The joy of the indian burn

So, does anyone remember giving or getting Indian burns? You know - when someone puts their hands on someone else's arm and then twists their skin in different directions? I mainly remember Indian burns as one of those activities to do on the bus on the way home from elementary school (right there with the pencil popping).

Anyway, Eli has changed the Indian burn just slightly and seems to do it almost without thinking about it. There are many versions that he has discovered, but all versions involve his feet burning my skin.

The most frequent version occurs when I am sitting on the couch watching a movie or veggie tales or wonder pets with him. He will stand right in front of me, and, for one reason or another, he seems to find joy in standing on the top of my feet and just shifting his weight back and forth, pulling my skin apart.

Today, I was sitting on the floor next to his small play table where we were coloring. I was leaning on one arm with my hand on the floor. Amy asks me a question or something and before I know it, he is standing on the back of my hand, doing the same little weight shift, pulling the skin on the back of my hand apart.

For a while I thought it was a fairly subconscious habit - I thought that he did it without thinking about it. Well, Sunday morning, he woke up early so I decided that he could watch a movie while I slept on the couch next to him. Well, he kept standing on my leg, pulling the skin apart. Finally, after waking up a few times, I decided that if I put one leg on the front edge of the couch and the other under the back cushion, there was no way that he could stand on my legs. I was awakened about 10 minutes later by an intense burning sensation on my leg under the cushion. He was laying on my leg at the front edge of the couch and had both of his feet under the back cushion, ON MY LEG, pulling my skin in opposite directions and causing me intense pain.

At this point, I laughed out loud, sat up, and decided my sleeping was finished. It is amazing the joy that I get out of this pain...he is just longing to be close to his dad. That pain is a great feeling (not that I don't flinch and tell him to stop it).

Tickles, Wiggles, and Flips

Well, I have been meaning to do some video highlights of all the fun that happens around the James house hold. Below is a video that contains tickles, wiggles, and flips that happened during Eli's first year. We really do have fun, and now with 2 kids it should be twice as fun, right? Enjoy...

I Love Lucy

Well ...

Lucy arrived at 2:46 PM today (July 12th).

She weighed in at 7 lbs 6 oz.

After looking around a bit ...

She stretched and decided it had been a hard day,

traveling down the birth canal, so ...

... she decided to treat herself to a day at the spa ...

tanning and having her hair done

She decided to finish it all out just meditating on the whole day...

Lucy is coming

Push, push ... Hold on honey while I write this blog.

Just kidding.

We got here about 5:40 this morning. At about 7:30, Amy was in the room, hooked up to her IV and receiving her Pitocin to induce labor. It is a little before 9:00 AM now. Dr. Simmons has been here and broke her water. Lucy has moved down which was the main worry before getting here.

The doctor said that he expects Lucy to arrive noon to early afternoon. He also said that he has never missed a delivery time by more than like 8 hours - haha.

Well, I will let everyone know when she arrives. Prayers are appreciated.

Canada is weird, eh?

Well, last week, I was in Canada. For some reason, I always think of Canada as the US extended north - not much different, just colder. Well, there are some differences.

I saw a joke book with a joke that went...

"How does a Canadian spell Canada?
C eh N eh D eh"

It is true, Canadians do say "eh" a lot at the end of things, ... , eh?

They also say "no worries." It is the appropriate response to just about anything that doesn't require a response.

I think it may rain today. No worries.
Excuse me. No worries.
Where's the rest room? Over there. Thanks. No worries.
Can I get the salad dressing on the side? No worries.

It really works with just about anything.

The other thing about Canada that I guess I knew, but was still a bit surprised about, is that they have longer days in the Summer. I walked out of the hotel at about 9:45 PM to get a late dinner and the sun didn't even look like it was about to go down. Sunset happened between 10:15 and 10:30 every night.

Fast food and Wal-mart both closed by 10:00 PM every night. Everything is in Kilometers and Celsius. It was weird to see 110 as the speed limit and a hot day at 25 degrees.

I am sure that there are other things that are weird to us Americans, but that is all I have for now.