Thank you St. Anthony

I pray to St. Anthony weekly-if not more. For anyone who doesn't know, St. Anthony is the finder of lost things. He always always comes through for me. I rely heavily on this little rhyming prayer I learned in Sunday School- I don't know how adult-like it is, but since it has worked thus far I am not changing anything. Here is my prayer- Tony Tony turn around something's lost and must be found. Then I begin to tell him what I lost. I am not real sure I should be calling him Tony, but as often as I pray to him I figure we must be on a first name basis by now.

Well, as you may or may not know we have been really into "Shrek" lately. Jack watches the first 35-40 minutes of the movie and then he is done with it-- he wants to start it over and watch the same 35-40 minutes again. I guess after they save the princess it is just boring. Anyway, he was done with it and wanted to start it over-- which for him means getting it out of the dvd player and then putting it back in. The process got interrupted by daddy when I wasn't looking, and lunch was served. Later I was putting things away and noticed that the movie container was empty. I suppose that I had various emotions, but the one that won out was-- oh my, do you know what kind of tantrum is going to be thrown if I don't find this movie?

I began an earnest search of the apartment. I looked everywhere I could think of and anywhere he has been known to hide things. I of course prayed my rhyming prayer and began the search again. Jack began to realize what I was doing and did get upset-- in fact breaking the thermos we just bought Pete only hours before. I finally sat in the chair thinking- hmm... St. Anthony when are you going to help me?

Jack at this point was putting a random movie into the dvd player. The dvd player, I might add, I opened and closed like 5 times, the dvd player I opened and then tried to look inside of with little success. He put his movie in and pushed it back as far as he could, then got a second movie and was about to put it in the dvd player as well, when I had a thought. I moved him out of the way, took out the first movie, stuck my fingers inside the dvd player and there it was grazing the tips of my fingers. Way to go St. Anthony!! We love you in this house!! You are the patron saint of the Weigel house that is for sure.

Again...

Jack is sick and has been sick for over a week.  The first two days of his sickness it was quite obvious he was sick-no energy, very lovey, high fever, etc.  After the first couple days though he was able to get around and move but still would get the fever at random times throughout the day and then a cough developed.  Well it has been 9 days since this all started and he has so much more energy-yelling, running, playing, etc., but still that fever will randomly pop up at unexpected times and his cough just keeps on rattling.  

When dealing with a sick child you do what you can to comfort them and let them sit on the couch and snuggle with you-if need be.  The first two days of sickness I decided that we could watch a movie.  I mean really what could be the harm in a movie---- I wish I had known.  

I picked Shrek for our movie the first two days.  There is a donkey, catchy contemporary jokes, an ogre, and a dragon-- I figured it had everything.   Apparently, I was right.  It has been 9 days and for the last 9 days I have watched Shrek every single morning or afternoon.  Seriously.  Do you remember when you had a favorite movie and loved to watch it and it never seemed to get old or lose interest?  Do you remember that after awhile your mom either put you in a room far away from her while you watched or she tried to deter you from watching that movie one more time?  No-- you probably don't, but I guarantee you it happened.  Jack knows all their names:  Shrek, Donkey, Fee-no-na,  Mirror, and Dragon.  He proceeds to tell you their names over and over again, he knows which container it comes from, and he knows how to put it in the dvd player,  and he asks for it every single day.  I say no and deter him for an hour or two but in the end Shrek always seems to win out.    We happen to own Shrek 2 as well-- let me tell you that is no substitute for the original.  That only lasted 10 minutes and now we are back to the original Shrek.  

St. Louis

We recently spent fall break in St. Louis visiting family and friends. It was such a good time and we packed so much in. I guess I will give a quick run down of everything we did. We arrived and headed off to meet Cassie, Sean, and Luke at Imo's Pizza. The next day we hung out with Cassie and Sean all day-- I can tell you Jack absolutely LOVED it! First we went to the Science Center - this place is free by the way- and Jack had a great time playing with all the hands on activities, so did all the adults. In the picture above you will see that we put Jack inside the tornado simulator. Cassie was a little jealous and ended up getting in too. We had so much fun that daddy was sad when we had to leave. Then it was off to lunch at Ameghetti's Deli (it was delicious!) Jack, however, was not in the best of spirits so we ended up going back to the Hanks for play time with the singing frog. They had this frog that sang and after being terrified of it that morning Jack warmed up to it and couldn't get enough. We had a little time before dinner so we went to Tower Grove Park. Pete was very happy to go because it reminded him of his childhood. (In case I hadn't mentioned it-- Pete grew up in St. Louis). Pete also drove us around his old stomping grounds. We got to see where he grew up and went to school.

The next morning we went to Grant's Farm - this place is also free. This is the historical home of Ulysses S. Grant and is owned and run by Anheuser-Busch. It is a great place for young kids. They have the historic house(s) of Grant, the clydesdale stables, and a petting zoo- this is where Jack was able to feed the goats. We were so moved by the civic philanthropy we have decided to buy more Busch beer. After this stop we headed off to Best Steakhouse for lunch. Granny, Danny, and Jon came to town so we had lunch with everyone. Apparently Cassie picked this place-- we all thought Sean did. Cassie wasn't a big meat person a couple years ago, so this is a big step that shows the heavy influence of one Sean. :) After that stop we said bye-bye to Sean and hello to the Magic House. They have a great 1-6 yr. old area, and we spent an hour and a half there and could have easily spent more time had it not been for our desire to see the whole thing before Jack ran out of steam. The picture with Jack and Granny playing in the water is from our time at the Magic House. After this we went to dinner at Joanie's Pizza. Yes we had pizza two of our 4 days in St. Louis, however, it was all good, and they had two very different tastes.

Unfortunately, Granny and gang had to leave early Monday morning, and Cassie had to go back to work so we were on our own. The first thing we did was drive to Wash U and check out the campus. Pete wanted to scope out the math department. It is a very beautiful campus. Then we drove to the zoo- this place also free. Jack LOVED the zoo. Jack loves animals, at home we spend a lot of time looking at his animal books. Lately, he has been interested in rhinos and hippos so we took a picture of him by the rhino. After walking all over the zoo for at least 2 maybe closer to 3 hours we were all tired and grumpy-at least I was- so we put a hold on all our St. Louisy activities. We just sort of drove around and picked neighborhoods we could live in if our path ever takes us to St. Louis in a more permanent situation. Then back to Karen and Dan's place where Pete and I spent the afternoon playing with the Wii. We have never played Wii before so it took some of us--ahem-- a bit to learn how to tame our movements so as not to knock dust from the ceiling. :p Then we finished our night off by eating fast food with Luke and Karen.

That was our trip-- we had so much fun!! We really want to thank Dan and Karen for their extreme hospitality!! We had so much fun playing Wii bowling that we thought we could actually bowl, and attempted to do so today on campus-- it was not a success. So just for everyone out there we want to say that success on a game does not translate to success in real life.

Toddlers--Oh my

Life with Jack is becoming more and more interesting everyday. He really is becoming a toddler and has left babydom far far away.

Jack discovered a love for apple juice recently. He gets milk in the morning and after that he is allowed juice in the afternoon. Jack has decided that it is apple juice or bust. He goes to the refrigerator and tries and tries to open it, all the while crying, appy juice!! When you give him his milk cup he throws it and looks up at you with his big brown eyes filled with tears, that lower lip rolled out, and his little faced all scrunched up-it really does break my heart. I try not to look at him.

He climbs on the table. Frankly, I don't really care. However, I think about ok what if he is at a friend's house or a family member's house? Then I care more. So I say: ok Jack you have to get off the table. He doesn't really care to get down. The thing that I do find amusing about these ventures to the table top is why he goes in the first place. In the morning I don't clear the oatmeal dishes right away, so when I leave the room to go to the bathroom, Jack climbs up to the top of the table to finish them off. He puts the bowl up to his face and tries to, I assume, lick the very last bits of oatmeal. He grabs the spoons and has them in his mouth along with whatever glass I was drinking out of that morning. It always makes me laugh a little- on the inside.

We have a time-out routine. We tell Jack time-out and then grab one of the dining room chairs, put it in the hall, sit him on it, set the timer for 1 minute-since he is 1, and I hang out in the kitchen until the timer beeps, then I get him down tell him why he was there, I have him apologize, and I give him a hug. Lately we have been using time out a lot more. What sort of things get Jack in timeout? Throwing chess pieces-period, throwing objects at people or animals, kicking mommy while diaper changing is going on, any sort of hitting or pulling of Tigran's tail, and of course no hitting other kids, this has just been amended to even accidental hitting because of his refusal to simply apologize when it is an accident. In the last couple days Jack has become very involved in time-out. Let me explain with an example. Last night Jack was very tired, and I was getting him ready for bed-which includes a new diaper, and he began to kick me. Then he looked at me and started to say something I couldn't quite understand at first. After him saying it again I realized he was saying-time-out over and over again. Once dressed he goes to the chair we use and tried to pull it down the hall-by himself. Once time-out has started he begins doing what he always does-talking. He goes hi, hi hi, hi momma, hi hi. This is why I hang out in the kitchen-that way he can't see me. He never gets up from the chair anymore-he just says hi. Once the timer goes off and I go to him, he says without any prompting--sorry momma and gives me a hug. So does time-out work if the child is so excited to go to time-out that he tells you he has to go and then tries to put himself in it?

This morning when walking into the living room I see Jack over by Tigran. Jack sees me and runs into the kitchen. Of course, this causes me to look once more at Tigran. I notice dog food on top of Tigran. So I turn toward the kitchen and see the mug we use to scoop Tigran's dog food on the floor along with more dog food on the floor. Apparently, Jack thought Tigran needed some more food.

Finally, the last Jack story. For about a month-maybe not even that long- Jack tells us when he poops. He does it about 90-95% of the time. It has been very helpful, and we encourage him to do it. The last two days Jack has told us he has to poop and there has been nothing there. So I just tell him he probably farted because well those stink too. However, there will be a poop there the next time I look. So yesterday I finally put two and two together and realized that he was telling us he was about to poop. Yes I am that slow. So last night he said poop and there was nothing there. I took his diaper off and kept it off. This was to be an experiment of what happens next. I had a diaper out in case it all just fell to the floor. However, I saw his butt clenched together, and he looked at me with a very distressed look and goes POOP!! Those butt cheeks tighter than before, so I decided to save him from his distress by putting a diaper on him. He pooped right away. I am beginning to think we should buy him a baby potty-at least to begin familiarizing him with what it is.