First Day of "Cool"

On Tuesday morning David went for his first day at the Childtime Learning Center. Since Gary & I were off of work, we let him wake up on his own (7:30), gave him some breakfast, then headed over around 8:30. We told him he was going to "school" which he repeated as "cool" while we were in the car. As soon as we walked in the teachers (Miss Sue and Miss Susan) greeted him and welcomed him to the class. About 6 other kiddos were sitting around the "mini table" (so cute) having their morning snack -- graham crackers and orange juice. David marched right in and started exploring all the new toys. Within about 3 minutes he was in the back corner of the classroom "working something out," and for those of you who have seen this in person, you know exactly what I'm talking about and how loud and embarrasing it is! Guess he was feeling pretty comfortable with the place! Gary & I headed out a few minutes later and he didn't even seem to notice. His first day "report card" said that he was "offered" blueberry bread for a snack and ham pasta & peas for lunch (apparently he declined... no surprises there) so only had a few peaches to eat all day. He napped from 12 - 1:20 and I came and picked him up at 3:30. When I arrived they were playing outside and, aside from pointing at me and saying, "Mommy," David continued about his playing as if I wasn't even there! Overall, a great first day!

Today we took him in around 9:00 because we didn't have to be at work until 12:00. Again he walked right into the room and began playing with no concern about Gary & I leaving. According to his "chart" today, he was offered (and, again, apparently DECLINED!) beef stroganoff and carrots for lunch (but did eat all the pears - no surprise there, either), had some saltine crackers around 2:00 and graham crackers around 4:00. He only napped for about 30 minutes so it was no surprise when I picked him up at 5:00 that he was pretty wore out. We came home, he immediately went to the DVD player and started repeating "Me-mo, Me-mo, Me-mo, Me-mo" (Finding Nemo is his new favorite movie), we had dinner together just the two of us (Gary is in 29 Palms tonight), followed by a messy helping of "Gee-Go" (Go Gurt), a bath, and he was down for the count after two books at about 7:40!

Watching "Me-mo".... and eating "Gee Go"!

Tomorrow is going to be his first "full" day, including, I'm sure, me having to wake him up (Mr. Sleepy Head), so keep your fingers crossed! I'm also waiting to see how many days he decides to "decline" food before he realizes that's all he's getting!

Bye-Bye Pacifier!

Well, first of all, turns out I'm a terrible blogger. Hey, at least I keep www.kodakgallery.com/team_thompson up-to-date!!

In other news, we took David for his 18-month check-up on Tuesday. He weighed in at 27 lbs, 1 oz (50th percentile), was 34" tall (75th percentile), and, surprisingly, his head circumference was 18" (only 25th percentile!). However... the only measurement I'm 100% confident in is his weight, because from the time we laid him down on the scale to be weighed until we got him back outside, he was a hysterical, crying mess (Dr. Woerpel said, "Well, somebody's earning an Oscar today!"). Somehow Dr. Woerpel was able to count his teeth and found 12 (6 on top, 6 on bottom) where we had only seen 8! While he checking his teeth he said, "Is he off the bottle?" "Of course." (He went cold-turkey at 12 months.) "Pacifier?" Gary & I hang our head in shame. "Uh, just in his crib when he sleeps..." "Probably time to take him off of that, too. He probably won't even notice." Sooooo.... last night, bye-bye Tony!

His reaction? He slept until 9:00 this morning. And he took a full two-hour nap this afternoon. Go figure.

Crickets...

I know, I know... I haven't updated the blog since May 26th and there haven't been any new pictures posted on the Gallery since June 8th... it has been BUSY!! Gary returned, Randall and Janet got married, Mom and Meryl visited, Sandy, Russ, and Siena visited... it has been CRAZY around here (with no slowing in sight!).

Before we head out to Florida Sunday for our two weeks of vacation I will update everything... I mean it!!

Little Chief

I had to stand duty last Friday so my boss, who was going to be playing in a golf tournament that day anyway, told me not to bother coming to work at all. Because it was a holiday weekend I was going to have start duty at 12:00 so I decided to make a much-needed hair appointment for 9:45. The appointment was "much-needed" because the last haircut I had, just 4 weeks before, was terrible. Not terrible like I need to wear a hat everyday but terrible because it required much more time than I prefer to spend on my hair -- we're talking flat-iron and everything just to keep me from looking like clown-head. Anyway, I make the appointment for the Detour Salon down in Encinitas which I've had good luck with before. I tell Melissa (yes, I'm naming names) that I wasn't happy with the last cut because whatever the last hair stylist did caused a lot of poofing on the bottom and flatness on the top -- not a good look for me (not sure that's a good look for anyone, now that I think about it...). Anyway, I know she asked me about the overall length and I told her that I just needed a trim and I was pretty happy with the length where it was, I just wanted to solve the poofing/flatness problem. Well... 45 minutes and $60 later...

[For those of you who haven't seen me in a while, that's about 3 inches off the overall length!]

And here's my theory on why I ended up with this cut rather than the cut I asked for... I broke the cardinal rule of letting the stylist know that I was a Marine. For some reason "I'm a Marine" translates to "I'd like a buzz cut" in stylist-speak, despite the fact that (1) I'm a woman, and (2) I was not getting my hair cut at "Stud Cuts" in downtown Oceanside.

It's not that I dislike the cut, really [you don't think she was just buttering me up when she said, "You really have the neck to pull this cut off," do you?], but it does bring back one particular bad childhood memory: for most of elementary school I sported an extremely short haircut (and yes, at one point I even rocked out the rat-tail... give me a break, it was the 80's after all). Anyway, one evening I was out to dinner with my family and the waiter says, "And what can I get for you, Little Chief?" Little Chief. And no, I was not wearing any sort of Native American Head Dress at the time. No buts about it -- he thought I was a little boy. This was the day I began growing my hair out, and for some reason, even 20 years later, whenever I get a ridiculously short haircut I find myself remembering this dinner, that comment, and questioning my femininity. Could also have something to do with the fact that with this haircut I become my brother (no offense, Jer).

In other summer haircut news, you may have already heard that Macy and Bandit are also sporting the Little Chief:

Again, not the cut we were going for, but after 30 minutes of frustration in trying to accomplish the "trim, don't shave" I requested for Macy, the groomer from the Aussie Pet Mobile ended up shaving her anyway because she said it was just too much undercoat to do any other way. Four hours later we had two nearly shaven dogs who are still extremely soft and look surprisingly like they did back when they were puppies.

The good news for us all is, as they say, "It'll grow back."

"The Real" Team Thompson

So apparently I've caved to peer pressure and jumped on the Blog bandwagon...

Your first question may be, "Why are you 'The Real' Team Thompson?" Well, I'll explain...

When creating this blog my first choice for a URL was, naturally, http://teamthompson.blogspot.com/. Well, after typing that in and clicking "check availability," turns out it was already taken. Take a quick gander at that website and you'll find out, as I did, that Donna Thompson has been involved with Working Dogs since 1989, when she moved to Germany for 3 years. Too bad ol' Donna hasn't used my URL since March 2, 2005...

So I tried again: http://team-thompson.blogspot.com/ and again, disappointment. Turns out that Chad, Tina & Baby Thompson haven't blogged since creating their blog on April 13, 2006, despite advertising that their Team Thompson was "created especially for our family and friends to keep updated on the latest Team Thompson happenings!" Guess I'm not the only one let down by Chad, Tina & Baby Thompson...

Alas, since I was limited by not being able to use spaces or underscores, and, frankly, I was a little irked by Donna, Chad, Tina & Baby Thompson, I settled on "therealteamthompson"... I hope we don't disappoint!