testing out the new 'do

A bit of a delay in posts due to craziness at work and home. Busy busy busy.

Anyhoo...here are a few pix we took after getting home from Kenny's haircut. Enjoy.


Mr. Shy

Mr. Intimidating.

Mr. Happy

Mr. Giddy with Mommy

kenny's second haircut

Mr. K was getting a bit shaggy, so we finally took advantage of everyone's improved health to get out of the house and get him his second haircut. Opting for what we knew, and too disorganized to try and find somewhere new, we took him back to Kid Snips and the magic shears of "Mr. Todd."


Kenny investigates the Kid Snips train collection before his big haircut.

Mr. Todd...back in action.

This time around, I didn't bemoan Kenny sitting in a mini-Hummer. I just sat back and watched him watch Elmo while getting his bangs trimmed. Such is life.


Kenny's got his Elmo. Overboard's got her coffee. All is well.

Look at that intense focus. On both men's faces.

After the haircut, we went next door to get Kenny's picture taken for his passport (so he can be an international bon vivant and travel the globe). Since he's still a bit short to stand in front of the proper backdrop, I put him up on my shoulders and tried to duck my head out of the way. Kenny found this most entertaining, and decided it would be even funnier if he pulled at my hair and randomly smacked my head. He's a real physical comedian like that.


"Dance, monkey, dance!"

While waiting for the pictures to develop, we went next door to the Fresh Market and bumped into Cousin Mitch (who was doing some shopping on his birthday).

Suburban strip malls. Is there anything they can't do?

hungry caterpillar

Yesterday, Overboard tried to bring some levity to the dour, disease-ridden mood in the house with a little creative storytelling.

Kenny enjoys reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" these days, but the other night Overboard really cracked him up by making munching sounds when I read the gastronomic exploits of the fuzzy insect to Mr. K.

Of course, now that we know another technique to make Kenny giggle it will be exploited mercilessly.

Check out the video below and note at the 50 second mark when Kenny starts mouthing the "munching" sounds. Wicked cute.

sick and tired of being sick and tired

Disease has swept the household. Kenny caught a nasty stomach flu, then passed it on to Overboard and myself. The 24-hour bug turned into a lovely cough and cold, which he has kindly shared as well. The only people that are happy about any of this are the shareholders for Gatorade and Kleenex. We are not shareholders for either of those two corporate entities. We are not so happy.

sorry, lot is full

The other weekend, Overboard and I decided that Kenny needed a new toy or two. It wasn't that he was tired of the ones he had...we were. I mean, we can only play with the same train, car, farm and set of blocks 6,872 times before it gets a little repetitive. Kenny can apparently do this for at least two or three times that amount. However, we're the ones with the buying power, so we're the ones who say when it's time to go to Toys R Us...or Target, as the case may be (when the selection at Toys R Us is just weak...c'mon, local outlet of the big toy corporation, get on your game, it's just sad).

After turning our noses up at a number of toy possibilities, Overboard and I spotted a winner with the Little People Parking Garage, that dovetails nicely with his Little People Farm set. See, Little People need to be able to move from the city to the farm and back again. It just makes them more well-rounded individuals. Plus, this parking garage combines some of Kenny's favorite things: cars and ramps for cars to go down. Throw in a nifty elevator and this set is "Gold, Jerry! Gold!"

Our paternal toy-purchasing instincts proved to be pretty good when we got home and Kenny grew upset at the fact that there was a minimal amount of "assembly required." While I tried to snap and bolt together the various pieces, Kenny tried to play with them. After some creative finagling, Kenny was able to play with his new garage, as were we. Of course, like rookies, we did this right before dinner, so there was a lot of intense negotiations when it came time to go upstairs and eat. Eventually, I just had to forcibly remove Kenny from the scene, which was met with the appropriate amount of screams, tears and eventually, waves of "bye bye" to the toys.

The next morning, Kenny and I came down to the kitchen to grab his morning sippy cup of milk, when he noticed the empty box by the counter. He pulled back the top, peered inside and shot me a look of consternation over the lack of a parking garage playset inside. Before I could say anything, Kenny made the proper sign with his fingers and asked plaintively, "more? more?" This was heartbreaking, but pretty damn funny. He was not as amused, but was thankfully distracted by the introduction of the aforementioned sippy cup of milk.

Now, we try to let him play with his garage downstairs, in the living room, and in his room as well. When it's time for the garage to close down, we attempt to make a smooth transition by waving "bye bye" and instructing everyone and everything that we are "all done."

I've rambled quite a bit, so I won't even go into the fact that the driver of the car in the playset has his cell phone out and is oblivious to the local ordinances against talking on your phone will driving. Little People, big egos, I'm tellin' ya.

overboard's sock puppet theatre

Overboard recently discovered that Kenny is a sucker for sock puppets. In an attempt to get a Level 6 Meltdown under control, Overboard took one of Kenny's socks, put her hand in it, and began performing. This was amusing. She then had the sock puppet tell a few jokes. This was entertaining. The sock puppet then went for the physical comedy and began "chewing" on things. This was hysterical.

So now, when we need to diffuse a ragin' Kenny, all we have to do is remove a sock and start channeling Jim Henson. Lucky for us, it doesn't seem to matter whose sock it is.

da plane! da plane!

Kenny loves airplanes. More directly, he loves pointing them out to everyone. Since we live under the approach pattern to O'Hare, he gets this opportunity quite often. Thus, every few minutes (on a clear day) he will point to the sky and announce, "ah-knee!" This, of course, means "airplane" and not, as I tried to suggest once, "Superman." It's not that I think "ah-knee" sounds anything like "Superman," it's just that I enjoy saying, "It's a bird, it's a plane, no wait, it's Superman!" Or, occasionally, "It's SuperKENNY!"

His pronunciation is improving a bit, and yesterday he pointed out a few planes on our family walk with something that sounded more like, "ah-nane."

bye-bye

Kenny's vocabulary is expanding daily, but right now his favorite thing to say is "bye bye." This is usually paired with him collapsing his fingers into his hand for a little wave of sorts. He likes to say it when leaving somewhere or someone, but he will just as easily say it upon entering a room as well. This could be done just to confuse his parents, or perhaps he knows something we don't. Hard to tell.

He's also working on saying, "I love you," which will undoubtedly earn him a free car or something equally extravagant the first time it is uttered to Overboard or myself.

While we're talking about some of Kenny's latest achievements, he also likes to dole out kisses and show off his mastery of the concept of "up" and "down" by holding objects at various levels (and at various speeds). For instance, at bath time he will take his toy duck, Goyle, and dunk him under the water while exclaiming, "down!" He will then raise him over his head and shout, "up, up, up!"

While PETA has argued that this constitutes a form of waterboarding, we think he still manages to squeeze in under the regulations of the Geneva Convention. Goyle, unfortunately, is unavailable for comment.

one is the loneliest number

Kenny can now count to ten, and he loves to practice. He has an odd aversion to the numbers one and eight, however, and they are often overlooked. Six and seven are usually whispered, but they are at least acknowledged. Two and nine are done with enthusiasm, and ten is almost shouted with glee. As for three, four, five, well he rolls through those just fine.

It's really fun to watch and I'll try to get a video of it soon. In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it.

new year's day in the snow

Kenny got to really explore and play in the snow for the first time on New Year's Day. He definitely approved of the experience. So much so that when Overboard tried to take him inside to warm him up and give him lunch he protested. A lot. Quite loudly.


Kenny wonders if he can hook a sled up to Sadie.


Kenny tests out his new snow boots. "Toes warm? Yup."


Kenny tests the aerodynamic properties of snow.


To help Daddy shovel the driveway, Kenny breaks out his bulldozer.


After the screaming ground to a halt, Overboard and Kenny enjoyed a nice lunch together. They ate and kibitzed about how Daddy was doing a lovely job out in the driveway.

rss feed enabled

For the tech-savvy, I've enabled the RSS feed functionality of the blog. Now, you can get instant updates whenever we add something new to the site. Technology. Ain't it somethin'?

For those of you who aren't familiar with RSS feeds, the easiest thing to do is cut and paste the URL: http://www.rolnick.net/atom.xml into a Mozilla/Firefox browser. Then use the drop-down menu to add it to your Yahoo or Google home page.

happy new year!

Here are a few photos from the raucous family New Year's Eve party last night.

Sadie: Party Animal.

Kenny didn't want to wear the hat, so we tried to get sneaky.

Wear the hat? Not so much. Chew on the hat? No problem.