what's your job?

In order to get Harrison to try new foods, we have resorted to bribery rewards.  So, after he finally tried asparagus, his reward was ice cream!  On the way to Goodberry's we had the following conversation, pretty much word for word:

Me:  Look at those geese on the side of the road, Harrison.  What are they doing?
Harrison:  They are eating grass and leaves.  That's their job.
Me:  (hmmm)  What's your job, Harrison?
Harrison:  My job is to play soccer.
Me:  What's Daddy's job?
Harrison:  to go to work.
Me:  What's Annie's job?
Harrison:  to feed Annie.  (and that is most definitely her main purpose in life)
Me.  What's my job?
Harrison:  (thinking for a few moments) . . . "to clean up."
me.  (no response, but even if I had a response it was drowned out by the sound of Jamie's laughter)

and there you have it.  my life in a nutshell.

first trip to the dentist!

Isn't it funny how you spend so much energy worrying about things that never come to fruition (like Harrison's transition to his big boy bed that I fretted over for months and it didn't even phase him) and it is the things you never worry about that catch you off guard (like how Harrison ran screaming out of his preschool class when the music teacher starting playing the guitar).  Such as it was with the dentist today.  I have been dreading the day when I had to take Harrison to the dentist.  I pictured me having to hold him down in the chair while he was screaming and then never talking to me again.  I had gone to the same dentist yesterday so I had warned them that it was his first visit.  They assured me that they would only do as much as he would let them so that they would probably only look at and maybe brush his teeth with fluoride.  Well, he did so great that he got the whole drill (no pun intended).
The dental assistant told me (as she probably tells every parent) that he was the best 3 year old she ever had.  He sat completely still while they scraped his teeth, polished them with the rotating brush thing, FLOSSED!, checked for cavities, and painted on fluoride at the end (this was the only thing he complained about b/c he said it tasted "yucky" and made him "feel sick.")

Here are the pictures to prove it!

flossing:

It was also super cute b/c every time they would tell Harrison to open wide, Anne would also do it but I didn't get a picture of that.

The final thing that impressed me was that I was showing Harrison my goody bag from the dentist and I pulled this out and said "see what I got?"

He said, "Colgate Total."  My first thought was "I have raised a genius child who can already read" but then a mili-second later I thought "he probably saw that on tv."  Sure enough, when I asked him who told him that was Colgate Total, he said the tv.  I can't think of a colgate commercial on tv that he is referring to but I'm impressed with their marketing campaign.

when I grow up I want to be . . .

I've been waiting for this moment.  Several friends have been posting lately about what their 3 year olds have said they want to be when they grow up so I have been eagerly awaiting Harrison's declaration.  This weekend it finally came.  Our shy, scared-of-noises, hates singing and music child wants to be . . .  wait for it, - - (and I can honestly say that I did not see this one coming) - - a PUPPETEER!
We went to see Paperhand Puppet Intervention at the N.C. Museum of Art on Friday night and he became a different child.  All week I had been telling Harrison that we were going to see a giant puppet show with music and he wanted no part of it.  He resolutely did not want to go.  However, since we had already bought the tickets, he did not have a choice.  P.P.I. is a puppet, theater company based in N.C. and I have been wanting to go see them for a while now.  They have giant puppets (a fifty foot long dragon was his favorite) that tell a story set to music.
Words cannot explain how excited I was to watch him there.  The museum has an open-air amphitheater with plenty of grass and space to run in, but he sat, spell-bound, without so much as a peep.  I cannot emphasize how uncharacteristic this is of him.  After the show he said he wanted to walk down to the stage.  As we were walking around it, he said "I'm going to come back here tomorrow and be on the stage but first, I need to get a black shirt (all the puppeteers were dressed in all black)."  I have never seen him so excited, involved, and animated.  I asked him if he wanted to be a performer and a puppeteer and he said "YES, I'M going to be puppeteer tomorrow!!"  Even though I will probably be a little creeped out if he actually does turn out to be a puppeteer, I couldn't be more proud.  I think I was just so excited to see how his imagination had been captured and it was fun to see how seriously he was taking his newfound profession.  I told him that I wanted to come to all of his shows and he said, "no, you can't be in the show, only me."  He said that he would be "very careful with [the puppets] and carry them on stage."  I also asked if I could get in for free and he also said "no."

A puppeteer with business savvy, a dangerous combination!

snug as a bug

Harrison is a champion sleeper.  This is not my favorite thing about him but it is close :)  He will be four in December and he still takes a nap every day.  And, knock on wood, he stays in his bed after we read him his goodnight stories until we go in and get him in the morning - every single night.  Of course, he still sleeps in a pull-up but there's plenty of time for transitioning to that later :)  But, my absolute favorite thing about his sleeping is how he sleeps with his entire body burrowed under the covers or pillows.  Each night I go in to turn off his bedside lamp after he falls asleep and I get the biggest kick out of seeing him.

Here is a pic of him the other night.  

And from another angle.

The day after daylight savings ended we decided not to make him take a nap so that he could get back on schedule with the time change.  We let him watch tv upstairs while we were making dinner.  I regret so much that I didn't take a picture of this but when I walked in all I could see were his legs laying sideways on the couch and his top half was laying behind the back cushions of the couch.   Then, last month we were staying in the upstairs bedroom at Mimi and Granddaddy's house and Harrison slept on the pull-out couch.

Here is what I saw when I walked in while he was napping.

so I walked around to the other side and here he was, snug as a bed bug.