A day at the zoo, part 1

I, Kim, being the bright-eyed nature lover with a degree in biology, jump at every chance to visit a zoo. When Greg and I's work offered free tickets into Henry Doorly Zoo, I could hardly contain my excitement. We could finally take the family to the zoo, without having to take out a second mortgage. I also think that Noah's going to have my love for animals as he loves to watch nature shows with me. Maybe I'm just a little biased though. So on September 13, Greg, Noah, Harrison, Grandpa Philson, and I headed to Omaha for an adventure. We would meet Uncle John there.
Our first stop would be the aquarium. A brief side note, while I was in college I had the privilege of interning at the Henry Doorly Zoo in the aquarium. Needless to say, I know what happens back stage, and I love to see what has (or hasn't) changed since my brief stint. Noah loves watching penguins on t.v. and he also has a couple books with them, so I knew he would like this exhibit. He did in fact love watching the penguins swimming and eating fish (we showed up just as the keepers were feeding them). He also loved watching the sharks, turtles, and fish swim all around him as we walked through the aquarium's sea tunnel. Although, he did get a little scared, so it's a good thing Grandpa was there to protect him.

















Harrison just loved looking at everything, and was perfectly content just sitting in his stroller.




After one exhibit, it was time for lunch. We found a couple of picnic tables and ate our sack lunch. We also had a nice visit from a local peacock. Everyone enjoyed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (even the peacock) and then it was off to the next set of animals.











































Our next stop was the cat complex. The animals were actually all awake, and one of the tigers was growling and staking it's territory. Pretty impressive as they are usually all asleep. The male lion was pretty funny as he was watching people walk be and staring them down. I want to go to Africa one day, but I'll be sure to keep my distance. There was also a mountain lion (or puma as the zoo calls it. I guess it depends on where you grow up what you call it.) that was in a very playful mood and entertained Noah for quite some time. It was running around its enclosure and chasing its tail. It also was jumping up on the logs, hanging upside down, and batting at its tail. You could definitely tell that this animal was related to the average house cat. Or at least your average playful house cat.


There's more to follow about the zoo, but I'll let Greg post the rest. My hands are starting to cramp with all this blogging. Stay tuned!

So big, Harrison!

Harrison is definitely into everything these days. Now that he is crawling on his knees, he thinks he can get into everything. Within the last 2 weeks, he has also learned how to pull himself up on things, as the video demonstrates. I'm sure it's only a matter of a month or so before he's walking. Noah was walking by 10 months, so it wouldn't surprise any of us if Harrison followed his path. Harrison will be 8 months on 10/3 and it seems he can't grow up fast enough. I think his real intention is to drive his brother crazy. Harrison has also learned how to shake his head "no". He cracks himself up shaking his head, and makes everyone else laugh too. He'll shake his head while eating, playing, or while getting into trouble. There's no stopping him.

These next 2 videos are just quick little snap shots of the little guy playing. He's really started vocalizing a lot more while playing, although he still hasn't mastered Momma or Dada yet. However, Noah has mastered them. All day long we hear, "hey Momma" or "hey Dada". And it doesn't help if we try and ignore him, as he just gets louder and more frequent in his requests. As the video will show, Harrison also likes playing with big brother's toys. As long as Noah's not taking away the fun toys, or running by and hitting him, Harrison is very happy to just sit and play with Mom and Dad. He's a very happy baby, and turning very quickly into a very happy toddler.

To hold or not to hold...

Noah's been doing a great job with his potty training. Over the last week, we've slowly been letting him become accustomed to "big-boy underwear" for a couple of hours at a time. Due to the success of the last few days, Noah spent all of yesterday actually wearing underwear from wake up to bed time. In fact he repeated that victory today, but this story is about yesterday. Now permit me to set up the story...
Our big thing with Noah is that he needs to tell us when he has to go to the bathroom, that way he doesn't have an accident, and the kid's been getting really good about running up to us and shouting "Momma, Dadda, potty!!" While delivering this message he seems to posses this look of urgency that suggests he is not in fact fooling around, and if we were to fail in getting him to his destination, the world, would come to a very disastrous end. Therefore, we take the boy and his cry for assistance with the utmost seriousness and do everything in our power to escort him (Rather quickly, because honestly, who wants to clean up that mess? We do it enough with our dogs.) to the potty. Once there, Noah will very quickly assist in removing his pants (thanks Kim for teaching him how to slide them off) and will then struggle to get his undies off. Finally, he climbs up to the toilet, positions himself, carefully aims, and in most cases will successfully fire. The grand finally consists of a round of applause and high fives from all parties involved.
Set up complete, we shall now proceed to the punch line...
Last night Kim was at her usual weekly CCD class, teaching the Public School kids of our Parish all about the wonders of the Catholic faith. This means that I'm left to babysit, err I mean, bond with my two boys one evening a week. With Kim being gone, that means I'm in charge of keeping the schedule and basically getting everyone through a 90 minute period alive. With about 15 minutes left to go before total Philson Household lock-down, I had Harrison ready for bed. Dressed in his jamies (I'm a daddy, I can say the word jamies with a straight face and not be laughed out of a room full of men) in my arms, bottle in mouth, and lights off. It was heavenly. Noah was at the time playing trucks in the other room, gracing Harry and I with the occasional visit to make sure everyone was okay. On the last occasion, Noah entered the room with that look of urgency. "DADDY, POTTY!!" he cried with no regard to his semi-sleeping brother. In a flash a multitude of scenarios ran through my mind; put Harrison down, and take Noah to the bathroom, send Noah there by himself, let Noah wet himself. (okay three scenarios) In the end I decided that to set Harry down would ruin the work I had already invested in putting him to sleep. He would wake up and cry, and require additional comfort that would clearly take up valuable "Daddy time" that theoretically should be mine and mine alone. Without giving my words much thought, I calmly looked at Noah and said "Noah, can you hold it?" (I like to pause here to give other parents a chance to laugh at the stupid question I just asked)
Immediately I regretted my words. The kid gave me a look of confusion mixed with disgust. "But dad, I get in trouble when I do that" his eyes said. In the end, the child's obedience over ruled his frustration, and very slowly he raised his hand, and then firmly grabbed onto the front of his pants. Very clearly doing what Daddy had asked less than a second ago. The effort to restrain my violent laughter was tremendous. If I gave in to my impulse reaction to hysterically laugh at Noah's action I would essentially have nullified my efforts to keep Harrison asleep. The kid would have woken up and cried and I would have needed to soothe him, and would then need to clean up my urine stained two-year old.
In the end, my will-power overcame my primal urge, and I sent Noah to the bathroom. Harry finished his bottle just as all of this occurred, so I was able to put the youngest down, and then take Noah to the bathroom where we were met with additional successes. Through the entire ordeal, his underwear stayed dry. We celebrated our victory with a round of applause, a few "yeahs!" and one or two high fives.
This story very clearly has a moral, two year olds take things literally. Therefore never use such expressions as "Well gouge my eyes out with a dull steak knife" in your young child's presence. I highly doubt that story would end with applause and high fives.

A day at the pool

They say "everyone likes pools". I don't know if thats true, I've never taken the time to ask "everyone", so I really don't feel comfortable posting half-truths on our blog. But what I do know, is that Noah and Harrison like pools. Mostly Noah, as he's the only one who actually played in the water. But Harrison did a great job sitting in a mostly dry part of the pool (gotta love un-even ground) and kicking his feet in the water. In fact, the kid smiled for us. I know, what a rarity, but it was nice seeing him enjoy himself. Of course, Noah had issues "No Harrison, no pool!" "But Noah, the pool is for you and Harrison. " "No! pool me!" Or something like that. Eventually he'll learn to share, we hope, we pray

Apparently, the pool has more tenants than our boys, as Noah caught a whooper...or two. (the fish are different colors in case you're wondering)

Though Harrison was reluctant he did have a good time. He stuck pretty close to Dad, but I'm sure this time next year, there will be nothing holding him back in the pool.

The kids weren't the only one's enjoying themselves. Roxie was getting pretty close to Kim. I'm willing to bet, Roxie considered Kim's lap the safest place to be, since Noah has a tendacy to chase, and he probrably would have tried to chase her into the pool. Kim, loved the attention, any time Roxie shows affection you need to take advantage of it, because you never know when it will happen again.

Sing along anyone?

If you've ever met Noah, you know he's all boy. He loves tractors, trucks, mowing, and anything that involves being outside. With passions like these it was only inevitable that he would discover Thomas the Train, or as Noah likes to call it "Choo-Choo".
In our initial discover of Thomas videos at the library, it was also revealed to us that each Thomas video contains not one, but two really annoying kiddy sing alongs. you can't help but get that kind of stuff stuck in your head, especially when Noah wants to watch it everyday. Well, Noah heard mom and dad sing along once or twice and he decided that he wanted to do the same. Below is just a sample of what Kim and I see almost everytime a Thomas video is played.
If you can't understand the words, that's okay, Kim and I can translate.

This will warm your heart

Enough said....

Mom and Dad on a date

In an attempt to be "grown-ups" Kim and I were able to attend a concert featuring one of our favorite bands this last weekend. It was great. Def Leppard was in Omaha with special guest Billy Idol. After dropping the kids off with Grandma and Grandpa, we cruised up to Omaha getting pumped up by listening to the album Adrenalize. After catching up with brother John, who has to take full responsibility for introducing me to and feeding my 80's hair band addicition, the three of us caught a quick bite to eat and then walked through the Old Market to the Qwest Center. Apparently our dinner was too quick as we showed up before doors even opened. Eventually we were let in, and we easily found our very spectacular seats. To make things even better, Kim and I decided that concert Tee's were in order, so we made our way to the concession stand. If only we had thought to buy the shirts online we could have saved Noah's college fund, but then again, the shirts would be real concert tee's if the UPS man dropped them off.

Right after returning to our seats Mr. Billy Idol with his buddy Steve Stevens came out on stage. No seriously, Mr. and Mrs. Stevens decided their son had to have a first name that matched his last name, I'm not making this up.

The opening act was great, and lasted over an hour. Sad to say, but it was so good we almost forgot that there would be a main course.

Def Leppard was amazing, and the stage was filled with non-stop action. These guys started performing together 30 years ago and showed no signs of aging. It was truly great to see these guys in action. I still maintain, that they have got to be one of history's greatest bands, if for no other reason than their drummer has one arm. How does someone do that?

Alas the evening had to end, and we parted ways with brother John so that he could go to work the next day (sucker) and we could head back to Lincoln for a little sleep. When I say "a little" that's exactly what I mean. We were up bright and early monday morning to pick the boys up and return to normalcy at home.

I think it's safe to say that we're anxiously awaiting Def Leppards next album so that we can see them on tour again.