Wicked Snow

For once I am not just being my usual Irish overexaggerating self. It's been a tremendously tough month here in Massachusetts with the snow. We've set daily records, a monthly record, and we currently have about 48-50 inches of snow on the ground. It hasn't been warm enough to melt (or to even get outside! With average daily temps hovering in the teens...) so we are stuck with huge piles of snow that have nowhere to go. When spring decides to come, and this all melts, we are in for a tough ride!!

Today, the temperatures made it up to about 34 (which seriously feels like summer.) Jack went venturing outside while Justin attempted to tackle the ice dams on our roof (more about that later.) We had a good time playing in the snow :)

Our front steps...if you can see them.

Jack "shoveling" the driveway :) He's a big help!

Look at that snow! Bigger than me!

I still think shoveling is pretty cool.

I don't think we'll be playing in the sandbox any time soon...
in fact, we can't find the sandbox!

Eating more snow than anything.

"Hiding" from Mommy!

The poor people that have to deliver our pizzas and chinese food...

Daddy attempting to clear our ice dams.

Icicles = bad sign for your roof.

For those of us from the sunny, warm (ahhh) South, we have no idea what ice dams are. This is the first year they have really affected our house. I think it's because Justin was trying to be proactive with his roof raking, but who knows?

For those of you that are curious...this is an ice dam and this is what it does to your roof:

From reports on the news, a lot of people in our area are dealing with them now. That doesn't make them any more pleasant! My super smart husband has come up with a way of dealing with them, including hot water from our boiler through a hose, ice melt laid across the gutters in stockings, and lots of physical labor. It seems to be working so far...but please please spring come soon!!!

18 Months!

Look! I have finally done his milestone post on the ACTUAL DAY! It's amazing. The only reason I have remembered this today is because I am waiting to go to the doctor's office ... again... to see if I can get rid of this plague that I caught. Ugh. I am so excited about summer days at the pool that I can barely stand it!

Anyway, enough complaining from Mommy. Today is Jack's 18-month birthday! What can our big boy do now?

• New words! His vocabulary is expanding every day. He says the following: football, basketball, cow, moo, bird, tweet, bear, whale, belly, ear, eye, no, baby, babies, cold, brr, ice, snow, car, fish, milk (every liquid is now milk), bar (breakfast bars), ball, all done, yes, hungry, thirsty, Taggie, book, Pooh, tree, bee, bzzz. I am sure there are many others that I am forgetting.
• Taggies. I have been waiting and waiting for Jack to find his "thing" that will be his comfort and we will have to pry away from him when he's 7 (or, if he's like Ken Farrell and his pillow, never.) Jack seems to have chosen these "Taggie" blankets that Gigi found a long time ago. They are fleecy squares with little ribbons tied on all of the ends. He has two and I just had to request more from Gigi because we sent one to daycare, and they said all of a sudden his naps are a million times better with his Taggie! Weird. Either way - he holds onto it from the moment he gets out of the bath at night until he wakes up in the morning, and even then he doesn't usually want to let go. It's pretty cute. :)
• Jumping, running, dancing. He's a dancing fiend!! Any music that comes on, he stomps his feet, shakes his head, bobs to the beat. I think this partially has to do with daycare and the Music Man, and partially it's just his thing. Justin and I are confused a lot because neither of us are very musical but Jack definitely is! And if the music stops and he's not done dancing, he will demand "more more" until you turn some on. :)
• He sings and talks to himself. Whether it's in the bath or the backseat, he manipulates objects and yells, sings, or talks to them. (Toys, cars, etc.) It's so funny to hear his voice change. I can't wait until he can really tell me about the imaginary worlds he has created for all of his toys!
• Climbing. UGGHH this phase is driving us crazy!!! Up on tables, on furniture, over things, under things, through our legs...he is always climbing. I don't know if this is a toddler thing or a boy thing but it's dangerous sometimes!

Our Trip to the E.R.

Well, it was bound to happen at some point or another...we were going to have to take Jack to the emergency room. Last Thursday, he somehow managed to fall backwards down our stairs, hitting the back of his head on 4 steps on the way down and smashing it into the tile floor at the bottom. He immediately started screaming (good sign) and then Daddy helped him feel better by feeding him pudding (another good sign.) However, I called Dr. Hunt just in case, and she started saying "internal bleeding," "brain swelling," etc., so off we went to the E.R.

http://www.mwmc.com/services/er-department.aspx

We took him to Framingham Union Hospital, which was the same place he had his ear tube surgery. We were lucky and got in and to a room pretty fast. Dr. Paul checked him out, and all the tests came back fine. Our little boy was ok, it was just a very scary night for mom and dad!

Needless to say, we put the gate back up. Maybe he's not quite ready for that kind of freedom yet...

Swim Lessons!!

Here are the pictures you have patiently been waiting for! Justin accompanied Jack and I to our second parent-tot swim lesson today. Jack was much less happy this time. I think it's because Justin was on the pool deck and he kept looking over there at him. Or he was just tired, because he woke up at 4am (yes really.) Either way, we got a few good smiles and a few good kicks out of him today...

Getting ready for a big workout at the pool!

Jack spent time before swim lessons building this masterpiece.
(Sorry for the blurriness, I am still learning to use the new camera.)
We thought it was hilarious and pretty ingenious that he built a wine cork forest!

Hard at work.

Finally! We are in the pool. Smiles all around :)

Here is the class. There were about 13 babies today. It was a full pool!

Learning to blow bubbles.

Swimming to my Coach!

Yay, Jack! He was such a ham.

Learning to push off the wall with my feet.

I was supposed to sit on the side and wait for Mommy
to ask me to jump in. I jumped on my own accord every time. Oops.

One two three!!!

GO!!!!

Daddy was distracting me today.

Learning to float side to side. Jack didn't really like this part.

Snowed In

Today we are snowed in. Framingham / Southborough have hit the "Sweet spot" of this Nor'easter and we are anticipated to get 15-18 inches of snow over a 6 hour period. Do the math...that's 2-3 inches an hour!!! Visibility is about zero and they haven't even touched our roads yet, so none of us are going to school or work anytime soon. (Again!)

Update: here are some pictures from this afternoon, about 3:30pm. We decided to dig out even though the snow is still falling. We are all stir crazy!

Looking up at the snow still falling. Wow!

Playing in the path Daddy created with the snowblower. I love winter!

17.5 inches was Southborough's official count so far. Seems pretty accurate...

I looove to eat the snow!

I will take this as an opportunity to update you on Jack's comings and goings lately. He's so funny! Every day Justin and I look at each other and say "how did we create this little guy??" He alternately tests our patience and amazes us and it's the most fun we have ever had :)

Just chillin', reading my book.

I love playing in the laundry basket!!
 It's my favorite place to sit and watch TV.

Here is a picture of all the things Jack collected for his bed on
Sunday night, including Colin & Ashley's Xmas card.

I ate blackberries for lunch. Daycare apologized profusely.

My friend Daniel gave me this shirt for Xmas. Isn't it awesome??

Redeeming the Farrell's

So everyone saw on the last post how much Jack absolutely hated the Squirmles. (Sorry Pop Pop and Susu!!) Another present they sent, however, has been a GIANT success!! Colin, Ashley, Vonny and Ken recorded a book of nursery rhymes and sent it to Jack for Christmas. He likes most of the stories OK, but the Itsy Bitsy Spider is his absolute favorite! (Of course its the only one where everyone is singing, so maybe that's why...) Anyway, he will listen to it over and over and over and say "more! more!" when it's done...see below! Good job, Grandpa Frank and Grandma Chippy... I mean, Pop Pop and Susu.

Jack hates the Squirmles

For Christmas, Pop Pop and SuSu sent up these little toys called Squirmles.

They are little soft felt toys on sting that you are supposed to put in your pocket and then walk around to make it look like the thing is following you.

Needless to say, this was NOT a hit with Jack. I put the string in his pocket and he went absolutely insane with fear. Since it was just me & him, these videos are awful and I'm sorry .... but it was so funny that I couldn't not try to catch it on tape!!!

I ate a LOT of chocolate covered raisins to make myself feel better.

We also had swim lessons today. Justin opted out because he didn't want to be "that guy" with gazillions of pieces of video and camera equipment (and it was snowing, and I think he was being lazy.) In a class of 15 kids aged 3 and under, Jack was the STAR!!! He jumped into the pool to another teacher all on his own. He kicked off the wall and went underwater and did everything with a GIANT smile :) He was also the only kid not accompanied by two parents and at least two grandparents, aunts or uncles...so next week, Justin will definitely be there with camera equipment in tow :)

Jack Attack (Aptly Named)

It's been a pretty crazy week in the Crosby house. We all drug ourselves out of bed Monday for school and work...back to the old grind. For me, it's been insane at work with year-end financial reporting, and Justin was trying to get back into the swing after a week off. We survived (somehow) Monday and Tuesday... and then yesterday, daycare called Justin at 10am. Jack had to go home because of "excessive vomiting." Justin got him home and he was totally fine. No fever, no throwing up, and he was happy as a clam...so today, he's back at school!

We have been very successful in eating at the table as a family for dinner for two nights this week! Jack loved spaghetti Monday and he even ate the pork, rice, and spinach I made last night. I think this is a good trend to start as it really lets us decompress together and talk about our days - and don't worry, Jack has plenty to say about his!

Here are some snapshots of life in the Crosby house lately...

• Jack has started learning (and asking for) the names of his friends at school. Daniel is a favorite (and a big thanks to Daniel's Mom for Jack's awesome Christmas present - it's a Star Wars tshirt with Yoda and it says "Judge me by my size do you?" So hilarious!)
• When Justin's parents were here, we all went out to lunch at Chipolte. I took one car to the grocery store and they all went home in another. They were looking around the car and saying, "Jack, where's Daddy?" and he'd point at Justin. "Jack, where's Gigi?" and he'd point at Annette. "Jack, where's Granddoc?" and he'd point at Derry. They said, "Jack, where's Mommy?" and he looked around the car and said "UH OH!"
• I came home yesterday (after Justin had been home with our "sick" kid all day) and found all of the tissues in an entire box of Kleenex pulled out and stuffed in various corners of my room. He was so proud of himself that he even dragged me back there to show me.
• Jack likes to pick up shoes and try to match them to the right person's feeet. He tries to put my high heels on Justin and Justin's boots on me, and he thinks it's hilarious.
• Eating in the bathtub. Oh my gosh! Sometimes the kid refuses to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack at home or at school. By the time he gets in the tub however, he's STARVING and he will eat pizza, edamame, baby food purees, yogurt, chicken nuggets, and lots of other things in the tub. We still haven't quite figured this one out - but sometimes it's my only tool to get food into his belly, so I take what I can get.
• Nemo and Elmo are remarkably close to the same thing coming from Jack's mouth ... both are "Ma mo." :)



We start swim lessons on Saturday...pictures then!

2011 is here!!

We had a busy, wonderful, awesome year in 2010 - but we are very excited to usher in 2011. It began with a great win by the Seminoles...Jack got to show off his tomahawk chop skills. We hosted Sam, Tony, Raegan, and baby Colin for New Years Eve dinner and even got to share some of our college football festivities with them. We had a delicious dinner (Thanks Justin!!) and Raegan was a big help in getting both the little men to sleep! Then we all sat around talking until as late as we could stand it - about 10pm which for parents of young kids is pretty darn good! Justin and I caught the end of the game, kissed good night, and we were treated to a child that slept until 8am today!!

Jack loved the Rose Bowl parade. He pointed out every dog, fish, flower, color, bird, and butterfly that he could find. We decided that tomorrow we are going to attempt a trip to the New England Aquarium because he loves fish soooo much...and he's been such a good boy!

We have been so blessed and we are so thankful for our little family. We hope that 2011 will bring great things to the Crosby house :)

Much love!