Oh finally!

I've been thinking for some time about how great it would be if you could set up an online gift wish list that wasn't bound to any particular retailer. Turns out somebody did just that. For all of you having trouble figuring out what we'd love (or not love) for Graham for Christmas, birthdays etc., check out THETHINGSIWANT.COM. Hint: that wooden robot would be a HUGE hit.

Anyone want our extra Halloween candy? Please?

"Wanna take a little nap after I'm done eating this candy!"

WE HAVE DRY DIAPERS AND POTTY USAGE!!!!!!!

Well, well, well.
If you have peeked at my new blog, you know that we switched over to cloth diapers a few weeks ago.
So this last Monday morning Graham yelled, "Moooooommmmmm, I'm aWAAAAAAAAKKKKEE!" and I thought to myself, "What would happen if I just put him on the potty right now?" So we started Morning Pee:

He sat there a little bit, and then said, "Mom I peed!" Nope.
He sat there a little more, and said, "Mom I peed!" Nope.
He asked me to leave. I stood in the hall outside the door.
"MOM I PEED!"

Yup. Not like a teaspoon either, which he's done on the potty a couple of times. This was a full on, bladder emptying pee. He poured it into the big potty and flushed it. But first we woke up Nick to show him (Nick who never gets out of bed that quickly, ever) and Graham got huge hugs and kisses.

Yesterday: the exact same thing, except I peeked in just in time to see him dumping a full pee in the potty and saying, "I did it myself!"

Today: not a single wet diaper. THREE PEES in the potty.

And a little plastic indoor bowling set is all wrapped up and hiding in the basement in anticipation of the first poop. Oh yeah, we're gonna bowl when that happens. It's gonna be a big big deal!

I am SO FREAKING PROUD OF MY LITTLE MAN. Peeing on the potty at mot quite 26 months!

UPDATE 10/02
We've had TWO Graham-initiated poops this week as well and a couple dozen pees! I can't believe it, it is going so well! Clearly he's ready; he just gets it. It's pretty amazing to me.

Graham's book list 10/09/07

*favorites

*Leonardo the terrible monster / [text and illustrations by] Mo Willems. - This may be Graham's most favorite in a long time. He's asked to call the characters on the phone!
*Howler / Michael Rosen - A dog whose human pets have a new baby he names Howler.
*Sleepy time Olie / by William Joyce. - Graham does a hilarious robot voice now.
*Hear that? / Tama Janowitz - A mom and her son imagine what could be making the scary noises they hear. "Maybe a horrible, hairy ginip-ginop!" Or maybe it's just Nick.
*Baby brains / Simon James. - Graham loves rockets.
The garden of Abdul Gasazi / written and illustrated by Chris van Allsburg.
10 minutes till bedtime / Peggy Rathmann.
Yellow umbrella / by Jae Soo Liu
Sometimes I'm Bombaloo / by Rachel Vail
*Oswald / Dan Yaccarino. Graham pretends to be Oswald and push objects around the house.
*The big brown box / by Marisabina Russo. A cute book about pretend and all the things a box can be.
*If the dinosaurs came back / written and illustrated by Bernard Most. I think Graham's dino love has begun.
Arlene sardine / Chris Raschka. - Quite possibly the oddest children's book I've ever read. Really quirky. I did laugh out loud though. Not a good fit for well, I'll say it, overly protective parents.
Make Way for Ducklings / Robery McCloskey.
Alphabeasts / Wallace Edwards.
*Little Humpty / Margaret Wild & Ann James.
ABC USA / illustrated by Martin Jarrie.
Twigboy / Stephen Gammell.
Museum shapes / The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.
You can do it too! / Karen Baicker
*Flotsam / David Wiesner. I had high expectations for this Caldecott-winner, and it delivered and them some. The illustrations in this wordless book convey the narrative beautifully and inventively. A very cinematic read.
*Stingrays / by Martha E.H. Rustad.

OTHER BOOKS WE LOVE:
The Day the Babies Crawled Away, Peggy Rathman http://www.amazon.com/Day-Babies-Crawled-Away/dp/039923196X
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak
When Sophie Gets Angry - really Really Angry, Molly Bang
We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen http://www.amazon.com/Were-Going-Classic-Board-Books/dp/0689815816

LIVID ABOUT BUSH VETO ON CHILDREN'S HEALTHCARE BILL

Here's the run down on the bill, which passed in a bipartisan effort in the House 265-159 and the Senate 67-29. Bush has vetoed, citing a desire to keep government out of healthcare. You know what I think? I think Dubya's got an obligation to veto, since expanding coverage would be paid for by a $0.61 tobacco tax increase. Yeah, forget that more people quit the higher the price goes, forget that we'd be taking money from smokers to pay for kids to have access to health insurance. Let's protect the interests of TABACCO.

FIFTEEN more Republican votes need to be drummed up in the House by October 18 to overturn Bush's veto. In MN, the only elected officials to vote nea in either the house or the senate were Kline and Bachmann. I have a call in to Bachmann's office to find out what the hell she was thinking. She has 5 children. Are they on healthcare I pay for?

Look up your representatives here: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.html
Look up how they voted here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll906.xml
Look up the history of the bill here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-976


From: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-976&tab=summary

"H.R. 976: Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007
An act to amend title XXI of the Social Security Act to extend and improve the Children's Health Insurance Program, and for other purposes.

The following is Project Vote Smart's highlights for this bill, graciously made available by PVS:

Appropriates $9.13 billion for fiscal year 2008, $10.68 billion for fiscal year 2009, $11.85 billion for fiscal year 2010, and $13.75 billion for fiscal year 2011 for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) [Title I (Sec. 101)].

-Creates an incentive pool for states whose CHIP enrollment numbers exceed baseline projections [Title I (Sec. 105)].

-Prohibits the issuance of CHIP waivers to non-pregnant childless adults after passage, and terminates existing waivers on September 30, 2008 [Title I (Sec. 106)].

-Allows a state to apply for Medicaid waivers to continue coverage for non-pregnant childless adults whose waivers have been terminated [Title I (Sec. 106)].

-Allows states to continue providing child health assistance to parents of eligible children under an existing waiver through 2012 and provides additional funding for states meeting certain outreach and coverage benchmarks [Title I (Sec. 106)].

-Allows states to change their child health plans to provide pregnancy-related assistance to targeted low-income pregnant women if they have a Medicaid eligibility level for pregnant women that is at least 185 percent above the poverty level, among other requirements [Title I (Sec. 107)].

-Establishes a CHIP Contingency Fund to eliminate the Federal share of shortfalls in state CHIP allotments [Title I (Sec. 108)].

-Appropriates $100 million for grants to eligible private or public entities to conduct outreach efforts designed to increase CHIP enrollment among eligible children and sets aside 10 percent of the allocated money for the administration of a national CHIP enrollment campaign [Title II (Sec. 201)].

-Allows states to offer subsidies for qualified employer-sponsored group health coverage to all targeted low-income children who are eligible, if such coverage is more cost-effective than enrollment in the State child health plan [Title IV (Sec. 401)].

-Requires the publication of a recommended core set of child health quality measures, including full insurance coverage and the availability of a full range of services and treatment, for use by state CHIP programs by January 1, 2009 [Title V (Sec. 501)].

-Increases the tax on cigars from $1.828 per thousand to $50.00 per thousand for cigars weighing less than 3 pounds per thousand, and increases the tax from 20.719 percent of the retail price to 53.13 percent of the retail price for cigars weighing more than three pounds per thousand, with a cap of $3.00 per cigar [Title VII (Sec. 701 [a])].

-Increases the tax from $19.50 per thousand to $50.00 per thousand for cigarettes weighing less than 3 pounds per thousand, and increases the tax from $40.95 per thousand to $104.9999 per thousand for cigarettes weighing more than 3 pounds per thousand [Title VII (Sec. 701 [b])].

-Increases the taxes on cigarette paper from $0.122 to $0.313 per fifty papers and on cigarette tubes from $0.244 to $0.626 per fifty tubes [Title VII (Sec. 701 [c-d])].

-Increases the taxes on snuff from $0.585 to $1.50 per pound and on chewing tobacco from $0.195 to $0.50 per pound [Title VII (Sec. 701 [e])].

-Increases the taxes on pipe tobacco from $1.0969 to $2.8126 per pound and on roll-your-own-tobacco from $1.0969 to $8.8889 per pound [Title VII (Sec. 701 [f-g])].

Amazing Apple Run-on

"When grow big and wanna go pick appos (apples) gan (again) from the appo trees and come home and take a baf (bath) with appos and bob for appos in the baftub. "







We had lots of fun picking apples at EMMA KRUMBEE'S. with Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Bill and Aunt Yessica (as Graham calls her).

Said in his highchair to avoid eating vegetables:

"I feew sad bacuz I want ta get down."