Grandpa Ed

My dad came for a long weekend visit, so of course we had to go to the park.



We also spent a very hot afternoon at Traildust Town, which apparently doesn't open until the evening, although the town itself is open before the restaurants and shops, so Alexander had a blast exploring and making some money telling fortunes, all along the lines of "momma daddy booka cheetah kitty dog" or, more likely, a simple "ga." And eerily, all his predictions came true!






We're not sure if this guy works here or if he just likes to dress up like a cowboy and walk his dog here, but he was a nice fellow anyway, and Alexander loved his dog.




Before leaving, Alexander did the obligatory posing:





As always, more photos on our flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mallons/

Zoo!

A couple of weeks ago, Darrick took some vacation days so that I could get full days of work in. On one of those days, he took Alexander to the zoo.

Here he is admiring his gorilla cup.


And appreciating the giraffe's unique take on snack time.



Having his own snack nonchalantly, while mere feet from the rhino.



Enjoying the zoo's water area (this is a blogger video instead of a google video--does it show up better for you all?):



We have lots more zoo pictures and other photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/mallons/

Parks and Puddles

Alexander has had some good times at the park, sometimes with his friend Lauren, sometimes with his dad, sometimes with his mom, sometimes when he sneaks out at night on secret park missions.



He's even gone hiking.



And, ahem, swimming(?)

Happy Independence Day!

OK, so I'm a wee bit behind on the posts. On top of the usual work marathon, I took on an extra book from a new, prestigious client. I didn't want to turn down the opportunity because I might not have gotten another call, not until I could prove my work, which I did. Woo hoo! So now I'm catching up on the blogging, and rather than doing one long super post, I'll inundate you with several shorter ones, beginning with our Fourth of July fun at the Brokaws. This was the last day off I had until today.

Adventures in Babyproofing

Alexander takes babyproofing as a challenge. He easily figured out how to pull the outlet covers from the sockets. He brings them to us, beaming.

He's also figured out how to move chairs around so he can climb on tables, open drawers in the kitchen, and pull the coffee pot from the coffee maker (fortunately a cold pot we hadn't emptied yet). I'm sure you'll agree that the coffee really adds a certain something to the decor:



You might have also noticed how well the cabinet lock has worked for us. Here's a closer look at how Alexander is working his away around that little babyproofing device:



Oh, and here's what's left of the device that was supposed to keep him from opening the oven door:



Now, I know what you're thinking: Keep this kid out of the kitchen, right? And it just so happens that we have a big gate to keep him in the family room. Well, we had a big gate. First he tore it from the wall.



Then he actually broke the gate itself:



I'm thinking maybe we contact the manufacturer about this one. Seems to me, a baby just shouldn't be able to break their gate, am I right? Pulling it out of the wall, well, that's probably faulty mounting. The wall is concrete, and that's surprisingly difficult to mount into, and so enough persistent shaking of the gate eventually crumbled the concrete. In retrospect, we can see a better way to mount it, but that doesn't help much now.

I finally figured out a way to babyproof the laptop, to make it so he could press all the keys and they wouldn't do anything but make funny noises. So we let him at it one day:



The problem, of course, is that I couldn't lock the touchpad and its buttons as well as the keys. So I come back in the room to find him opening Microsoft Outlook, checking my business e-mail. Apparently, he even sent a chat message to our friend Jennifer.

So what can we do but keep him busy? While Darrick fixed dinner, he kept him occupied with stirring the juice. Alexander took the task quite seriously.



We can also get some peace while he plays endlessly with the water dispenser on the fridge. Here, he's mighty thirsty after shooting an episode of COPS.



Oh, and we put the piano bench in my office because he was using it to climb onto the keys, then on top of the piano. Now he uses his dad as a bench.



Seems that we need to keep him safe by taking him out of the house, so today, we tried yet another park. This one has a pool, which we'll go back to as soon as I get a suit.

So we decided to rearrange some furniture . . .

Before

After

What inspired this sudden burst of interior design genius?

Elton John or Charles Nelson Riley?

Alexander borrowed some shades this past weekend. We think they suit him.

Emergency room, parks, climbing

I just finished two books on Wednesday, marking the end of a months-long work marathon, so as usual, here's a catchup blog on all the Mallon craziness.

The weekend our stove caught on fire, Darrick had to go to the emergency room. He stabbed himself in the hand with a steak knife, trying to pry granola from the pan. We spent the entire day at the emergency room, but Alexander was awesome. He hung out in my lap for a while, cruised the waiting room, played with the water fountain, showed us his amazing powers by opening and closing the automatic door, and then spent some time trying to unlock a door with a pretzel stick.

Darrick's stitches are out, and his hand is fine, but now we have to be very watchful to avoid another trip to the emergency room, as you can see from the photos and video below:





Last Sunday, we met for lunch at Reid Park with the Fawcetts and the Beaudry Brockschmidts. Alexander particularly enjoyed the rose garden. We couldn't find his hat, so he's wearing one of Darrick's (sometimes).






We've also had other park adventures, but I'll save that for another blog.

Fire

Went to turn off the oven last night, and the knob starting sparking like crazy, then caught on fire. Darrick put the fire out, but it kept restarting until he managed to pull the stove out and unplug it. The fumes were horrible, but the house is aired out now, and we were able to keep the air in Alexander's room clear.

Fortunately, we didn't have to use the fire extinguisher. That would have been an annoying mess.

Darrick is perversely excited because now he can get a gas stove, which apparently is much, much better for cooking. We have hookups for gas and electric. Until we can fit this in the budget, however, we will be getting very creative with our microwave.

Sorry, no Alexander stories or photos because I have to get back to work (what with a fire interrupting my worktime yesterday). See the latest photos on www.flickr/photos/mallons. I'll blog about our park adventures and all the crazy people we meet as well as the other kids as soon as I can.

Parks!

A quick blog mid-work marathon. Darrick has been taking Alexander on outdoor adventures on the weekends while I get caught up on work. Last Saturday and this Saturday, he went to Sabino Canyon with Case and Case's daughter Gia.





Last Sunday, Alexander and Darrick went to Lakeside Park.





And in the mornings during the week, Alex and I have been going to play at a local park, although getting photos of anything but his moving back has been difficult!





Here's a quick video of him kicking the ball, falling over, then realizing it's kind of cool down there, looking up at that big sky.



Then, of course, he calculated the number of park visits on his abacus:



More photos, as always, on our flickr site.