Fire Chief

Our Landlord works at the Arroyo Grande fire station and brought London, and his cousin Ethan some fire hats for Christmas. London loves to play fire chief. And he especially loves to see himself in the mirror!

Daddy Don't Speak Sissy

Listen, I'm as patient as the next guy, but this crying thing has got to stop. We'll be in public and London will start crying for no good reason other than hunger or something. I tolerated it for eight months, assuming he would grow out of this "phase." But alas, we've had no such luck. I suppose my question is, what kind of discipline works best in those situations? So far, verbal criticism (which some namby-pamby types call "abuse." Stinkin hippies) hasn't worked very well. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Usually it goes something like this:

London: "Whaaaa...sniff, sniff....whaaa"
Daddy: "Hey, you're embarrassing me"
London: "Whaaaa...sniff, sniff....whaaa"
Daddy: "Daddy doesn't speak sissy, son"
London: "Whaaaa...sniff, sniff....whaaa"
Daddy: "Wait...is your name Nancy?"

Any suggestions?

-Trav

Couldn't have said it better...

Our friends, the Garcia's, got London a Christmas gift. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Christmas Comes Early

If there's one thing everyone knows about me, it is that I am the picture of masculinity. When one looks at my physique, one might confuse me with a greek god...Zeus perhaps...although I've heard Apollo as well. Once I was mistaken for Aphrodite, but it was in a less than posh, poorly lit club in Atlanta. I forgave the confusion. A virtue I don't normally possess. Anyway, here is something that most of you do not know about me. I ride a motorcycle. Most of you are probably thinking, "Sure you do." Given the correlation between manliness and bikes, it would seem obvious. Although I do ride a motorcycle, it hasn't really helped my mystique...until now. You see, my motorcycle is mostly purple. The color of royalty. But that's not the problem. The issue is this...my helmet is mostly pink...with purple trim, which matches the purple on the bike. Now, some women would see this as an advantage, but the men reading this will know that it most certainly, is not. I happened upon this helmet due to the generosity of my Uncle Pat. He has about fourteen motorcycles, and probably..um....twenty-seven helmets. This was (of course) the only one that fit. I wore it with pride. That is, until last week when this landed on my doorstep.Booyah! That's right. A new...black...helmet. Now I can ride my purple motorcycle in all manliness. It's not that I wasn't grateful for the pink helmet. I was. But try riding up to a biker bar on a purple bike.....sporting a pink helmet. I'll tell you what, it doesn't exactly demand respect. Funny thing is, the same day I received the helmet was the same day I found a huge screw in my back tire. So the motorcycle has been out of commission for a week. I'm getting a new tire put on tomorrow, so I'll be riding again, with a new helmet. Who was my secret Santa, you might ask? None other than my own sugar daddy, Uncle Pat. He figured I needed a new helmet because the pink one was coming up on five years old, which is about the same time the padding starts to become less effective. So, Uncle Pat, thank you very, very much. Your generosity knows no bounds!

-Trav

"Sound the bell, school is in sucka"

Your search is over.

-Trav

London laughing

Travis helped me figure out the video thing. (if you are confused, check out the last post!) Here he is....mocking momma!

All Smiles

London has a new talent....mocking his mother. I started doing a "fake laugh" to London a few days ago. I thought it was funny, and it would make him smile. Now, he does it back to me. He squints his eyes and does a fake laugh. No joke. I am trying to figure out how to post the video (it keeps saying it is too big) but until then, these pics will have to do.

My new bathtub

After realizing that we are spending a lot of money filling up our tub for London, we decided to buy him his own tub. It finally came yesterday. Since he HATES new things, I thought I would blow it up and let him play in it for awhile so that when we tried it later that night, he wouldn't be scared. He loved playing with it. He laughed, giggled, and was pretty content for awhile. So I thought we were in the clear. That night, we gave it a try. Cried the whole way through. He is like his mommy....I hate change.

Round 3

We are finally better here in the Avila household (knock on wood). So I called to reschedule London's 6 month shots for the fourth time. They wanted me to bring him in today! Bummer, I thought. Remember those days when your mom told you that you had a doctors appointment and your first question was, "Am I gonna get shots?" My mom almost always told us the truth, however we still argue to this day about the time we got surprise boosters. I still have to work on forgiveness (love ya mom!). I was thankful that London is still small enough that I don't really have to convince him, or bribe him, to go. He really didn't have much of a choice. So I just tanked him full of Tylenol and headed to Dr. Bravo's.

As soon as we got in the office, he knew what was up. Stacy was just giving him the oral medicine and he was already starting to wimper. By the first shot, he was giving me those eyes. Now it was about this time that we were all thankful that dad didn't come. He had offered. But by the second shot, London was flashing his new skills and crying out...."dadda..dadda" Rip your heart out. He tried to hang in there, and I tried not to laugh. Don't get me wrong, I felt sorry for the guy. I, myself, would rather break a limb than get a shot. But London can really turn on the waterworks. And sometimes, you just have to laugh at the drama. All was well, when the binky was returned. And being the good mom that I am, I even brought in his blanky to snuggle with. We were better by the car ride home...and all smiles when we walked in the door. Now we all just sit, wait, and pray that he doesn't get sick! Good job Bubba!



This video is of London laughing when mommy talks about his "poopie!" Hey, whatever is takes to get a laugh, right?

Christmas in the Village

Last night we took London to his first "Christmas in the Village". We bundled him up and met up with friends for a night of food, treats and all around holiday fun. The line for Santa was WAY too long, so we settled for a picture with dad. Let's face it, he is the real Santa anyway right?