Best Christmas Ever Cont'd

Christmas morning Bei playing with his Shake and Crash cars

Bei with Grandpa Builder Bob and Grandma Dene

Initially Bei grabbed a fistful of my hair to pull me out of the tunnel. Thanks buddy, but I'll handle it from here...just go dial 911, when mom gets stuck.


Bei opening presents from Cliff, Laura, Brian and Kyle

Bei and Aunt Julie doing dishes together




Bei and Katherine groovin to Veggie Tales





Kids playing downstairs
(Katherine, Ellie, Bei and Kyle)

The next GQ model

Bei helping mom cook Christmas Eve dinner. He ate most of the coleslaw dressing as we were making it. So the slaw might have been a little dry.



The Christmas merriment continued back in the Twin Cities. Dan's parents, sister, Julie and her kids, and some family friends, Cliff and Laura came over Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we went to Dan's sisters house for dinner. Then today we toured a historic building in St. Paul, with Dan's family. It has been a wonderful Christmas!

Bei's reaction on Christmas was pretty low key. His cousin Emma had told him on Christmas Eve to run out to the tree when he woke up because there would be lots of presents under it for him. I had done no prepping for him, and never mentioned Christmas morning to him and I still haven't even mentioned Santa to him yet. It was interesting on Christmas morning, he woke up and he kept looking out of the bedroom door and trying to see if there was anything there. He definitely remembered what Emma had told him the previous night. We went out to the tree and he was much more interested in the present that Emma had given him the night before, which is a 12 foot tunnel with added tents to it. It super long!!! We had to coax him into unwrapping his presents. One of the things that I got him was a toy that he loves to play at Huckleberry's house. It is a shake and crash race car set. That was pretty much the only thing that he was interested in and the tunnel. Two of the other toys are still in there boxes, one of them is another race set crash thing and I think I will take it up to the cabin. The other thing is a pirate ship with little characters. Hopefully on a snowy day when he is bored, I can pull it out and it will be interesting to him. I bought him some little people pull along luggage and I plan on taking that back, he didn't seem interested in it at the least.

Christmas morning felt very emotional for me. I just felt so incredibly grateful to have Bei in my life. I'm still in awe when I think about how we came together. I feel like I was "chosen" to take care of this very special and precious child. I realize what a priviledge and an honor it is to have him in my life. During the Christmas season I think of it from a higher perspective and wonder how and why God chose us? But it all seems so right, he was meant to be our child in every single way. I don't think I could love a child more than I love him. He is the most perfect kid for us. We feel very blessed and are very thankful to God!

The Best Christmas Ever!!

He also loves his Thomas the Choo Choo train set also from Grandma Sandy.

A wide awake Bei is playing with his Elefun toy. He was quite the experimenting Scientist. He loved to put different things in the elephants blower, gum wrappers, paper clips, anything he could find to see what would blow out. He really loves this toy from Grandma Sandy!

Helloooo...Dan...we are opening presents...hide and seek is over...

Aunt Nanette knew gum would be a hit with Bei...not so much with his mom...thanks Nanette!

Sleepy Bei sitting on Kell Belle's lap getting ready to open presents!

Grandma Sandy with 8 of her 9 Grandchildren

(Bei, Grandma Sandy, Kelly, Ben, Gina, Elizabeth, Taylor, Regan and Katie)

(Luke couldn't make it)

Our first Christmas together started on Thursday, December 18th when we headed down to the Chicago area to spend it with my side of the family. We stayed with my brother Nick's family and Bei LOVED the girls! Thursday night, Chicago was hit with 12 inches of snow and we tried to take Bei sliding but the snow was too deep. However, the girls would bury themselves in the snow and then jump out at Bei once he called their name. They were troopers, I definitely didn't want to do it! Toooooo Cold!

Saturday my mom took us all out to a restaurant for lunch and then we went to her house to open presents and have a late dinner. Bei fell asleep in the car on the way over and was still pretty sleepy during the present opening. The kids were great about letting Bei open their presents too. It was a great beginning of the Christmas holiday season and we loved being with everybody. We are also excited to find out that there will be another addition to our side of the family because Nick's wife, Kathy is pregnant! So Bei is going to have a little cousin closer in age! Yeah Nick and Kathy!!! We are keeping them in our prayers!

Christmas Cookies

Bei and Kathy making lunch together
Decorating cookies takes intense concentration!

On Tuesday, Bei and I went over to Dan's cousins, (who is also a very close friend of ours) house to make Christmas cookies with Kathy. He loved it! He was asleep by the time, we hit I94, making Christmas cookies is exhausting to a little man.

I want to mention that I know that Bei will never be home schooled by me. I think I'm holding the kid back. Remember how I said that he can count to 5? The other day Dan was working on a built in book case and Bei grabbed his tool box that had red electrical caps in it. He took them out and I lined them up and Bei started to count them individually. Well, he got to 5, and I expected he would stop, but then he kept going to 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10! I went to Toddler Time last thursday and came across two, two year olds that were saying all of their ABC's. Bei recognizes some letters, but is not even close to saying his ABC's. Since he has only heard English for 7 months, I figure he is still learning the language. I can tell he really wants to start talking in full sentences. On Sunday night he bumped his head and got a big goose egg. On Monday afternoon, we were in the car and he wanted to tell me the story about how it happened; "I run" "Diaper" "Kitchen" "Owie" "Ice" "I cry" "Kiss". In between these words he would "uhhh", "errr", "aggg". He knows that there is more to the sentence but doesn't know what those words are. He must have told me this story five times while we were driving. He is growing in every facet of his life, physically, mentally, emotionally and even spirtually. He can now do the sign of the cross and he definitely leads us in prayers. Even snack time is prayer worthy in Bei's book. He is such a little cutie, I just love him so much.

Nutcracker Weekend

Elizabeth and Bei were in bed at the hotel eating Funyon's. Bei thought it would be fun to throw them over Elizabeth and into the garbage can. (Thanksgiving Weekend)
The next Green Bay Packer! (Thanksgiving Weekend)

Mama's Boy
(December - Home)

This weekend Bei and I headed over to my sister, Nanette's house to watch my niece, Regan, in the Nutcracker. Not to brag...BUT my niece was absolutely stunning in the performance.
As you can see from the pictures above, they have nothing to do with this weekend. I forgot my camera at home!!! UGH! Bei sat through the entire performance and only had two shout outs. One for Clara, who lays in a bed during the first act. Bei shouted "Nigh, Night time". Then another time when Regan was on stage, he yelled "Yellow", there was a yellow costume. Right now he loves the colors, yellow and mornge, otherwise known as orange.

We went sledding for the first time. Bei absolutely loved it. At first, someone would always go with him on the sled. After a while we let him go down the hill by himself, and he would get into fits of giggles on the way down, then once he was at the bottom and he would say "I laugh", "I laugh". Believe me ,we noticed your belly laughing! He was so darn adorable, I wish I would have had it on tape.

He also was in his first snowball fight, which he thoroughly dominated his two 16 year old cousins, Ben and Luke and his 14 year old niece Elizabeth. They were such champs with him, but there were a few times, I think they were using him as a shield from each other.

And then of course, we had to teach him how to do snow angels. He loved spending time outdoors.

This was a fun weekend and one that Bei had been looking forward to for over two weeks. We had gone to Aunt Nanette's for Thanksgiving and he would say in the car "Aunt Nanette's home", yes he can say "Nanette" really well. So I finally told him "We will go to Aunt Nanette's house in two weeks". Well that was all I heard for the past two weeks. As it drew near we tried to tell him one week, but he would yell back "two weeks". Okay, chief, it is two weeks!

Visit from the cousins

Bei snuggling up to Aunt Julie after his time in the hot tub.

After dinner, the girls, Bei and I went into the hot tub. Bei loves going under the water! He closes his eyes and mouth and plugs his nose and then I dunk him!

On Saturday, Dan's sister Julie came to visit with her daughters. Bei would walk around and point to any one of the girls and say "lap" and then proceed to snuggle in to their lap. He is a charmer.

Last week we painted Christmas masks with the Huckleberry Clan.

Look who has footie pajama's? Yeah! There is hope, yet tonight Bei is sleeping in his motorcycle pants...I would like to have a burning party for those. Every day we go through the same scenario. I'm getting him ready for the day, putting on his clothes and he says "motorcycles". I say "no", and he says "motorcycles are for nigh nigh". Yep! so why are we going through this every day??? Two year olds!!!

"It is not a toy"

Elizabeth joined us at the pool. Afterwards, Bei just climbed into her lap in our hotel room. He is a cuddler!

We were demoted to the kiddie pool! It was a shorter slide ride, but we still had a great time!


We got to the top of the slide to find out that only one person can go at a time, that included a 2 year old boy. No way! Rules are made to be broken.


The oldest and youngest together from my side of the family. Taylor is 18 years old and will be attending University of Minnesota in the fall.

Bei and I headed over to my sisters in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving on Wednesday. I told my sister that I would come and help her. I think I was more of a hindrance than a help, but I'm still working on the multi-tasking mom thing. Dan came on Thanksgiving day and we stayed until Saturday. It was a really nice time.

I recently weight Bei and he is 24 lbs! Yeah! I can tell that he is putting on weight because he is getting heavier for me to carry. He recently recognized the letter "s" in words and he over emphasizes them. It is no long school butt, but school bussssch. At times he sounds like he is going to slobber on you, because there is so much slurping going on,when a word ends in S. The best way to describe it is to put the beginning of Arnold "Schw"arznager on any word that ends in s. The word "This" sounds like "Thischw".

He loves to spell his name "B E I", okay I do the actual writing, but he loves to say it over and over. This week, I'm teaching him his last name is Krueger. He hasn't learned to spell it yet, he just needs to understand it doesn't just end at B E I. Won't he be suprised when he learns his real name is Daniel. Poor kid, will be so confused!

Plus, he loves to count. Everything we do, we count count count. Walk up the steps we count, put dishes away, we count, steps to the table from the stove we count. He usually will say 1 2 4 5. He is always forgetting the 3, but I think it is pretty good that he loves to count. The other neat thing is he loves shapes, he can identify most shapes. Circles, square, triangle (you wouldn't be able to distinquish that is what he is saying, but I know Bei-ese), diamond, heart, star and he is just learning rectangle. The thing I gather about this kid is that he enjoys learning. He has the attention span to sit and focus on whatever is in front of him. And most of the times he initiates the learning. Now, I hate to write anything favorable because every time I do, it all stops. Remember, how I bragged about the 50 kisses a day? The very next day the kisses stopped and it has been pretty dry since then! Remember, when I bragged that he was sleeping through a thunderstorm that had me jumping out of my skin? He woke up right after that, not because of the storm, but because he had a fever, but it was the same outcome. We were up all night. The other night one of the parents that we traveled to China with, emailed me, and updated me on her daughter since she has been back home. One of the things that she mentioned was that her daughters night terrors were becoming less frequent as time went on. I wrote back and said Bei had never experienced night terrors. Yes, you guessed it, I heard it start lightly in his sleep and then it just continued to get worse until he was into a full cry and sobbing mode.

One last story, over Thanksgiving, one of the statements that I commonly use in our home came back to haunt me. "It is not a toy" is one of my favorite sayings. I use it when Bei wants to play on the computer and the camera or do something dangerous like use adult scissors.

Saturday morning, Bei wanted to walk on my sisters treadmill. We had done it the night before, we would walk on the treadmill, stop and then let the belt carry us off to the floor. What could go wrong? It is similar to a toy... Anyway, I put Bei in the middle and then I stood with my feet on the outer edge of the treadmill belt. I held his arms, so that he wouldn't fall and thought I had everything under control. So walk up the treadmill we would go and then ride it til it brought us back to the floor. We were doing this for about 5 minutes when all of a sudden "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" My foot that only had a sock on it, had gone between the belt and this plastic thing that held the belt on . It hurt!!!! Man...I wanted to swear and cry! But I restrained myself on both accounts due to my little guys presences. I was really worried that it had severed my pinky toe or it was just hanging by a little bit of skin. I finally gained enough courage to take off my sock and my toe was still attached, but it was a dark purple and bleeding in multiple places. I thought I would show my bewildered son why I was hopping around and yelling owie, so I stuck out my foot for him to see mommie's owwie. And I guess Bei did what any normal 2 year old would do, and he grabbed my bloody moosh mash toe, and yanked it back and forth!!!! Okay, son...no medical school for you, your bedside manner is just too barbaric...back to engineering school for you. Dan went upstairs with Bei in his arms and my mom asked why Bei was crying? Dan calmly said because Liz is crying...okay the grabbing of the toe, put me over the edge and I cried. Now that my toe is cleaned up, I realize that my toe was never close to be severed and it is somewhat of a superficial cut and is healing quickly. Oh yeah...I almost forgot to mention, someone in my family (I married him) kept mentioning after the incident "you know Liz, treadmills are not toys." Ahh...thanks Dan, I usually tell Bei that before he gets hurt...

Christmas has arrived!

This is one of many of the pictures that didn't pass the muster for the "Christmas picture" ( If you double click and enlarge, you will see the bouillon cube that he was sneaking into the picture.)

Bei hanging up the ornaments...his favorite is this Choo Choo

Bei loved playing with our friends "Owl". For some reason, he thinks cat's are owls. He has me seeing the connection, a cats face and head kind of looks like owls.

We put up our tree this week, and what a much more fun activity to do with a child, than by ourselves. It was fun to watch Bei open all the ornaments and place them on the tree or I would say the lowest branches. He would put four ornaments on the same branch. I let him and then when he went to bed, I finished the rest of the tree. He was definitely attracted to anything that even remotely resembled a choo choo. Our tree is decorated with ornaments from all the places that we have traveled in the past 20 years, and it was fun to add our China ornament to it. It is front and center...right where the Green Bay Packer ornament was until I dropped another ornament on it and it broke...poor Dan...the Packer's have been rough on him...first Farve and now the Packer Ornament.

This morning I decided to put Bei into his Christmas outfit and try taking a Christmas photo in front of the tree...oh my gosh...I have a knew found respect for photographers. Who would think it would be such a challenging job. "Okay kid, go stand in front of the tree and say cheese." Simple...right? First of all, I didn't realize that Bei had something in his hand and kept putting it up to his mouth when I was ready to snap a picture. It was a chicken bouillion cube! I have to keep those under lock and key because he loves licking them. He reminds me of the cows on our farm that licked the salt block. Yuck! I finally wrangled the salt block out of his hand, but by this time he was bored and wanted to go play. So I promised him something that he has only had once before...gum. Okay, that did the trick. He stood as well as a two year old boy can stand and I'm not a professional, but I got a picture and it is good enough. I went to get the gum that I had seen on top of the refridgerator. Uh oh, there was a packet of gum, but it was empty. Ugh...here is the cool thing, I was expecting Bei to breakdown when I told him no gum, but he is really easy going, but smart..."store" he said. Yep, you are right kiddo, now we have to go to the store to buy you some gum. We ran over to SA and he picked out the gum that he has only had once before which is the gum his dad chews which is Eclipse. I feel really good about Bei's decision to choose the Eclipse gum, because if any of you have ever had it you know it is like biting into a tube of toothpaste. Bei takes a bite of the first one and says "yucky", gives it to me, takes a bite of the second, says, "yucky", gives it to me, takes a bite of the third...yucky...gives it to me...you get the picture. Mom got what she wanted and Bei got to have his gum, everybody is happy. Who said I would never use my psychology degree?

Timeouts and Chores

Bei's chore is to re-load the toilet paper container and put the plastic bags into the garbage containers. Honestly, we aren't breaking any child labor laws. He likes to help us do stuff, so we call those "Bei's chores". Curly locks came over this morning while Bei was doing his chores and they played tug a war for a while about who was going to do it. Now we all know by the time these two are even pre-teen's any type of help in the house is going to be foreign concept to them. "What help? Aren't I entitled?"

Bei met a new friend this weekend, named Ellie. He loved the attention she gave him!

Guess who came over wearing this get-up? Yep, you got it, it could only be Huckleberry!

Let me explain the above picture of Bei and I together. He had gotten a hold of my camera and was taking pictures around the house...which consist of at least some portion of his fingers which are covering the lens...ugh! So instead of ripping the camera out of his hands, I suggested to him that I take a picture of Bei and mom together. He was all up for the idea. And I got control of the camera again with no meltdown and put it away. He is getting the message with the camera and the computer, I say "it is not a toy". He touches both and say "toy". I think he wants to say it isn't a toy, but can't get it all in one sentence.

Bei was given a Curious George stuffed animal by our friends John and Leslie. And as most of you know George is a naughty little monkey. So when we first got him, I would toss George up in the air and say "George, settle down (toss again) come on George, George, George, you need to settle down or you are going to get a time out". Well, Bei latched right onto that and George gets about 100 time outs a day from Bei. Poor George! Bei will say "George (emphasis on the "r" in George to make it sound very british), come on...time out". Then he will say, "George crying" and go give him a hug and kiss after his time out." Today, I gave Bei a real time out. He threw his cup of gold fish, so I told him to go pick it up, that we don't throw food around. He was very tired this morning and he wasn't willing to pick up the food. So I said you need to have a time out. Crumble to the ground, crying hysterically...hey, aren't I suppose to put you somewhere in time out?...this is great if all I have to say is "time out" and you're down for the count...this is easy! Honestly, his time outs last less than a minute because he just meltsdowns and I feel that he gets it...for now.

Overall he is such a happy and joyful child, we are just crazy about him. He and I have a rhythm during the day that I would say is overall pretty quiet. So it is so funny to see Bei when Dan comes home. He cranks it up about 20 notches! He calls Dan, "Dadya". And it just starts the minute he walks in the door "Dadya, Dadya Watch! Watch!" The volume in the house just goes up along with the action! Dan is so exhausted many days after work, but you see this energy just come alive in him with this little boy jumping around demanding his attention. It is so sweet, I just love my boys!

Reality Check

On Thursday, I took Bei to Toddler-Time at the Community Center. Toddler-Time is an hour and half of play time for infants to 5 year olds. The Community Center supplies all the toys and activities, but it is free time for you and your toddler to spend however you want. Now that Bei is all fixed up, I thought it was time that we finally got involved in some of the activities that the community has to offer. What an eye-opener it was for me. Let me share our experience...

Bei loved this tent in the form of a bus. He could walk around in it and carry it and be the bus driver. He loved it! There were a ton of balls, he loves to throw balls! They had one of those full size blow up jump in things, he thought it was fun, but didn't want to do it for very long. Anyway, we were playing for about a half an hour when Bei spied this area that you climbed into and had a bunch of balls that you can throw. Let me preface this with the fact that another little boy or as I refer to him as Bully #1 had spent most of his time in that area, but had recently left. In climbs Bei and he starts picking up balls to throw when Bully #1 comes charging over the wall with his hand up like he is going to hit Bei...yikes!!!! I could see the Headline News..."Crazed mom drop kicks Bully #1 out of Community Center Gym". Luckily his mom stepped in and spoke to him and Bei and Bully #1 played nicely together. Thank you other mom! Next thing Bei wanted to play with was a T-Ball Set that you hit the ball off of. He had hit the ball maybe 5 times, when this little wisp of a demon, with the most angelic face, came over took the ball off the T and ran away with it. Okay, she gets a pass, first of all, she was so darn cute and secondly, the ball was pink, we needed to find a more manly ball anyway. The other thing that Bei played a long time with was one of those tube tent things that you crawl through. I would lay at the other end and cheer him on. Bei had just gotten into the tent when Bully #3 came running over, he was one of those kids, that I could tell is going to spend the his life like a bull in china shop. I knew that he would not wait for Bei to get through tent or wait behind him. Sure enough, before I know it he is trying to pass Bei in this little tube, however, Bei just sped up and wouldn't let him pass. Good to know that this little guy can hold his own when needed. Our last Bully experience was at the Kitchen Set, a little boy was playing with all the plastic foods, can goods and other items, when Bei ran up and snatched a pot from the little boy's hand and tried to push his way up to the stove...oops...I guess my kid is the bully now!! My realization is that this was all very normal behavior on all the children's part, and the bubble that Bei has been living in, which mind you is a wonderful bubble, needs to be burst or at least I need to let a little normal air in it. It has been a wonderful 6 months with our guy!!!

Therapy...perhaps???

Bei gets up in the morning and looks over to where Dan had been sleeping and he always says "Daddy Work". He understands Dan well! Bei loves his daddy time at night!

Every night when I get Bei ready for bed I think to myself, if this kid ever realizes what we put on him for sleeping, he is going to be in need of some good therapy in the future. Bei is obsessed with these motorcycle pants that are faded and too short already. Anybody who has had the pleasure of talking to him on the phone knows how much he loves his motorcycles pants, because it usually, is the second thing he shouts into the phone "mototycles", right after he shouts "I Bei". But then we put him in this oversized striped shirt and snap it around his pants. I must add here that neither Dan nor I are sadist, we love this little guy, but we have a kid on our hands that refuses to have any blankets on him. None! Unfortunately, Bei was adopted by two people who like to live like Eskimo's. I LOVE my house cold in both the winter and summer. Just ask my nieces who when they come to visit walk in the door and say "Aunt Liz, where are the blankets?" Rest-assured we have adjusted our thermostat to be more comfortable for Bei. And we have created this little get-up to keep him warm at night. It is long sleeved and we have a t-shirt under the beautiful red shirt. Now, most people would say why don't you just put him in one of those one-piece pajama's with the footies. Remember, his obsession with the mototycles pants? We haven't found a pair that he likes yet!

Bei Update

We bought this little drum in China and you roll it between your fingers to play, which Bei now has figured out how to play.

Helping mom rake the leaves!

Cutie Face!

Yesterday was Bei second post-operation appointment. The doctor said he looks great, his x-ray was perfect and they took him off of the diruretic. Every morning he would say "Medicine"...oh yeah, thanks for the reminder little guy. This past week, he would still remind me, but no longer wanted to administer it himself. Unfortunately, I had to strong arm him to get it down the ole gullet. So, for that reason alone, I'm personally glad that there is no more medicine.

He is such a silly kid in alot of ways, he now calls me mom mom and every now and then he'll call me mommy. He refers to himself in the third person, so he'll say things like "Bei do it", "Bei Bei's turn". He is really in to taking turns. I'll be on the phone or what he calls the Doe Doe and after about 5 minutes, he'll say "Bei Bei's turn"...no, Bei I don't really think the cable guy wants to talk to you. Another fun thing is that Aunt Jeannine's stay with him obviously has captured his heart. He refers to the bed that she slept in, which is suppose to be Bei's bed, as Aunt Jeannine's bed. Every morning we make our bed (Dan's, Liz's and Bei's) and Bei always says "Aunt Jeannine's bed, so we go and pretend to make the bed again, even though it is still made from when she left. From day one, I would say to him that he is "Mama's Bei Bei". I thought it would be a way to bond and that he would understand that we are connected forever. So now when I say it, he corrects me and tells me he is "Aunt Jeannine's Bei Bei"...little rascal! Lastly, the big kicker for me is that when I kiss him he would wipe his mouth and say "yucky"...thanks alot kid! So I told him he should say "yummy" when I kiss him. This morning, I went to kiss him and up came his hand over his mouth, so I kissed it and he said "yummy". Don't worry, through out the day I bribe him to kiss me...I know the things that he really wants and sometimes he has to give his mom a kiss to get them and not one of those fake-0 hand ones either!

Money Saving Mama!

Meet Bei's cousin Morgan
"Bei, give me that camera"

Bei mini golfing this summer!

The pictures above are from Bei's perspective, he has enjoyed taking pictures in the past.

Now that I'm a stay at home mom, I'm really trying to cut corners financially in every possible way. I had my latest revelation for saving money while grocery shopping! Bei has been a tentative shopper, he usually will sit in the cart through the produce section, but by the time I get to the first can good aisle he wants me to carry him...ugh...so I prop his non-existent butt (I call him "Bei Bei no butts"...the kid has absolutely no butt!) on the handle bars of the cart, he wraps his arms around me and I wrap my arms around him and try to push the cart. Then of course when I reach for the food, he is in my arms and it is a juggling act. I finally gave in the othe day and put him in one of the fun little cars that is attached in front of the cart, (not good for someone like me with depth perception issues...oops sorry sir, was that your ankle? Oops, sorry ma'am did I run over your first born?) Anyway, my hesitation of doing that was that I was worried that he would want to get in and out and would be able to run around. Let me tell you, I'm very perceptive because that is exactly what happened. However, there was hardly anybody at the store, so he would get out and he would say "I run!" and down the aisle he would go, giggling and laughing. He would stop at the end of the aisle and I would throw open my arms and he would run back into my arms and I would squeeze him and hug him. Sounds like fun? Well it was! So my thought was "who needs to pay for tumbling classes and gymboree,? We'll just come to the grocery store and he can run and play and I will save $30 to $60! Great plan! Fast forward to the next time that we go to the grocery store, it was busy, they had lots of paying customers, but guess who didn't want to sit in the cart or the car? Guess who said "I run, I run!"? I let him out of the car of the cart for a little while and let him "run" and it was pretty clear that other mom's who children were sitting perfectly either in the cart or little car, had no time for it, but thank goodness for the the old people, they thought he was darling! My mind keeps going back to the book that I read called "Toddlerwise". It said something about being very careful about that first time you say "yes" to something your toddler wants, because they are going to expect it all the time and undoing something is alot harder than saying no upfront. Maybe they should of used some examples...

Treat More!

Mommy and Bei trick or treating. At first, he kept saying "hooome" and after about two houses, he caught on real quick and kept saying "Treat More"!

Bei is excited to visit his daddy at work.

Bei loved his Larry the Cucumber costume. What Cucumbers don't have legs or antenna?

Carving Pumpkins

It was a beautiful sunny day, but "warm" is not a word that you use to describe the weather today. He refuses to wear a stocking hat, hence I need to bundle him in a blanket to keep his little head warm.

Bei "helping me" out by putting all the inards back into the pumpkin

Bei surprised at all the fun stuff in the pumpkin!

Bei is recovering really well! Last night he had his first bath in two weeks! He was so exhausted tired that he didn't even mind that the water wasn't up to his neck, like he usually likes it. What was so cute about giving him a bath was that I noticed that he is getting a Buddha belly. The heart surgery is working its magic on him. I thought that his eating habits might change once his heart was fixed, because he wouldn't need all the calories, but he is still an eating machine. I am amazed at how much he eats. Yesterday, I had to cut him off because he wanted to eat three Honey Crisp apples! They are absolutely delicious, but I was worried that number three would put him over the edge and give him a tummy ache or worse (I won't spell it out for you).

Today, Bei and I spent the morning carving pumpkins. It was really fun. Being the Felix Unger that he is, he didn't want to touch anything inside of the pumpkin. He took the pumpkin inards and seeds, separated them into a zillion different tupperward containers and then would dump each one back into the pumpkin. He thought it was quite fun, I on the other hand, thought it was quite messy.
This afternoon we went to the library and I let Bei play over in the toddler area. There were several other mom's there with their kids and their kids names were Hensley, Huxely and Bruno (serious!). And I was inwardly rolling my eyes and thinking to myself, "doesn't anybody name their kid a normal name any more? Like...B...oops...I guess as a mother of a child named Bei, I need to keep my mind open and trap shut!