Bath Baby

Dawson loves taking a bath. He recently started laying on his tummy in the bath tub to play. Then he sticks his face in the water. Come to think of it, I guess I’m glad Dawson likes taking a bath! He has these new sandals that make his feet stink like dirty smelly stink stuff. I can  use soap and water AND put lotion on his feet and I still smell the stink remnants on his feet. Poor little guy. Summer is almost over. We’ll get that taken care of. Mabye I should rub baking soda on the bottom of his feet before I put his sandals on. Isn’t that why you keep that stuff in the refrigerator
Anyway,
He’s such a cutie muffin.
Tomorrow morning bright and early we are headed to Traverse City Michigan to visit with my sister Bobbie and her husband David who will be there for a charity fishing tournament. I get so excited for road trips! I just hope Dawson will be as excited…

Vaccinations

I've never taken the opportunity to vent my frustrations about the phenomena of vaccinations.

My how the world is missing out.

I have friends who do not believe in getting their child vaccinated. Then I started hearing all kinds of reports about links to autism and allergies. The list goes on and on. Well, I came to work one morning after I had taken Dawson to Shots for Tots to get his 15 month shots. I was telling my coworker Angie about how I felt and that I was certain he would grow another head if he got more shots. (I heard about that one in the Enquirer). Angie made a very good point. She had both of her sons vaccinated and she dealt with the issues I was facing. She decided that the risks of having them vaccinated far outweighed the risks she was posing to them as infants in daycare being surrounded by other children with typholdrubinssicotomy and having no defense against it. Enough said. That helped me get through the day. And by the way, I'm sure that disease which was aforementioned will turn up in a medical book someday.

After Dawson's shots he looked like this:

No wonder parents hate it.

Hmmmm...

I think Dawson is reading my blog.

I dropped him off at daycare yesterday and he cuddled a little but when I set him down to leave he was okay. Then I came to see him over my lunch break and he was ecstatic and so happy and would let me put him down. Finally when I had to leave he cried and cried and I was told this morning that he cried himself to sleep for his nap and when he woke up he was whimpering.

OH MAN!

Now I feel like poop on a hot tin roof.

When I came to pick him up after work he was outside on the playground and he saw me and came running yelling MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY! Which was very cute and made my heart happy and all the playground workers were looking at me like I was THA BIZNESS.

On Sunday night we were relaxing and Jason told me he wanted to show me what Dawson could do. Jason had an old directory from when he attended his home church in Ohio. His family picture is in there dating back to when Jason was probably a senior in high school. The picture is in color. He laid the directory in front of me and called Dawson over and said "Dawson, where's dada"? Dawson put his little finger right on Jason's face and said "DADA"! I couldn't believe it. I was floored. So of course he's gotta pick me out of a crowd now. Who's your mama? So I go grab our directory from last year. My hair is way short and I was about 6 months pregnant but my picture is in there! I put the directory in front of him. Where's mama Dawson? He searches... (Gently I edge his finger over to my side of the page...) Finally I couldn't stand the pressure so I put his finger on my face and showed him where I was! Then I had him try again. He found me the second time.

Crazy.

 

ENJOY THE GHETTO SLIDE RIDE

 

I have to tell my story from yesterday. We got up to get around for church. Jason took a shower and I fed Dawson. He got really  messy so I decided I would just stick him in the shower with me and then Jason could get him dressed. Which is what we did. Dawson loves the shower. We had just bought Dawson some brand new clothes for church and to play in because it's starting to get cold outside.. I had everything laid out so that Jason would know what I wanted Dawson to wear to church. (that's what mom's do because we're afraid our husbands will send them to church in their pj's.) Anyway, I'm trying to finish up my shower and I'm rinsing out my hair. I look down and there's Dawson, fully clothed standing in the shower in his brand new church outfit. He's looking up and giggling and covering his face from the water droplets. I yell for Jason. He can't find Dawson. (That's because he's in the SHOWER honey.) Jason grabs him and asks me how he got in there and I told him I had no idea because I had my eyes closed washing my hair! Jason though when he opened the bathroom door that Dawson ran out and went to the living room. So he had to strip him down and throw his clothes in the dryer and I got Dawson dressed once his clothes were dry. I mean, he STILL needed to wear his new church outfit...

DGW

A few posts back I wrote about why toddlers need daddy's. Here is another reason:

 

I have no idea how Jason thinks of this stuff, and why do I go along with it? It makes me laugh! So much for our carton of vanilla coke. This not an ad for vanilla coke. However, if you go buy some because of this post, be sure and tell them to send the check to: Joy Wilkins 331 Ley St.

I taught Dawson how to give kisses. I love kisses. Sometimes he gets confused and puts his forehead up to your lips, but he still gets kisses either way.

Let's talk about food for a minute. I have never seen a toddler that likes food as much as Dawson. He seems to keep spooning it in and when he's done, he whines for more.

So one day, I tried a little experiment. I got to bring home leftovers from a lunch I ordered for some administrators. It was meal from KFC (this is not an ad for KFC, however...) If had a chicken breast, a biscuit, macaroni and cheese and potato wedges. That is a lot of food! I gave the whole thing to Dawson. I tore up the chicken and the potato wedges into bite sized pieces and the boy went to town like he was a poor boy on Christmas day.

He's so funny sometimes. For instance, in this case. He gathered everything around him in a pile. It had to be right up next to him. Then, and only then, he could nap.

***

 Okay now I want to explain something to all of you readers out there. If you will look down at the bottom of this post, there is a little link that says "Comments". Do you see it? I WANT COMMENTS! And for those of you who may use the excuse that you don't know how, I'm going to teach you right now.. Use your mouse and click on that link. Do it right now! then you type your message in the box that appears. Over to the right you'll see a place where you have to type in some letters. (this is to keep me from getting junk advertisements) Underneath that, there is a place for you to either sign in (if you're a blogger) or choose "anonymous" Choose anonymous if you have to and just add your name at the end of your comment. Capiche??

Okay. I feel better now.

What Happened?!

So,

 

The first part of this week, I was dropping off at daycare in the mornings on my way into work. Usually Jason is the one dropping him off at daycare, because Jason can go in a little bit later which means Dawson can sleep in.

 

WELL!

 

On all occasions prior to this one, I would walk into daycare and the moment I was inside, Dawson would turn into a cling-on. He'd hold on tight and the second he thought I was going to put him down the tears would flow. Oh the tears! I was understanding and tried to be comforting but I knew I had to get going or else I would be late to work... but in my heart I was thinking "yes! He loves me more than this wretched place!"

 

Now,

 

Monday, I stepped into the daycare with hesitation, as this was the first day in a while that I was the one responsible for dropping him off. Plus, we had a fun weekend together and I knew that would make it harder on him, meaning he'd be extra clingy to his mommy who he loves, adores and has so much fun with. Do you where this is leading? The little rascal jumped out of my arms and ran to the toys. Meaningless, unanimated, unloving, certainly incapable of tickling... toys!

 

HELLO!

 

For three days in a row he did that. I would drop him off and face rejection. No sad good-bye. No tears flowing, hearts breaking. And, I made it to work on time. Hmph. So each night I have come home to Jason whining that Dawson doesn't love me and I need to quit my job so he needs to find a job making millions so I can stay home and make Dawson love me again. And, on Monday and Tuesday night I put Dawson to bed and AFTER HE FELL ASLEEP, I went in and nabbed him and brought him to bed with me where he slept with his head on Jason and his foot on my face. (at least it's something).

 

Now Jason is able to take him to daycare again so things have been a little better. Jason doesn't want Dawson to scream and cry when he drops him off so he's happy as a poor man on pay day.

 

And to top it all off...

 

I've been bummed lately because after a year and half, I still have lost all of my baby weight. So I went to the library and checked out some books on weight loss/health and nutrition. I got 5 books and when I got home I laid them all out in front of me and decided to get down to the bottom of the whole weight loss thing. After consuming all this knowledge, this is what I came up with:

 

1. Don't eat
2. Exercise until you are sent to the hospital
3. Weigh yourself once an hour, if you gained weight -did you eat something?
4. Once you reach your goal weight, see you can fit both hands around your waist. If so, there is a small chance you can be a model in Europe

Back to Dawson. I love the stage he's in right now where he is repeating everything we say and do. Lucky for us, we don't ever do or say anything stupid. He is saying words like Go Go. He climbs on everything and stands up as thought falling won't hurt him.

 

And that's a day in the life of the Wilkins family

By Popular Demand...

I received several emails asking me to post the pictures of the family day we had at my sister Karen's house about a month ago.

 It was the day that my mom and the kids had planned and performed a play for us. Kazlan was the princess and I think she's had practice at being a princess because she play the role quite well. Corbin read jokes, Kadan and Karen both played parts but they were names that I can't spell or pronounce (even though I did nearly win the 5th grade spelling bee) and you can plainly see Dawson was baby Moses. He's an aspiring actor.

 

Kazlan's big debut brought out by Jason and Jose sitting on a boogie board.

Striking a pose for her paparazzi

I just love this kitten they have. He will sleep anywhere and you could carry him around by his ears and he'd purr. He's so sweet.

The first part of the afternoon was spent swimming of course. Dawson loves water! I think we have an Olympian on our hands. As a matter of fact, yesterday was the toddler swim day at the Y where he goes to daycare and his teacher told me that she was getting the other toddlers put into their little "boats" as she calls them and Dawson decided to jump right in. He slides in and holds onto the side wall waiting for her to get her butt in so he could swim! He even went under a few times and would push off her leg and come back up.

He was cracking us up because he was determined to keep climbing up and down the steps into the pool. Poor mom, she just waited at the edge of the steps to make sure he didn't fall in. Finally we put water wings on him because he was so determined and he swam with mom.

My sister Anita and her boyfriend Jose

And.. my little olympian

Weekend Fun!

So I have to tell you about our great weekend. Friday, we sat around at home. How fun is that?! Actually, some days it is fun! Saturday, we went to Jefferson Pointe for the afternoon to walk around. Our first stop:
The Harley Davidson Motorcycle shop. I thought we had a picture of Dawson on the child-sized all American motorcycle, but I guess not. He sat on that with both hands on the handlebars and a mean face. Like naturally belonged to the "Hells Momo's" motorcycle gang. Dawson was in "momo" heaven. We walked him around while he begged to drive. He actually cried when we left. Is this something we want to encourage? Maybe he'll get a leather jacket for Christmas. The rest of the day we spent walking around the outdoor mall and headed home. It was when we got home that Jason invented this:

THE GHETTO SLED
Every little boy needs a daddy so that they can have fun and exhilarating times rideing around on a beat up changing table pad. Sunday, after church my whole family got together at Ligonier's Marshmallow Festival. It used to be called "Strawberry Valley Days" but got it's name change because  Kidd's marshmallows put it on the map. I know Chris Kidd, son of Mr. Kidd (that owned the factory) personally. We were in a band together called "Tabgha". I sang he played drums. All was well with the world. Anyway, let me tell ya, a festival in Ligonier is an event to write home about! It takes up one block. The whole block, which takes 3 minutes to get around is made up solely of food booths. Mostly Mexican food because Ligonier is called "Little Mexico". Maybe the festival should be called Mexican Marshmallow Days" but boy are the tacos great! And if you stand in one spot long enough, you just may run into someone you know. There's a small section for rides which I just found out-got inspected. Which means, my sister Bobbie and I could have died during jour ride on the Octopus! We really did hit zero gravity and nearly fell out of the thing except that we were gripping the handle with our sweaty palms for dear life.

Dawson got to ride the carousel, but a grandma KK was hovering so Jason didn't get a very good picture. It was a very hot day so after the kids played a few games and we were all full of fair food we headed to Tim & Karen's to swimming. Wherein, Dawson decided to try his first hand at salt and vinegar chips which were in a bowl sitting on top of a quilt chest in their living room. Fun times had by all.

Which leads us to Monday. Labor Day.

Jason and I wanted to do something fun on Labor Day so Jason got online and looked up places to go within driving distance. He found a place called "The Frederick Meijer Garden's and Sculpture Park which is located in Grand Rapids Michigan. About a 2 1/2 hour drive. It's a neat place. But walking around outside became a chore. At one point, Dawson's stroller was reading 108 degrees. Which is a record for his stroller! Dawson got cranky and mommy and daddy got cranky. There are sculptures outside and inside.

Don't worry, this one was outside.

There are gardens inside and outside as well.

Inside, there's a greenhouse with carnivorous plants. I was expecting to meet a venus flytrap that is 10 feet tall, kinda like the one from Little Shop of Horrors. REJECTED. Those were about one inch in size. But it was neat seeing a real live one. They also had a taping of how chocolate is made from a chocolate tree so on our way out we got a free sample of Dove chocolate. Next year, I'm talking them into a candy bar. The highlight of the day for Dawson was playing in the water fountain. We got kicked out of playing in this one:

 so he played in the foot fountain instead. And he got soaking wet.

After we finished at the gardens, we were instructed to take a "Michigan left"-hello! U-Turn! These Michigan lefts are everywhere.-and head toward the mall. a nice two-story mall with air conditioning! Where we let Dawson play in this indoor playground and get knocked around by kindergartners who would hug him and then pounce on him. Then it was time for dinner. Dawson was a crabby naughty butt so we stopped at Big Boy restaurant  to feed him where Jason left a 3 dollar tip for the waitress who did nothing because we decided not to eat there. We stopped at Applebees in Sturgis for dinner where in total Dawson ate:

• lemons (rind included)
• French fries
• turkey sticks
• apple sauce
• rejected a pickle

Once we got home, it was off to bed...