Fun With Toys

Now that I get to spend a lot of time at home with Lizzy I get to use my imagination more then I use to at work. For example today Lizzy and I both picked out toys and gave them names. For fun you can try to guess which toys I named and which ones she did.


___Burt Reynolds_________________ Baby ___________________Steve


___Poindexter Merriwether III__________ Elmo ______________

After we named our toys Lizzy decided that they should go to Old Navy. She went shopping at Old Navy with Aba (Jen's Mom) and now likes to pretend that our dining room is an old Navy store. She also decided that baby was drinking a chi tea latte like mommy and Elmo had some Coffee.

I should also note that I try to use different voices for my toys so there is no confusion to who is speaking. Lizzy speaks in her own voice even if she is pretending to be a toy.

Once the scene was set our fun could begin...

Burt - "Hey guys i'm looking for a nice pull over fleece. What color should I get?"
Baby, Elmo or Lizzy - "I eat hot dogs with lunch?"
Steve - "I'm just here to shop, not to be eaten for lunch."
PMIII- "I think you should get a nice blue one Burt."
Baby, Elmo or Lizzy - "We go to zoo? Right now!!"
Matt - "lizzy do you want to go to the zoo?"
Lizzy - "Yeah"
Matt - "It's Tuesday, the Zoo isn't open on Tuesday. Are we done playing with your toys?'
Lizzy - "no"
Baby, Elmo, or Lizzy - "I'll Pay."
Burt - "for my pull over?"
Baby, Elmo, or Lizzy - "No, play with toys."
Lizzy - "Daddy, don't tease me."
Matt - "I'm not teasing you, I'm trying to play with your toys."
Burt - "can i pay with my credit card?"
Steve - "you should get an Old Navy card and save 10%."

While Burt is paying....

Steve - "I haven't seen you in awhile Poindexter, how's the family?"
Baby, Elmo, or Lizzy - "Look, Moo-moos at the beach"
PMIII - "Not bad Steve, we just got back from Florida. we were down there visiting relatives."
Steve -"bet the weather was nice"
PMIII - "nicer then here, but still humid...and lots of bugs."
Baby, Elmo, or Lizzy - "I catch bugs"
Steve - "Elmo you catch bugs?"
Lizzy - "I want gum"
Matt - "you only get gum if you use the potty"
Lizzy - "I have to poop."

ChristmasFunTime

I hope everyone had a great CHRISTMAS/HANUKKAH/KWANZAA!!!!

Yes, I just figured out that I could change the font color and size of my text.

Last year Lizzy had Chicken Pox and I couldn't be around her for a month. I spent most of December and some of January at my parents house and couldn't go to any family function with her.

In comparison this year's holiday season has been great. The best part was being able to see Jen and Lizzy during Jen's Christmas break. Some of the Highlights included:

- Lizzy sticking food up her nose - I called her pediatrician, her office was closed, she told us to take her to the emergency room to get the food removed. We spent 3 1/2 hours waiting to see the doctor. When he finally came to see her, he looked up her nose and said she must have swallowed it and discharged us. We waited another 30 minutes for our discharge papers before we could leave.

-Lizzy pooping for Santa - We took Lizzy to get her picture with Santa. She was dressed up and ready to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. At first she was a little intimidated but she slowly moved closer to the jolly fat man. When he asked what her name was Lizzy replied, "Santa, I pooped.".

-Jen's Christmas music - it starts after Thanksgiving and doesn't stop until midnight on Christmas day. This year Josh Groban was very popular. So popular that Lizzy began calling me Groban and then Josh Groban. On the hour drive home from Jen's Grandma's house she looked at me and said, "lay down Josh Groban." at least 25 times.

-The decision to put me incharge of our Christmas cards this year - I thought I did a great job until I started getting the "where is my Christmas card?" question. After all was said and done I figure I missed about a third of the friends and family that usually get our cards.

-The food - on Christmas Jen and I had family over in the morning for brunch. I cooked a couple of things that seemed to turn out okay. Later that day my mom and dad had our family over. Every year my mom prepares a bunch of food from ham and turkey to potatoes and greenbeans. Overall my favorites are her hors d'oeuvres. She makes realy good salami wraps, crab thingies, and olive balls. But, my favorites are her cocktail weanies and sausage and cheese balls. Christmas isn't Christmas until I've stuffed as many balls and weanies into my mouth as possible.

Getting to stay at home with Lizzy has been great. It's exciting to watch her learn and grow from month to month. Like most kids her age Lizzy likes to repeat things that she hears other people saying, so it's usually fairly easy to figure out where or who she picks up new phrases from.

Needless to say Jen and I were a little scared when we sat down to eat dinner with lizzy a few weeks ago and she held up her little toddler knife looked and Jen and said “I'll fight you.” Jen looked at her a little confused and then asked me if I had heard what she had said. Still holding the knife up Lizzy told Jen “I'm not afraid of you.”

It took a few days but we finally figured out that it came from Jungle Book. At the time she had just watched the movie and would ask us to read her the book every night before bed. There is a part in the story when Mowgli first meets Baloo and tells him that he's not scared. In the same part Baloo shows Mowgli how to fight like a bear.

Even though we think we know where she picked this up from, I have to admit there were a few days that I had trouble sleeping in the same house with my 2 year old daughter.

I'm currently finishing up two books. The first one is The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Jen and I decided that we would both buy a copy and then read it together. She thought it would be fun to learn about the ultimate theory that ties everything in the universe together and I couldn't believe that David Silver from 90210 knew so much about physics.

The book promises explain physical principals in eveyday terms, which it does. It explains that theoreticly time travel, walking through walls, and even other demensions are all possible. The problem is that the pricipals are so abstract and only work on such an extremly large or small scale that they aren't relevant to everyday life.

Every time I finished reading a section I thought who cares.

For example the author illustrates how time and space can be bent using an amusment park ride. So if I jump on the Tornado ride at the county fair and some how the carnies get the thing moving close to the speed of light and some how I don't die from the force being put on my body then my watch might be a few seconds different from some one standing in the middle of the ride? What the F, who cares.

At the other end of the spectrem the book digs into quantim mechanics and looks at the tiny pieces of energy that make up everything. These tiny pieces of energy have an infinite number of paths that they are able to take and they try all of the different paths out. So in theory if all the billion apon billion pieces of energy that make up my body chose the right path out of the infinate possibilities that they can take I could walk through a wall. So if my body lasts until the end of time and I countinuously walk into a wall until then there is a possibility I might make it through one of those times. Again, who cares.

Okay I tried it once just to see if i'd get lucky. Didn't work......Okay I tried it twice it didn't work either time.

If this book sounds interesting to you try the evil puzzels at http://www.websudoku.com/ or you might like to try memorizing Pi at http://www.freewebs.com/howtomemorizepi/


The other book that i'm reading is Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns n' Roses. Jen chose not to read this one with me. I liked the book, it gave the back story on some of the band members and lookes at the L.A. Rock scene in the 80's. It covered all the sex, drugs, and in-fighting between the band members. Unless you're a big fan of that time period in music or GnR I wouldn't recommend this book either.

But I would recommend Chinese Democracy. It belongs in your ears.<-please disregard this statement. I've listened to the entire album twice now and it definitely does not belong in your ears. There are maybe three decent songs on the album, but no traces of the bluesy/punk funness from Appetite. The ballads seem like retreads of GnR's previous work only even more produced. Axl's voice still sounds good while the rest of the cd is mostly unbearable.

For my review i give this album a sticky note, tennis ball, and two plates.

Recently I received some frightening news from my doctor. After having 3 surgeries on my foot this year the doctors aren't sure how there are going to fix the latest problems and are starting to talk about amputation. As you can see in the picture of my foot above he is not happy. Understandably he is worried about Left and what he'll do with out him. Right is also worried about all the size seventeen shoes that I won't be able to wear anymore.

I've decided to honor Right by raising money in his name. My goal is $1,000,000. In the right column of my blog I have added a donation button through PayPal. We are well on our way, I've already donated over a dollar. Remember no donation is to small.

My dream is to see Right smile one more time before he's gone. Check back often to see how close we are to our goal.

Also click on the ads on the side of my column as many times as you can. Any advertising money made will go directly in to my foot fund.

Thank you bipeds, it's been fun being a part of your select group for the last 31 years.