Of course, as soon as Chris left town (actually, Chris was working a convention for two days before he left town, so we haven't seen him since Wed. morning), Atticus cried all morning at daycare, so I had to pick him up at 10ish on Friday. He didn't seem ill, just a little clingy, so after playing trains at home and taking a nap, we went for gelato. He barely touched the blackberry sorbet he chose for himself and went for my pistachio instead.

Saturday morning Atticus peed in his potty for the first time! Here's the extended story. Friday night he peed in the bath tub, and I told him that that's what I've been trying to get him to do in the potty. It seemed like something clicked for him at that moment. In the morning, he pointed to his diaper and said he had an ouwie. I went to change him and discovered he was dry, so I asked him if he wanted to try to use the potty. He did, so I put him on it and started to take off to do something in the kitchen, but almost immediately he called to me that he did it. He proudly helped me dispose of it in the toilet and flush. We marked the occasion with an Elmo sticker on his potty chart. Then he watched his Elmo potty time DVD.

We had breakfast at Cup Cafe, and I treated Atticus to a rare orange juice. We sat outside where we had a nice view of the railroad tracks, which were very busy lucky for him.

 We saw an Amtrack train in addition to all the cargo trains. Atticus wanted to get on it.  We ran into our friends Heather, Truman, and Ward, which I somehow neglected to photograph. We went back and forth across the bridge, up and down the elevator to the water sculptures, etc. After they took off, we did more of the same.

Then we shared a chocolate macaroon, and I had an idea that perhaps we should take off for Bisbee during his naptime and stay the night. It would be a tad cooler at least. And so we did. We booked a room at the Copper City Inn, which Chris and I stayed at before. We drove through rain on the way there. (I hope the monsoon is coming to Tucson too.)



Turns out it was Gay Pride weekend in Bisbee, so there was lots going on: vendors everywhere and an art car parade. Atticus was most interested in the old mining train in front of the mining museum. And it turns out he's a big fan of olive oil. Who knew? We sampled several olive oils, and he wasn't content just to dip bread in them; he wanted to drink them straight from the cup. We bought some basil (boring perhaps, but practical) olive oil to take home.

 Here's our room.

 Our balcony.

After such a long day, it was foolish of me to try to take him to the nicest restaurant in town to have a four-course dinner. He wasn't bad bad, but he was very fidgety, so by the time we got to the sorbet  (which he quite enjoyed as you can see), I asked the waitress just to wrap our entree so we could take it back to our room. We ate it on our balcony. It was still delicious, and he tried and liked all of it--fish, crab cakes, lobster ravioli, broccoli, and zucchini. Oh, and another thing I was surprised to find out he likes: olives. He's been quite happy to try new foods these last few days, including foods he previously rejected such as zucchini; and then he congratulates himself for eating it and liking it.

All of our photographs seem to involve food. Here's breakfast: blueberry yogurt muffin and carrot/apple/beet/ginger/celery juice, which he also loved. And to think the woman at the juice bar recommended a plain apple juice for him. Note: if I hadn't acknowledged it already, Atticus is very good at sharing. He loves to share food and drinks with me, and in fact insists upon it a lot of the time. We had to take turns drinking this juice. My favorite meals with him are when we have one big plate that we both eat from.

We went back to the mining train, and he did lots of climbing. Bisbee was not nearly as cool as I'd hoped though, and nothing was opening until 10 or 11, so we packed up and left and stopped at Tombstone.

 Atticus threw and kicked his basketball all over the place and watched the horses and buggies.

We took a tour of Tombstone on a buggy. The driver/tour guide's voice was projected so loudly inside the buggy, it was uncomfortable, but Atticus didn't mind as long as those horses kept moving.

Some more photos from our trip to San Diego for the marathon... (all from my phone, so pardon the less-than-perfect quality)

really, really big tires

It's been a while as usual. So here's a mix of photos and updates.

 

This was about a month ago--Atticus helping me make pizza for dinner.

 

He wanted to help trim the tree, but it's covered in thorns. So he climbed the ladder a few times, and he dragged thornless brush from the backyard out to the curb for the brush and bulky pickup.

Atticus got his first pair of scissors and loves them. We made this nifty cat puppet, which Atticus ripped apart and put together again several times before the materials were in such bad shape that the cat was finally dead for good (not quite nine lives, but close).

Here he is on the first morning of our trip to San Diego last weekend. We left Thursday evening at 4 and intended to drive all the way to SD, but Atticus was so devastated about the prospect of sleeping in the car (saddest face ever) that we decided that we wouldn't mind having a bed to sleep in too, so we stopped in Yuma. Thanks to the blackout curtains, Atticus and I slept about 11 hours straight. Best night of sleep I've had in a long time.

All in all, Atticus did pretty darn well on the drive to SD and back. It took longer than we anticipated, but he was a trooper. The ipad is a lifesaver, I have to admit. If all else failed, that almost always distracted him for a while. It also helped that we saw a ton of trains, and had a new, comfy car to ride in.

We went to Carlsbad on Friday to visit Mike and Lauri and family. Contrary to what Atticus's expression suggests, I think he had a pretty good time. He hit balls off their tee, built magnetic empires, and played with weird electronic cockroach-type things.

Dinner the night before the marathon--pasta, of course. Atticus had two wedding cookies before dinner because he was out of sorts and it was vacation, and I didn't want to fight.

 He enjoyed dinner.

Then passed out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. No, just fake sleeping. It's his version of planking. He has fake slept on many, many sidewalks.

Other tidbits:

• When Ava is not at school, Atticus says she's at work.
• Since we've returned from San Diego he's been asking to eat out all the time--I mean whining on the drive to school in the mornings about it, despite having a snack in hand and having had breakfast earlier.
• Last night he had a nightmare that someone was taking his chair. He cried out, "My chair. That's my chair."

I'm tired and blank now. I'll probably remember a bunch of stuff tomorrow that I wanted to post.

Today he called her "my Ava." I've never heard him claim anyone as his own before besides mommy and daddy.

These are a few of the many great photos included in the awesome mother's day gift Atticus's teacher assembled for me: a book of photos and artwork from his days at school. Holy crap, the cuteness! Ava looks like she's used to these kisses (Yeah, yeah, you love me, I know).

 Here he is with his friend Sophia.

 I did it!

 Playing hookey?

Making art alongside his friend Peyton (who used to be Atticus's best friend before Ava displaced him).

And a note I forgot to include last time about the last couple of weeks, while Chris has been gone. Atticus has been one very sad boy--acting up, crying, whining, never wanting me to put him down. Last week, he got up from the table as soon as I sat him down for dinner, ran down the hallway and grabbed a framed photo of Chris, then deliberately dropped it. It landed on both of his big toes, giving him a bruise and a minor cut. We have had some fun the last few weeks, but it's also been rough. It will be so good to get back into a normal routine again when Chris returns.

It turns out Atticus is a bit obsessed with his friend Ava. His teacher says he follows her to the changing table when it's her turn and crawls off his cot onto the floor so that he can see her before falling asleep (the teacher put an end to this by rearranging the cots so that he can see her without leaving it). His teacher said that kids don't usually form bonds like this until age 3 1/2 or 4, so this is evidence that his social skills are advanced for his age. That sounds so much better than he's a stalker, doesn't it? It's a good thing she likes him too or we'd really be in trouble.

 We had a fun day yesterday--play date after play date. But when we left the last play date, it was nearly 6:30, so I stopped to pick up some food to go. And it took forever! Atticus went nuts at Zivaz--he was a delirious mess. Here's a tiny taste of it. At one point he pulled his shirt over his face and spinned around and around.

 This morning we went to the botanical gardens. I so wish Chris had left the good camera so I'd have some decent photos. Alas, here's a blurry cellphone photo of the lizard sitting on the rock inside the train garden. His belly was bright blue with some green smudges. He blended in well with the rock. Godzilla!

Atticus checked out some of the insects at the bug exhibit, including millipedes, a mealworm, and some pill bugs, all of which he handled. Again, totally blurry, but that's a baby millipede on his arm.

Blurry picture of the super moon through the car window. I think it was even more magnificent yesterday morning when I got up for my run.

Some things that happened yesterday:

When Atticus awoke, he promptly informed me that he had a big elephant-sized poop in his diaper. Yes, that's how he described it.

He helped me make a buckwheat breakfast cake and we topped it with walnuts and sliced bananas and shared it.

As we drove away after I picked him up from daycare, he said "Bye bye, school. Bye bye, Ava." Ava was nowhere in sight.

When we got home he had the most intense meltdown I've ever seen him have. It lasted only about ten minutes, if even, but it seemed longer. Itwas so wild by Atticus standards that I worried momentarily that he'd ingested some kind of poison. He slithered all over the floor; intentionally slammed his head into the coffee table; kicked off one shoe and hobbled about the house like a psychopathic killer (movie psychopathic killers almost always have some kind of physical deformity); fixated on the medicine dispenser sitting on the bar across the room (I'm pretty sure the meltdown was brought on by teethign pain) and moved in on it like a rabid animal that spotted prey, and threw it across the room (repeatedly). Finally, I grabbed him and whispered to him about all of the people who love him, and he calmed down, then wanted to nurse and wanted that medicine he'd thrown every which way. The rest of the evening he was his sweet, normal self.