Flat Stanley sits in on a gig!

Last night, Flat Stanley accompanied us to NXNW (North by Northwest), to listen to Sound of A.M. (our friends Andrea and Mike). No visit to Austin, Texas is complete unless you see some live music, and fortunately, Stanley was invited to sit in on the gig and got to play and sing with the band!After the gig, Stanley was presented with his very own guitar and microphone:

Stanley's visit is coming to an end here in Texas, and he's being shipped back to his friend Katelyn in Ohio tomorrow, but the advantage of being flat is that he can be photocopied, and that's exactly what he's done. He's now sending a copy of himself to Jolly Old England, for some more adventures with Trent's Nana and Grandad. So stay tuned!

We've enjoyed having Flat Stanley visit us, and wish him safe travels.

Flat Stanley helps with yard work!

After a hard day of supervising my work, Flat Stanley helped make dinner, chicken with Stubb's BBQ Sauce (very Texan). After dinner, the whole family went out to the front garden to rake leaves. Stanley helped Trent bag the leaves while I raked them.

After that, we watched Dance a Lot Robot together, then took a bath. We ended the day with a sleepover in Trent's room. Stanley might have had a hard time sleeping because he misses his friend Katelyn, though ;-)

Flat Stanley's visit to Texas

We have a visitor. His name is Flat Stanley. Trent calls him "Stan Only", though, which cracks me up.

Flat Stanley belongs to Katelyn Randolph, who lives in Ohio, and is the daughter of my friend Phil. She's doing a Flat Stanley project for school and since I've never seen Flat Stanley, I offered to host him for a few days so Trent and I could have some fun with him.

When he arrived, Trent immediately set to work taping (a copy of) him to another piece of paper with a gazillion pieces of tape. I guess he wanted to ensure he didn't get up and leave in the night ;-)

Since arriving in Texas, Stanley has gotten new boots, a hat, and a Texas Longhorns belt buckle to add to his already spiffy wardrobe, and he's been to see the State Capitol and Mount Bonnell.

Stanley has been helping me work this morning, and this evening he's going to help me make dinner and then will play with Trent in his play room. Right now, he's taking a nap. It's exhausting traveling via the US postal service!

good intentions

well, I did have good intentions of blogging daily about my family's visit over xmas. But I was too busy enjoying my time with them to actually follow through on that. So this will have to suffice. A quick update on how the 3 weeks of family visits went. In a nutshell, it was AWESOME! We didn't do any typical touristy stuff and discover Austin. No. We've done all that before. We just spent time. We shopped for xmas, we ate dinners, we relaxed. But we didn't forgo all of the Austin traditions - we ate Salt Lick with Mike, Tara, Barbie and Jett. Soooo good.

Mum and dad spent the first week, then Daz & Mel & Louise arrived for a one week overlap. It was a full house! But everyone seemed comfortable.

Trent insisted on calling Louise "HelLouise". We don't really know where he got that from, but it lasted the entire visit, even though we corrected him. We rented a minivan (kudos to Brian for the ridiculous deal he got), and packed everyone and all our gifts into the van, and made the 3 our trek to Houston for the Bauman xmas extravaganza. We followed some of the usual Bauman traditions and injected some of our own, though we got a sense that we were being graciously tolerated. As with any family gathering, though, there's always a few raised eyebrows.

We arrived back in Austin grateful to be in one piece after a near miss on the highway. Mum and dad went home a couple of days after xmas and Daz & Mel accompanied me down town on new year's eve for a very fun evening with Michelle and the boys of Suede (and some crazy bitch watching). Brian volunteered to stay home with the kids.

The remainder of our time was spent shopping, hanging out, playing with the kids, drinking Bailey's on ice, cooking great food, and eating entirely too much including another visit to Salt Lick at Mel's request - even though we had it only a week before, it was still BBQ Nirvana.

I was so sad when everyone left. I miss my family. I wish they were closer. But I am so grateful that they love me enough to make the long trek over here :-)

Xmas2009: Day 10

Well, it's been an eventful week. Trent became a perfect little angel after I put him back into his routine. Daz and Mel arrived on Monday evening after a few delays in Dulles. They were exhausted but happy to be here. We spent the past couple of days shopping for xmas and picking up last minute supplies for xmas day dinner - which will consist of roast lamb, yorkies, mint sauce, a variety of veggies, gravy, and a trifle for dessert! So can't wait to eat all that. I'm declaring us officially ready for xmas. Lucky too, because tomorrow is xmas eve!

Merry xmas, y'all.

Xmas2009: Day 3

day 3 greeted me with yet another cranky toddler who wouldn't take his meds. This morning Trent promised he would take his meds after I gave him a treat, then he refused his meds. I had a flash forward into my day (imagining it to be similar to the previous one) and completely lost it. In what seemed like a blur of motion, I changed him, threw on my clothes, called his daycare and cancelled his holiday time, and drove him in to daycare to dump him off. I ain't spending my holiday pandering to a whiny little tyrant with an inflated sense of self-importance.

In all fairness, he was most likely acting out because I broke his routine and he's bored and doesn't know how to express himself other than to be defiant, push my buttons, and whine constantly. I think putting him back into his usual routine is best for everyone. Sure, mum and dad are probably disappointed that they don't get to spend as much time with him, but I could tell they weren't enjoying being around him, either, because he was stressing me out so badly. I feel like a bad mother and a complete amateur.

After I dropped Trent off, I spent the day hanging with my parents in peace. Did a little xmas shopping, and cooled my jets a bit. When we picked him up he was so much more pleasant, but that only lasted about an hour, then he was back to pushing buttons and making my life hell. I'm so very disappointed in both Trent and myself. Him for choosing this time to act out, and me for letting it get to me.

Xmas2009: Day 2

well today was a little rough. Trent was extremely strong wiled today. He had very definite ideas about what he wanted to be doing and we ended up having a time out in his room where he screamed for 15 minutes while balancing on the top rail of his crib demanding to get out. But he never made it out. After a stand-off he decided to be a good boy for the rest of the day, but he'd already burned through my fuse.

Today we went to the mall and Trent got a look at Santa. He wouldn't sit on his lap, though. Maybe next year. Mum made a funny observation, though: We spend all our lives teaching our kids to not talk to strangers, then at Xmas it all goes out the window as we force our kids, crying, onto some stranger's lap under the guise of Santa.