As Easy As Riding a Bike

Sometimes things are not as easy as they seem. On Saturday we bought a used two wheeler bike with training wheels for Rudy. It's a very small one - the perfect size for him. He loves riding his moto around the yard and he's getting kind of big for it so we figured he was ready for something else. Plus we can bring it on vacation with us and he and Max can ride together. Of course, the bike had a flat tire when we got it so Paul had to take it yesterday to get fixed. Then it stormed all day so Rudy couldn't ride it. So tonight, after Rudy woke up from his nap, we took him to the bike path to ride his bike.
Sometimes things are not as easy as they seem. I never realized how difficult it is to pedal a bike - the physics that are involved are very complicated and there's no easy way to verbalize it to a two-year-old. Rudy did very well but he just couldn't get the hang of continuously pedaling. And he was frequently pushing the pedals backwards and then the bike would stop. He did enjoy it, especially when Paul or I were pushing him. But he didn't quite get the hang of it. And once Paul and I tried to it a night. As Paul said, those Hallmark moments of the first bike ride just aren't the same in real life.
Never-the-less we will continue practicing so he's ready for NC and Max. Here are some pictures of our first attempt.








As a side note, related to the Moppy and Pommy thread. Tonight Rudy was playing with his crayons and markers and he turned and looked back and forth at me and Paul and said "Come play with me, Moppy." I asked "Who is Moppy?" His response, "Paul". I guess we should be glad he's not calling us Paul and Kathy all the time!

Swinging from the Trees

So today we stole an idea from Chris & Patti. We had to take Grandpa to the airport so we decided to make a day out of it and we went to an arboretum near the airport that had treehouses on display. It was a beautiful day - not too hot and lots of nice shade as we walked around.

Our monkey peeking out from one treehouse.



Paul and Rudy climbing a ladder up to another treehouse.




"Bawk"ing like chickens as they sit on eggs in a nest.



A treehouse that was built to be a replica of Thoreau's cabin (I know, who cares - Paul did). :)



Rudy and I in a "treegloo".



The boys relaxing and looking up at the canopy.



Birds in a birdhouse.



This was a bell house. All the strings pulled different bells.



When we came home we barbecued. Rudy has started using his tool bench as a barbecue and his favorite thing to cook is rice.



And the best way to end a summer day - with fresh locally-grown corn cooked on the grill!

Moppy and Pommy

I wish I had some photo editing software so I could illustrate these two words. Of course, it's probably better that I don't!
Rudy's mouth always seems to work faster than his brain. This has been evident since he came home in the fact that if you ask him a question, his immediate answer is almost always "no", but if you wait a beat, he will often change it to "yes". Well lately he's taken to calling Paul and I Pommy and Moppy. I think he starts to talk to one of us and then changes his mind, or realizes that he's saying the wrong name and so he changes mid-word. We've also recently heard Popmy and Mompy. If only we could figure out which one is Paul and which is me, maybe we'd keep them as our new names!

Other funny phrases lately included "sure" and "Ummm". Rudy cracked us up the other night coming home from the store when we asked him a question and his response was an emphatic "Sure!". We don't know where it came from. He's been saying "ummm" when he's thinking hard about a decision such as "what do you want for breakfast?".

FFF - Friends

Not much to say - a variety of pictures of Rudy with his friends...

To see more FFF blogs go to that's http://kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com

It's Official!

Our son's name is officially Rudy James M-----. (Of course, that's what we told everyone it is and it's what we had him baptized as, but now it's legal.) We had our court date today to change his middle name. It was a lot of work to go through just to change his middle name. And we're not done - we still have a few more steps to do.

We got to court very early and so Rudy had a lot of time to explore the court room. One of the workers brought him up to sit in the judge's chair, which he liked. Then after seeing the judge, she left and said he could sit in her chair and bang the gavel. He enjoyed that. Paul got some pictures on his phone, but we haven't figured out how to transfer them to the computer!

On our way to work and the babysitter's Rudy kept saying his name various ways:
Rudy M---- James
James Rudy M----
Rudy James M----
Sounds like he likes it. Good thing because it's too much work to change it again!

What Goes Up....

These are little videos of various slides Rudy and Max went on this weekend.

Here is Rudy on the inflatable slide. Check out that great form!



Here is Max on the inflatable slide - he's a belly slider!



And here are Rudy and me and then Chris and Max on the slide on the boardwalk. This ride is exactly Chris's and my speed! Fortunately there is no sound because I think I screamed/laughed the whole way down.

After the Fun, Fun, Fun

After we got home Sunday afternoon, Paul watched baseball, I attempted to nap on the couch and Rudy played. We reviewed our pictures from the weekend and then Rudy took a nap. I think he was at almost 3 hours when we decided we'd better wake him up! After devouring dinner, he pulled out the cars again. I said something to him and got "Stop copying me, Mommy." Then he asked Paul to play cars with him. They played by "Rudy Rules" which are constantly changing per the whims of Rudy. Paul and Rudy were crashing the cars and somehow Rudy decided Paul's hand was getting hurt. So every time the cars would crash, Rudy would then say "Okay, Poppy?" and give his hand a beso. Every time. After a few minutes of that, he decided that I needed to give Paul besos on his hand. So they would crash the cars and Paul would have to turn to me and I would kiss his "booboo". What a funny kid! We realized that Rudy copies and imitates Max so much when he's around that his own crazy, fun personality doesn't come out as much.
After playing cars for a while it was bath time. Paul told Rudy he was going to give him a bath and then he could come downstairs and watch TV for a while. Rudy stood up and yelled "ELMO!". Then went running toward the steps saying "I faster. I faster. Coming, Poppy?"
What did Paul and I do for laughs before this boy?!

Fun, Fun, Fun

We had guests this weekend - Max, Lucy, Chris & Patti came to spend the weekend with us. Max and Rudy had some fun times and some not so fun times. Neither of them are used to sharing their toys 24/7 so we had a lot of "that's mine" from both of them. And Rudy loves to copy everything his primo Max says and does so there was a lot of "Stop copying me" from Max. Rudy has now taken "Stop copying me" to use whenever he's not happy about something. He was standing right in front of the TV this afternoon and Paul told him to move back a little. Rudy's response was "Stop copying me. Leave me alone." You try not laughing at that!

So back to our weekend. Max, Lucy and Chris were here when we all got home and we went out to dinner with Grandpa. Than Max, Rudy and Chris went to the train station to meet Patti. The boys were very excited about that.

Saturday morning involved a lot of cars.


And some creative sharing of a drum thanks to Chris.


Then we hit the boardwalk where we had lunch and then headed to the rides. Here are all our cool dudes with their glasses.



We had many, many books of tickets compliments of Grandpa and a half price beginning of season sale so the boys just rode for hours. Everyone else was on the beach so there were no lines. While the boys went on the rides together, they didn't ever actually ride together. They were always in seperate compartments of rides often pretty far away from each other.











Paul & Patti got to go on the 'roller coasters' with the boys (Bill - you have two dardevil nephews who will be ready to ride roller coasters with you in a few years!).





While Chris & I got to have fun on the slide. The minute we got off this both boys jumped up and wanted to go again. Chris & I may have felt the same way.






The only way we could get them to stand still for this was to tell them no more rides until they let us take a picture!


Lucy had an exhausting day watching the boys go on all the rides!



Saturday we barbecued for dinner and then the boys wanted to go to the playground so off we went.












Sunday we attempted to go to a 'party' for a statue of an elephant that's near by. But it was pretty crowded and hot. The boys got to go on a big slide but it was a long wait.



I have some great videos of them going down I'll have to post at a later date. Then we had lunch and Chris, Patti, Max and Lucy went home.



The whole way home Rudy kept talking about everyone coming to our house. Fortunately he wasn't too disappointed when we got home and no one was there. (I think he liked playing with the cars all by himself.) Rudy had a great time and it really is fun to watch him and Max get along together. They rode together in the car every opportunity they could and we took Lucy in our car with us. We're looking forward to vacation to get to spend more time with them and with Grandpa and Bill & Renee (who I hope know what they are getting in to!).