Mud puddles

Closet reader?

Driving north on 270 on our way to playgroup today, we passed the Highway 40 interchange. Dominick pointed to a sign and said, "Do you know what that sign says? It says the road is closed." Sure enough, as anyone living in St. Louis knows, the road is indeed closed. So...did Dom read it? When I asked him, he said yes and giggled proudly, just as he had a couple of weeks ago when he told me he had "readed" part of a book. Now, if he'd seen a stop sign, that would have been different, but "closed" is not something Dom sees on a sign every day. I'd love to think that he's beginning to read, especially since he has resisted efforts on our part to sound out words. Quite often lately I find him sitting quietly with a book. He and Noel both love to read, which is so lovely. Dominick just completed the library's summer reading program by reading 50 books. I took him to pick up his prizes on Sunday. He was most excited.

I have to mention something funny Dominick said yesterday at dinner: "I'm stirring it up so it bes a lot gooder." I'll let him get away with that for now because he's four and it's cute.

Because I'm too tired to write a real post...

...and too easily distracted by the Internet:

Photos courtesy of PhotoFunia

Homegrown goodies

I'm going to try a little experiment with what's left of the summer. For the first time ever, I bought some vegetable plants: a bell pepper and a tomato. (Yes, of course, the tomato is a fruit.) The beautiful part is that they cost me a total of 94 cents, including tax, so if I kill them, oh well. But if I don't, yum! My new friends will have to go in a planter on the patio for now, but that's probably the safest place for them, given the abundance of little bunnies in our neighborhood. What to do about the boys, though? "Mama, look what I picked!" Fried green tomatoes, anyone?

Update: Dom and I went out to plant the goodies just now. He was excited to see and hold the plants in the bag. In his excitement, the pepper was knocked off. It was an accident, but still...Not only that, but we don't have enough potting soil, so I'm waiting for Mike to get home. There's a full bag of something garden-y in his trunk that's been there for months. Fingers crossed that it's potting soil.

Dom with the plants before the pepper fell off

A belated happy Fourth of July

I hope everyone had a happy holiday. My parents came to visit, arriving on Thursday, July 3, and staying through Sunday. A splendid time was had by all. We celebrated the 4th with a trip to the Missouri Botanical Garden (free!) and a cookout later. The most exciting part of the day was taking Dominick to see his first-ever fireworks. My parents stayed home with Noel while the three of us headed to the AT & T building downtown. We had a prime parking spot in the garage where Mike parks every day and a perfect view of the Arch and river from the thirtieth floor. (I wish I'd taken the camera, although who knows how the pictures would have turned out.) Dom thought the Old Courthouse was a castle. We could also see into the eastern part of Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals were playing that night. Dom wasn't as into the fireworks as we thought he might be. He wasn't not interested, but he wasn't jumping up and down, either. When the fireworks first started, he kept saying "They're going to get us!"

On Sunday, another photo op presented itself, this time when my neighbor, the Goat Lady (Merryl) told me she had two new baby goats. Mom and Dad and I took the boys up to our friendly neighborhood farm to see the goats and chickens. The babies were quite cute but stayed on the other side of the yard, so we didn't get to see them up close. The bigger goats were more than happy to venture over and even ate some greens from Dom's hand. I stumbled across this video yesterday featuring Merryl and her son. Check it out for more information on our unique local resource. As for our pictures, I've just posted them on Picasa. By the way, that picture above shows the blueberry-and-strawberry parfaits we had for a festive holiday dessert. They were soooo good!

July already?

Despite the calendar turning to July, the weather has been mild, and we heard a brief excerpt from "The Nutcracker" (written by Mike, if you'll remember) on the radio today. It will be hot and miserable soon enough, though the holiday looks pretty good, if a little wet. Hey, if it keeps me from having to water the plants!

So, what have we been up to since June 22, when I last posted? My memory is short-term tonight, so let's stick with the past weekend. It was very productive, with a little bit of fun thrown in. I won't bore you with the productive part of it (weeding, car washing, garage cleaning, blah blah blah). The fun part was a trip to the Incredible Pizza Company, which was new to us. It's a cross between CiCi's and Chuck E. Cheese's, basically. We went with our friends and their one-year-old daughter. It was good, though a bit high-priced (six dollars for go-karts???), but something different to do. Dominick bowled his first game ever, with some help from Noel, who loves balls. Dom's score was 44. The gutter bumpers were like little fences with widely spaced posts and stopped short of the pins, so they were somewhat useless. Dom was robbed, if you ask me.

Noel amazes me every day with his burgeoning vocabulary. I can't begin to keep track of all his words, but here are a few new ones: soap, cup (meaning gallon of milk), TV ("tee"), pea, pee, poop, horse, belly, nose ("pose"), foot, bird, sock, light, hot, cute, bite, goose, Thomas ("Nah-meh"). I've been trying to teach him animal sounds, but he gets a little mixed up. Me: "What does a dog say?" Noel: "Cow."

In closing, here's another fun fact from Dominick: bees bite your hair to make it shorter. Who knew?