we were all in the same general area.

But on my way to Vegas, I got stuck in the aisle behind a guy who had a rolling carry-on plus some large photo tubes to stow. He spent some time moving other people's stuff around in the overhead compartments and then also took a spot I was eyeing above my seat for my carry-on.

And on my back to Philly, I didn't allow the entire family of 8 to cut in line ahead of me because they each had a carry-on and it would have been aggravating to wait behind them.

It was pretty interesting to watch this family board because the entire family stood in the aisle watching one member stow away all of the carry-ons. The attendant announced over the PA for "passengers" (He's talking to you! Too bad not all of you understand English.) to quickly take their seats in order to speed-up boarding.

Lesson: Have light carry-on and don't be the passenger that everyone watches while you board. Too bad I can only take my own advice for so long. One day, A & I will be traveling with J, and I can only imagine the challenges that will bring.

Balancing act

Check out this guy. How did he get his Sbarro drink to stay on his rear bumper? A thinks he used gum. I think he just got lucky. What a great car commercial for stability capabilities huh?

Snowmageddon

Our electricity went out so A asked me to look out the window to see if our neighbors' lights were also out. Before I could pull the blinds back, our electricity came back on (thank goodness because the news reported that many were still without power days after the snow storm). But then I saw a very odd scene and also a not-so-odd one.

Odd scene:

Grown man making a huge snowman. An even odder one: Grown woman joins in by bringing him what looks like cereal boxes and a large bag of something (coal?). A thought the cereal boxes might be for the snowman's arms. We both saw that the bag contained material for the snowman's eyes/mouth/buttons.

It's near white-out conditions. Is the building of this snowman really that urgent? Well, whatever floats your boat, silly weird neighbors. The next morning, the snowman had two stumps as arms - guess those cereal boxes didn't work. Two days later, only the snowman's bottom was in tact.


Not-so-odd scene:

Guy stuck in snow. Guy in the car in front of him stopped to help guy stuck in snow. A throws on his jacket and boots to help the guys out.

At first I was asking myself why had this guy waited this late (8pm) to come home - he knew the snow was coming. Then I corrected myself because he was probably stuck on 270. Little did I know that he was probably lucky because commuters were stuck on the GW Parkway for 12 hrs. Our neighbor rolled in at 1:30am and was shoveling the visitor's parking spot, which is RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR SINGLE-PANED WINDOWS. It was annoying to say the least. I'm thankful I live 15 min from work and left that day at 2:30pm.