Monday, May 19, 2008

Second Time Camping

I already uploaded this to Picasa, but I am going to put some of the pictures here as well. This weekend was Gabe's second time camping. I don't know if it was all a good experience, but the photos help make positive memories. The weather was PERFECT. The worst part of the weekend was that Gabe got a couple of ticks on him. YUCK. Anyway, here are some photos. Gabe enjoyed just walking in the woods and my favorite part, other than hanging with Gabe, was throwing a ball back and forth with a friend of mine.



:)



me

This is at the visitor center at Village Creek State Park.
Here is Gabe with his friend, Zack.




Ahh, the joy of rocks------>


Can you see his smile as he pets the horses? Look at the wrinkle near his eye.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

No, Mam, I just walked into a doorknob....


Who would believe that sort of excuse? If a kid tells me that, I am suspecting abuse no matter what else s/he says. I have always felt that way. I don't know if it is something that I heard on TV or somewhere else, but I feel like that is a common excuse when people have been hit in the face. Maybe it is not that common an excuse, but I still think abuse when I hear it - and maybe even more now. You see, Gabe walked into a doorknob this morning. I don't think he even noticed that there was a door there. I was checking the weather on the computer on my bed and Gabe was sitting next to me. He slid off the bed and was walking out of the room looking at a toy in his hands and he walked straight into the doorknob. The door was open, so his aim is bad, not his judgement (he wasn't trying to walk through a closed door at least). It sounded like he hit the doorknob pretty hard and it knocked him to the floor. He cried for almost a minute while I tended to his injury, and now he seems okay. Now here is why I think that the doorknob excuse means abuse: First, Gabe is two years old and just tall enough to be surprised attacked by a doorknob. I am betting that our doorknobs were made in China, and so they may have some residual Chinese martial arts skills a la Jet Li that they used in this case to knock down an unsuspecting two year old. Older kids are much taller than Gabe, but doorknobs don't get taller; so it doesn't add up if any kid older than a two year old uses this excuse. Second, Gabe walked right into the doorknob without even slowing down a bit. It knocked him on his butt. However, he has no black eye, no bruise to show for his fight, nothing. I can only imagine this excuse being used in cases when some, or all, of those elements are present. I am guessing that Gabe's injuries are typical of those that a kid who walks into a doorknob would receive. Black eyes and bruised heads come from something more than a doorknob.

Now, you tell me, have you heard this excuse before? Wait, wait, I think that I remember where I heard this excuse. There was a woman in my church congregation who told Becky and me that that is what happened to her when we showed concern over a black eye that she had. Knowing her husband, we totally suspected abuse; and it didn't make her story more convincing when her children gave totally different accounts of what happened. One said that she tripped at night and hit a hand rail on the stairs (with her eye). I don't know for certain that she was being abused, and I am willing to be wrong about that, but we did not see her back at church for about six months after that and when we did see her again, it was only after she had divorced her husband and he had moved out. That was about three months ago, and she looks much happier - and she has lost the Hollywood drug addict sun glasses (my name for them) a la Mary-Kate Olson that she used to use to hide her black eyes.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

GI Gabe

This is a photo that I took on Becky's birthday. I bought her some chocolates that we left too low on the dresser. Gabe found them and ate all of them before we found him like this. Apparently, rubbing chocolate all over his face is what made it possible for him to be sneaky enough to carry out his mission of eating all rest of the chocolate.
But, you have to admit, he is a cutie.
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Rainy Day

Today is a very rainy day. I was expecting rain all day yesterday, but it never came. I was watching weather radar on www.weatherbug.com, and it sure looked like rain was always only twenty minutes away, but it never came. Last night I was up late, still looking at weather radar (I can do that for hours - it is as good as a lot of TV), and the rain came at 12:01 am. It is like it just waited for Wednesday to end before it started. It was still raining when I woke up. Gabe woke up and saw the rain and started singing a little song about rain. It must be wonderful to be a two year old. I really love my son. He is a very loving little guy. I am sure that it is his age or something, but I like to think that it is just him.
On days like today, it is very easy to sleep in. The rain makes the world sound like you have a pillow over your head already, so it is the natural next step to put one under your head as well, right? So that is what I did. We have a giant love sack in the front room and Gabe and I curled up on it while he watched Winnie the Pooh and I slept. I had a strange dream that I could see mice in my bedroom and I was trying to show them to Becky and suddenly Gabe (not in the dream) tickled me on my face. He is really into doing "Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle" lately. Anyway, I thought that it was the mice on my face and it really freaked me out. That woke me; it was about 10 am, and the rain had stopped. It was nice to sleep in (just don't tell Becky).

me

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Price check in lawn and garden

This morning I was cutting the grass. After watching me for a while, Gabe went inside. I thought that he just didn't want to be outside with the loud lawn mower. I was surprised when he came back outside a few minutes later dragging his toy shopping cart. He got it out to the yard and then followed me around the yard as I mowed line after line. He doesn't have a lawn mower so he used the closest thing he could find - a shopping cart.
Gotta love it,
me

Monday, May 5, 2008

Day at the Zoo

We spent the day at the Memphis Zoo on Saturday. I uploaded an new web album to Picasa (find a link to my Picasa on the right somewhere). I might write more about that later; for now, you can check out the 200+ photos of our outing by looking at the photos. I am working on getting some older stuff on the web as well, so there should be more to come soon.
me
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