Hold onto your hats!

I've uploaded 91 pictures from our first 24 hours here ;)

I'm going to do the next batch of 100 or so tomorrow as I am not so good at the laptop mouse (nearly typed moose and thought that sounded right...think I need to go to bed!) & I've made several mis-clicks which have caused some very bad words. Thankfully, Matias is the only other person in the room who speaks English.

Here's another quick update from the past couple days or whatever we are at ;)

Today we:

• went shopping in Martinez & bought Liam a belt (!), a play coffee/tea set to play with here (the toys, they are lacking) & a birthday present for Pillar.
• went to CASI Rugby Club to have lunch with Txixi y Toto & run around the rugby field
• went to Tio Negro's house & had a driving tour of Tigre - an awesome part of town that I had no idea existed - river front properties & markets along the banks
• went to Txixi y Toto's house to watch the Boca vs. Tigre soccer game which determined the numero 1 & numero 2 (see how my spanish is just expanding daily??) spot in the club soccer leagues
• came home to Pepe y Lusitia's where two Great Aunts were visiting - one works at a vet & brought 3 kittens over. Liam lost his mind. He very much so misses his kitties & he misses seeing cats everyday, I think.
• had dinner, had a sink bath & went to bed!

Yesterday we:

• went to Palermo (closest barrio to El Centro) & drove around a huge park while Liam napped
• had lunch in the park after Liam woke up
• walked through the rose garden & fed a duck all by ourselves (and by "ourselves" I mean Liam threw a graham cracker all by himself!)
• discovered fountains & Liam's undying love for them
• walked about 3-4 miles (not even kidding) into Buenos Aires
• had delicious lunch (Parillo = grill) & after asking for a GLASS of wine, I got the whole bottle & you know there's no such thing as left over wine
• walked about 2 more miles into El Centro & did some window shopping
• had coffee at my favorite place in El Centro
• walked about 2 more miles in the direction we had just come to catch the train home
• paid .30 for an hour train/metro ride
• had dinner, had a sink bath & went to bed!

As you can see, we have been REALLY busy! Liam has taken to napping in his stroller all the time & also in the car. He took his first nap before 11am this morning & then again in the afternoon while in the car touring around Tigre. I could not be prouder of him & how big of a trooper he has been through all the changes, excitement & traveling around he's been doing.

It sounds like he is starting to say "chau" & knows who his Great Grandparents are when you ask him. He has always given you his cheek to kiss when you ask him for a "beso" & it's really cute to watch him offer his cheek up when all his relatives ask for a beso!

Everyone has fallen in love with him & cannot get over how smart he is (their words, not mine!) & it's fun to watch him get fussed over in a different language ;) Also, I cannot count how many times I've been told "he never stops, he's always going, always touching & exploring" to which I simply nod my head & say "si".

I'll upload more tomorrow & update more as my thoughts come back to me! If you think it's tiring touring around like this on full steam by yourself, just wait until you do it with a toddler who doesn't like to sit still or stay in his stroller. Exhausted doesn't begin to cover it! But there's something about wine with dinner after the Fellow has gone to bed that helps get at least a 1/2 wind back under my belt!

I also never thought I would be scouting out good playgrounds or parks or places to let my child run around for a while & be free from their stroller. But, it's fantastic & I'm so glad we are able to do this, as stress free as it has been (knock on wood, bite your tongue, throw some salt...) up until now!

P.S. Matias' nose is peeling & I'm getting my hair cut on Friday!

Greetings from Buenos Aires!

We are here, safe & [mostly] sound!

Lots to talk about of course, but very little time - very busy making the rounds of visiting family & sight-seeing.

Quickly though - the flight was, I dare say, near perfect! Liam Fellow slept like a champ & he ended up with his own seat since we played a little game I call "buy the outside seats in a three seat row & pray no one buys the middle seat & give it to your child at no cost to you". We got many a compliment from other parents about how well behaved he was & I couldn't agree more!

His schedule is out the window though - which is somewhat to be expected during travels, time changes & new houses to sleep in. Or in our case, sometimes more than one house a day to make your bed, if you so chose. He napped for about an hour in his pack and play (loaned to us by a cousin - one of 25 or so) but then every single time we get in the car (which has been about 3 times a day) he sleeps the entire time. He normally doesn't sleep in the car at all at home so this is unusual for him - so we are not getting our nice 3 hour naps in but he's been really good about it all so I'm not too "upset" about it. Speaking of sleeping places he normally doesn't - he slept in his stroller today! He has NEVER done that!

There is NO jarred food here for toddlers - most babies go from nursing & cereal to table foods with nothing in between so his diet has had some holes in it but he has been eating some mac & cheese and I also got him some chicken tenders. Yogurt is plentiful here for bebes but I am a little worried that he's not getting a well-rounded diet, you know? And for some reason, he's given up bananas. And it's not because they are local either cause I brought one from CT & he wouldn't eat that either!

Liam's been spending a lot of time outside in his Great Grandparent's (Pepe y Lusitia) backyard & finding lots of "trouble" to get into, of course! Matias' new nickname for him is Rascal ;)

So far he's met all four of his Argentine Great Grandparents, 3 Great Tios & 1 Great Tia, 5 second cousins & 2 3rd cousins! He is taller than every single two year old we have met & Matias is "sick of hearing" how big he is from everyone ;)

He has already been to an Equestrian Event - the Military National Competition where his Great Uncle won the entire competition! He's going to an Asado on Thursday where Dada is in "charge" of making all the meat for everyone! He's going to CASI Rugby Club on Wednesday with his Great Grandpa & Grandma (Txixi y Toto)! He's going to his second cousin's (Pillar) 3rd birthday party on Wednesday! And on Saturday we are going to the Polo Competition with a General & a Colonel (Pepe)!

In between all of these exciting events, we are touring around town & eating delicious foods & drinking delicious wines :) Also, Liam got his first scraped knee (we took pictures of course & everyone laughed at us!) at the Military Club the other day - fell on the drive chasing after a polo ball that he and a little two year old girl, Valentina were playing with.

And oh yeah, I'm already sunburned!

When Matias empties the memory card I will upload some pictures here & on dropshots, I promise!

And Nana! He's still asking for you.

Hugs & kisses to all my Northern Hemisphere bound people :)

And then I took a nap

Liam spent most of yesterday playing with his cousin Luccia & boy, is she one bossy little girl! It's quite comical though but I'm not really a fan of someone YELLING for another person to come and do something for them, or stop doing something they are doing or just for a little smack down. They played really well together & even did a little bit of "time" sharing - one would be in the Flintstone car while the other helped me push them from behind & then we would switch! That worked out quite well until they both wanted the car & couldn't fit in at the same time & that was about 30 minutes into playtime so, really? It's not too bad :)

P.S. I haven't had coffee yet - it's sitting next to me piping hot just waiting for me to consume it. But it's quiet & everyone is at church (who know Thanksgiving was a Catholic holiday?) so I'm taking some me time.

Speaking of me time - Matias took Liam to Circuit City yesterday & I took a nap! While watching L&O on TBS! On cable! YIPPEEE!!

Liam & Mystic

I'm surprised at what good buddies they are these days - these mobile days. It makes me quite proud of both of them. Mystic has been coming around more these days during the "waking hours" than Monkey has & I'm not really sure why that is...

But Liam is really good with her - petting her very gently, not pulling anything, no more screaming in her face but he does that still with Monkey (which might answer my question...) & helping me out with her.

He will unlock the sliding glass door for her to go out back & "do her business", he was playing in the pantry yesterday and actually took down some cat bowls & put a can of wet food in it and stirred it with his spoon he had been carrying around! When she comes in from outside he goes over to the gate going upstairs and helps me open it cause she always goes upstairs to eat something when she comes in!

She will sit around in the family room & let him pet her - which, honestly isn't something she lets just anyone do. It's not like they are BFF or anything cause she will still high-tail it out of here if he gets too worked up around her but the amount of time that she spends in his presence is amazing to me. And that he helps her out & knows her routine shows me that he pays attention to her & knows what she wants before she even wants it.

I just hope that their relationship continues to grow & that he can continue to help me out with her through the years.

Progress on the Self-Feeding Front

Liam has been doing really well feeding himself but of course it's still a work in progress but we are making some more progress with using his spork & Big Boy Cups lately.

He's been able to stab at his pancakes successfully enough that he can actually get some food in his mouth with his spork! I let him eat each meal with a utensil in his hand but he's best at using it during breakfast. The hardest part for him at the moment is getting the food on the spork but he has pretty good success getting to his mouth - he was using a short cut & just taking it off the spork with his hand and then shoving it in his mouth but now he's doing quite well at putting it in his mouth off the spork!

He is constantly asking for water/drinks lately & he's increasingly asking for drinks in regular (kiddie) cups with no sippy lids. He's very good at drinking, with some assistance, but lately he's been not wanting the assistance and he's been pushing our hands away. You can imagine the outlook of these attempts but he is quite adept at it since I don't give him much to sip on at a time. He's no where near drinking from a cup for his Milk Cups but water is working out well, if not a bit messy for him.

He's down to drinking only, on average, two of his Milk Cups from bottles daily. I start his day off with a bottle but he usually gets 2-3 sippy cups throughout the day depending on his schedule! I also tend to give him his big 7 oz. bottle of milk in a bottle (not sippy) cause that's an awful lot to "handle" in a bottle as opposed to a sippy.

It's a slow process, of course, but we are getting there! I'm not pushing him towards total independence here as he still is my Little Big Boy but I do want him to learn his new skills & practice at being self-reliant in some areas.

Now if only he would change his own mid-morning poopy diapers - that's a new skill set I could get behind.

Body parts

Liam is quite good at pointing to his body parts but it seems like this is something he likes to do in private and not for an audience!

I've been practicing this with him so we could "show off" for Nana! & Grandpa but he won't budge ;)

He can point to his eyes, nose, mouth & belly - and he also points to MY eyes, nose, mouth & belly (that's the fun one!) but has not done it with anyone else in the room - not even Dada!

I just have to get him to be a little more gentle when it comes to pointing these things out on my face - I have come away with bleeding scratches before!

We are off to CT tomorrow night for Thanksgiving then to Argentina on Friday, like I mentioned earlier, I'm going to try and post every day while gone but, of course, we will have to see how that goes.

Squirrel Boy.

I mentioned in the sidebar that I had lost possession of ALL four of Liam's chupies - I have never misplaced those chupies before & I sure felt a sense of defeat in losing them.

Today while showing my mom our portable car seat for Argentina, I noticed that Liam had put a soda (seltzer water) bottle screw top into this hole in the box. It's a hole about the size of a birdhouse opening & I think simply allows the consumer to touch the fabric or see the pattern - totally useless in other words.

Upon further inspection, I discovered TWO of the chupies squirreled away in the box via the viewing of the fabric hole. At first, I just glimpsed one & then after I dug it out, I realized that a second one was hiding behind!

When he did this, I have no idea - let alone the fact that he did it twice. Especially after I would repeatedly ask him where his chupies where & he would actually walk around looking for them. He did not hide them at the same time either because we do not allow him to bring his chupies outside of his room but I folded a little tiny bit (to which he took full advantage of) and allowed him a chupie downstairs when he was under the weather. So he knew where his chupies where because he hid them there, not once, but twice and I am totally not buying this innocent act he's going to try & pull on me.

This kid cracks me up though - and I'm just thinking now I should probably look there for the missing puzzle piece that he just received this evening so it's not like it's been missing for days!

Little squirrel boy, for sure.

Water, Water Everywhere!

Two new tricks courtesy of the Liam Fellow!

1. He now attempts to drink from the cat water bowls. While meowing.
2. Last night in the tub, he leaned over and dunked his face AND BLEW BUBBLES! We have NOT taught him this & he did it more than once with no care in the world!

I'm getting ready to go pick Nana! up from the train station in Quantico & I've been telling Liam all day that Nana! is coming on the train (woo!woo!) so I'm really curious to see his reaction when he finally sees his beloved Nana!

Everyone have a great Friday & a fantastic weekend :)

A little Mush for the moment

Yesterday was rough again as Liam had his first fever & slept for a total of 30 minutes during the day. He just wasn't himself & it broke my little heart to see how badly he felt. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and my patience was tried. So instead of dwelling on the bad day and sickness, I'm going to get a little mushy here for a minute.

The other night, I believe it was Tuesday night, when he was just getting sick he wanted me to put him down to sleep at night. And lately when I've been putting him down he has been giving me his chupie (I put it in backwards) & then pointing out all my facial features. But there was something different about that night, something tender & deep about his touching.

He was looking me right in the eye and I could just feel the deep, primal love coming from him. I had my hair down & it was actually done that day and Liam absolutely loves playing with my hair when it's down & straight and that night he was pushing my hair back from my face & smiling and then letting it fall on his face and he would close his eyes and hug my face to his and smile. And I could feel this overwhelming emotion coming from him & then he would look into my eyes & I just got this click into place feeling that he loves me. Not a love born out of necessity - like a feeling towards a Provider - but a love that has emerged from deep in his heart & soul and it was like he was seeing me through new eyes. It's so hard to explain, this connection - it's not unlike when a mother falls in love with their child and you do see & feel that in return but it's different now. And although he's only (nearly) 16 months, it's a more mature love I feel from him, like not only do I Provide but also that he likes me and he wants to be close to me because of who I am not what I can do for him.

Even the look in his eyes, that had spread across his whole face, was different than his "normal" expressions of joy & happiness; there was a sense of incredible Peace, of Knowing You are Home, of Knowing You LOVE & are loved. Maybe it was the lighting in the room, dark with a hint of night-light, lullabies playing in the background and a tough day of Not Feeling So Well, I don't know but it was a magical combination that night.

And this moment has stayed with me & I almost search it out now when I put him down but I try not to be greedy with it knowing that it's just as undying as the love I feel for him.

And all I could think of at the moment was song lyrics. And I know now that I will probably well up every time I happen to hear this song.

Look into my eyes & you will see what you mean to me. Search you heart, search your soul and when you find me there you'll search no more. Don't tell me it's not worth fighting for, don't tell me there's nothing I want more..."

Back to our regular scheduled programming

Sorry for the lack of substance the past couple days but I have good excuses!

Sunday was Matias' birthday & we enjoyed ourselves a little too much that night with some (ok ALL the wine in the house & then some vodka) wine & some Dave and Tim Radio City DVD action until 3am. To say we were under the weather Monday would be an understatement & it reminded me why we normally do not do this unless we have Fellow Sitters here to help us out the next day! Tuesday was the day of the 40 minute nap followed by the fabulous Snot Hose Nose - Liam's got another cold & blowing streams of snot out of nose every chance he gets. The Little Fellow is quicker than me now & reaches the Snot Stream way quicker than I can get our Snot Rag (a lovely burp rag) to his face, hands & clothes. Today seems to be a little better or maybe that's just because Matias has him in his Office up in the bathroom with him while he showers...then it's noni time & he better sleep for longer. And also throw into this mix the fact that he has not slept through the night for the past two nights.

So without further ado...here's our Dining Out story!

I think Matias has a little fear of dining out with Liam, which is understandable when you come from a family of 11 children, with you being the oldest - the days of eating out are over in that situation. Amazingly, Matias & I have not eaten dinner out with Liam EVER (not counting the rest of my family being present). So Sunday night we ran through our Kid Friendly Options & decided on Caraba's - somewhere we had gone with my family before. The restaurant is loud to begin with so any toddler noise would be dinned by the rest of the noise already present & he really only squealed twice but even those didn't turn any heads. I would say what turned the most heads was his NEED to drink out of Dada's beer mug - forcing Matias to drain his beer (which if y'all know him in person, you know he can chug a beer in about 4 seconds flat), I think also leading to quite a nice buzz by the time we left the place.

Liam had his first meal off the Kids' Menu! Sadly, Mama forgot to order it for him so I had to grab the waitress on the way by. I suppose I'm not used to ordering for my child. sigh He had ravioli - and ate two full huge ones! Along with some bread. He totally turned his nose up though to mussels, but you cannot blame him on that one...I love them but I'm not so sure a 15 1/2 month old would :)

He sat in his highchair with no fuss - something that has been a struggle when I've been out with him with my family sans Matias. We had him situated between us with his back to a family there with two older girls but hopefully, we prayed, they still remembered the stage we were in & wouldn't give us many dirty looks. I brought his little lunch pail with some of those awesome plastic animals that he loves & he played away with them when all the food was gone, beer was drained & bread basket was empty.

We left right at his bedtime, which I was hoping to get home before it so we didn't feel rushed getting him all ready for nightnight but he managed it well & thankfully didn't fall asleep in the car on the way home - which would have been dreadful! Next time, we'll go right around 6 so if there is any wait or a long dinner service, we will still make it home before any meltdowns have time to occur.

All in all, it went really well. It helped that both of us where there to handle anything & everything that he might have thrown our way - also allowing us to both actually enjoy our dinners!

I'm sure we'll be eating out (at least some lunches) in Argentina so this was a good practice run to see how he handles such things :)

Firsts!

Here's a little grocery list of Firsts Liam has had this past weekend:

• First french fries! Five Guys, of course
• First dinner out with Mama & Dada!
  
• First dinner off the Kids' Menu! Ravioli & some bread
• First time he has shown us his belly AND poked at OUR bellies!
• First time he has pointed to his nose, eyes & mouth when asked where they are! He also points (or grabs fiercely) to my nose, eyes & mouth!

I've definitely got more to say about all these things but I wanted to get this out there before I run out of time today AND this way I also have something to work off of to elaborate on everything he has been doing lately!

Meow!

Liam has been meowing for a couple of days now, and of course I think it's just the cutest thing in the entire world.

He usually only does it when he is going upstairs, past Monkey's bowls with the cat paws on them. He will point at the paws & meow :) Still hisses at Mystic though, although I'm working on getting him to meow at them also.

Happy Birthday Dada!

Thank you for teaching me so many things but I really like it when we play outside & we get to play soccer!
You're the bestest Dada EVER!
I love you, Dada.
Besos, Liam Robert

Sink Baths

Liam will take sink baths if I'm not home or busy, like last night setting up for a crop for which no one showed up, since it's easier for one person to handle him in the sink rather than the tub.

Matias called me upstairs & told me to bring the camera - I had heard them giggling & such over the monitor but wasn't sure exactly what was going on.

I love these pictures that I got of him. Here's my favorite one right now, for the moment. It won't be long before he's too small for the sink & there's another thing slipping through our fingers as he gets older and grows from our wee nino to our little big boy to our big boy...

Shopping!

I had to rush out & get Liam some lounge around/everyday clothes since he seemed to only have "outfits" according to his father...

I decided to hit up Kohl's & Old Navy to see what they had on sale & I came away with some nice treats!

Kohl's had Carter's fuzzy footies on sale - same price as the outlet - and they also had their own name brand (Sonoma) on sale for $5 each piece! WOOT! So I got him a sweat shirt (blue with a red dino emblem), two sweat pants (red & orange), two turtlenecks (blue & a patterned "trucks" with orange accents), two footie jammies & two Elmo sippy cups!

At Old Navy they had all their rugby shirts on sale - we are a huge fan of rugby shirts in this house - plus their two piece jammies were marked down to $6.99! WOOT! I got him 3 pairs of jammies (robots, race cars & dinos), he can wear those through the spring, two rugby shirts (blue stripes & brown stripes), a white turtle neck, a striped (blues & oranges) onesie & slippers!

I was thinking about hitting up Children's Place & checking Target out but I think we are pretty well covered now for the season!

Happy Friday!

Too smart for his own good

Did y'all know that the lids from the Gerber Lil' Crunchies fit on the Take N' Toss bowls (not sure if they are Gerber!)??

Liam figured it out yesterday eating his snackies & playing with the empty container/lid. I didn't realize it until he brought it over to me since he couldn't get it off. And I was all "holy crap" I had no idea those fit onto these bowls!

Another thing that kind of makes me think he's too smart for his own good is when he is playing with his mouse or some other old piece of computer ware he will go over to a wall outlet and try to plug it in. How on earth does it he knows it needs to be plugged in (forget that they don't belong in the wall) OR that this is where he would accomplish this?

He has gotten pretty decent at screwing lids back onto the discarded seltzer water bottles too. Still cannot really undo them so he asks me to do that for him but he's got the screw back on part down! I haven't really caught him doing this but I know he's doing it cause he's bringing it back over for me to unscrew again for him!

It's also quite cute to watch him take his mouse over to the laptop media station & move it around the table like he's making it work :) He clicks away & mouses it around just waiting for something to pop up on the screen.

Looks like we've got a little Geek in the makings here!

Play Date!

Liam went to his first play date at someone else's house today! Kym, I don't count you cause we do it anyway regardless of making it all official like and everything ;)

He had a BLAST! This Mommy had so many toys! He just didn't know what to do with himself! But he gravitated towards the kitchen set up she had & we are definitely getting him that one for Christmas - I mean Santa is definitely getting him that one for Christmas. He loved the Thomas the Train pull toy & the Mega Blocks too! The two little boys that were there are both two years old BUT Liam is the same height as both of them - if not a smidgen taller.

He ran around playing & touching everything that he does in our house - from the dishwasher, to the garbage can, to the socket covers. Mr. Destructo was in full blown fashion but Heidi didn't care as much as I did so although I spent some time running after him most of the stuff he was allowed to destroy. She put out a whole bowl of snackies for them (actually like three bowls) which he only totally over-turned one of them ;) when I wasn't looking, of course!

He got along really well with Jack & Lucas - even as far as Jack & him chasing each other around and screaming! They were amazed that he is running so well already too. He loved playing with all the little cars & I think I'm going to pick up some more for him to add to his VW Bug he has gotten from Nana!

We ended up being there for 1 1/2 hours! And I had to sing & play with the sunroof the whole way home to insure he didn't fall asleep before getting home - he even "talked" to Nana! on the phone to keep himself entertained. The reason it's only his first play date is that everyone schedules them right at the start (or too close to) his nap time so we've never been able to go before but today it was at 9:30 so we were able to participate! I would love to host one at our house but I really don't think we have enough toys to keep more than 1 kiddo occupied at a time :(

It's not that I would LOVE more toys in the house but he is totally getting to the point that he needs more interaction with things. Long gone are the days of playing with his baby toys & even his house, I think, has seen its glory days. I've put a few things away that have not held his interest in a long time & now we are down to one basket of toys and even those hardly ever get dug into by him. I have a few things in mind (and on a list!) that I want to get him but if anyone has any suggestions for Must Have Toddler Toys for Boys, I would love to hear them!

Here's what is on my list at the moment:

• Kitchen - which Santa is taking care of
• Pull Toy - might get that Thomas the Train one
• Mega Blocks - he loves putting things in things

Toddler Wranglin'

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting


(dropshots was posting it to my other blog for some reason & it only took 5 postings of it to figure that out but now I cannot get it to post HERE!)

In this video we have one solo slide by Liam followed by a lot of running after him attempting to Wrangle him away from other peoples' doors & garages! At least he knows to knock on the doors before trying to enter them - all we need is a little Fellow breaking & entering record ;)

I'm rethinking my whole "no way in hell will I ever use a leash on my child" stance.

Jenga Master is definitely in his future

Liam is becoming quite adept at stacking his blocks - he can now stack 4-5 consistently & correctly!

He has two favored methods for knocking them down for sure though...one being the Full Body Throw Down where he just walks straight into the tower like a little Godzilla and knocks them down with his face first then goes crazy swinging his limbs all over the place. The second method he uses, I like to call the Jenga Master Method - he will poke every so gently at the top 1 or 2 box, get one of those down, walk a 1/4 of the way around the tower, pick his next block to knock down & slowly poke at that one to get it down. By then the remaining blocks are usually a free for all and he just goes nutso on breaking those down. But those first few are very well executed Jenga Master Method style.

This morning he did really well with stacking them back up - he discovered that the larger ones will fit over the smaller ones but also decided that this was not what he wanted to accomplish & would remove the smaller one & replace it with the larger (correct) one! And he would continue doing this on his own for about 4-5 more breakdowns & setups!

It's so exciting to watch their little minds crank around & figure things out! I've started doing things "wrong" so that he can have the opportunity to "correct" me & he's so proud of himself when he does it, I just cannot help but hug on him.

The Target Cart Story

LeNelle enjoyed this one as I recounted it for her so I thought I would share it here also...

It was a windy & blustery day, rain was falling & we had to make a trip to Target for diapers & wipes. As we walked (quickly)back to the car, Liam was loving having the rain fall on him - arms stretched up to the sky, mouth open, giggling so when we reached the car I put him in before loading up the trunk. Usually I would leave him in the cart cause he likes to watch me load everything in rather than being stuck in the car with no interaction, and usually he doesn't struggle with me while getting in his car seat but this time he did & this time it took longer.

And this time I heard a faint tink in the background so I turned to find my cart ACROSS the lane careening into a minivan and after bouncing off of it rolling further away from me. I hadn't yet finished buckling him in so I hurried right up with that and RAN after my cart still FULL with bags & his cart cover! I had my crocs on & while I LOVE those flip flops, they are for crap when they get wet so I'm RUNNING with wet crocs trying not to fall after a cart that has already hit one car, still has my stuff in it & now my baby is left in my car for anyone to steal. So I'm running, looking back at the car being mindful of Baby Snatchers and I find Liam LEANING OVER so he can see out the open door LAUGHING AT ME.

I finally catch the cart & do a quick scan around the lot to make sure a) no one was in the car I hit with the run away cart & b) checking to see who might have seen me running after my run away cart in the rain, fully loaded down with stuff. You might think that it was full enough (and it was) that it would have stayed put but with all the wind & blusterlyness I mentioned above, it was obvious at that point that the elements had succeeded against me with the evil plan.

And to top it off, my kid was laughing at me. He was not laughing WITH me, so please don't attempt that line on me ;)

Sadly, I am now still shell-shocked & hover over my cart & turn at the slightest noise franticly thinking my cart has gotten away from me again. The one thing I'm thankful for in all of this is that Liam was not still in the cart. But next time he laughs at me? Game on, little boy. Game on.