When we got home on Saturday, Damon’s coming home present was to give Fuller a cold. The symptoms didn’t really appear until yesterday and when Fuller woke up from his afternoon nap today, it was a full blown attack on our little boy.

Fuller’s voice has changed to a squeaky, nasaly sound. Sometimes there are words, but mostly it is whining and quiet moaning translated to “I sick Mommy.” I feel so bad for him, as he sniffs and sneezes. His nose is raw from all the snot wiping. And his ability to blow his nose is not honed, so there are plenty of snot drips to wipe up.

I know he will get better, I just hope he doesn’t decide to re-gift it to me.

Today we went downtown to get our free ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. When I reread that sentence I think it sounds like some guys named Ben and Jerry owe us ice cream. In reality they are nice people who just want people to have free ice cream.

Playing the parts of Ben and Jerry are Damon and Fuller. Aren’t they awesome?

We took Fuller to the counter where Damon lifted him up and asked him what flavor he wanted. His response was yellow. “Yellow” was actually Mango Mango Sorbet. Damon picked the Berry Berry Extraordinary Sorbet.

I went a different direction.

This kind young man is offering me my very own ice cream cone of Half Baked, a yummy concoction of Chocolate & Vanilla Frozen Yogurts Fudgey Brownies & Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

We took our cones outside, enjoyed the sun, frozen treats, and each other.

Fuller loves free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Technorati Tags: Ben and Jerry’s, free ice cream, free cone day

Free ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s tomorrow!

Since we are trying to be as car free as possible, Fuller and I will be taking the bus downtown tomorrow to make sure we get our free ice cream.

I know Fuller will probably get Strawberry. I’ll probably get something low fat and yummy. What are you going to get?

Technorati Tags: free ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s

I finally finished uploading, organizing, titling, and tagging the photos from our Ohio trip last week. I had some great opportunities to take pictures:

There was our lunch stop in Knoxville on Monday. We got to visit with my friend Besty, play with Elizabeth, and meet the twins William and David.

I was able to take pictures in and around my mom’s house. Spring has really painted her house pretty with the blooming weeping cherry tree, the tulips, and other fun stuff.

Even though a Very Stern Voice told us photography was strictly prohibited at the Diego Live! performance, every parent with a camera took pictures at will.

I think our visit to Carillon park was my favorite picture stop. The weather was perfect and the sound of the bells was beautiful.

There is a playground we pass almost every trip to Dayton. This was the first time I took Fuller there and he had a blast. The playground was neat because it had some facts about the Wright Brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

I took time to take a few pictures while shopping in Jeffersonville. My mom was amazed when I was taking pictures through the window of a moving car, but I like seeing what images I can capture.

Fuller and I spent Friday morning visiting with Tiffany, a friend of mine from high school. She lives so close and this was the first time we were able to get together. Our kids had a blast playing together in the mall. And we happened on a free kids carnival with face painting. After we parted, Tiffany sent me a text lamenting the lack of pictures with both her and me in them. In fact we have none! This only means we have to get together again next time I go up there again.

Fuller tolerated me driving around and taking some pictures of a “Flat Jeremy” for someone I don’t even know. I need to get them printed for Jeremy and my niece, Vivian, since her school is doing it too.

And there was no Very Stern Voice asking us to not take pictures of the Over the Rhine concert I went to Friday night with my mom. People were flashing their cameras with no cares in the world. I did not use my flash unless it was intermission. I think it was kind of rude to use the flash during a performance. (I also find it annoying when people don’t turn off the sounds on their camera phones. I don’t want to hear the singers and a shutter sound interrupting the muscial experience.) I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I enjoy the ones I did take.

With all the pictures I took, you would think I would be happy. But, I am sad I didn’t take a single picture of Fuller with my mom. Every evening my mom read Fuller a story and it was so cute! One night, when Fuller was really into stalling before bed, he read her a story.

I also didn’t bother with taking pictures of my mom’s backyard transformation. She had a landscape company come in and move plants and rearrange the grass configuration, laying down sod in one day. I opted to visit with Tiffany and not take pictures of her (oops!).

We are back in Chattanooga now, so I can resume picture taking around here (starting with swim lessons today!).

Technorati Tags: digital photography, family vacation, organizing pictures

I usually do my self portraits on Always, Alli, but today I wanted to pass along my self portrait from this past week here, since Fuller is in on it too.

One morning while my mom was at work, Fuller and I drove over to Carillon Historical Park to check out the Deeds Carillon.

I didn’t realize the carillon (aka bells) played music almost all the time, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear the bells ring out as we exited the car. Fuller started running around the bell, enjoying the music, and letting me take as many pictures as I could. And it didn’t bother him when I laid down in the grass to get better perspective of the bell tower.

It helped that the weather was gorgeous, making running around in the grass even more fun.

Fuller liked the bells so much he remembered them on Friday when we drove back over there to take a few more pictures. He asked demanded to hear them again, so I rolled down the window, but they weren’t playing at the time. After I took the pictures and started driving away, the bells started chiming, much to Fuller’s pleasure.

Got a self portrait to share? Post it and leave a comment on Cass’ Midlife Musings. We wanna see you!

Technorati Tags: self portrait sunday, Carillon Historical Park

Soon after my mom and I bought our tickets for the Diego Live! show, I explained to Fuller what would happen. I had never once mentioned seeing Diego Live to Fuller because if something happened and we couldn’t go I would have a meltdown of nuclear proportions. And if I told him too soon, I would have heard about it for too long and told Fuller if he mentioned it one more time, he wouldn’t get to go.

Apparently telling him around 10 am on Wednesday morning was a good call, because he could anticipate the event and I didn’t want to duct tape his mouth shut to stop hearing about “Diego, BabyJaguarDoraandboots.” (By the way, Boots was no where in this production.)

We went to the Nutter Center a little after the doors opened, since we had to get to Will Call to pick up the tickets. This was a problem because it meant Fuller didn’t get to see Diego as soon as he got out of the car. But seeing the little picture of Diego on the paper in the Will Call office was enough to hold him over.

Once inside, Fuller again demanded to see Diego immediately. Since we had about 45 minutes until show time, we walked around, found the bathrooms, and searched for whomever was handing out the (free!) Baby Jaguar masks.

We quickly walked past the overpriced Diego and Dora licensed merchandise ($25 for a vest!) and decided to go to our seats.

We were ushered to section A, row 14, seats 1, 2, and 3. And Fuller again demanded to know where Diego was. We told him Diego wasn’t coming.

Or not.

When the lights went down and Diego’s sassy sister, Alicia (my mom had a delightful time trying to explain to Fuller my name is Alicia too) started singing, dancing, and introducing the show. The one problem was the sound in the Nutter Center sucked. The parents could understand about every third word and the three year old in my lap was saying, “What’s that?”

Diego’s entrance was pretty swinging. Fuller immediately knew what was up, and sat up straighter in his seat. We no longer had to explain where Diego was or wasn’t, because he was on the stage. Parents throughout the Nutter Center gave a sigh of relief, while simultaneously humming the Diego theme song that accompanied his entrance.

If you are all familiar with the Go, Diego, Go! cartoon, you know it is pretty formulaic with helping an animal in trouble and dealing with three obstacles along the way. The animal in trouble in our Diego Live! production was Baby Jaguar (seen above) and he lost his growl. He needed it for the Animale Carnivale, which was obviously where the finale would be set.

Through the dancing, singing, puppetry, and moving sets, the audience was asked to participate in various ways. We were asked to yell louder a lot (the cast of Diego Live! seemed to be hard of hearing), jump up and down, dance, and clue Diego in on obvious landmarks he seemed to miss in his quest.

The Baby Jaguar did indeed get his growl back (oops! was that a spoiler?) and was soon Cheif of Carnivale. The hot, hot, hot finale of the show had the kids dancing (Fuller moved a little bit) and ended in a similar manner as the TV show- asking the kids about jaguars and their habits (they scratch on trees, have sharp eyes, and they have spots).

When it was over, Fuller was a bit confused. He decided going home was ok, since he would see Diego again on TV the next day.

My mother announced we had “worshipped at the temple of overstimulation.” I said I had a headache, so it must have been a success. And when Fuller saw the Nutter Center again today, he recognized this past event as something good and wanted to go again.

Never in a hundred years did I ever think I would take my child to a performance like this, but I am thankful I did and my parents were kind enough to be the benefactors of this Broadway-level experience. The rest of the pictures are available on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: Go Diego Go, Diego Live

One of the enticing aspects of Fuller and I road tripping to Ohio was the thought that Vieja would treat us to Go, Diego Go, Live! tickets.

Through a series of conversations ranging from “do we really want to go?” to “I have to buy an extra paper at McDonald’s to get a $3 off coupon? wth?” to “Fuller would like to see this, here’s my credit card” it came out that my mom didn’t really know what Diego Live was. First, she thought it was something of the PBS realm. And secondly, she had no idea she was in for a “Broadway-level production” with audience interaction.

When we went to buy the tickets this morning we clicked on the 4 p.m. show and were offered seats in an upper level where I thought Fuller wouldn’t really get into the fun, let alone see Diego, Baby Jaguardoraandboots (which is exactly how Fuller says it).

For kicks, I tried to find out what was available for the 7 p.m. show, if those seats were any better. But the ticketmaster site didn’t take me to available seats for the 7 p.m. show. It took me to better seats for the 4 p.m. show. It was like the ticketmaster website was thinking, “Oh, I see how you are. My available seats in section 217 row 12 isn’t good enough. Ok then, how about floor seats, row 14. How do you like that? Think you can cough up the goods for floor seats? You have 2:15 minutes to tell me yes or no. Oops, 2:13 minutes. Go, go, go!”

Then because of a lost password we lost the reservation for the floor seats. So we started over and immediately, after typing in the world’s longest captcha, ticketmaster offered us the exact same floor seats we lost a minute ago.

Why does ticketmaster think they can do that? Why can’t they just say, “Hey, I have all these seats open, so, why not pick what ever the heck you want. Yeah, you have to pay more for floor seats, but I want to be open and honest about availability here. Go ahead, pick what you want.”

Regardless of what we went through, Fuller is excited, which makes me excited because as a parent, all I want is for my kid to be happy and maybe give me a bite of his ice cream.

Full report to follow the “Broadway-level” excitement.

Technorati Tags: Diego Live, Diego, Nick Jr.

My mom is working in the mornings, getting her practical experience in teaching ESL. She does this five days a week, and comes home with interesting stories (complete with accents) of her students.

It is kind of relaxing to hang out in the morning with Fuller, so he gets most of the same kind of routine he has at home.

Today is Wednesday and if we were at home, we would be getting ready for Mom’s Group, where Fuller would get to play with kids and get some of that social interaction he craves. But, there is no Mom’s Group in Ohio. Instead we have Alex.

Alex is the 3 year old grandson of a neighbor here in Ohio. On Wednesdays his grandfather watches him, but today a play date has been arranged, which is great for both mom and boy. I can let the two boys build log houses or draw with sidewalk chalk, while I peek at them from over the edge of my book.

Guess I should go get ready for this fun time. Fuller won’t quit talking about it.

Technorati Tags: playdate

Tomorrow, Fuller and I will become a traveling team once again.

Last year, we took our first mother-son road trip to visit Austina and my mom in Ohio. Looking over the blog archives from last year, it was a really fun trip with no complications or delays in travel. Fuller was still in diapers then, so this will be fun with the potty breaks at various rest stops.

I like traveling, and I really don’t mind long car trips. I don’t even mind being the one to do all the driving. In fact, I like it a lot.

When I was a kid, I remember taking trips with my mom and being her little traveling companion. And now, having Fuller as my little traveling companion makes it seem like the tradition continues. I can’t wait to buckle up, turn on the music, and sing traveling songs with Fuller tomorrow. (Seeing my mom will be great too.)

Technorati Tags: family travel