Hauling Alan - all over the place!

I don't know about you, but this NEVER happens at our house: A child falling asleep on his own? Especially somewhere besides his bed? No way. No matter how tired, that just doesn't happen. I think Dale did it once in his whole baby-hood. And even though Alan doesn't nap well and could usually always use some sleep, he doesn't fall asleep easily either. But last Sunday afternoon, he woke up way too early from a nap, and then really surprised us when he fell asleep on the floor not too much later! He slept there for over an hour & a half! We had just gotten home from the hospital the night before, so we figured he was still recovering from all of that.

Later in the week, we got out and enjoyed the warm weather, knowing cold was coming. For several days Dale had been pulling his wagon with one hand while steering his tricycle with the other. He talked and talked about hauling his 'trailer'. With Daddy home for the break, he was able to help Dale out and make a 'hitch'. Hands-free hauling! Both boys enjoyed the benefits of that:

Last week Dale was also in a phase of calling people "dude". The same afternoon these pictures were taken we were all outside together. Dale wanted me to scoot over so he could sit next to me. He started to call me 'dude' but his thought process must have told him 'dude' was for males, because he corrected himself this way:
"Scoot over, woman!"

Ummm... no.
I was really glad his Daddy was home - he did all the correcting while I just turned my head and choked back the laughter!

Sadly, all the fun & games didn't last too long. After marveling at the fact that JC Penney was going to be open at 4am the day after Thanksgiving and who in the world would be getting up that early, anyway... turns out we could have been some of the first ones there. Alan woke up at 2:30am with a high fever that kept climbing. So... deja-vu! Emergency room visit (although we went to a local one this time & had a much better experience), Friday night hospital stay, and home by bedtime Saturday. Ugh. So our Thanksgiving break was book-ended by hospital stays. But, our usual mantra still holds true: "It could be so much worse." And that is definitely something to be thankful for. :)

And now I'm off to catch up on laundry and put some supper in the crock pot. See you later, woman!