Connorisms

Well, my posts have been rather doom and gloom lately...literally, with the flooding in the basement and the non stop rain! (And yes, it is STILL raining.)

So I thought I would do a "isn't my son Connor so cute" post just to remind me to be in a good mood...after all, we're only a few weeks away from adding yet another cutie to the family!

Some Connor sayings with translations:
- Melmo! (Elmo, from Sesame Street)

- Dat's bunny! (That's funny!)

- Men, men, manwee men ah-ahhhh! (The theme song from Two and Half Men...and his pitch ain't half bad!)

- See-see Steet! (Sesame Street)

- RAWERRRRR!!! (in response to what bears and lions say)

- B...A...B...Y...Babee! (Yes, he can spell)

- D...A...D...Y...Daddeee! (Okay so not well, but he CAN spell)

- Fredey, da titty! (Friday the kitty -- Friday is emphatically Connor's cat. They sleep curled around each other every night and Friday puts up with all kinds of Connor loving)

- Baff, I...want...a...baff...peez! (pauses and all, we were prompting him to use his sentences to ask for things and now the pauses are essential in his mind)

- I...nee...a...huck...peez. (I need a hug please. This one melts mommy every time)

- I am sad, daddy! (Notice this says daddy...that worked to melt mommy til she realized it worked too well, so now Connor reserves that one for daddy because mommy just says, "I'm sorry you're sad, but that doesn't mean you get out of time out for painting peanut butter on the sheets")

- No, no want! (in response to anything we do not deem essential...like naps, face cleaning or vegetables)

He's been doing a ton of cute things too...he gets the room set up for nap and nights and we have to go in a specific order. First the overhead light goes off, then the bedside light goes on, then the fan, then we close the drapes and say nigh-night to our toys with kisses before picking our books for reading time. As we go up the stairs, mommy or daddy HAVE to pat his bum and sing the bum bum song...it's requested rather imperiously if we neglect this sacred duty. He puts his clothes in the hamper and LOVES to put things in the trash, which is great because mommy can't bend over easily to pick things up anymore. He can get up in his snazzy new car seat all by himself and will sometimes even put the straps over his own shoulders, which makes him grin each time. He's getting very verbal and loves to talk about the things he sees with his "smart eyes" as we drive in the car...mommy is never allowed to pass a bus, truck or e-e'er (excavator) without some minute description of big vs small, colors and how fast it's going. If there's a moose within a mile he can spot it too...though it's amusing to see what an Alaska kid he is, since he's been calling cows "moose" in his books. Since it's been six months since he's seen a cow and seven hours since he saw a moose, I guess it's only natural! We also know who will be civil air patrol in case of another World War, because this kid can spot a plane 15 miles away through thick fog.

Connor loves the Small But Mighty bear t shirt Nana sent to him and would wear it every day if mommy and the health department would let him. His other favorite clothes include his helicopter shirt, his airplane shirt and his striped tee shirts in blue and green (orange stripes are just barely tolerated). He's outgrowing his Gerber pajama sets Grandma got him but we're having a difficult time letting them go...so his pants are up to his calves and the sleeves are 3/4 length when we can't convince him to wear his new pair from Old Navy. We're dreading the winter...he hasn't had to wear a hat for three months and mittens for four and we don't take to change well in Connor's world. He passionately hates new clothes or shoes until forced into them and then he becomes devoted to them too.

Connor is so sweet tempered we're hoping it lasts through his threes at the least. He believes in sharing to the point of forcible sharing, plying his little friends with toys whether they want them or not. When someone gets hurt, he cries for them or offers "hucks" and "tisses" for them to feel better. The kid unerringly went to the one troop in Charlie's office who adamantly does not want children and asked her pick him up and he offered her a "tiss" gravely. She took it and admitted that he didn't constitute reason #437 for not having them. LOL He's super sweet and compliant about almost everything until you hit one of his streaks of stubborn and they're a mile wide and granite hard. Potty training is one streak and certain foods are another. But that's a whole other Connor post for other days! :-)

He has a few annoying things too, but they're almost cute in their annoyances. He refuses to leave a door open if he can help it so we're constantly sending him back upstairs to free a trapped kitty cat. He's been imitating Cookie Monster while eating lately so we've been fussing at him about his bad Cookie Monster habits...the cheerios end up scattered everywhere and it sounds rude. Every night it takes him an hour to wind down because we have to count to 20 multiple times, say our ABCs several times and talk about different animals, colors and things that happened during the day. Mommy and daddy are desperate for alone time, but we hate to squelch him too so he's been up a little too late at night lately.

Okay, I have lots more but no more typing time. Need to go love on the cutie before hustling him out to the veggie pick up. Hope you enjoyed too!

Well...we flooded

It's not bad. At least, not yet. Charlie went downstairs this evening for the nightly inspection and found a water welling up through the whole downstairs. It's ground water seeping up through the cracks in the foundation, so we can't even do any clean up til the pressure equalizes -- the more we bail out, the more will seep. We're 40th on the list for bail out and clean up services, but they're estimating they won't even try for 4-5 days since the rain is continuing til Thursday at the least. Please send "anti-rain" vibes up here to Alaska...the borough is now officially a state declared disaster area. And Bush is flying in tomorrow, so security on the base is going to suck. Could life get any better??? Actually we're counting ourselves lucky...there's a 1000 people that can't even reach their homes right now and some 300 homes are not livable. We're holding on just fine and are blessed with the luck of the Irish so far!

All I can say is thank goodness for nesting, because one week ago the basement was a wreck of boxes and our mattress was still down there from the June heat wave. My preggo little heart couldn't take it anymore and Charlie cleaned it up last weekend. Whew. Then we were prepared and moved everything but the plastic binned stuff, so we palletized that tonight to get it out of the water. All we can do now is wait and hope that it doesn't get worse...our friends have 5 inches of water and he's deployed while she visits family down in the States so they aren't even able to salvage stuff themselves.

Here's Connor playing along the shore of Polaris Lake. His normal rock throwing spot is under about five feet of water, so he had to content himself with the picnic area.






And just because he's so darn cute...how can you be too pissed about flooding when this little cutie is smiling??

Noah's Flood, Alaska Style

It's been raining for weeks here in the Interior, but this past week has been amazing as far as volume that has fallen...I think I read that over a 1/3 of our annual precipitation fell in two days? We have two major rivers in the area -- the Tenana and the Chena -- and both are well above flood stage. Poor Salcha, just a few miles south of Eielson AFB, took the first hits...Charlie has a troop that couldn't get to her house down there from flooding starting on Tuesday. And then Fairbanks took the brunt of the rain and now 1000 people have been evacuated -- the mayor declared the borough a disaster area and is asking the government to do the same so people can get some help.


I can't believe this rain! We're fine here even though Moose Lake is right in our backyard, though the usual moose paths around the lake are underwater. So far we don't seem to be in any danger of water in the basement or anything, but I check carefully several times a day just in case water starts collecting against the house. Poor Connor has been housebound for days, though we have escaped to the indoor playground several times. If it was just sprinkling, no problem -- but when I say rain, I'm talking about cats and dogs, can't see your hand in front of your face, puddles the size of small ponds rain. Toddlers don't like driving rain. Go figure. Mommies don't much care for it either!

I'm supposed to go downtown today for an appt, but I read that the place I'm going is cut off from the main town and when I try calling no one is answering, so I'm guessing there's no point in heading down there.

I hope everyone comes through this Old Testament deluge okay, with loved ones intact and salvageable possessions.

Owie...car repairs

Charlie's cars have always been...for lack of a better word...adventures.

Before we ever met, he bought a 1970 Mustang that was on its last legs, in the hopes that he would develop some heretofore unsuspected mechanical talent and renovate it himself. My first exposure to this car was listening to his sister's chronicle of traveling around Las Vegas in a rattly death trap with no air conditioning in June in Las Vegas. The next I heard, he had to stop for gas every 30 miles without fail driving from Vegas to New Mexico because only two cylinders worked, and those poorly. He turned the car into some magic mechanic in New Mexico who put his kid through college solely on the work required on that car. Slowly but surely, with my amused tolerance swiftly turning to not so amused annoyance, he did manage to get the car to the 90% mark of being a fully restored vehicle within six years.

Well, then we got an assignment to Alaska. We had already been looking at selling it because we were pretty sure we were getting a DC assignment and fuel efficient that monster was not. But Alaska! Oh jeez, no airbags, no traction, muscle car in the -50 degree weather? What's not to love? So we sold it to a guy in Canada who was looking for a rust free vintage car and bought Charlie a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee instead.

It had low miles, beautifully maintained (as it appeared anyway) and no mechanical problems readily apparent to the people we took it to. Bang, cash on the barrel, it's ours. Well, it was one thing after another dealing with the former owner and the paperwork...the guy was a chronic inebriate and tried to fleece us for extra money several times...but finally it's ours free and clear two months after the initial purchase. Whew, we thought.

Then the radiator blows up. Then the tire needs replaced because at some point the drunk pranged it and it only becomes apparent when it shimmies at exactly 46 miles an hour. And now new tires so Charlie can drive across Alaska without fearing for his life. And then...and then... But Charlie loves it, it's basically sound, we're good to go with at least one car paid for and with four wheel drive. No problems for four months.

And now...the window regulator blows. We knew that it had a radiator issue of some sort...we had all the hoses replaced, temp gauges replaced, etc but still the thing overheated if you left it to idle for more than five or ten minutes -- a distinct problem when you need to preheat your car to drive it nine months out of the year, or if you became stranded and the only thing between you and icy death is your car's heater. So we decided to bite the bullet and have it checked while we got the window fixed.

Well, it turns out the Jeep's electrical harness was blown, which in turn was frying electrical components all over the car...the window, the fan and was about to do something sinister to everything else in the car. We fixed it all...to the tune of $1300. OWIE. Oh well, we didn't need to eat this week right? We had the money but not the will to part with it. Sigh. Oh well, no one at Jeep needs to worry about recessions when the Freels own a Cherokee!

Begone, car gremlins! Away from this family! I swear, I'll buy a Prius or better yet, tame me a moose for riding and sell the cars if you don't leave us alone!

Connor's going to the Elmo show!

Mommy and Connor will be heading off in late July to see Sesame Street Live starring Elmo at the Carlson Center here in Fairbanks. I know he is just going to plotz -- Elmo was a recent favorite, supplanted by Thomas the Tank Engine of late, but still holds Connor's deepest affections with his cool ABC book. Elmo also has one titled "Elmo's Ducky Day" that Aunt Angela sent him for Easter that not only has ducks, but also has a police motorcycle featured...could life get much better? You can't really ask more of a book in Connor's world unless you can also add a train in there, but that's a stretch for a book about ducks in downtown NYC.

Anyway, I digress...since daddy's idea of the seventh circle of hell is sitting for an hour and a half in a oversized gym packed full of sticky toddlers while cartoon puppets belt out potty songs, mommy is taking Connor as a special "mommy and me" treat. This is NOT because mommy is dying to listen to Elmo squeak at 70 decibel levels either, but I know how much this is going to make Connor's day, year, and even century. And the tickets were a bit pricey for said cartoon puppet torture, so Connor and I are going to make a day of it before we have to share mommy with prospective little brother Timmy. I'll be 35 weeks then and more than capable of steam rolling anyone who gets in the way of my baby boy's enjoyment of "Melmo".

We got 4th row center seats so he should have a good view and a very exciting day to remember...I'm so tickled! "Melmo" won't know there's an ecstatic 2.5 year old fan in the audience, but that fan's mommy will!

Reluctant potty training adventures

Charlie and I had a long "parenting" talk last week about things that were frustrating us lately -- his big one was Connor's sleeping habits and mine was his reluctance to potty train, despite obvious signs of readiness...to the point of refusing to go in the bathroom for a bath unless the lid to the potty was shut.

Charlie's issues were relatively simple to fix...he wasn't insisting on Connor moving out of our bed yet, merely that he go to bed before 11 and also go to bed for him instead of only for me. I worked on the first part...I forced some early wake ups, some closed draperies and black out curtains early on and shortened naps (he was wanting to sleep til 9, then sleep from 1 until 4 or 5) -- with the result that within a few days he was consistently going down around 9-930 and waking at 730, then getting a nap from 12-230. We braced ourselves for the tantrum and freak out to end all existence as we know it when daddy went to put him down for the first time, but to our immense surprise and gratification it took maybe only 20 minutes longer and zero tears to get him down! Woo hoo! He seems relatively cool with either mommy or daddy, as long as there are multiple readings of Thomas the Tank Engine and If You Give a Moose a Muffin, and he gets a crack at a pbj sandwich for his pre bedtime snack. Parents: 2, Kid: 0. Whew.

Now...potty training has been something entirely different. We've tried potty training at other points, but it's always ended in multiple accidents and him hiding in a closet weeing away. No more, we declared triumphantly, and decided today was actually Independence-from-diapers Day.

Knowledge and physical/mental readiness are not an issue. He knows what goes where, he can practically change his pull up himself, pulls it off, puts it in the trash, wipes himself and can almost get the thing all the way up himself with just a little assistance. Poopy ones are tougher but since we don't want poo smeared down his legs, we choose to help with those. This kid can recite the ABCs forward and backwards, is starting to read words, and can count to 20...he ain't dumb, in other words. We do, however, have a willingness problem...and a physical one that is not helping mommy and daddy at all.

Connor's bladder apparently takes up 50-75% of that little body. It's been 8 hours of diaperless condition now and no pee, despite one 12 oz cup of cranberry juice, one popsicle, 6 oz cup of milk and 1.5 8 oz juice boxes and sips of mommy's iced tea in addition to his usual sandwiches, cereal and fruit. We even shoved a ton of fresh watermelon into him since it's a diuretic. And nary a drop yet. He's got the willpower of Superman and the bladder capacity of Lake Michigan. I should have known...this is the kid who, as a newborn, REFUSED to pee for two solid days and then screamed all the way through the first mammoth pee because the concept just seemed to bug him that much. He also comes from a long and illustrious line of men who are part-camel and can drive for five or six hours without peeing while slurping a Big Gulp, as the desperate womenfolk are trying to whiz out the car windows.

It doesn't help that all the standard sit on the potty bribes don't work. Charlie's all the way up to offering a sports car for his 16th birthday. He LOVES raisinets, but even those are being disdainfully rejected for potty training sits. We're honestly beginning to wonder exactly how long he can hold it without exploding. A science experiment of the first order I guess. We've been stalking him all day and watching his every move...there is zero chance that he has snuck off to pee unbeknownst to us. Freaky child. Maybe I'm making up for it by having to pee every five minutes myself -- seven and half months pregnant equals much time in the bathroom even without a potty training toddler.

This is a fight we will win though...we don't dare not, because this will just reinforce that he can win if he holds out long enough. But eek eegad yow, my 2 year old should be studied! Send "pee" vibes our way!

ETA: Nope, we lost. Connor managed to hold it for over 12 hours even after being forcibly held on the potty for 12 hours with so much liquid in him his tummy looked like a Somali orphan belly. We finally gave him his night time bath an hour past his normal time and put him in a diaper and he wet through two complete pull up changes before he was able to sleep. It was miserable and awful. Hope they make size 20 diapers, because he'll be wearing them to college at this rate. Can you tell I'm discouraged? Sigh.

Belly picture! 30+ weeks

Please, keep comments to "wow, pretty belly" and not "are you SURE it's not quads?" Ignore the stripped bed behind me...Connor decided a peanut butter fingerpainting on the silk comforter would brighten mommy's day.