Eli had a great Christmas. Mommy and Daddy brought him a train set (and a month later he is still playing with it!!). He got a baseball glove and John Deer tool kit, some Curious George Books and a camera from G-daddy. Grumpy and Grandmaman got him a snow globe and a table and chairs to use by the pool. In addition to the huge haul from his uncles and aunts, he was thoroughly spoiled.

And, of course, terribly cute.

Eli is a really silly kid. He has a great sense of the absurd. Perhaps that's just what being two is about, but it makes for a fun household.

He loves to do "reps" with Kevin's push up handles.

He swept the local playground recently wearing a plastic knight's helmet.

And frankly, I really hope he never grows into his father's size 15 shoes. They are really hard to find!

December took us to a few great birthday parties. Chloe (a sort-of-cousin) celebrated the big 3 in Pilot Mountain and Hunter and Eli celebrated with her by driving her Barbie four-wheeler around the yard. Pink didn't faze them in the slightest, the sensitive young men that they are.

Baikal celebrated her third birthday with a bear hunt in our park. everyone got binoculars to look for bears (luckily, the only ones that reside in our park are cuddly and stuffed) then we all gathered an an old fountain for bear stories and bear cookies. A STELLAR party!

Well, I thought I was going to start the new year by being a better blogger. So far, I've failed miserably. It is, however, still January, so maybe I'll give myself a little slack.

Here are many many pictures from our recent adventures, beginning with Christmas and ending with a recent trip to the beach with Jaime, David and Hunter.

There are pictures coming, but we wanted to share tonight's big news: Eli is in his big boy bed! He was so excited about it and talked about it all afternoon... until he was tucked in and the lights went out.
Then he said in a tiny little voice, "Mommy, maybe I sleep in baby bed?" Argh.
It might have been heartbreaking if Kevin and I had not spent a big chunk of the afternoon assembling the big boy bed and wearing ourselves (and possibly our marriage) out in the process. What is it about children's furniture that makes it so challenging to assemble?
In the end, he did decide to stay in his big boy bed with his friends Baby, Puppy and blanket. He looks very cute and very small in it, funny, because he looks like a big beast in his crib. He's been asleep for a couple of hours now.
So I will take this opportunity to hit my own big girl bed! Good night!

And finally, friends, lest you hear it in the tabloids before you hear it here, the Wild Rumpus is about to get wilder. I'm sporting the latest in Hollywood accessories: a Baby Bump. Stay tuned...

This year, we let Eli help decorate the Christmas tree. He did a great job and really got into it! He was very concerned with proper ornament placement and occasionally got worried that our (sad and pitiful) artificial tree was "broken".

I brought an art project. The pictures speak for themselves. What was I thinking?

One of the best things about visiting David and Jaime's (other than the good company!) is that there is lots of space to play, both indoors and out. Eli loves all of Hunter's toys, especially the ride-on "tractor". Eli also took a shine to an old broken guitar, which he played quite adeptly as an upright bass. Hunter, 15 months old, is a much calmer child than Eli and was mostly content to watch Eli go racing from place to place. Jamie and I are convinced, though, that that will soon change. It is only a matter of time before the two take off into the woods by themselves to go make little boy mischief. Heaven help us.

Looking for ducks in the water below.

We spent Thanksgiving in the lap of country luxury. We went and visited David, Jaime and Hunter in rural Virginia. It is like being in a kid-friendly bed and breakfast when we go out there, right down to the fluffy bath towels.

Jaime did a great job with Thanksgiving dinner. She keeps insisting that everyone contributed but all I remember the rest of us doing is hovering around and sneaking bits of food from the dishes she worked so hard on. I wish I had taken a picture of the pumpkin pie. It was the largest pie I have ever seen in my life. Really, it was HUGE!

We spent one afternoon out "hiking" on the Virginia Creeper trail. I think we went the equivalent of 1/2 a city block, but we saw all sorts of things: ducks, rocks, geese, rocks, sticks, rocks, chickens, rocks, cows and rocks. Eli came back with his pants so full of rocks that they wouldn't stay up! Too bad stonewashed jeans went out in 1989 because that is what most of our laundry is like these days.

Eli was a frog for Halloween. He was particularly infatuated with his froggy hands. We never did figure out why, but he liked to show them to everyone who would look at them. We got good use out of the costume, with a visit to the preschool fall festival, a Wednesday night supper at church, a trip to a Halloween-themed Music Class where we danced to the "Monster Mash", and even a short round of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. AND, next weekend the costume will come out again for the Christmas pageant. Bet you didn't know there were frogs at the manger, did you?

At his school's fall festival, there is always a train ride, usually around the playground. It was raining buckets that day (drought, what drought?), so the train was relegated to the parking deck. It didn't dampen Eli's enthusiasm for the train at all. They gave every kid a train whistle to blow as we drove in circles. Eli still keeps it in his carseat and takes it out from time to time to serenade me on our morning commute. I am a lucky woman.

I'm not even going to bother apologizing, dear readers. I'll just give the standard excuse: life has been on the hectic side here at The Wild Rumpus, so blogging has been tabled for a while. Now that the big conference I've been pulling together is over and Kevin has a semester of teaching behind him, perhaps I'll get back on the blogging wagon, but don't hold your breath.

The good news is, after a photographic dry spell (Eli wouldn't let us use the camera), we've got pics to share! So, let the show begin...

Eli has been singing "Happy Birthday" at every opportunity, throwing himself little birthday parties in the sandbox or at snack time. Here I caught him singing into his pretzels them blowing them out like candles. The video is a sort of pitiful reprise.
At the end, you can hear him ask for his "own camera". We gave him an old one we found in a drawer as a birthday present. We may be cheap, but we're creative!

The party was great. Our friends Esther, Robert and CC came with their parents as did Baikal and Rybolt and their parents. Cupcakes were a big hit. We played backyard baseball and Robert (age 6) showed Eli how it is done. Then Eli showed off his sandbox skills.

Eli had his first big boy haircut at a professional salon!

Eli had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. It was a great day topped off by a fun party with friends, pizza and cupcakes. We're having a bit of a problem with Eli and cameras right now. He is completely obsessed with them and so won't let us take a picture before he melts down and wants to grab it. Photography is slim these days.

Here he is getting ready to ride to the zoo and then a few while we're there. I keep thinking he is such a big guy until I see him next to a big kid and realize that he's still small fry.

The garden, in case you were wondering, was a great success. So much so that we never want to see another tomato again. I pulled the tomato vines out a few weeks ago because they were eating the backyard. Attack of the killer tomatoes for real. Poor Eli couldn't make it down the path from the house to the car without getting tangled in the vines. He did like plucking grape tomatoes (may-nohs) and eating them straight from the garden. We also got piles of serrano peppers and a few bells. The basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme did well, too.

These pictures are just a fraction of the harvest... one evenings' worth!

Holy lack of posting, Batman!

First I'll back up and tell you a little about our great trip to go see cousin hunter about two months ago. Hunter is one year old and so danr cute you want to eat him. They live out in the country in Virginia in a beautiful area near a lake and lots of farms. Eli got a kick out of looking for animals and "finding" tractors. We went on lots of bike rides with Eli and Hunter in Hunter's bike trailer. Very fun!

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of one of the world's great dogs. About three weeks ago, Genesis was diagnosed with bone cancer in her leg. It progressed pretty quickly and soon she got to the point where she was in constant pain. I took her to the vet yesterday and held her head while she fell asleep for the last time. She passed away very quietly and I have every reason in the world to believe that she's much happier now than she was hobbling around. She was 12 years old.

We miss her. We miss her a lot. She was a funny dog, very quiet and extremely gentle. Where some dogs perfect the "poor me" begging face to coerce a sucker into giving a treat, Gennie had instead a "give me a break" face. She often made it very clear to us that she was only tolerating our behavior because she didn't have the opposable thumbs required to get dog food out of the bin.

Rescuing a racing greyhound is a bizarre experience. We had to teach Gennie that affection is a good thing, but once she figured out that a scratch behind the ears felt good, she couldn't get enough and would walk up and LEEEAAAANNN against my knees until I stopped what I was doing to rub her all over.

With our busy lives and cramped space, Gennie never got everything she deserved. But I try to squelch that guilt by remembering the one thing we did give her: we taught her to play. Racing dogs never learn how to play as puppies since they are trained to do only one thing: run. So for years we tossed balls, squeaked toys, dangled pull ropes, anything we could think of until one day, when Gennie was almost 7, she got it. She learned playfulness. She would toss her own squeaky toys in the air then pounce on them. She played chase with us in the yard. It was an amazing sight. You can indeed teach and old dog new tricks.

Anyway, thanks for indulging me. We're sad around here but at the same time glad that she's got plenty of room to chase rabbits and toss squeaky toys now, and four healthy legs with which to do those things.

This was a few weeks ago. He's a speed demon now.

After the first week, John, Andie, Anna and Kevin left Eli and me at the beach all by ourselves. We had a blast! He is such a goofball and has so much energy. as long as the weather was good, we were outside in the sand or the pool or at the playground. One afternoon, though, the weather was terrible and so was Eli's mood. We had to get out! Where does one go when the weather is bad but you can't stay in the condo anothe rminute? to Target, of course!

While wandering the toy aisles at ye olde Target, Eli found a tricycle sitting on the floor, ready to go. He hopped on and started to pedal. Where he learned to ride a trike, I'll never know, be he is certainly a genius at it now. We're signing him up for next year's Tour de France.

For the last several weeks, we've heard nothing but "Eli ride bike. Eli go fast. Helmet on! Pedals round and round!" Over and over. Fortunately for Eli, he's really really cute. Otherwise...

Over the last month or so, Eli's vocabulary has exploded! One word that he picked up at the beach is "frisbee". But it sounds more like "piseebah". In any case he loves throwing piseebahs.

Eli's also a little bit of a nutjob. I love that about him.


goggles and pj's

little surfer

hilarity at the kiddie pool

There's been a posting drought here at Casa York-Simmons. Dear readers, I deeply apologize. In short, there's a LOT going on around here. No need to go into any tedious detail, but I'll let you in, instead, on the fun trips and experiences we've had recently.

Back in July (approximately 100 years ago), we went to the beach for a little much-deserved R&R. The amazing thing about Eli at this time in our lives is that he seems to keep getting cooler and cooler. The beach trip was so much fun, and the fun was compounded by the fact that we were joined by our great friends John and Andie and our Goddaughter Anna (8 months). Anna is so beautiful, round and delish, and a total charmer. And Eli was a perfect gentleman, very gentle with Anna, and very good at sharing his toys.And it was great having our friends around! Andie helped me haul my carcass off the couch for several morning runs. God bless her for that.

In honor of my friend Laurel's new book Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains or in Search of a Suitable Princess, she has invited all of us (you and me and everyone out there) to give a brief story about what we would be unsuitable at doing and why.

In honor of my trip to the beautiful countryside of Abingdon, Virginia, to visit my in-laws and nephew Hunter, I have to confess that I am entirely unsuited for country life. It was incredible to get out to the AMAZING fresh air, cows, bike trails, etc, and so lovely to visit with David and Jaime and Hunter. I can't wait to go back! But I'm not good at quiet. And it was really really quiet. Truth is, as much as I love dirt, I also like concrete and next door neighbors and walking to restaurants. I like parks and zoos and aquariums. I like quiet for vacations and relaxing and rejuvenating. I like the other stuff for everyday life. Lucky for me, I have great family to visit in beautiful places like Abingdon and a life in a city to come home to!