The Chattanooga Choo Choo...

Our last little get away before Baby G's arrival was a quick trip to Chattanooga.

He's a little young for white water rafting this time, but thanks the the Children's Discovery Museum, he'll be ready when he's older!


Unexpected free fun-- playing in the fountains in the park... now if only we'd brought a change of clothes...


Ok, so taking a two year old on a swinging rope bridge is probably as scary for him as it was for his parents... maybe we'll try the stone bridge next time!


This kind of fun is more our style.



Raise the roof? Or hold it up? Either way, we got to See Rock City!


You can't read the sign by my head very well, but it says "Fat Man's Squeeze." I'll have you know, I squeezed just fine!


Pax's favorite part of the Tennessee Aquarium.


Even through glass, it's intimidating to see a shark swim by your family...


My favorite flowers and my favorite little blond guy-- glad we got to spend some special time before we grow into a family of 4!

Daddy's Hooker

For his birthday, my parents got Travis a bike rack to carry his bike on the back of the car. Paxon was totally into the process of assembling it and attaching it to the car. He wanted to know all about it and what it did. Travis patiently explained that it was something that went on the car that he could hook his bike on and drive it somewhere different to ride. He even got out his bike (and Paxon's tricycle) and hooked them on the bike rack to show Pax how it worked.

Pax, very excited about the new equipment, responded, "Daddy, I like your hooker!" Not to worry, though, I am not in the dark about this situation...Paxon came in the house and told me all about "Daddy's hooker." Let's hope this one doesn't come up at preschool...

Onomatopoeia

The other day while traveling in the car, we were enjoying the dance party remix of "The Ants Go Marching." (If you don't have kids, you are thinking, "Never never will I listen to that" and if you do have kids, you are probably thinking, "Oh yes! I know that one!"). In this version, the song revs up for each new verse with the words "crash-boom-bang!" Pax thinks this is very funny and kept asking "what that mean?" after that part of the song. Apparently, my initial answers were insufficient for our inquisitive child. He kept asking me about it over and over, so with a bit of sarcasm, I finally switched my answer and explained that those words were onomatopoeias and gave a brief explanation of other words that qualified as onomatopoeias (e.g., Moo, Pow!, etc.) as well as other words that don't really qualify (e.g., floor, tree, mailbox). I thought this might at least distract him and we could move on.

Well...Paxon LOVED the word "onomatopoeia" and talked about it the rest of the way home. I didn't think he really got the concept, just a fun new word to say. Besides, teaching metalinguistics to our two-year-old is not really on the priority list no matter how precocious he is. A few days later, we were walking out the garage door and as I pulled it shut quickly, I said, "BANG!" Pax promptly turned around to me and said, "Mommy, that an onomatopoeia!" He then went on to name several others: crash! Oink oink! Pop!

And it occurred to me again it has so frequently lately... he is such the little sponge right now and is absorbing so much of what we say (and do) lately...SLURP!