Warm San Diego Sun

Last week, we got back from a trip to visit Mike's family in San Diego. Per usual, we had an amazing time. We went to the tide pools for the first time and Jude saw two starfish and held one. I held it too, and felt secretly thrilled in my heart to hold such a strange thing.

We met up with Mike's law school buds, Kristina and Andreas, and they went surfing.

I stayed on shore and kissed Bubbers and played with Jude. We collected all kinds of shells (broken or whole) and Jude tried to collect a bunch of seaweed and weird sea things as well. That didn't last.

We also touched sea anemones. They have sticky, purply-green tentacles. My brother, Britt, came to San Diego too and while he was at the tide pools, he accidentally dropped a sea snail into the clutches of the anemone, much to the horror of all bystanders. (He he he)

Jude ate sand. That didn't last long.

Mike surfed. This one is for me. You may also look at it if you can contain your swoons.

Bubbers smiled. And his blue eyes sparkled.

Anne came along and took pictures with her sweet camera and played with the boys. We miss having her living close to us.

Britt fulfilled a bucket list dream and learned to surf. He did amazingly. He got up several times and even rode an unbroken wave. Contain your swoons, ladies, contain those sighs.

My Boys

Mom and the boys. Notice how Gabe is spitting up all down his chin, my hand, and his belly and Jude is whacking me in the face. Seems like a typical moment to me.

Again with Gabe spitting up and Jude refusing to look at the camera.

Mike and Gabe. Look...Gabe is starting to respond and smile. We make absolute fools of ourselves trying to get that little guy to smile.

Jude and Tyler. Best buds.

We've decided that Gabe more or less looks like Jude, just much fatter. Mike calls him "fatso" and I cringe every time, convinced the kid will develop a complex. He is deliciously chubby, though. Today I put a 0-3 month onsie on him and he was bursting out of it. It looked like a skin-tight belly shirt. I couldn't fit it over his girth. It was awesome.

Yawning. Notice that tasty chin roll.

Mike and "Fatso". See, you can already see how grumpy he is with all the name calling.

A few tasty Jude moments.

Jude likes to run around our living room while holding his stuffed shark behind his back screaming at the top of his lungs that the shark is eating his back.

Jude likes to pick his nose. A lot. And then eat it. Two choice moments from this. One is that he ate such a big booger the other day that it got stuck in his tooth and I had to fish it out. Ah, motherhood. Then, when I was telling him how "yucky" it was to pick his nose and eat it, he looked up at me earnestly and said, "No. Boogers not yucky. Boogers YUMMY." Silly mom getting her "Y" words confused.

Jude was making this creepy hissing noise at breakfast the other day. I asked him what sound he was making and he said: "Spider laughing" As Satan's minions, that is probably what spiders' laughing sounds like. Observant boy.

Jude loves to have his puppy do everything with him. He changes the puppy's diaper. He feeds the puppy whatever he is eating. He wraps the puppy up in a blanket and puts him in the baby swing. He is very sweet to his puppy. I even saw him trying to nurse his puppy the other day (buddy, hate to break it to you, but that well is dry...). The other day we were eating a fruit snack on our front step and the puppy was sitting dutifully between us. Jude said, "Puppy hungry" and went to feed him some of the fruit snack and then laughed at himself, pulled the snack away quickly and gobbled the whole thing up. It was like "as if...there are just some thing a man doesn't share. fruit snacks is one of them."

Jude loves the Angel Moroni on top of the temple. He's obsessed. He says his name and that he is playing the trumpet way up high, at least 50 times a day. Tonight he made me sing him an "angel Moroni" song at bedtime. I can assure you that was one, made-up, tasty number.

The mischief is never ending with Jude.

Adding to the List

In the wee bit of time it took to get home from Mike's brother's house, Jude managed to add two acts of grossness to his ever-growing list.

1. Gross Act #1: Jude pulled off his shoes and socks and started scouring his feet for fuzzies. He found a few choice toe-jammed fuzzies and promptly popped them into his mouth. Yes, his mouth. As if that was the only obvious choice. Um, gross.

2. Gross Act #2 (the foot fetish continues): Seconds later, Jude started spitting on the bottom of his bare feet and then wiping the spit on the top of his head with his feet. It was amazingly acrobatic and totally disgusting. What would inspire such an act? (Has anyone seen Mike doing any of these things when I wasn't looking?)

Power to the male species.

So, I let my kid play in a muddy puddle in his pajamas out by the dumpster with huge pieces of asphalt. And?

Why are boys so gross?

I'm serious. Are girls gross, too? I don't know. Jude has been blowing my mind lately. I can't even remember all of the disgusting things he's done.

1. I found him in our bathroom licking the toilet handle. Yes, full tongue extended, licking furiously. What the what? He felt very sad when I made him give up his tasty new treat and washed his mouth out with soap.

2. We have a gross pothole in our driveway that fills with water, rocks, and mud. Jude often splashes in it with a stick, which I'm cool with, to a point. The other day while I was laying down (why did no one tell me that a sinus infection headache is like being buried alive with metal splint shoved behind your eyes, cheeks, teeth, jaw, neck, and head?), I heard Mike exclaiming, "JUDE! NO! GROSS! SPIT IT OUT!!!" Come to find out, Jude dipped a rock in the muddy, nasty water and put it in his mouth and sucked all the water off with relish. Who does that?

3. He loves to lick the bottom of his shoes. It doesn't matter if they are muddy or crusted with foul items, he licks and bites them. And yet, I still kiss that little face a hundred times a day. He makes it tough not to....



Luckily, he knows the words, "ewwwweeeeee," and "pee-yewww," and "stinky" and isn't afraid to chase us around with a stinky sock or foul diaper chanting these words over and over.