Mama the Jedi Ninja

I know that Jedis and ninjas are different, but I wasn't sure which applied here...

You ever have those moments when you can see something happening in slow motion and feel like you could do something to stop it but just sit there and watch it happen instead? I remember once at a restaurant I watched a waitress put a pint of beer on the table beside me but only get the glass half on the table. I swear it felt like I had about 10 minutes to nonchalantly reach over and catch the glass (and beer) mid-air as it fell to the ground. Instead, I just sat there and watched it fall and shatter and puddle.

Not so now that I'm a mom! One day recently, Harrison was playing at the table and stools in the kitchen that he loves and that have always made me nervous with him (for good reason!). The table is a metal workbench that was probably meant for a garage -- it has a steel top about chest-high and a little shelf about ankle-high. Harrison loves to stand on the low shelf and peek out the window to keep tabs on the activity out back. This day, he was standing on the shelf and looking at us in the kitchen. He got ahold of one of the stools (they're all three-legged, so not as stable as four-legged ones) and somehow stepped off the shelf like he thought it hadn't ended yet, which means that he was falling off the shelf and pulling the stool down with him. Chris says that what happened next was amazing to watch, but to me it felt like I just strolled over to Harrison, caught his head in my right hand and the stool in my left hand, laid him on the ground with my hand as a cushion, and kept the stool from crashing down onto him.

How did I do that??? Only Jedi Ninja Mamas know, and we can't explain it. Don't mess with Jedi Ninja Mamas.

Next day update

Harrison and I went to the grocery the day I wrote this post. Since we didn't have much to get, I just grabbed a basket and planned on having him walk beside me or be carried. When we were in the produce section, Harrison was busily inspecting his baby-sized bananas while he walked towards me. I thought I was serving as a good "don't drive your cart through here" blocker for him (because he's little and tough to see and all and I figured that surely people would steer far enough around me to avoid him, too), but suddenly a cart came charging up from behind me and was just about to have a head-on collision with Harrison! Jedi Ninja Mama that I am, I calmly put out my right hand, grabbed the rogue cart, and stopped it inches from the little buddy's forehead. He flinched a bit and then went around the cart to show me where he had bitten through one of the baby bananas. The lady driving the cart had a baby in an infant carseat sitting on the top of it, which makes for a huge blindspot (I hated driving with Harrison's carseat on the cart like that!). She was all flustered, but no harm done!

What Kid Doesn't Like Macaroni and Cheese?

Mine! Unbelievable! His two favorite things in the world are "noo-noo" (noodles) and "deeze" (cheese), but put them together and he's not interested.

Harrison and I went to CostCo after school one day last week, and before I knew it, he had talked me into buying a 5-pound bag of shredded cheddar (an excellent deal, of course...). So since then I've been looking for ways to increase our already-high cheese intake, and homemade macaroni and cheese seemed like a good idea!

Harrison was a good little sous-chef -- carried the box of noo-noo from the pantry to the kitchen, helped me stir the milk while it heated (very dangerous for the spotless stovetop -- probably won't ask him for help with that again), and moved cups and cups of shredded deeze from the big measuring bowl to the hot milk pan one tiny handful at a time (Dada didn't know that -- surprise -- Harrison had his clean little hands all in our dinner!). Eventually our cheese sauce was ready and we stirred it into our noodles. Smart mama that I am, I pulled out a big scoop of plain noodles before adding the sauce, and that scoop turned out to be the only noodles Harrison wanted to eat! I guess he thought our macaroni and cheese was an arts-and-crafts project or something because he was happy to play in it but made horrible faces and shook his head and clamped his lips tight when I offered him a bite -- he made it seem like I was asking him to eat dirt (which he does eat) or playdoh (which he probably will eat whenever he gets the chance).

I asked him a series of questions to confirm the following, all of which should be indicators that a person will like macaroni and cheese...

1. That he is a child.
   
2. That he has tastebuds.
   
3. That he is American.

The answers to all three questions were yes, so I just can't explain it. Oh, well! At least Chris and I liked our special treat, and my cheese inventory is much more reasonable now. :)

NEXT DAY UPDATE
Harrison conceeded that my macaroni and cheese was worth at least three bites at lunch today. Thank you, honey.

Oh, wow...

Worst outfit ever. I am partially to blame because I did send Harrison to school with that shirt-socks-shoes ensemble, but in my defense, he was wearing jeans at the beginning of the day (and the shirt has a cute little navy blue stitching on the front that was accented nicely by the navy blue socks and shoes). When I picked him up from school, though, he came running at me with yellow-and-white striped "ahoy, matey" shorts in the middle instead of his jeans.

Before I could stop myself, I said, "Harrison, what in the world are you wearing?" His teachers laughed and said he had dumped water all over his jeans; they realized that the shirt and shorts wouldn't look so great but didn't notice how badly the socks completed the outfit until he was on the move again. Again, I am partially to blame (does two "partially"s make one "entirely"?) because I'm the one who stocked Harrison's school cubby with those shorts, but really -- change his shirt to the one that goes with the shorts if the shorts must be worn!

So, on the positive side, Harrison and I had a nice talk about primary colors since he was wearing all of them that day.

Mom -- Please explain to Pop what is wrong with this look.

Oh, my...

Camping!

We braved the wilderness and faced our fears of things with no legs and things with more than 4 legs (saw some of both -- just shivered thinking about the venomous snake our camp neighbor chopped the head off of) by spending two nights tent camping with Chris' parents at Fort Mountain State Park, which is just outside of Dalton.

Harrison investigated his first hot dog on Friday, which means that he pushed it around on his food tray but didn't actually eat it. Harrison also served as our safety patrol by continually reminding us that the camp fire was (h)o(t) -- he doesn't quite get the "h" and the "t" sounds in there when he says it, though.

Vicki, Sparky, Maynard, Harrison, Harrison's glow stick, and Chris

Our campsite was just up the hill from the lake, so Harrison went on countless expeditions to see what was going on down there. We all hiked around the lake on Saturday, and Harrison caught a quick nap on Dada's back.

Expeditioning

Time for a big hike!

Zzz...

Then Sunday we just packed up in the morning and headed back to places where I don't worry about snakes slithering down the road (or snake carcasses laying around) -- ug, just shivered again. It took a while for all of Harrison's camp friends to say goodbye (the kids on either side of us would stop by to ask me where "the baby" was and then go off to find him), but eventually they all had his phone number and e-mail and Twitter name and the address for this blog, so they'll be lifelong friends.

One last visit to the lake

Harrison Mops

Somehow "we" made a mess one afternoon, so the mop came out to clean up. I managed to hold the camera steady enough through my giggling to get these photos -- what a little helper! I'm so lucky to have a live-in housekeeper!

Please note the following :

1. How resigned he looks (but I swear it was his idea!),
2. The "G" on the front of his outfit and the football on the back (and this was after Georgia's first loss!), and
   
3. The "Harry Goes to Hogwarts" sock-shoes (Harrison is wondering why Hermione had to set Dobby and all the other house-elves free -- forgive me if I have my Harry Potter trivia wrong).
   

Let's start by the stairs...

Now we'll move to the kitchen...

Ooh, here's a bad spot...

And we'll wrap it up by the sink.

Harrison, the Maori Warrior

This is the face Harrison makes when he wants a bite of what you have...

Maori warrior

Usually his tongue sticks out farther and is pointier, but this is the best I could get from my squirmy little kid! My favorite is when you offer him some banana...
Mama : "Harrison, want banana?" Harrison : "Nana!" and he comes running with his mouth wide open and his tongue out as far as it goes -- to make sure that I know exactly where to put his bite of banana.

Thankyouforthemilkmama

Harrison went from not speaking in actual words to speaking in complete sentences!

His afternoon routine is : get picked up from school at 3, wander around the school parking lot / playground till 3:15, get home about 3:30, wander around outside till 4, go inside and have a nice cold glass of milk. And when he finally gets that milk, he really needs it. Picture him trying to scale the refrigerator to get to the milk and you'll start to understand how much he needs it. Yesterday when he got his 4 o'clock hit of milk, I swear he said, "Thankyouforthemilkmama." All in one little flow of words. Today, though, he was back to babbling nonsense all afternoon, so I guess the magic was short-lived.

Harrison's Debut on the LLIP Website

Harrison's preschool (Little Linguists International Preschool -- "LLIP") has a Shutterfly site to share information with parents (the menu for the week, the newsletters for each class, the school calendar, general announcements, and -- most importantly -- photos). The Shutterfly site is private, and you have to be invited by the school to join it, so I'll just pilfer photos occasionally and post them over here. I am allowed to print or download the pictures they post on their site, so don't worry about copyright infringements!

Last week the school studied public servants and had visitors from different types of jobs -- nurses / teachers / firefighters. On firefighter day, a firetruck came to the school and all the kids got to go see it. Ms. Marlen told me that while the kids thought the firetruck was pretty cool, the best part of the day was getting to go to the "big kid" playground and walk around the track (not a big track -- it would probably take 50-60 laps to make a mile).

In any event, pictures from firefighter day are below. In the first one, I thought, "Hey! Where is Harrison? I know Ms. Marlen (holding the girl in green) said he went to see the truck!" Then I found him in the second one. :) My guess is that he wouldn't come out from behind the red hat, so Ms. Carla (in the Mickey Mouse shirt) had to take Harrison's hat and the hat of the little boy in front of Harrison to get both of their faces in the photo -- see how she goes from zero hats in her hands to two hats in her hands?

Where is he??

A-HA! Thank you, Ms. Carla.