yard toys: useless eyesores or worthwhile diversions?

I’ve been wondering something since spring has hit and I find myself with a toddler. You know those horribly ugly plastic disasters that dot the yards of families with small children? Do kids actually EVER play on those things??

Because I see those toys all over our neighborhood, at daycare centers, in backyards, in front yards. I think they are extremely tacky. Those toys are one of a few (ok, many) things that, BC (before child) I SWORE I would never, ever own. (Also on that list were things such as kiddie window shades for the car; and a minivan. So far so good with following through on this list.) But now, I’ve been considering acquiring one of these plastic monstrosities in the hopes that something like that may keep Ryan occupied for more than a few minutes while we’re outdoors. Because right now when we go outside, he wants to participate in activies such as “pick the flowers off of mommy’s plants”, “eat sand”, and “crawl over anthills in the sidewalk.” But with a plastic toy strategically placed in the front yard, I’m sure Ryan would find hours of endless enjoyment out of climbing on and exploring such a structure.

Or NOT. Because in all my years as a person on this earth, and most recently as a very observant parent, I don’t believe I have EVER seen a child playing on one of these toys. And I’ve been looking, let me tell ya. We go on no fewer than three walks a day around here, and there is quite a high percentage of yards in our neighborhood that contain these play structures. And I have never once seen a kid using them. And it’s not because when I go for a walk all of the kids are napping, or at preschool, or asleep for the night. Because we walk at all times of the day, when potential for toddlers playing outside on an entertaining yard toy would be high. One day I even considered walking around with my camera and taking a picture of each ignored play item, but then I thought better of that, guessing that someone might mistake me as the neighborhood kook.

So I’ll just poll y’all in the blog world instead. What do you think- should I get my hands on one of these sliders/climbers/cube-house things? Would my 13-month-old high-energy highly curious son play on it? Or would it just sit there in the yard, collecting proverbial dust? Do any of you actually own any of these structures? If so, do your kids use them? If so, how frequently? If so, how many months past the age of 13 months did your children use them?

fun shout-out winner

A fun shout-out is going to my friend Eeeeeeelysssa for correctly naming the location where this picture was snapped:

Answer: Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis, Minnesota (sure are a lot of “minne”s there…)

Here she is, the winner herself:

And yes, in addition to this fabulous blog shout-out prize, I will also treat you to a DQ Cool Treat. Sweet.

a penny for your loafers

Ryan has a paucity of viable shoes of late. I think I mentioned he wore a hole in a pair of his Robeez. And then I discovered a new/used pair of pseudo-Robeez in the bottom of a hand-me-down bag. I’m not really that picky fashion-wise when it comes to Ryan, but the hand-me-downs are just not that cute. They have a red dump truck on them. So those have been designated as Ryan’s “play” shoes. He also has the most adorable pair of Nikes that he got for Christmas. He still wears those, but I think they’re getting a little small, and now that he’s walking more he gets a bit tripped up in those shoes, so we reserve those for times we go somewhere when he’ll only be immoble- in the stroller, car seat, or shopping cart. I’ve sort of been lightly researching the type of shoes that an almost-walker should be wearing. What I’ve learned is that they should be soft-soled, bendable, and snug (but not too small). Something like these or these or these come highly recommended. But they also come with a somewhat high sticker price. Don’t get me wrong, I love a cute shoe purchase as much as the next guy, but I don’t really feel like forking over $40 for a pair of shoes that my one-year-old will either outgrow or rub the finish off in a month’s time.

Last night we hit up Target. And it looked like they *had* a nice selection of boys’ toddler shoes at one time, but have since been picked over. They had some cute tennis shoes there, but not in Ryan’s size. And I also thought the tennies were a bit stiff. So, we settled on a lovely pair of soft-soled and extremely nerdy penny loafers. And here they are. (Minus the pennies because that would be a choking hazard.)

If anyone- mommybloggers or otherwise- knows of any great shoe brands or deals for the almost-walking toddler set, let me know!

Mr. Penny Loafer himself:

And just for kicks…a fun shout-out will go to the person who leaves the first comment to correctly answer this question: Where was the following picture taken? (BretteH you cannot play. Neither can you, FatJ.)

uh-oh

I feel like it’s been eons since I’ve written a blog post. I’ll blame it on the fact it’s summer now, the weather’s nicer, and I try to spend LESS time on the computer and MORE time doing real, live, actual activities. And then at the end of the day I don’t have the energy or patience to write about them. I do, however, think a little weekend re-cap is in order.

Ryan started saying “uh-oh!” this weekend, which makes me laugh every time I hear it come out of his mouth. Here are a few weekend “uh-ohs”, from our family to yours.

—Ryan came down with a cold Thursday night. UH-OH! He slept really poorly, and woke up with an amazing amount of snot pouring out of his nose. Friday was a long, crabby, clingy day for him. Saturday he wasn’t much better, and ended up taking a three hour and twenty minute morning nap. OBV he wasn’t feeling well…napping more than about 1.5 hours at a time for Ryan is typically unheard of. Thankfully he seems to be on the mend as of today.
+FatJ is going on day two of a sore throat and the beginnings of a cold. UH-OH.
+GrandmaJ was unable to babysit last night because she has been attacked by the same sickness. UH-OH.

—While taking some extremely unsuccessful night photography shots Sunday evening, my camera bag toppled off the hood of the car and my lens went crashing onto the concrete of the parking lot. UH-OH.
+Tried out the lens today and it seems to be fine. (How this is possible I don’t know.)

—Old, ancient, non-textable cell phone instantly stopped working on Thursday. UH-OH. Weekend was spent without cell phone, which was not missed.
+New cell phone was purchased today. Memory card from old phone was transferred to new phone to keep all previous contacts/phone numbers. Something failed in the transfer and the only numbers that were saved were, 1.) my husband’s cell number, and, 2.) my parents’ home phone number. UH-OH. Please email me your phone number if you ever want me to call you again.
+New cell phone has texting capabilities that even I can figure out. This should only affect Matt L.

—Ryan managed to wear a hole in his one pair of Robeez. UH-OH.
+New (old) pair of Robeez was discovered in the bottom of a hand-me-down bag of clothing. Hopefully these will last the week.

—I gave Ryan his first haircut today! UH-OH! I’m not sure it can even be considered a haircut since all I did was trim a few stray hairs that have grown unusually long and hang down over his ears. But I did trim them, and it did make me feel sad that I was cutting off his first hairs ever! UH-OH.
+The hairs were immediately attached to a piece of scotch tape and secured into his baby book.

And a few pictures… it was really hot here on Sunday so Ryan wore shorts for the second time this season. I’ve been avoiding shorts on him because when we’re outside he wants to crawl everywhere, and bare knees and cement sidewalks don’t really mix. Walking is getting to be his transportation mode of choice, but it sure is a back-killer.

YAY!!!! DC!!!! YAY!!!!

I am so pleasantly SHOCKED that he won!!!!! Of course I’ve been hoping for him all along, but after the final performance show I could have sworn it was going to be Archie. Yay to the American public for allowing themselves to step out of their comfort zone and vote for a rocker.

{and I promise, this is my last AI post}

ryan: having his ‘woman times’

The manny likes to keep himself occupied in the bathroom while I’m doing other things nearby. In addition to *finally* capturing him taking some steps on video, I also caught him in the act of exploring some new bathroom goodies.

Posting video is a new one for me- I hope this works!

idolized

Gee, I can’t even begin to IMAGINE who’s going to win IDOL tonight. Really, is there even any question?

I did call in and vote for DC a bunch of times though. I will so buy any album he makes.

please stimulate my economy

Yesterday our economic stimulus check arrived. I cannot think of a better reason why the world at large hates the U.S. All across the globe there are famines, droughts, tsunamis, poverty, and mass starvation, and here we are with a government that just HANDS OUT money for us to go spend willy nilly to ’stimulate the economy.’ Whatever. Maybe it will work, but I’m just not buying it, literally. Would I love to go cash that check and then run to the nearest mall and spend it all on a shoes/clothing/accessories shopping spree? Perhaps. I’ll admit that does sound a little bit fun. After all, the FatJ household has been on a bit of a spending hiatus these past few months, since our net household income has been -0- since February. I would even go so far as to say that it would be nice if our own personal household economy could be stimulated one of these days…and the entrepreneurial FatJ himself is working on it. So while we’re in save/cut-back/try not to spend mode, it was certainly nice to receive this money from the feds, but we’re not going to spend it. As decided this morning, it’s going directly into Ryan’s 529 plan. (Well, minus the $36.29 that I spent at Old Navy yesterday. Consider that my economy stimulation). Take that, feds!

Segue to a story about Old Navy… yesterday Ryan and I were at Old Navy, strollering through the women’s clothing section. All of a sudden I hear a woman saying “excuse me!! Can I ask you a question?” and then I look up and realize she’s talking to me. I say sure, and then she proceeds to hold up a pair of pants that look like this, and says to me “Would you call the color of these pants khaki? No, these aren’t khaki, are they? Yeah, they are. No, this isn’t khaki, is it?? Is this khaki?” And I’m thinking to myself what kind of a rock have you been hiding under your whole life that you don’t know what color khaki is? So I say, “um, no, I think I’d call that color an olive green or an army green or something.” And then I point to a nearby pair of pants that are khaki, and say “that color there is khaki.” And then she looks at those pants and says “yeah! Khaki. That’s khaki. You’re right, that’s the khaki color. Thank you!!” Hmmmm. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and call her color blind, but seriously, I thought it was really weird that a grown woman was not able to identify khaki pants. Then again, looking through Old Navy.com’s pants selection, I’m noticing they are using color names such as “koala bear”, “pavement”, “pumice”, and “steel”, so I guess I could see how one might get confused with color selection.

Alrighty- Ryan’s already awake. The sun’s shining. I’m starving. This sounds like a good time to go stimulate the economy with an ice cream purchase.

yet another one is one

Today it’s a Happy Birthday shout-out to our friend Sophia!

Sophia’s mom was my college roommate- you know, that first one they randomly pair you up with freshman year? Turns out we hit it off, have been friends ever since (from near and far, since Jen has lived in some exiting cities), and lucky for me, she moved back to Minneapolis last year right before the babies were born. Basically, I would not have survived my first year of motherhood without her friendship, listening ear, and laughter. Ryan and Sophia have become quite the little pals, too. Well, that is when Ryan’s not trying to slap Sophia’s head and push her down.

This was their first meeting…Ryan was almost 4 weeks old and Sophia was one week old.

And here they are now, one year later…

Happy Birthday, Sophia!

tft: who do you want to win?

Okay, I need to stop this Idol insanity.

I’m late on the tft, but I’m dying to know: If you watch Idol, who do you want to win??

I had more than one dream last night about American Idol. We watched it DVR’d really late, and I don’t think I fell asleep till 1:00am, and then I dreamed all night about David Cook! In one of the dreams he died on stage, and they brought Syesha back to compete with Archuleta. And I was heartbroken. Seriously- in the dream I was truly grieving the death of David Cook, because I LOVED him. Really- he was like my boyfriend or something and I loved him. And then he died.

I’m pretty sure I’m going AI insane.