Halloween Eve

The past couple weeks have included many visits by the UPS man and many visits to Marshall's -- all visits have been an attempt to get a Halloween costume for Oliver. So what has Oliver decided on - no costume. Oliver asked me to return all of the costumes and get him a new pair of shoes. I did return the costumes, but said no to the shoes. (Honestly, this kid would have more shoes than Imelda Marcos if we would let him - we can walk through the toy section of any store and leave without incident, but get him near the shoe section and we have to leave the store with him kicking and screaming with him yelling - "New shoes for Oliver!" - over and over and over again.)

So with no costume to have to prepare today we decided to play in the leaves -
And carve pumpkins.

At first Oliver was adverse to carving his pumpkin and instead opted to draw on it (and, since he was given a Sharpie, something usually off limits, he decided he would not restrict himself just to his pumpkin but would draw everywhere). But after he saw the pumpkins Davis and I created Oliver decided he would like to carve his and "make it just like mommy's."



I'm not sure how trick or treating is going to go tomorrow. Oliver will have no costume and, according to Oliver, he doesn't want people to give him candy when he holds out his pumpkin, he wants French fries.

Oh God!

As I have mentioned before, Oliver is aware of EVERYTHING that is going on. In fact, I think he is actually more aware than I am of what is going on some of the time. For example, about two months ago Oliver spotted a nail in my tire and then went with me to get to try and get the tire fixed. A couple days ago we were sitting at a stop light and he mentions the nail, the tire, having to get a new tire, and how helpful the people at State Street Mobil were. At first I was totally oblivious and confused then I looked out the window and realized we were across the street from the Mobil station. While I am both impressed and proud of Oliver's amazing memory and understanding of what is going on it can be a bit revealing at times too. The other day Oliver was going down the slide and caught his foot on the side of the slide and spun around so he flew face first off the slide. He stood up, brushed himself off and said "Oh God." Hmm. Where did he pick that up? Apparently in an effort to clean up my language I have taken up saying two things - "Oh God" and "Holy Smokes." Well, it turns out Oliver has picked these two expressions up - over the last two days I have realized these phrases are part of his regular vocabulary. Great.

In my defense, I do have these pictures to prove I do need some sort of expression to, well, express, what is happening -

Ah yes, this fleece was the only warm thing I could wrestle on him and the duck hat - the only hat he would wear. Even more ridiculous is that Oliver thinks this is a fantastic outfit, but refuses to let a Halloween costume touch his body.

Water hazard

Last Sunday we told Oliver we would take him mini golfing, but unfortunately a few of our projects took longer expected and we didn't get to go. Oliver was devastated and Davis felt horrible, so he left work early on Tuesday to take Oliver. The mini golf place was plastered with open signs, but it turns out it was closed. Again, Oliver was devastated. On Friday Davis tried again. But, despite the open signs and a recording stating the place was open - it was closed. Try explaining all this to a two year old - it was not pretty. Saturday was cold and really windy, but we managed to get a real person on the phone at the mini golf place - we weren't going to let the opportunity pass us by - we raced over and experienced one of the fastest and most humorous mini golf games ever (I had to sit down at hole 5 so as to avoid wetting my pants, I was laughing so hard).

Last time we went mini golfing Oliver thought it was fun, for a few holes, to try and hit the ball into the hole. This time, not so much. This time Oliver was all about sprinting throughout the course and, as soon as he was out of reach (for example, after climbing under and through a bush that slowed/stopped Davis and me) he would throw his ball, club, or himself into the water; it was a wet and very athletic game.
The only time Oliver stopped trying to get things into the water was when he climbed onto the crocodile to play polo.
Off the course - I had an appointment this morning with the midwife and she gave the baby the ok to come anytime. Oliver is getting increasingly excited to have the baby arrive. He keeps coming up to my belly and yelling "Out baby!" over and over again. He really wants her to come out and jump and do stummer snouts (aka somersaults) with him. I keep telling him it will be awhile before the baby can do these activities with him, but he keeps disagreeing and telling me I am either crazy or silly. I hope Oliver isn't too disappointed when we bring the baby home and she isn't doing tricks from the start.

In case you are wondering where the baby is right now, she is, as Oliver likes to say "right here" -

Pumpkins, per Oliver

Oliver seems to have an interesting relationship with pumpkins. If you recall, last year Oliver was beyond distressed by the idea of carving his pumpkin - he actually went so far as to take his pumpkin from the table, put it in the back of his dump truck and then hide it (and himself) behind our big rhododendron.

(I love this picture)

For the past several weeks Oliver has been talking non-stop about pumpkins and we kept telling him that as soon as we got home from England we'd take him to pick out a pumpkin. We spent hours talking about what type of pumpkin he wanted - big, small, big stem, little stem, light, heavy... Well, we opened the car door at the pumpkin patch and Oliver jumped out yelling "Pumpkin!" over and over. He ran super fast as he likes to say - right past the pumpkins to the playground. After about 45 minutes of watching Oliver drive trucks around the playground and climb in and out of the sand box Davis turned to me and asked - "Is this how you envisioned this going?" Ah no. We chose Russell Farms because they have lots of animals to look at, lots of pumpkins, hayrides, apple picking... I had thought we'd spend our time taking part in those activities - not so.

After some time we wrestled Oliver out of the playground to look at the pumpkins.

Not sure if this is actually how one is suppose to examine pumpkins -

And then Oliver found the one he wanted - a squash.

After finding his squash he looked up at me and asked if I would hold it. The squash was not yet fully in my hands and he was already halfway to the playground. Sneaky little bugger.

Oliver has already stated that his squash will not be carved and that mommy and daddy should consider not carving their pumpkins. We'll see.

"This"

Oliver's new response to "What are you doing?!" is: "This." That is "this" as in "check this mommy, this IS happening (believe it or not)." Although I am often not too pleased about what is actually happening I usually have to stop myself from laughing because "this" is just such an appropriate response. For example, if Oliver had climbed on to the top of his easel and was driving his excavator on the upper window sash and had responded is my "What are you doing?!" with something along the lines of "climbing" or "driving my excavator" there would be a little less humor than when he looks at me, point blank, and says "This." Ah yes, this.

Along with driving excavators in/on places I had no idea excavators could go "this" is what's been happening in the past week that we've been home.

Oliver has become very attached to his stopwatch and has been timing everything. Yesterday I was raking and heard him get up from his nap. I went inside and there he was, standing at the top of his stairs with stopwatch in hand looking down at me. He put his hand on his hip and said "six minutes mommy" and shook his head. Mind you it took me less than one minute to get from outside to the bottom of the stairs, but I definitely felt (after Oliver's scolding) that I could have been a bit quicker my the response.

He's also timed races amongst his animals -
(Bunny won this one, poor kitty is all tuckered out on the floor.)

Timed Davis building steps -

And timed putting together the stroller -

Oliver has also kept us busy with stretching -
Dancing -


And playing polo (and people were afraid Davis would be at a loss of what to do now that the big swim is over.)

Spoiled

Our last 24 hours or so in England and our flight back to the US were luxurious; to say that we were spoiled would be an understatement.

September 28th was a big day. Davis swam the English Channel, it was my birthday, Davis' company's stock jumped 7% (because of Davis?), and I suddenly became pregnant. Okay, I didn't become pregnant on the 28th, but the baby dropped/moved (or something) and I went from being able to forget I was pregnant to feeling incredibly pregnant. I think that when the little one dropped/moved she managed hit a little switch labeled "hormones." Ah yes, I went from being a lucid person to a crazy pregnant woman in about 2.5 seconds. While I have tried talking to the little one and asking if she wouldn't mind flipping the hormone switch to off, she has yet to do so.

All of that being said - we left our wonderful house in Deal on the morning of the 1st and drove to Heathrow to drop off Le Le and the rental car and then we headed into London. When we got into London it was pouring and so rather than schlep the bags, car seat, stroller, etc. we got a cab to the hotel. The traffic was horrible and so it took forever to get to the hotel. We got to the hotel and when we walked into our room I started crying. We'd gotten the room as part of a British Airways package, and I honestly have no idea if a British Airways person has seen the hotel - they really should make a visit. The room was filthy and the bed was unmade. I called the front desk and they a) couldn't understand the problem (umm, someone slept in the bed and so the sheets are dirty and the room is really gross) and b) weren't sure they would be able to get someone to come and take a look at it because the hotel was fully booked and so they were busy (right). We left our bags in the hopes that things would be better when we returned from lunch. Davis and Oliver stayed safe distance from me at lunch as I sat there, soaking wet after the couple block walk in the rain, and bawling about the hotel. Oliver kept saying "feel better" and Davis kept saying we could change hotel rooms. Finally I listened to my boys, stopped crying and went and found an Internet cafe and booked us a new room. Back to the disgusting hotel to pick up the bags, another cab ride across town (even worse traffic) and then we were in the lobby of the Park Grand Hotel. I have to admit I was a bit awestruck and embarrassed for a minute. The hotel, a swanky little boutique hotel near Hyde Park, was beyond nice. The three of us, dirty and wet, definitely stood out (I think all of our belongings that we had with us cost about as much as the handbag of the other guest in the lobby) (go Priceline!).

Up in our room Davis pulled out his self-described fancy clothes and Oliver checked out the hidden "wardrobes." And crazy mommy, although a bit embarrassed, breathed a sigh of relief because I could actually imagine touching a surface in the hotel room without contracting some sort of something we'd have to call the CDC about.

After cleaning ourselves up a bit we visited the aquarium where Oliver was very happy to see Nemo and Dory and their friends.

He was not as excited, however, about Big Ben.


The next day we visited the Natural History Museum. Oliver roared at all the dinos, and tried to give them - and other very large animals with huge teeth - high fives. Honestly, this child has no fear.
In the afternoon we headed to the airport, dreading our close to 7 hour flight. The thought of sitting in row 42, feet away from the bathroom, inches away from the seat in front of us, and hours of keeping Oliver entertained in such a small area was not super enticing. When we went to check in we got a wonderfully amazing super fantastic surprise - we'd been upgraded! Our new Club World status enabled us to partake in the joys of the Club Lounge in Heathrow. There was a kids playroom, an open bar for Davis (much needed as I was being a bit crazy), and lots of snacks and drinks for me. While the Lounge was fun, we were even more awestruck when we got on the plane. Our seats were incredible! They laid flat, we had tons of space, we had people asking what type of champagne we wanted, what vintage wine and scotch we wanted, and what type of juice box for Oliver. We also were given menus from which we chose a four course meal. Did I say the experience was incredible?

Oliver had lots of room to play and to sleep. Davis and I got to relax, watch movies... the time on the plane seemed more like minutes than hours.
(Note Oliver's prawn salad - it was the course before his fillet - (really?!))

(In case you were wondering, it is possible to eat ice cream with a back hoe.)

Between the hotel and flight we were beyond spoiled. Personally, I think it was a perfect way to cap off such an amazing accomplishment (Davis' swim across the Channel).

"Did it!"

One of Oliver's new sayings is "Did it." This usually follows him doing something like opening the backdoor to the house by himself and running outside, or unlocking my mom's iPhone and sending a text message, or scaling something he's been told is a bit too dangerous and/or high for him to climb. Davis borrowed Oliver's saying and yelled "Did it!" when his feet touched the French shoreline after his swim across the Channel, and today I am going to borrow it - "Did it!" Our little family happily managed close to two years of training for Davis' swim, Davis successfully swam across the English Channel, Oliver was a wonderful traveler to, from and during our stay in England, and #2 stayed put while we were away - things are pretty good.

The English Channel has been a huge focus for us over the past two years. Not being able to be on the boat and be a part of the swim was really really tough for me. Then came the decision of whether or not to drive to France and meet Davis and give him a big celebratory hug. After talking with Tim I decided not to make the trek. Again, I was devastated. While I still wish I had been able to either be on the boat or meet Davis in France, after talking with Davis I am glad I made the decisions I did. The boat ride was essentially 16 hours of rough seas and cold weather. Tim and Andrew were both seasick (multiple times) and the crew (of three) chain smoked the entire trip. As for meeting Davis, I learned I would have had to somehow find a random spot on the rural French coast where it looked as though Davis might land, then, last minute, I would have had to run three miles up the coast to a new spot to see him (because of a shift in the tide). Once there I would have had to take up base jumping to actually get to the beach to see Davis and then would have had to have figured out some way to scale the cliffs to get back to the car. So, although I am still disappointed I could not have been more of an active participant in the swim itself, I am glad I made the decisions I did.

Oliver is very much used to "Daddy is swimming." He'll roll over in the morning and notice Davis is no longer in bed and will ask where Daddy is. If I respond that Davis is swimming Oliver will roll back over and go to sleep. Oliver was asleep when Davis left for the swim. He rolled over in the morning and asked where Davis was, I responded that he was swimming and Oliver went back to sleep. After Oliver got up and the day went on he kept asking where Daddy was. I kept responding "Swimming." For about eight hours this was an acceptable response. At about hour eight though Oliver looked at me after I responded, yet again, with "swimming," and said "Daddy should stop." Even a two year old understands swimming for as long as Davis did is crazy.

While the focus of our trip was the swim, we did manage to do some exploring as well. We visited quite a few castles and some Roman ruins. The castles and ruins were great because they gave Oliver the opportunity to run around, splash in puddles, chase birds, and climb on lions.

(No idea why, but Oliver decided it would be best to splash in the puddles at Walmer Castle shirtless.)
I do think Oliver's favorite part of our time in and around Deal was the playground at Leed's Castle. I have to admit the playground was quite impressive.

Another favorite part of the trip - Le Le. A huge thank you to my mom for taking off work and coming to England with us. She played endlessly with Oliver, cooked, cleaned, gave Oliver baths, put up with craziness, and carried Oliver for hours on end. She was a huge help and lots of fun. Thank you!