Garbage Day = Big Truck!

Yep, it's already time for another video, since I'm having one of those weeks where I assume you can't get enough of my adorable child.

Garbage day is a fun day around here, because Nathan is so enamored with the big trucks that come to take our trash and recycling. Every Friday morning consists of Nathan hovering by the window, watching the big trucks (and making sure we see them too). I wanted to capture this on camera before he outgrows the excitement.

[Disclaimer: I know it's not the world's most exciting Nathan video. But I just have to grin every time he says "it's a big truck! See it?" ... one of those everyday realities that is somehow totally precious to me.]



Yes, he is wearing a coat in the house. Yes, Mark is wearing flannel-lined pants indoors. Story for another day.

Nathan Learns a New Word at the Airport

Mark took Nathan to the airport today to watch the planes come and go. And also to chase after them, apparently.

In the process, Nathan learned a new word: helicopter. And Mark caught it on camera. So cute!



Yay for free fun!

Ambidextrous?

Nathan has become quite proficient at eating with a spoon. It makes a huge mess, and it takes forever, but it's oh-so-cute.

We got him some curved spoons like the ones our friend Kiran had, which are supposed to make it easier for Nathan to get the food into his mouth once it's on the spoon. But as you can see by the way the handles are curved.... these spoons are only for righties. So these cute trendy spoons are not so useful in our house, because here's the thing...

When Nathan eats with a spoon, he uses his left hand. When he eats finger food, he uses his right.

How can we tell whether he'll be a righty or a lefty?

Other people have said to go by which hand/foot he uses to throw/kick (both right, usually). I have read that thumb-suckers tend to favor their dominant hand for soothing (again, usually right). We're trying very hard not to push him in either direction. (It might or might not be because Mark views ambidexterity as a huge asset in the world of professional sports.) But I'm still curious to see how he will turn out.

Playground!

We live in a very big neighborhood with a little park/playground in walking distance. It's a long walk. But it's walkable. When Nathan was littler, we would drive him over there to swing. But now that I am being more active, and he has an obsession with being outside all the time, we have been walking to the playground more to get some energy out.


It's so much more fun now that Nathan can climb (kind of) and slide and run around and follow the big kids and obsess over the car structure that he's convinced is a school bus. (It might be, I don't really know, but I'm not going to correct him because for some reason school buses make him really happy these days. Almost as happy as fish and big trucks.) He calls a school bus cool bus and he calls a slide lide. At least he's consistent.

Cool Bus!




Lide!

My Boys Love Milk

Mark likes milk. I think I have said this before, but it warrants repeating, since the sentence doesn't really do justice to the severity of the situation: Mark really, really likes milk. We go through about three gallons a week (of which I might drink half a gallon), and that doesn't include the fattier stuff I buy for Nathan.

Do you know any other families whose refrigerators look like this?

Didn't think so.

And yes, you counted right. There are about 5 1/2 gallons of milk in our fridge in this picture. Every week when I unload groceries I shake my head at the ridiculousness of the situation, but then I smile to myself. And take a picture so I can mke fun of my most beloved in a blog post. That's just how I roll.

Ashley, Mom and Dad... you can pick yourselves up off the floor now and let the laughter subside. Mark has been mocked enough to last a lifetime, and he still persists in drinking milk with every meal (including his bowl of cereal -- also with milk -- in the morning). Apparently he thinks it's worth the humiliation.

That's how much he loves milk. He stuck to his guns through the mockery of the Bumgarners. And you know we're brutal.

At least it bodes well for Nathan's bones. The boy will do anything his Daddy does.

Mommy! It's a Fish!!

You will be pleased to know that Nathan and I are home safely from Myrtle Beach. Yes, that means I successfully put the car seat back together. Can I just say that I pretty much rock at car seats? I mean, it's official at this point.

After mom's run on Saturday morning (which she spanked, by the way, barely beating last year's time even though she's coming off an injury and it was raining like mad), she and I spent Valentine's Day with our favorite little man -- Nathan. Don't feel sorry for me for not getting to spend the day with Mark. He was working anyway, and he and have never been big on Valentine's Day anyway. (Want proof? Click here.) Plus, mom and Nathan were great company.

So how did we spend our afternoon, you ask? The same way as every other family with toddlers did -- at the aquarium!! I was so excited to take Nathan to see the fish; he has had a thing for sea life ever since Ashley got him a fish book for Christmas. He knows crabs, stars (starfish), big fish, little fish, blue fish, octopus, boats, leaves, turtles, and of course NEMO. And after this weekend he now also knows stingrays, shrimps, and sharks.

Some of our aquarium highlights:

1.) The first time he saw fish swimming in a tank (as opposed to on the pages of a book), he thought they were birds and said "bird! bird! bird!" over and over again.

2.) He thought several orange fish were Nemo himself. Which he announced. Out loud. I'm sure the parents of the excitable three- and four-year-olds around us were just thrilled.

3.) Even after seeing thousands of fish, he was still excited to see new ones. At about the fifteenth tank, he stopped and yelled Mommy! (Actually he says it with the emphasis on the second syllable, like a little Italian bambino).... MomEEE! It's a fish!! Like he couldn't have been more surprised that there was yet another fish to look at!


4.) He tried to kiss several fish through the glass in one of the tanks.

5.) He seemed about as interested as I was (meaning: not at all interested) in touching the horseshoe crabs. Ew. They're just big bugs, don't give me any of this "living fossil" nonsense.

6.) One of the tanks had a little tunnel built right through it, that you could walk through (or ride on the moving sidewalk). I think it took us about twice as long as any other family to get through it.

7.) At the stingray tank, Nathan watched the rays swimming and laughed when they came to the surface and splashed him. He couldn't decide if he wanted to call them sharks or fish or shrimps, but I think we eventually convinced him they were rays.

8.) Nathan took home a stuffed stingray and has slept with it every night since Saturday. He has enough animals now that we don't just dump them all in his crib anymore, we let him choose two. Predictably, he's been all about "ting-ray" this week. And hippo, of course. I mean, stingrays and hippos seem like perfectly normal sleeping companions to me.

9.) I got Nathan (in his stroller) stuck in the turnstile (turnstall? I learned that word from my dad and therefore I'm never sure which is the actual word... being a southerner he would pronounce either spelling pretty much the same) exiting the aquarium. A nice man helped take pieces of the stroller off so we could rescue him. Turns out the nice man was the husband of a friend I studied abroad in Germany with. She was there too. With her son, sleeping peacefully in his still-intact stroller since she used the stroller gate to exit instead of the turnstile. How come whenever I run into my cool pretty skinny friends from school, I am in the middle of some ridiculous situation (like a screaming toddler stuck in a turnstile)? I am way more competent than these reunions would indicate. No, I did not get any pictures of this adventure.

10.) I can't remember why I used to find aquariums entertaining on my own. It was so much better doing it with Nathan, and seeing how excited he was.

For more pictures (some great, some not so much... turns out aquarium lighting was a challenge for my lack of photo skillz), click on Marmie and Nathan, below.

by mgoetts

Carsick

I just experienced the most vomit-filled car ride anyone has ever had on the way to Myrtle Beach. I provide that statistic with absolutely no authority. But I have a feeling it's really true.

My grandpa actually decided not to come to our multi-generational beach weekend after all. But I wanted to see mom and she sounded so excited about seeing Nathan and me too, that we decided to go anyway, even though she didn't really need our help anymore.

There was a huge traffic jam on 501 coming into Myrtle Beach (I know, same old same old) so I asked Mandy (who lives in my gps) for an alternate route, and she found one. Nathan was awake and fussy but I was so over the drive that I kept pleading with him to hang tight, since I just wanted to be there already.

Well, I should have stopped. It seems that the stop and go (or maybe just the long ride itself) had made Nathan carsick, and halfway through our detour, he just started throwing up. And kept throwing up. And then threw up some more. It couldn't have taken me more than thirty seconds to find a place to park, but in that time he had thrown up at least eight times what he took in! Y'all, it was gross. And he soaked right through the cute t-shirt I had put on him for when he saw my mom.

But I did get pulled over, and I got him out, and the smell in the car was so awful that I threw up too. (In the parking lot, fortunately.) I noticed I was near a hole-in-the wall gas station, so I stripped nathan of his icky clothes, wrapped him in a towel, and asked the attendant if I could use his bathroom. He didn't want me to, in case I got it dirty. Eventually he conceded, if I promised bring any dirty diapers into the dumpster out back instead of throwing them in the trash. I was like, seriously? You have two vomit-covered people standing here (one naked and crying), you would rather me get to your toilet, I promise. Also, where is this mysterious dirty diaper you speak of? Or the theoretical clean one I would be replacing it with? It was literally just me, nathan, towel, keys. That's it.

Can I just tell you this bathroom was gross? It was one of those with an outdoor entrance in the back of the building, the floor was wet and there was no place to put Nathan, there was NO SOAP ANYWHERE, it smelled awful (if I had a dirty diaper to leave in there, it might have actually improved the situation), the door had been left open so there were bugs and cobwebs and I have no idea why he was so worried that my presence (despite the barfy toddler) could make the bathroom any less clean. I was tempted to tell him so, but I didn't. I just rinsed baby and clothing in the sink and went back to the car.

We finally got to the hotel, car windows wide open for fresh air, and I thrust miserable little Nathan into mom's care for a bath (she still had no clean diaper to put on him though!) while I tackled the mammoth task of cleaning the car, including taking apart the car seat. I am pretty sure I have to live here at this Red Roof Inn on S. Kings Hwy, Myrtle Beach. Because there is no way that seat is going back together. To get all the padding off to wash, every single piece had to come off that seat. Every single one. Buckles, straps, little plastic pieces, buttons, you name it. Pieces I didn't even know existed. It is currently far less assembled than it was when we bought it. No joke.

Since we can't go anywhere, mom just went to get PF Changs takeout for us. (Mmmm.) The good news is Nathan is now feeling better and is actually asleep. And tomorrow is a new day.

I am not a superstitious person, but I will probably never drive to the beach on Friday the 13th again.

Guess Who's Going to Dubai???

That would be....

ME!!!! (How'd you guess?)

Emirates Airlines invited my company to send someone on a familiarization trip in and around Dubai. I currently have no idea what the trip will entail, just that *I* get to go.

I would like to play this off like, oh just another work trip for this career mommy. But the reality is I am so unbelievably ridiculously stupid EXCITED!!!

Feel free to leave your jealousy in the comments section.

How Many Generations Does it Take to Make a Beach Weekend?

Another question: what do you get when you cross a doctor, a road race, a WWII pilot, a toddler, some sun and sand, and ME?

... That would be a weekend in Myrtle Beach with four (count 'em -- four!) generations of my family members.

My mom has an event (run/bike, I think) at the beach this weekend, and since my Grandpa used to live there, she offered to bring him along, as part of his Christmas present. He'd like to see some old friends and old stomping grounds.

She realized it might be a bit much to take care of him (he's 90, after all, and apparently has insisted on using a wheelchair for the weekend, even though his legs are just fine and it's his LUNGS that make him tired, and he seems to be in extreme denial about how much cardio effort it will take to push a wheelchair... I have a hilarious rant from my mom about the whole thing but I should save it for another day) , and do her event. So... insert Erin.

Mark is working this weekend, so... insert Nathan.

Anyone know how to push a stroller and a wheelchair at the same time? (No, I am not relying on Grandpa to be able to push himself.) Anyone know how to make an 18-month old walk obediently next to me while I push said wheelchair? Anyone know how to make a 90-year old man strong enough (and willing enough) to hold a toddler on his lap while riding in a wheelchair?

I'm sure I will find this funny when I am actually there and doing it (I usually can laugh in these situations), but in the meantime.... y'all pray for me.

Facebook's 25 Things Meme

I have finally caved to the peer pressure of the 25-Things Meme that went viral on Facebook a few weeks ago. Like Jeremy, it took way too much time to not be cross-posted as a blog entry.

Writing this made me realize my dad's comment (yaaaay, by the way, for Dad commenting!) is probably right: my generation has no inhibitions when it comes to putting our lives on the internet. Well, maybe not no inhibitions. But fewer than we probably should. I have stop writing about Nathan in the next few years, or he really will kill me or end up in therapy. Or both.

But for now, 25 random(ish) facts about yours truly, some you already know, some might be new:

1.) I met my husband at band camp. He’s horribly ashamed of this, but I think it’s hi.lar.i.ous.

2.) I have 9 different kinds of mustard in my fridge right now. I don’t know anyone who likes mustard more than I do.

3.) I have lived abroad twice… once in Germany and once in the Netherlands. My German is good, but my Dutch…. Not so much. One time a Dutch cabbie, upon hearing me say how frustrated I was when no one in the Netherlands would practice Dutch with me (they all wanted to speak English instead) said, “You used to live here and you don’t speak the language? THAT’S TERRIBLE.” So much for a nation of non-judgmental people. (I can say that, I’m married to one of the good ones.)

4.) Mark and I have visited 4 continents together. It was (ahem) lovely, and we can't wait to see the other three too. :)

5.) I would choose the beach over the mountains any day.

6.) I once swam a five-mile ocean race, in St. Croix. I got stung in the face and stomach by jellyfish, but I finished. (Pictures of that event, including jellyfish stings, are here.) However, I cannot RUN five miles without stopping.

7.) I have been to a lot of places and I must say I REALLY like North Carolina.

8.) My favorite show on TV right now is Ugly Betty. Followed closely by The Amazing Race. Someday Mark and I will be on AR, just you wait. We’ll be the first ones kicked off (seeing as I can’t run) but we will be there!

9.) My friend Ryan taught me that to properly drive through the gates onto Furman’s campus, you have to be singing the theme song from “NeverEnding Story” in your head. Or out loud. Whatever.

10.) I have one sister, one brother, and two stepbrothers. I am the oldest. I am therefore relatively bossy.

11.) I love my dogs as if they were human children. (Except when they vomit up partially-digested poop onto my carpet, of course.)

12.) I’m not very girly. I wear jeans and t-shirts pretty much every day. I do own a little makeup, but I only wear it to church. My version of lipstick is chapstick.

13.) I do love bags and purses, though. Not the fancy designer kind, but the kind I can afford to buy every season based on what looks cute on the rack at Target.

14.) I actually like my job. Not that the stress and corporate bullcrap don’t drive me nuts some days, but most days I really like doing the work itself. I sell travel to nonprofit organizations (mission trips, disaster relief, humanitarian aid, etc) so I get to be in sales without all the sketchy “salesy” side-effects. Plus, since Nathan was born they let me do it part-time. And from home. Which pretty much rocks, when it’s not too chaotic.

15.) Being a mom is the most natural thing I have ever done. It’s the first and only thing in my life that has actually felt like a calling.

16.) In college I double-majored in English and German. Useful, I know.

17.) I started writing a blog in 2007 about our family and how our “everyday dreams” are coming true. Which is more of a reality some days than others. But I am having fun writing! (See? You know this already.)

18.) My first and best best-friend is my sister Ashley. She’s only 13 months younger than I am. We have had good years and bad but the truth is she can almost always make me laugh, and I can’t think of even ONE favorite childhood memory that doesn’t involve her.

19.) I love God and I go to church regularly. But please don’t lump me into that group of religious people who hates and judges. I try to honor ALL people. I think God loves EVERYONE. Period. No exceptions.

20.) I reached my peak of musical talent at like 14. But I can still play several instruments (some better than others), and I like to sing. I make a joyful noise at church every week, actually.

21.) I have a thing for getting my back scratched. Seriously, if you want something from me, scratch my back. I’ll probably do whatever you tell me to after that.

22.) There is really nothing I can think of that I would rather spend my money on than vacation.

23.) One of my favorite combinations is red wine with chocolate. Or red wine with spicy food. Ok, you got me… I just really like red wine.

24.) I did not vote for President Obama, but I am respectful and even cautiously optimistic (to avoid panic) about the next few years. I HATE politics and I can’t believe I just wrote that, actually.

25.) The sweetest sound my ears have ever heard is Nathan’s voice saying, “Mommy!”