Lost Tooth, Downtown Visit to Daddy and Football Love

T.J. lost his first tooth Wednesday at school - outside no less. It came home to us in a ziploc complete with a bit of mulch! It's been wiggly for awhile, and he's been messing with it in hopes that it would come out. He's even asked me to pull it out a few times. The tooth fairy left him a silver dollar - which he asked to hold onto, but - money savvy man that he is - he asked to have 4 quarters to spend to equal the coin that he wanted to keep. T.J. is fascinated by all vending machines - and he promptly took his quarters to buy - not candy - but a Sprite. Can you tell his mean parents don't let him drink soda? Anyway, here he is showing off the empty space where his bottom middle tooth once was:


You may recall that Tristan lost 2 teeth the day before Thanksgiving 2005 - however, that was NOT a natural loss of teeth - so T.J.'s is quick to tell you that his loss is still a first for the house. (Tristan's were knocked out by T.J.'s head - when the two collided on a school playground).

The association Paul works for (American Public Transportation Association) had their annual legislative conference in DC last weekend and into this week. He had to stay downtown and the boys love nothing more than trying to trash a hotel room. Sooo...on Sunday I gathered up the crew and drove downtown to invade Daddy. As expected, the boys thoroughly enjoyed his hotel room and the ice machine, hotel hallway, etc. What I didn't count on was how much Austin would also like running around the room - particularly looking at himself in the full-length mirror. The boy does like to gaze at himself!

After the demo crew grew weary of a confined space - we walked a few blocks over to take them to the American Museum of Natural History. We were just there in January - but some things never get old to five-year-olds - namely dinosaurs and mammals! Here's a pic of the three boys hiding in the "den" - it's a little hiding spot in the mammal area for kids to crawl into - apparently used mostly to frustrate parents who are trying to get their kids to move on...


Finally, it should come as no surprise that Austin is enamored with sports balls of all kinds - baseballs, basketballs, soccer balls, etc. When he sees one, he becomes somewhat of a savant in that his total and complete focus is trained solely on the ball - and getting it into his hands. This morning while walking to my car to go to his sitter's, he spied a stray nerf football that the twins were playing with yesterday afternoon. He grabbed it - and flat-out refused to let it go - so he held onto it all the way to the sitter's, then into her house, and then while I took his jacket off - and still when I walked out the door while he went into the kitchen for breakfast. I bet he still has it with him when I pick him up tonight!