Colin's Archive

This is the old blog of Colin stories. I have started using one blog for Colin stories as well as everything else. I was/am looking for a way to combine all the previous blogs and have all the posts archived in the same place, but i don't have a way to do that. So this will stay here as the old site with the old posts in case anyone is looking for a particular post. Look for current updates at floresfamily.org

Hey there

Sorry about the lack of a birthday post. I have been busy with a new class, and also trying to figure out what to do with our webpages since my hosting contract expires in a couple of days. I am going to transfer the domain to a better company and consolidate all our pages into one family blog. things will probably be offline for a few days and then you can go to http://floresfamily.org for new updates. I plan on starting to post more regularly now that we have a laptop and since I'll be in more of student mode shortly. I have a few things I have been meaning to post about but there are only a few people that still read this and i will save it for the new roll out in a week or two.

Thomas Almighty

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Originally uploaded by gregandchristine.

Colin's obsession with Thomas has only grown over the past month. This is a pic of the Thomas toy we got him last weekend. It is now five days old. It came with a DVD we got when we returned something for store credit at Fry's. The last two nights he has brought it to bed with him, and on every car trip we have made. You may be wondering why Thomas does not have eyes. Yesterday while we were driving we had a bag of cereal for Colin to snack on, and he was feeding Thomas. He ground the cereal into his face, and when it had all turned to powder he would ask for more to feed Thomas. When we got home Thomas was without eyes and coated in a sticky powder. Apparently sharing food is a characteristic unique to the ape family, and with kids is supposed to be a sign that they are not sociopaths (now if he had scratched out the eyes on purpose that would be another story)
There is a poster at his daycare that has a pencil eraser size picture of Thomas on it, and Colin will pull us over to the pic and point and say Thomas over and over again. If we turn on the TV and start to watch anything other than Thomas he will point at the screen and say NO! again and again until you change it, or sit on the floor and play trains with him.
By all accounts from talking to other parents this could last for years. At least it is better than Barney/teletubbies/wiggles/ et al.
I am going to draw some eyes back on Thomas so he isn't so creepy, and cross my fingers that I can break him of the obsession by taking him to see the movie Cars in a couple weeks.

shaggy

Somebody really needed a haircut. People were starting to ask us if he a boy or a girl. We knew he wouldn't sit still for a real haircut, and waiting until he fell asleep to do a trim wasn't really working any more. We bought a set of clippers at Costco, and then exchanged them because the first set had hair all over it. I know the clippers at hair salons are used by dozens of people, but they at least make a show of cleaning the things. So with new shiny clippers in hand we went to work on the boy's head. It will take us a couple of trys to get used to it, and the noise kind of scares him, but this is the result of our first effort...

So we are totally amateur barbers, but at least he looks like we take care of him now...

On the hunt

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Originally uploaded by gregandchristine.

We took Colin to the Portland Zoo Rabbit Romp to hunt for some eggs. It turned out that they just chucked a few handfuls of candy in a field, but Colin still thought it was fun. We was really excited to grab his first piece, but after that he was more interested in eating the candy. Right after the hunt it started raining so we didn't end up spending too much time at the zoo. We did stop to see the chimps to make John jealous. After that we crossed the parking lot and went to the children's museum to dry off and warm up. We are going to decorate some eggs tomorrow and maybe the mythical bunny will bring Colin a basket. Happy Easter everybody!

Museum fun

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Originally uploaded by gregandchristine.

In the last week we have made two trips to the Portland Children's Museum, and now that we have a membership it will probably be at least a weekly stop. It is less of a museum and more like a giant fun house for kids with an educational/developmental bent. There are several different rooms and types of activities and Colin ran around full steam until he was ready to pass out. The water room is fun, but gets way too crowded, the "sand" box where this pic was taken is pretty fun, but Colin likes to throw handfuls of the stuff around and that upsets some of the other parents. There is a room with a large train set that Colin can spend a half hour playing with (despite the fact that he plays with the same thing at home for hours). There are a lot of things to climb on, stack up, dress up and bang on. There is a small museum-esque section that right now is a sesame street exhibit that was a little disappointing-- it is more geared towards adults interested in the history of the show, and Big Bird's nest smelled a little like pee. Now we have a place to take him when the weather is bad and we need to wear him out. It is a fun place to visit, and I wish we had checked it out a few months earlier.