Hey, Y'all!

Who you callin' a Bambino?

Hey, peeps! Dean here.  I keep telling Sugar (that's what I call my mom) to refer to me as something more sophisticated than "Deano the Bambino," but she says that until I pee pee in the potty all the time, she can call me whatever she wants. Fair enough.

I haven't blogged since spring because I've been so busy!  I'm going to big boy school again this year and it's awesome! We make a craft every day and sometimes we play in the gym.  I'm doing better about not throwing my snack on the floor, even if it's something I don't like.  My teachers are awesome, especially Mrs.Jackie. She's an Auburn fan, but I try not to let that affect our relationship.

Sugar and I are spending a lot of time outdoors these days.  She says it's because Fall rejuvenates her, but I think she's avoiding doing laundry. On mornings that I'm not at school, we spend a couple of hours at the park.

 
Our park is really special because all the trees have these neat  carvings. Here I am checking one out:

 
Good thing he doesn't have bad breath.

This morning I got to play with  my friend Pax. He's 1 and doesn't walk that well just yet.  I held his hand and showed him the  slides.  Sugar said I was very friendly.  I continued my friendly streak by crashing these  ladies' picnic and charming them with my good looks.  They thought I was cute.  One of them even gave me a bag of chips! I was just about to tell her how foods like hummus and bell peppers are better than chips, but Sugar made me leave them alone. (Sugar's a real downer sometimes.)

Here I am minding my own business, having a tasty beverage:

 
When we got home today, Sugar made me lunch. I ate it all.  Then she fixed her lunch. I ate that, too.  (I'm a growing boy, you see.)   I  see a suitcase...that must mean we're taking a road trip!  Oh, boy, I love road trips. I get to watch DVDs and listen to my music and if I scream loud enough, the people stop and buy me French Fries!  I'll check back  next week and tell you where we went! (If I had to guess, I'd say Grammy and Papa's house.)

Somebody write on this blog, already!

Since my mom seems to have lost the ability to type or somethin, I have decided to take over blogging responsibilities, at least for today.  (I'm 2, you see, and I can't make any promises about how long this will hold my attention.)  Anywho, Dean here.  Mom's been working hard lately, but she says she'll be home every night now! Her show opened, so now she just goes down to Montgomery once a day, then comes home.  This week, she got 2 days off!  I talked her into letting me skip school today (it wasn't very hard...she's a sucker) and we went to the zoo!

I liked the draffs (giraffes), the grilla (gorilla) and the mamas (llamas).  They are building a new elephant house, so the elephants were gone.  Mom said we got a big discount on admission because of all the crazy construction.  There wasn't even a sea lion show--what a gip.

My favorite parts of the zoo were the toucan, which is a bird, which lives in a nest (I learned that at school last week. Also, God made the birds. Did you know?), the choo choo train and the splash park.

Here's mom and me on the choo choo:

It was SO cool.  I kept saying "Wheeeeeeeeee!" and I really liked the tunnel. 

The funniest part of our visit was when we saw a monkey pooping, but mommy didn't take a picture of that.  I did use the opportunity to show off my favorite new phrase:  "Oh, no!"

Here I am in the splash park: (Be sure to check out the kid to my left...)

What's he doing!?!!!!???

Here's one of my face:

 

It was totally fun.  A little girl took off her bathing suit and swim diaper and played nekkid for a while before her mom caught her and wrapped her in a towel.  Mommy says she's glad, but surprised, it wasn't me.

Mommy says I have grown so much this week that I look like a college student now.  College seems pretty boring, so I"m in no mood to hurry there. They do sing songs sometimes, or at least they do in Daddy's shows at college, but they don't have nap time or anything.

Mommy signed us up for swimming lessons at the YMCA this summer. I'm so ready. I tried really hard to swim last summer, but Mommy wouldn't let go of me. She really cramps my style sometimes.  I like to do things to throw her off-kilter. Tonight, for instance, I refused pasta, but ate 3 pieces of bread.  Maybe I'll try chicken soon just to keep her on her toes.

I need to get someone to take me outside now so I can pass out on the couch at 7:00 again, just like I did last night after our walk around the block:

Being 2 wears you out, yo.

Comfort Food Sa....WOOPS

Hey, peeps, Deano T. Bambino here. I keep telling Mom that she's gonna have to come up with a new nickname for me cuz I'm hardly a bambino anymore, what with turning 2 and all.  Anywho, Mom forgot to post a recipe yesterday, but for a good reason!  She was busy baking cupcakes and sausage cheese balls and making fruit skewers for my BIRTHDAY PARTY!  (Sidebar:  Who serves toddlers fruit on pointy sticks???  Birthday party food FAIL, Mom.  Foodie Mama's gonna fire you.)

My party was cool.  4 of my friends came, including my best buddy Kate, and they brought their parents.  Three of them are related, so there weren't really THAT many people.  My manny BJ was here, as were my "big kid" friends Hannah Jean and Karow.  Mom made everyone wear mouse ears since it was a Mickey Mouse theme.  I would put pictures up, but our internet is being stoopid and it crashes when we upload things.  If you wanna see pictures, you can go to my mom's facebook page.  If you're not her friend, you should totally add her. She's kind of addicted.

I got some neat presents including several books, some awesome pajamas, a monkey towel, a stuffed Mickey and Pluto and a potty!  Mom says I'm supposed to piddle in the potty, but I dunno.  It's a frog and I don't think he wants me to piddle on his head.  I did decide to take off my pants and diaper and sit on it for a minute last night, but then I got cold, so I ran away. I discovered Dad soaking in the bathtub, so I got in with him.  THEN I piddled. I think he was pretty impressed.

My real birthday is Tuesday. I get to go back to school that day and take cookies for my friends to eat with me at snack time!  Mom and Dad say we will have a special dinner that night and open cards and presents from our family.  I really like this whole month of celebrating Christmas-New-Year-Birthday thing!(Mom says it stresses her out.)  I can't wait to officially be 2.  Mom says since the internet keeps eating her video montage that maybe she should finally post my birth story.  I say don't hold your breath, folks.

Later!

Little Boy Blog: Thanksgiving Break Edition

Howdy, peeps!  Mommy's watching SEREDIPITY (for the billionth time), so I thought I'd highjack her blog.  She has a big crush on John Cusack, so she's totally distracted.  I haven't written at all this year during NaNaBloPop, can you believe it?  Things are good.  I go to big boy school now and it's way fun.  We do crafts and take naps and stuff.  Sometimes they give me cookies for a snack, but I throw them on the floor. Mommy always sends extra fruit in case I don't like what they serve for our snack that day. She is a good planner.

 
That's my new Choo Choo Train sweatsuit.  It's a dark green-grey. It's also a 24 month size, so it's too long cuz I got short legs.  Daddy put it on me this morning with red socks.  I looked snazzy.

This morning during breakfast Mommy told me for the billionth time that we didn't have to go to school this week. (I guess she thinks I don't hear her. GAH)  We watched some cartoons and read my animal book this morning.  I helped Mommy fold laundry and woke Daddy up by throwing blocks at the door. I decided to shake things up a little and dump Mommy's coffee cup on the carpet. I thought it was pretty funny, but she freaked out and broke out that stinky cleaning stuff, then Daddy stripped off my jammies to make sure I didn't get burned. I'm fine. Geesh, talk about overreactions.

We went to the store and got what Mom and Dad says are the fixin's for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Mommy keeps trying to get me to say "gobble gobble" like a turkey and I keep saying "Bock Bock" like a chicken.  I'm just trying to show her that I know they are both poultry.  See? I'm learning lots at big boy school.  Apparently Mom and Dad are going to make stuffin.  I'm not sure they know what they're doing.  They sure do talk about it a lot, though.  I don't know what's wrong with that stuff out of a box we have sometimes, but Mom says it's Thanksgiving, so we should have something fancier. I dunno why I'm worried about it.  It involves bread, so I'm not gonna eat it anyway.  All I know is there better be peas.

My goals for Thanksgiving Break are to get Mommy to let me watch Finding Nemo at least twice, play outside in the leaves and maybe, just maybe, take a ride on Daddy's choo choo. (Mom says it's the lawnmower, but whatever.)  This year, I am thankful that I have teeth to enjoy the food, for my teachers and friends at school, for seedless red grapes and for Mommy and Daddy.

Have a good Thanksgiving, peeps!  Enjoy your gobble gobble!

A perfectly ordinary day

Whassup, peeps?  Deano T. Bambino here.  It's been waaaay too long since I hijacked Mommy's blog, so I thought today would be a good day. As you may have seen on the time-stamp, it's after 10pm here.  I'm still awake because I didn't take a nap until almost 4pm today!    !       !!!!    I wanted to tell you all about the fun day I had with my Mommy.  She stays home with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I don't go to Big Boy School on those days.  I like it when she's home.  I get to eat breakfast twice and watch Sesame Street in real time.  This morning, I had a scrambled egg and some floating Cheerios (that means they're in milk!), then some of Mom's Crispix.  I also dumped her coffee mug on the floor, so she had to use that stinky carpet cleaning stuff. 

When Daddy left for work, Mommy and I got dressed, I did our hair, and we set out on an adventure.  I enjoy our adventures, especially when they involve the park or Target.  I often get a mango smoothie at Target, though Mommy says my smoothie privileges are currently revoked after I threw one at her last week in the baby clothes section.  Anyway, today we went to Staples to buy some office supplies for some big event Mom and Dad have coming up at work.  I don't know what it is...don't really care, either!  All I know is that BJ, my former manny, gets to stay with me all weekend.  That'll be fun!  At Staples, I was in charge of holding the paperclips.  I think I did a good job.  It's hard work holding paperclips, you know, so I fell asleep on the way home.  Mom thought I was going to take a long nap, but I tricked her and woke up after 20 minutes. Haha.

When I got up from my power nap, Mom said we were going to have lunch with Dad.  I voted for us to go to McDonald's and Dad agreed.  I had a Happy Meal. I ate my hamburger dipped in ketchup.  Have you HAD ketchup?  It's great!  Almost as good as mustard, which I use for dipping my fries.  When we got back home it was raining outside, so instead of heading to the park like we'd planned, Mommy said she had a surprise.  She pulled out a little pouch we picked up at the Walmart last night and before I knew it, she'd pitched a tent in our living room!  It's a real-live tent! In our living room!  For us to play in!  My little toddler heart was overjoyed.  We sat inside and played with my See-n-Say, read some books and shined the flashlight.  Mommy says when I'm bigger, Daddy and I can sleep in the tent in the yard.  She says she will be upstairs in the bed if we need her.

After a while, we needed a snack, so Mommy let me help her make oatmeal cookies!  I was in charge of beating Mommy with a whisk while she stirred the cookies.  I have to stay away from the oven because it's hot.  Mommy kept trapping me in my high chair when she'd open the oven.  The cookies were oatmeal chocolate chip. They were ok.  I had one bite with a chocolate piece in it and I spit it out.  The oatmeal part's pretty good, though I'd much prefer a vanilla wafer.

After my super nap at 4:00 (hahaha) Daddy was home and played with me while Mommy made us a pizza. (She's a baking fool today, that Mommy!)  I ate a lot of pizza and a pear, then played and played. I rode my tricycle in the family room, picked up my blocks, colored a picture of a penguin, read a book to Mommy and ran up the stairs about 40 times.  Then I took a bath and got Daddy really wet.  I like to lick the side of the tub sometimes when I'm taking my bath.  Mommy calls me "Sham-Wow!" when I do that.  She's weird.

Anywho, it was a pretty spectacular day for a baby guy.  Mommy kept kissing my head when she put me to bed and saying "We had such a perfect day!  I loved playing with you!  I love my booooooy!" I'm pretty sure she was crying because the side of my head was kinda damp.  Get a grip, Mom.  And get me a vanilla wafer while you're at it.

Normally my posts contain pictures.  The camera is broke.  BROKE, I say!  Daddy is looking at the internet trying to fix it.  I think he's muttering bad words under his breath.

Weekend Review (Toddler's Perspective)

Hey, peeps, Deano T. Bambino here.  I've decided to start using T as a middle initial, instead of saying "the." I think it looks sophisticated, don't you?  It's been a while since I've blogged.  A lot's going on.  My manny, BJ, seems to have stopped coming. Now Mommy and Daddy stay home with me all the time.  I get kind of bored with them, so I was happy that we went to visit Grammy and Papa this weekend.  They tell me we're going on vacation at the end of the month. I don't know what that is, but I get to play with Adam, G-Mama, Pop-Pop and Uncle Mike, so it should be fun.  There is also talk of seafood, and I have a cool new outfit to wear when we go out to eat.  Mommy says we'll visit the beach.  I'm going to try some sand.  It looks tasty.

Mommy is doing this Shred thing every day.  Aren't some of you doing it, too?  Do you look as funny as she does when she jumps up and down?  I laugh at her when she lets me watch.  Sometimes she tries to be sneaky and goes upstairs to do it, but I peek at her over the baby gate and laugh and laugh.  She usually mutters something about labor and baby weight at me and says I should go play with Daddy. 

I've been communing with the great outdoors a lot.  I got a water table and it's soooo much fun!

Here I am playing with it on a day when Mommy was not prepared.  Usually, I have to wear my swimsuit, sandals and a hat and get slathered with sunscreen before I get to play with my water table, but this day, I was too fast.  Mommy did manage to sneak up on me and put on my monkey hat.  It's cool, huh? (And it's reversible!  Fashion and practicality.  I like it.)

 

So, back to my visit to Grammy and Papa's.  We always have lots of fun times when we go there.

Papa is my favorite toy.  Grammy feeds me lots of yummy food and reads my books to me.

I got a haircut from their friend, Miss Diane.

 

Dude. When I'm a grown-up, I am NEVER getting haircuts! 

I do look rather smashing, though, don't I?

 

Hello, ladies!!

Papa and Grammy got me a surprise...a pool!  I swam and swam and swam.

 

 

After I was done, we drew with chalk all over the patio.  Daddy drew this picture of me:

 

I did not think it was an appropriate representation of me, so I got rid of it, so to speak.

 

It was an awesome weekend.  THIS weekend, we're going to the Black and Blueberry Festival a few towns over.  It's my culinary dream come true!

Gotta run, peeps.  There's a nectarine in the kitchen with my name on it.  Oh, if you have a minute, go over to Foodie Mama and read my mom's article about feeding toddlers on vacation.  She has lots of good tips to share.  Later!

May Day, May Day!

Heh, heh, Mommy said it's not nice of me to keep yelling that or else someone will think my plane is crashing.  Uh, I don't actually HAVE a plane...

Anyway, HEY, PEEPS!  Deano the Bambino here, back from a way-too-long blogging hiatus.  (As you can see, my vocabulary has expanded a great deal since last I wrote.)  This week has been weird.  Usually my manny BJ comes over to take care of me, but mommy said he was sick and she didn't want his germs on me, so he stayed home.  On Tuesday, instead of going to school, mommy had her class in our kitchen.  She made lots of eggs.  I guess it's a cooking class, I don't know.  Here are all her students.

 

They are a nice bunch of peeps.  Sometimes one of them will come over and keep me company while mommy and daddy go out. 

It's funny when mommy teaches.  She talks differently to them than she does to me. I tried to tell her to read them Go, Dog, Go, but she said no. :(  They are boring.  They didn't sing songs or ANYTHING. I'm starting to have doubts as to whether or not this college thing is all it's cracked up to be.  I mean, what kind of theatre majors make it all the way through an exam review without bursting into song?  Amateurs.

 

There's a picture of the breakfast casserole from last week's Comfort Food Saturday, and a quiche that mom said took 3 forevers to bake.  I sampled both and they were quite tasty.  I much prefer the quiche, as mushrooms are my favorite thing EVER right now, besides blueberries, of course.

Ok, enough of that, let's look at pictures of ME!  Did you know I'll be 16 months old on Tuesday?  It's the truth.  That's also Cinco de Mayo.  Mommy says we're going to the Mexican restaurant after she and daddy give exams and that I get to ride with BJ.  That will be fun.  I hope someone wears a sombrero.

Here's me trying to get every last drop out of my yogurt* container. (*Go-goo, in Deanspeak)

 

I have upgraded to 6 oz. containers of go-goo.  I weigh 24 pounds.  Sometimes mommy forgets that I can walk and carries me, her big purse and my diaper bag from the car to the house.  It's funny!

Ooh! Here's a good one:

That's me helping out with our garden.  One day this week, a cat pooped in our brussels sprouts and it made mommy SO mad!   She and Daddy made some kinda potion outta vinegar and baking soda and that seems to be keeping the bad kitty away.  By the way, do you like my new sandals?  They keep my toes cool and keep me from getting grocery store feet.

Here I am chillin' with my daddy.  We are pals.

Daddy had been at work all day, so I decided to make him a stinky diaper, like the  three I'd already made for mommy that day, so he would feel loved and included.

I went to work with mommy for a while yesterday.  They sure do seem to waste a lot of paper there.  I decided to start a  recycling campaign while I waited for mom to finish making copies.

 

Other than that, it's the same old stuff around these parts. You know, like wearing Stu as a hat

 

complimenting mommy's pedicure

 

riding my zebra

and finding new uses for everyday items.

  

That's what's up in my neck of the woods.  Gotta run now, mommy's trying to put my toys back in their box. And we just can't have that! 
Later, peeps!

They said it was just a trim, but I thought she might cut my head off

Hey, peeps, Dean here. Would you look at what Mommy and Daddy did to me yesterday!?!?!?!?

 

 

 

They made me get my HAIR CUT! I got excited because I thought we were going to Target. But noooo, we went into this other place where this lady I do not even KNOW put a cape on me (a cape with NO ARM HOLES!) and cut off my hair!

I wanted to slap her hand away like I do when Mom tries to blow my nose, but there were NO ARM HOLES in my cape! Daddy's cape had arm holes. NO FAIR.

Mom was no help. Instead of saving me from this stranger with scissors, she stood there collecting my hair in a zippy bag (how ghetto is THAT?) so she could keep a curl and give one to each of my grandmas. If my grandmas had BEEN there, they certainly would have saved me.

But not Mom. Nope. She just stood there with her zippy bag snapping pictures and taking video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AowwEH0n5Ns

(I'm only 1. I don't know how to embed videos. GAH.)

Anyway, it was over pretty quickly. The lady with the scissors gave me a sucker, which Mom TOOK. (She's really no fun these days, I tell ya.) I guess I do look pretty good. But I am NEVER doing that again EVER. So there.

Successful Parenting?

What up, peeps? Deano the bambino here. I'm writing this entry so you'll get the truth, the facts, the events as they happened, not my mom's fluffed up version. She and Daddy have been trying to get me to drink from a sippy cup. Sure, I'll do it, if someone holds it for me and lets me suck like a baby goat. But I got things to do, y'all! I'm way to busy to occupy both my hands with a sippy cup! I'm a multi-tasker! I need to clap or throw peas or turn the pages in my books while I drink. I cannot be bothered to stop what I'm doing just to sip milk.

Anywho, today after lunch (I had risotto and spring vegetables...my palate is quite sophisticated for someone who's this many (1) ), Mommy sat my sippy cup on my tray. I threw it on the floor 4 times. She then explained that I needed to drink my milk. I was a little parched, so I obliged. I let her put my cup in my mouth. THEN, she took both my hands and made ME hold my OWN cup while she, like, unloaded the dishwasher or something silly like that. I did it, but only because I was thirsty. Mommy, thinking she'd had a breakthrough of some sort, grabbed her cell phone (which she will NOT let me play with, by the way) and started snapping pictures to send to my daddy. But I knew what to do. I let her snap her pictures and send her message, then I threw my cup at her. And spit milk all over the place. Haha! Who's in charge? That's right. She can't even figure out how to get the picture off her phone to post and brag to you guys about it.

Nice try, Mom. Now hold my cup. I need some juice while I push this wagon across the room!