Scenes from Family Life...

I haven't posted much about Carlos lately, except to say how sick he's been. Fortunately, he's a lot better now, and was able to go back to preschool for the first time in a week and a half today.

His favorite toy these days is a little plastic sheep named Sheila. Sheila is also Mama and Papa's favorite toy because she seems to have magical powers... whenever we want Carlos to do something he doesn't want to do, we just ask him if we can do it to Sheila first, and about 90% of the time, he agrees to let Sheila go, then himself. ('Time to brush Sheila's teeth!'; 'Sheila needs a diaper...', 'Is Sheila ready for a nap?', etc.)

One thing that I find pretty hilarious about his relationship with Sheila is how it can go from tender to violent in the blink of an eye. One moment, Carlos is telling me, 'Sheila cold, need a snuggle,' and nuzzling her sweetly under his chin, and the next moment, he's traveling around the house, bashing poor Sheila's skull against any and every hard object he can find.

Case in point - Sheila joins Carlos and Papa for a nice, civilized game of Hungry Hippos.

One minute later, Shelia is hippo food...

Pretty funny.

Yep, life is good for Carlos these days. The extreme illness has passed, the weather has been nice enough to play outside, he has a new love interest (Sheila the sheep, of course), and last but definitely not least, today we got this put up in our yard:

Woo-hoo! Carlos is in heaven. I wish I'd gotten some pictures of him going down the slide before he went down for his nap. Maybe tomorrow. He climbs up the ladder and goes down the slide over and over, like a pro.

Guess what else Matt got finished today?


Chickens, here we come!

Oh, and here's a picture of Carlos that I think is just too cute not to share. He understands now about how the camera works, and he likes to pose for pictures and then run over and see them on the digital camera screen right away. He had requested that I take his picture with his little toy duck.