Pequeno Baillarin aka Tiny Dancer

Our John just has the music in him.  Watch as he feels it.  Nina Simone would be proud.

Daddy's Little Baker

As a great surprise, our John helped Maureen bake some chocolate chip muffins on Friday afternoon.  Maureen thought the texture was off, but I still thought they were good.  It had the consistency and feel of a thick bread pudding aka buddin (as my Nana called it), but I really liked it.

Lunch at Tony P's

To celebrate our sixth anniversary, we headed over to Tony P's for some lunch.  Our destination was two-fold since we'd been talking to John about seeing the boats for a while.  Sure enough, he enjoyed his lunch and was quite vocal when he was ready to go.  Fortunately, he was kind enough to allow Maureen and me to finish our respective meals before we went for a walk along the strand.

Next month, we plan to take a trip on the water taxi around the marina.  He loved it last year and he'll ove it even more this year.  We even bought him a special nautical wind breaker at Old Navy in preparation for this summer expedition.  Be on the look out.

The Smoothie King

John loves berry smoothies.  He loves to make them at home.  For that reason, we always have yogurt and strawberries in our refrigerator.  We even have a little blender that doesn't make any sound to make smoothies for him.  He doesn't like the Magic Bullet because it is too noisy.

If he sees a smoothie on a menu, he wants to drink one.  Yesterday, we were headed to Ralphs to pick up some groceries and Maureen mentioned that the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf had a new berry smoothie.  I told her that she was crazy and that they didn't make smoothies.  When Starbucks did that, it was a fiasco.  Sure enough, there was a big poster on the wall with a big berry smoothie.  I stand corrected on that one.  Apparently, John liked it, but it was a little too cold in his hands.

Pizza and Ice Cream Party

Maureen went away for a couple of days, so I had the boys all to myself on Monday night.  Nicholas, still being to young, fell asleep about 7:30 PM.  John, being the rake that he is, decided that we were going to have a Scooby Doo, pizza, and ice cream party.  When the pizza was delivered, our John ran to the door and greeted the delivery guy.  He was so happy to see our dinner.  While watching Scooby Doo, I thought he had forgotten about the ice cream and told him it was time to go to sleep.

Since he never forgets anything, John says, "Daddy, where's the ice cream man to deliver our ice cream?"  Who was I to say no to such a bright young man.  Fortunately, we had some strawberry ice cream and he just enjoyed every last bit of it before he decided to call Maureen, ask her to bring him a Scooby Doo toy, and then go to sleep.  He's a bit too sharp for his age.  I'm going to stay on his good side.

Happy Father's Day Papi

Sleepy Boy

Saturday morning, John asked us to take him Village Pizzeria and 31 Flavors for pizza and ice cream.  We told him that it would have to wait until the evening.  Sure enough, he remembered and asked us to go for pizza and ice cream.  During the five minute drive from the gas station to Larchmont, our John decides to fall dead asleep.  Nothing we could do would wake him up.

Today, we headed over to Target to pick up a couple of items.  As we are driving up La Brea, Maureen's having a conversation with her mother on her cell.  John asks to put it onto speaker and just wants to listen to Grammy talk.  About two minutes later, I look back at John and he's asleep in his car seat.  When we get to Target, he's just out on his feet.  We put him in the basket and he was sleeping while sitting down. 

Fun at the Farmer's Market

As loyal readers know, John loves to go to the Farmer's Market for the free samples.  As soon as we get there, we stop in for our ice cream samples.  We'll usually buy a tub or two and then move on to the STRAWBERRIES. 

I'd have to say that John's favorite fruit would have to be the strawberry.  We'll go from stand to stand and he'll just get his strawberry samples at every opportunity.  Maureen is very particular about her strawberries, but John just seems to like them all.  He wants to buy more to make smoothies first thing in the morning.


By the end of our time at the market, we walked by a stand where one vendor kept on yelling out "Free Samples."  Our little mynah bird aka John decided that he'd just do that at all the other stands even if they didn't offer free samples. The boy has moxie.

On a side note, we picked up an AMAZING ice cream sandwich from Carmela Ice Cream and John took it upon himself to claim it all for himself. Maureen kept on saying, "John, it's momma's turn." Our little man just decided that he'd speed up his pace and try to avoid Maureen and me. Like I said, he's got moxie!

Reading is FUN

I picked up a comic book for our John at Golden Apple yesterday.  I gave it to him while he was sitting on his bike.  I think he liked it.  Don't you?

Fun at the Park

Saturday and Sunday were two great days for visiting the park. On Saturday, we went to the play area behind our building. John calls it "The Green Park" because it has a green fence around it. He just loves to go up on the structure and then says that he's going to go down the slide. Once he gets to the top of the slide, he starts screaming hysterically and refuses to go down. It happens every single time we go to a slide.

Sunday we had breakfast with the K family. I'd spell the name, but God knows it has 14 letters and I'll miss one or two. In any event, we have a lovely breakfast at The Bungalow and headed over to the park for some fun. Once again, Anti-Social Annie decided to scream for a good 20-minutes before he settled down and started to play in the sand with some toys I purchased from the local vendor. He was quite excited when Mimi and Kenadi found a caterpillar. We played with that and even a bouncing blue ball, also purchased from a local vendor. He was so happy and excited taht he invited everyone to go have Blue Lunch at Daphne's. Sadly, we did not go to Blue Lunch because we had other things to do, but he did get over it rather quickly. He's adapting much better these days.

Saturday at the Yellow Balloon

The boys were getting rather shaggy, so we decided that it was time to visit The Yellow Balloon in Studio City. There was a time where we dreaded goign there with both boys since they both cried the entire time; however, John has been better with hair cuts lately. He hasn't freaked out the last two times. Coincidentally, he hasn't been seen by his original stylist since she's no longer there. I just think he's grown out of his histrionics.

We got there a little early, so we played for a bit with the toy car in front. Yes, it's pink, but we are ok with that. When we went in, John asked me for popcorn and water since they offer that; however, I told him that we'd have to wait until we were finished. Yolanda cut his hair and she did a fine job. He talked him through everything that she was going to do and John was fine with everything.

After the cut, we headed to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf across the street for a muffin and some milk. They are quite friendly over there and they know all their regular customers by name. It was as if Norm were walking into Cheers with every other person there. One in particular caught my eye. He was a black gentleman in all white. i thought to myself, "That looks like Eddie Murphy." Sure enough, the counter person says, "Hi Eddie, do you want your usual?" He seemed very pleasant and spoke to all the store personnel with courtesy.

Sadly, John lost his yellow balloon. He let it go and it flew out of the car window. Oh well, he'll get another next time.

Chocolate Face

John was a very good boy today, so I decided to give him a fine treat before going to bed...Ice Cream. As you can see, he truly enjoyed it. He really loves chocolate, but he likes to say, "Choco-wah-te". He even shared with Maureen and me. He invited us each to have some ice cream. He's such a nice young man with fine manners.