Dinosaurs, Mother's Day & Baseball

As I swelter in the 95 degree heat of Central Ohio's Memorial Day (it is still hot at it is 11:30 pm), and since the kids are in bed and I am not working anymore tonight, I wanted to give an update of what we've been up to. First of all, Nora sailed through her ear tube follow-up perfectly, except for a sudden-onset full out panic/phobia of Dr. Grant. I literally had to hold her so that he could look in her ears while she screamed No!!! With the green light that everything looked great, she returned to her normal self. I am not sure if I notice a difference in her speech and/or hearing, but I think I do. Either way, she still says to me "You're my best mommy ever." and I love it.
Dinosaurs still rule our world. Above you'll see how dinosaurs were hung with care from our Oregon Maple in the back yard. It was a colony and Nora insisted they had to stay there. I thought it was artistic and creative, so we left them there through most of April. COSI's Dinosaur exhibit is finally here and we spent Friday night at the members-only preview. It's OK, but now Nora Kate has her sights on the new 80 animatronic dinos at Kings Island Amusement Park.
Dinosaurs are fine with the rest of us, since we are just catching up with the names and all of their facts; but I loathe the idea of paying $40 a person (including Nora!) for something that we will most likely enjoy for about 2 hours, then will have to leave for a nap. But, we will because she is our kid and it will make her happy. And, since she said to Geoff, "Daaaadddd! I'm not a paleontologist yet!" in the funniest tone, she is still completely engaged in the life. Below you can see that Nora has already received a baby Triceratops (who eats, raaahhs, snores, and follows your movements) for no reason except that it made her happy. Below, I snapped a picture of Nora laying down with Sara-Chomp for a nap. It was the sweetest thing.
Mother's Day was wonderful. Geoff is fantastic at letting the kids choose their own gifts for me so this year I received a beautifully decorated card, a stuffed penguin, a bag of cheese crackers (see picture below), a bag of truffles, lottery and a Starbucks gift card. I also got about 3 hours to myself at the coffee shop and a dress I selected for Nora since she refused to go shopping. But, my littlest one was happy to go shopping and came home holding a "We Love Mom" heart shaped balloon. Here he is eating "my" cheese crackers.

And, Jack has a new favorite thing. He loves baseball. He found his bat and asks Geoff, Nora and I to throw balls to him. Every time he manages to hit it, he gets this enormous grin on his face or yells "My Did it! My hit the ball!" (he is 28 months old!). "Play catch with me Daddy?" Of course. I probably already posted this picture, but it's so stinking cute, I'm posting it again. He fell asleep with his baseball glove on his hand, even though he's not sure why he would ever keep the thing on to catch a ball.
And, here he is (below) being a ladybug. He plopped that thing (actually, a baby doll table seat) on his head and immediately declared his existence as an insect. Seriously, he cracks me up. Today, he put on another toy and puttered around saying he was a car. But, then he would announce "My car in a crash!" and come over for some kisses and hugs to feel better. And, so while I am talking about my baby boy, he told me the other day "Mama, my like your dress! You look pretty!" I wanted to put that here so that when he is 15 and sulky, I can spend my sad time reading the blog and remember how sweet he was.
This weekend also had us at the Utica Ice Cream festival and the opening weekend of the new Columbus Commons downtown park. So, as June rolls in, we are hoping for a good weekend for camping and going to see those amusement park dinosaurs.