First Thanksgiving

Mom prepared a really great meal and we are bad because at 8:00am we called to see if there was the option of coffee and pecan pie for breakfast. After pleading she caved so off we went. Akins was not real keen on the pecan pie so he ended up with some toast. I on the other hand got seconds (mine and his)score! Then we just hung out until the meal was ready and Akins enjoyed gobbling (no pun intended) down his first drumstick which he referred to as the "big feet". Navigating through the bones has become a bit of an art and a special part of the fun when eating chicken or any other poultry. All of it is chicken after all right?! Oh, wait everything is chicken, including me, mom, the dogs, his school and Lorea - duh!

It was fun to watch him make his way through that big leg. We managed to get him to try a lot of different things. Lorea and I both like the whole sweet and salty combo so she managed to get him to try turkey and sweet potato, turkey and cherry salad, turkey and cranberries, you get the picture. The game however got him to try everything and he actually like some of them. After dinner we had pumpkin pie, he liked it even the big crust, but not the small crust. He was okay with it until he saw it then it was "Mommy what's it" pointing to the bottom crush. I told him crust, he peeled the bottom off and ate the rest, I told him the big crush and small crush were the same thng and he said "huh un". I can never figure him out, usually he would like the part that is softer, this time it was the crunchy part. As soon as the feast was over he was back to asking for Sushi which is on the agenda for tomorrow. Great!

Turkey Feet!

Akins has candy in his ears!

When I was a small child my father used to play this game with us. He would tell us to lay down and he would inspect our ears to see if possibly anything had grown in there and magically we would have candy. Usually just a piece or two for each ear. Well, I tried this on Akins and imagine his surprise to find two M&M's in each ear. Puzzled first and then delighted!

First day at a new daycare

Two weeks ago Akins daycare informed us that they were discontinuing the program for pre-schoolers. GREAT! I would have never enrolled him in that particular school had I known I was setting him up for yet another major change. They gave us a whopping two weeks to find another place. We live in podunk no where and there is only one other school in town that takes pre-schoolers and it is well uh - no way! So off we went to look at schools in Tulsa and Catoosa. After looking at about 10 of them we picked one and today was Akins first whole day. As with the original school we worked on this slowly by first taking him and showing him and then taking him for a portion of the day. It seems to have gone well! The school is bigger with more programs and it has babies which he loves. He told me today that he touched a baby on the head and he was very happy about it. He always gets really excited when he sees a baby and was very happy when he realized his new school would have babies. Unlike last time I learned something about presenting our family to a new school and so I was straight up about our family dynamics. I was pleased to see the director never even batted an eye. So, I think we are settled again...we'll see!

First Movie Theater

We took Akins to see the Bee Movie as his first "big video" experience. I never could get him to stand still long enough to take a good photo. In this one he is more interested in the lights on his shoes than the photo shoot. I had talked with him for a few days about the movie theater to prepare him for the loudness, the darkness and the ability to stay quiet for two hours. We got popcorn and candy and settled in as best we could. He is so small that the seat was trying to fold him up in it and we had to stuff my coat into it to keep it open. When the previews started he immediately became suspect as these were clearly NOT the Bee Movie and so I had to explain that these were possible other movies we could see later. Then the "feature presentation" began and he managed to sit still and quiet all the way until about the last 15 minutes. He had not had a nap and was getting tired so he came to sit on Mommy's lap. I must say I had invisioned having to leave half way through but we acutally made it all the way until the end. Later he imitated the Bee by flying himself up and down the driveway. I guess it was a success!