Toddling Tiger

Happy Halloween!!!

Thanks so much to Grammie for making this wonderful...and adorable...costume :)

Cannons go "Boom"

Cole, Craig and I spent a wonderful weekend down in Hampton, VA with Jussie and Emily this past weekend. Best of all Jus took us on base to see his most recent boat, the Tampa. Wow is this boat big! Another very proud moment for me the big sis, knowing that my bro spends 2-3 months at a time living on one of those things in the middle of the ocean or touring our borders.

Cole loved the boat's cannon best. Ever since Alexandria's 4th of July celebration where they ignited cannons in celebration, Cole has had a fascination with cannons. The minute we mentioned we were going on Jus' boat he asked, "cannons?" and didn't stop asking till we saw the big one. All in all, it was a very neat experience. You can never possibly imagine what the inside of one of the vessels looks like and I feel honored to have had the opportunity to go on one.

Fall Festivals

We are having a fabulous time attending various fall festivals. On Saturday, Cole, Grammie, Aunt Tiffy, Chloe, Emmy and I went to Fairfax's Fall Arts & Craft Festival. Cole had his first pony ride on a miniature horse named Lucky and he also sat for a face-painted pumpkin on his cheek. There were also lots of inflatable slides and jumping rooms. Most of them were a little too advanced for Cole so I had to jump right in and participate along with him. It all made me realize that I am not nearly as nimble as I used to be!

Meanwhile Cole is the biggest jabber jaw lately. From the moment he barks his first words in the morning..."Mommy,I'm up!" to the minute I lay him down at night,"I see maw-maw and checkers tomorrow?"...Cole always has something to say. Craig and I were trying to pay attention to a newscast this week and we couldn't hear over our jibber-jabbering toddler!

Almost Famous

Nope we're not talking about our Daddy! This time Cole gets the media attention. A little story to go along with this week's blog...

One of the first times Craig, Cole and I visited the Pentagon Memorial together, Cole was being his usual 2 year-old self playing in the gravel walkways and putting his hands in the fountains among other disrespectful things. Daddy doesn't like it when Cole does these things so in our usual Mommy and Daddy fashion we had to distract. I bribed him with a snack while sitting on the perimeter seat walls and observing how people interact with the Memorial. About this time, Cole peered up from his fruit snacks and commented on the "dolphins". At this stage of his speech I often have to nod my head and acknowledge that I understand (when many times I do not!). I figured he had read a book during the day about underwater creatures...and then it hit me...he was talking about the benches!

This is what appeared in an issue of the Boston Globe from October 5th...

"Falsani, who writes a religion column for the Sun-Times and who is the author of the new book about grace, "Sin Boldly," compared the benches to dolphins - a comparison, I later learned, that was first noted by the 2 1/2-year-old son of one of the memorial's builders.

"From a distance, and even as I walked among them, the underlit 'benches' looked like the dorsal fin of a diving dolphin - a pod of dolphins moving together," she wrote me. "Dolphins historically symbolize safe travel and were also used on ancient tombs - the Roman catacombs, for instance - to signify a love that remains even into the depths (of death, despair, etc.)."

So funny...maybe our Little Man has a future as an architectural critic. Here's the link to the full article:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/05/everything_is_illuminated/