Ian Gets Domesticated

This weekend, Ian wasn't quite the wild animal he usually is. He's been fighting a bit of a cold the past week and slowed down ever so slightly.

In addition to his gingerbread house adventures of Thursday, this weekend, Ian helped me make ice cream, did laundry, made playdoh creations, and organized his markers...among other things.

We went to the mall on Saturday and even with both Shawn and I, we quickly realized that shopping cannot be done with a 2 year old and no stroller (which gathers cobwebs in the garage). Five minutes in William Sonoma proved that the mall at Christmas time is no place for a toddler. We quickly escaped to the "kid's cove" play area and let him loose. I take back all the nasty things I said last year about the Bellevue Square engineers. They are slowly redeeming themselves. They added a parking lot elevator exactly where I needed them to and have done a better job of configuring ramps inside the mall....all conveniently in time for Ian to graduate from his stroller. I guess I shouldn't be so picky.

Once we arrived at the play area, Shawn sent me down to the coffee shop for a couple of mochas and I promptly put his wallet in my front pocket. I checked several times in the next hour and it was there...very secure. Another hour and several stops later, I checked again and turned to Shawn saying "I gave you back your wallet, right?". No, I hadn't. We retraced our steps, including the bathroom stall and kid play area (not an easy task). Our final desperate stop was at the mall's customer services desk...where Shawn's wallet waited, completely untouched. Who is that lucky this time of year?

Slightly deflated from our holiday cheer, we left the mall and headed to Red Robin for dinner. Ian was great through dinner and ate every bite of his food (with the help of some ranch dressing...a boy after his aunt Kristen's heart). It was a great day, despite the wallet incident. Good things do happen occasionally!

Ian's tunnel system was delivered to the wrong address, so I am desperately trying to track it down and get it back. Thanks to aerial map software, I know the exact house in our neighborhood and plan to knock on their door tomorrow asking for the gigantic 35 pound box that they accepted from FedEx in error. I will do anything and everything to have that sucker under the tree on Christmas morning (if not for Ian, for us grown up kids!).

Below are a few pictures of Ian doing things around the house this weekend. If all goes well, we plan to take him to one of Shawn's hockey games next Sunday! I can't wait to see what he thinks of a real hockey game. Otherwise, it's a super plain week ahead. I hope to plan so Christmas-y crafts for him this week... so continues the force feeding of Christmas! One day he'll get it (and will be asking for much more than a wooden car from the Target dollar bin, so I should count my lucky stars).

Ian knows it's important to scrape the sides

Trying another batch of peppermint ice cream... both batches turned out bad. Ian thought it was fun, though!

Playdough mayhem...all before dad was out of bed! Sundays are so much fun!

I guess anything can be a pretend telephone

He loves to move clothes from the washer to the dryer (except for undies...he always says YUCK! and moves them with one finger)

Helping fold... so very helpful

Organizing his markers. Before he was done, he had them strung all the way across the living room...all by himself!

Helping me with paper crafts. Who lets their kids play with a paper cutter? Me! Good thing our last social worker visit was Friday!

Rubber stamps are fun!

He was sad because he couldn't get the cars off the page of a magazine, so I had him go through and point to things he would want to play with and we cut out the pictures to give to Santa.