Odd

You know how parents are always lamenting about why they even bother buying toys when their kid just picks random stuff to play with? Well, Holden is no exception. He has always preferred real phones to toy phones, real remotes to toy remotes, etc. But this one threw me for a loop....

Yup...A plastic spoon and a lime. He has carried these around the house with him non stop for the last 3 days. I have to beg him to leave them behind when we go anywhere (you know, to avoid the inevitable weird looks we would get). Hopefully he gets over this obsession before the lime starts to go bad, or things could get ugly.

My Thoughts On Our "Campout"

I feel as though "campout", similarly to "scrapbooking" and "gardening" needs to have quotes around it lest people get the wrong idea about my skills. Those of you who are die hard campers would laugh at my less than 24 hour overnight jaunt that I consider to be my summer camping trip. I slept in a tent and I ate s'mores. It doesn't get more camping than that, right?

Holden decided to start the trip off right by getting completely filthy before we even stepped foot onto the campsite. If a little bit of licorice face keeps him from having a total meltdown during the car ride, so be it. Yes, you heard me, again with the licorice. Don't judge.
Side note: Turns out Reo about has a panic attack seeing our child get dirty. Good thing Holden and I clean up the shananigans that take place while Reo's at work, or he might have child protective services after me.

We brought along the men folk in the form of Reo and my brother in law Dan to do the hard labor, like putting up the tent.

Thanks to their skills we got down to business lounging around inside the tent in no time.

Holden discovered that throwing rocks around the campsite is the funnest thing ever. Except maybe throwing rocks at people's heads. Time-out is hard to enforce in the great outdoors, but after getting clocked with a couple of boulders, you figure out a way.

I discovered that Holden has no fear of water, not even sicko, murky water. A nice morning stroll around the reservoir turned into a fully clothed me chasing a fully clothed Holden into a freezing cold body of water before he could finish diving in headfirst.

One of the best parts of camping is catching up on my trashy magazines. Shocker alert: Jake and Vienna didn't make it? If those two kids can't work it out, my marriage doesn't stand a chance.

Reading all those trashy magazines has helped me realize my true potential. I should definitely be moonlighting as a papparazzo. If Reo were famous you would totally be seeing this picture in the next issue of Us Weekly, don't you think?

Due to Reo having that previously discussed problem with Holden getting dirty, he was only allowed the (untoasted) marshmallow part of a S'more. Holden didn't seem to mind.

Overall, a good time was had by all. "Camping" may be something we attempt again.

Signs

Signs that things have gotten pretty lax at the Manning house these days:

1. The first thing Holden says to me when I go to get him out of his crib every morning is "licorice?" When I inevitably say no, he follows up with "Watch Elmo?" Depending on how early it is and just how lazy I am feeling, sometimes he wins on that one.

And also, I usually give in on the licorice later on.

Wouldn't you? Look how much he loves that stuff!

2. My cleaning closet is looking, well, unclean. At best...

3. Holden spends way too much of the morning looking like this:

The benefit of our new laid back lifestyle? We get to spend more time doing stuff like this:

Thanks for finally showing up, Summer. We are big fans.

Say No To This Kid...I Dare You

Who wants to be the disciplinarian for my child? Anyone? Because I'll be honest, between the super cute pouting and the cheeseballing, I just don't have the heart. I left the mini tantrum that followed out of the video, because some of you don't have kids yet, and I'd like you to. But even that was kind of adorable, in it's own way.

P.S. Once again, sorry about the bad quality. Steven Spielberg I am not.

P.P.S. Don't be alarmed that Holden looks like he is scratching 10,000 bug bites. That is his attempt at the sign language word for please.