Mr. Stan

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Lisa

Mr. Stan has had a pretty rough couple of weeks.  It started with my bright idea to put Carter in charge of feeding him.  I thought this would be good for Carter (not necessarily the best thing for Mr. Stan) and would teach him some responsibility.  I’d have put him in charge of feeding Noey, but I can just picture Carter leaving the cage open and then Mr. Stan would have a nice tasty treat.

Carter was really good about giving him food and water for a couple days….but a week and a half later and he’s over it.  I noticed that his water was running quite low today and he needed some food.  I reminded Carter to feed him, and his response was, “Can’t you just feed him Mom.”  It’s a good thing we didn’t get him that python he wanted.  🙂

I don’t think Mr. Stan minds the dehydration.  I think he’d much rather be a little thirsty than have THE COOP MONSTER trying to climb up for a visit every chance he gets.  Cooper is quite the little climber and is always moving his chair with the booster seat next to the cat perch so he can attempt to climb up to get Mr. Stan.  I’m pretty sure he wants to be a cat when he grows up.  Apparently my scolding has paid off, because he no longer tries moving his chair to the cat perch.

 

Cooper pushing the cat perch

Cooper now just pushes the cat perch to his chair instead.  I feel like he’s too little to be this smart.  🙂

Posted in Carter aka Buddy Alligator, Cooper AKA Chunky Monkey, Noey, Pets, Stan The Cat | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Construction

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Lisa

Anyone that lives near Milwaukee is pretty familiar with road construction.  First it was the Marquette Interchange project, now it’s the Zoo Interchange.  Luckily we don’t go into downtown Milwaukee often so these two projects haven’t caused us many problems.

But now there is a lot of construction going into Milwaukee from as far away as Pewaukee.  This means a lot more people in Waukesha county are affected by road construction this year.  I take the interstate into Brookfield several days a week, and there are a lot of orange barrels going up.

While this may be problematic for some, Carter thinks this is AWESOME!  He loves road construction.  He loves seeing John Deere vehicles on the road, loves huge cranes (so he loves when they are replacing bridges!), and doesn’t understand why all the construction workers don’t wave back to him (I’ve explained to him several times that they probably don’t see the little boy in the back of the van with the tinted windows!)

So on Friday we were heading into Brookfield on I-94 to pick up some last minute items for Cooper’s birthday party.  We were driving along when Carter told me that he would like construction cones for his birthday, which is coming up in May.  I thought this was a strange request for a birthday present, but I was sure he’d find several ways to use them.  I pictured him outside with the cones on the driveway or sidewalk, and he’d ride his John Deere bike around them.  Or maybe he’d get out all of his John Deere tractors and play “construction”.

Friday night we ran to Walmart quick, and I saw some orange cones in the sporting goods section, so I picked them up.  They were less than $4, so I just let Carter have them on the spot.  He got them home, and I had to open them up immediately.  And he played construction with them all right!!!

Carter's Construction Area!

I had asked Carter to pick up the dominoes that he had dumped out earlier in the day.  A couple minutes later I looked over and discovered that he put his orange cones out instead.  This way no one would step on them, and he could leave them out.

Posted in Carter aka Buddy Alligator, John Deere, Parenting challenges, Vehicles | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Line

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Lisa

Last night I was trying to get some laundry folded in my bedroom and Tim was in the kitchen getting the dishes cleaned up from dinner.  The boys were sitting in the living room watching cartoons.  Since Cooper wasn’t feeling the best, they were actually sitting quite nicely, no fighting, arguing, hitting, or yelling.  It was great!

Tim had put on Sprout for the boys, which we don’t normally watch during the day.  Our usual stations are Disney Junior and Nick Jr.  We do watch Sesame Street, but other than that we normally don’t PBS or Sprout.  And when I heard the theme song from Caillou I remembered why we don’t watch it that often.

As a stay-at-home mom, I have to put up with watching or hearing cartoons almost EVERY day!  I know there are some moms out there that don’t let their kids watch television, I’m not one of those moms!  My kids don’t watch a lot of television, but they do watch a few cartoons every day.  They do watch more during the winter (since we live in Wisconsin and it’s too cold to play outside!).  In the summer we’re outside going for walks, at tee ball, or at the Milwaukee County Zoo, so they watch a lot less.

I have to say that I have some shows that I like more than others.  My favorites would be:

Olivia

Jack’s Big Music Show

Oswald

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Jake and the Neverland Pirates

Chuggington

Sesame Street

The Wonder Pets

Backyardigans

Then there are the cartoons that I let the kids watch, but I really don’t care for:

Yo Gabba Gabba (I think this show is really creepy, and I just don’t get it!  Not to mention the fact that one of the characters looks like a big giant dildo!)

Ni Hao Kai-Lan (I swear they sing the SAME songs EVERY show!)

Max and Ruby (Where are the parents???  They leave those bunnies home by themselves every episode.)

Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go (Seriously, if I have to listen to “Click, take a pic” or “Backpack, Backpack” one more time!!!!!)

Dino Dan (This is probably Carter’s FAVORITE show, and he has learned a lot about dinosaurs.  But if I was Dan’s mom, I’d have him committed.  There is having a great imagination, and then there’s Dan.  And why hasn’t a T Rex tried to eat him yet?)

And then there is Calliou.  As soon as I heard it on the television last night, I immediately changed the station.  I know that many people probably love the show, I can not stand it.  I don’t exactly know why, but Calliou drives me NUTS!  He is banned in our house!

I can stand watching the same shows day after day (and let me tell you after a summer of watching the same 10 episodes of  Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel, which they had on for a couple hours EVERY WEEKDAY MORNING ALL SUMMER I can tolerate a LOT), but I have to draw the line somewhere.  Calliou has crossed that line!

 

 

Posted in Carter aka Buddy Alligator, Cooper AKA Chunky Monkey, Parenting challenges, Television, Tim | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Japan

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Lisa

Carter’s school is taking up a collection for the people in Japan.  He brought some information home today in his folder.  If every student donated just fifteen cents, the school would raise over $125 to send to Japan.

Both Carter and Cooper love to put money into their piggy banks, so I thought it would be a good idea for Carter to donate some of his own money for the collection.  I want to teach him that it’s good to help out others in need.  We already try to donate an item or two for the local food pantry when we are at the grocery store.  He also collected food to donate for his mission project at Sunday school.  And at Christmas time he has to put money into EVERY Salvation Army bucket (mainly because he wants to ring the bell!).

I have to say that I was so proud of him when he decided to donate ALL of the money in his piggy bank!  Granted, he doesn’t really grasp the idea of how much money he donated, but I’m proud of him just the same!

 

Posted in Carter aka Buddy Alligator, School | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Frogs and Snakes

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Lisa

Carter and I recently were at The Learning Shop looking for a birthday present for Cooper when he noticed some frogs near the cash register.  And like any normal 4-year old boy he was fascinated.   We found out that they are African Dwarf Frogs, they come in a pretty small container with gravel and a bamboo plant in the corner.  According to the clerk you need to feed them twice a week and clean out the container about 4 times a year.  So when Carter asked if he could get some, I was seriously considering it (which I know is crazy since we already have a cat and a 3-legged hamster, but I think even I could handle feeding something twice a week and making Tim clean out the cage 4 times a year!)

Picture of an African Dwarf Frog that I found on Flicker taken by psyte.

 

But upon doing a little research on African Dwarf Frogs, I found out that two frogs need no less than 1 gallon of water, and I don’t think the container they live in could hold a gallon of water (but I could be wrong).  I know that I don’t want to invest in an aquarium, nor do I want to mess with cleaning it out.  My family had fish when I was growing up, and they aren’t exactly fun to clean out (not that I ever ever helped, but it looked pretty gross).  🙂

I hadn’t yet told Carter that he won’t be getting a pair of frogs for his birthday yet (which is coming up in a few weeks), but apparently he’s over frogs.  On the way to swimming lessons he asked Tim if he could get a snake.  Tim replied, “No, I don’t think Mom will let you have a snake in the house”, to which Carter said, “But I don’t want a rattlesnake, I want a BIG pyfon”.  (Pyfon would be Carter for python).

I may need to rethink my position on the frogs, I'm pretty sure a python could eat Cooper! (Picture by Ryan Somma)

 

Why oh why couldn’t I have had two girls instead?  They’d be happy with a little fluffy puppy or a cat.

 

Posted in Carter aka Buddy Alligator, Noey, Pets, Stan The Cat, Tim | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment