Goodbye baby hair!

Today I left the room for a minute and Tal poured a tray full of Lucky Charms in front of Syphr who was already happy eating his lunch. He did what any kid does with Lucky Charms and picked out all the marshmallows. The combination of those hard marshmallows and his spit made them stick like super glue to his body. So, into the bath he went.

  It just so happened there were scissors, a comb, and a dum dum sitting near by, and a Syphr sitting right in front of me with his 10 month old newborn hairs reaching down to his eyes. I figured it was fate and didn't hesitate to start cutting away. 

I only cut a little off, in case I didn't like my cutting skills, so it would have time to grow a bit before family pictures in a few weeks.  After trying out a mohawk, spikes, and asking Ashton's opinion, I decided it was still too long. In the high chair he went with the rest of his bubble gum dum dum, which he did not protest about. I cut quite a bit more off the top and just a tad off the sides. I couldn't cut the little curls in the back yet, but I promised him I would not let him reach mullet status. 

Anyway, here is the final product:

(please excuse the messiness of the 10 month old. These pictures were taken after he had done damage to his shirt with dinner and dum dum flavor drool.)

Doesn't he look so much older?? I think I like this hair style best for him. We are trying spikes tomorrow.  I think he might be our only child that will not sport a mohawk. That is a whole other annoyance that I will save for another day though.

Chef Talan...

Cheese Boki Goki
recipe by Talan Coates


First we put apple sauce in it and then jelly beans. Then we just put it in the small oven for 3 years. The oven is not really hot but it is hot inside. It tastes like ham because when I leave it in the oven it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Then we will have to put some cheese on top of it and share it with friends. And, we can have chocolate milk.

10 months old

Likes:

• trains
• books
• bath time
• binkas
• being thrown high in the air
• eating big kid food (favorites: pizza, eggs, string cheese, yogurt, rice cakes, peas)
• going outside (so glad the weather is starting to make this possible more often)
• talking to Brad on Skype

Dislikes:

• his carseat
• people bothering him in his own personal bubble
• being told no, or having a choking hazard taken away
• having to be still for a diaper change

Talents:

• growing teeth!! he finally has one tiny tooth poking through about 1/4 of the way.  It is super white and very sharp! Every night before bed we brush his one tooth with a toothbrush and water and it just might be his favorite part of the day. He opens his mouth really wide when the water comes on and giggles as the toothbrush glides over his gums and tooth.
• cruising the furniture
• sleeping all night 100% of the time!!!
• waving
• crawling. i thought we would pass the crawling stage since he was a super scooter, but then he crawled as if he had been doing it all along.

Ashton strikes again

Earlier this evening, Ashton went to the bathroom. After, he came to the living room and said,

"I couldn't find any soap in the bathroom so I washed my hands with toothpaste instead."

I stood there and stared at him for what seemed like forever, waiting for a follow up of "I'm just kidding." Thoughts were going through my head, such as:

Did he not open the cabinet under the sink which would reveal about 8 bottles of hand soap?, Does he really think toothpaste and hand soap are the same?, Gross!, and, Why is he not saying he is kidding?!

What am I going to do with this kid!

Rule #74

When it is bed time, the sun lies, when the clock says 7:30 we must close our eyes.

Talan is having a hard time understanding his bed time since the sun is sticking around longer during the evening. I tried to explain daylight savings time to him (total fail), but in the end he understood when I made up a rhyming rule about the sun being a big fat liar. 

Pinewood Derby 2011

This was Ashton's first Pinewood Derby, and it was so much fun we can't wait for the 2012 derby. From a block of wood Ashton sanded, painted, weighed, hammered, and tested his creation. The cars race down the track 7 times, one turn on each lane, the scores of each race are totaled determining the winner. 

A tie for 2nd and 3rd place! Who will win the race-off?!

I snapped a picture of Syphr. The flash made him smile so I took another. I hope he can still see.

Talan is the luckiest! Gramps wouldn't let anyone else past that rope. 

Ashton's car is on the right with the 10 on the side.

Syphr played with his baby friend, Eddie, while the races were happening. Pushing chairs together is way more fun.

Talan, as usual, is off in his own world on the other side of the room.

FINAL RESULTS:

• Ashton came in 3rd place overall! Super proud of that! 
• He also won the Blue Hedgehog award for most exceptional derby car

Syphr's hair is getting longer and thicker recently. Because of this we have made a discovery which I am excited about. 

A freshly bathed Syphr head dries into the beginnings of curls.

I guess I can say Talan tried to protect his head while scootering around in the excellent weather. 

Oh, how we love this spring time weather! Talan, however, has been wearing shorts most of the winter. I figure its not worth the fight with him, and I don't have a problem over looking all the stares and judgemental looks when taking my 3 year old to Target in his summer wear. After all, he's the only one that is going to be cold. Most of the time he had his bases covered. Shorts with boots. Only the kneecaps left exposed to the frigid temperatures. After the summer crocs came in the mail, and now the shins are out with the kneecaps,  I had to enforce a new rule.

Rule #67: If the ground is covered in snow, then pants are the way we must go.

If I rhyme my rules Talan is more likely to accept it. And, accept he has. Just yesterday we picked up his grandpa, and Talan was highly irritated that gramps was wearing shorts with the very obvious snow covered ground.

Now, most every day, Talan runs to the window for the clothing forecast, and I, most every day, cross my fingers that the sun has melted all the snow to avoid the Talan sized trauma of wearing pants.

Oh, Ashton...

About a week ago, our family spent the day doing fun family stuff in Kansas City, before we had to drop Brad off at the airport. One of the favorite things we did was visit Kaleidoscope in downtown KC. It is a totally free place where kids (and parents) can be decoratively creative with any of the notecards, paints, masks, crowns, ribbons, die cut letters, tape, etc. that they can get their hands on.

Ashton made a couple things, but mostly stocked his take home bag full of goodies for later projects. Yesterday, Ashton decided to get out his loot he was planning to make into a book only to discover his name been robbed.

That is right.....I said robbed. Without bothering to get to the bottom of his dilemma and solve his own problem, he decided to drag me into the situation, and I am so glad he did, as it was an excellent 8 year old Ashton moment.

Ashton in a near state of emergency (because, you know, he has to exercise his creative melodramatics):

"I am missing my H and my O for my name. I'm missing my HO! Someone took my HO! TALAN!!! DID YOU TAKE MY HO?!"


I was on the floor at this point laughing, Ashton not even realizing what he said. 30 hours have passed and his ho has still not been found. Looks like Ashton will have to get a new ho.

9 month stats

29 1/4 inches (76%)
20 lbs 2 ounces (37%)

Long and lean. Here I thought he was chubby. It is hard to imagine that 63% of 9 month olds in the country are chubbier than Syphr. We will now start a diet of cheetos for dinner followed by a bottle of root beer until he catches up with the rest of the 9 month population. (joking of course)