Tommy figured out how to climb out of his crib last night.  We are so doomed. 

I guess we’ll be shopping for a big-boy bed this weekend.  His lingering stomach virus is to blame.  He’s been so tired at bedtime the last couple of nights, but he had to get up multiple times before his body was ready to stop pooping and start sleeping.  I guess I was too slow going in there at one point, so he climbed out and came to get me.  “I waked up!  Poopy!  Change diaper peese.”  Once he figured out how to climb out, all thoughts of sleep left his little head.  Then it became a game.  He’d happily lie down snuggled under his covers and order me to turn off the light, leave the room and shut the door.  As soon as the door closed, he’d climb out of bed and open the door, grinning at me and announcing “I waked up!”  I’d pick him up, put him back in his bed and say all of the standard soothing good-night things I usually say.  Repeat. 

After about 10 repetitions he stopped opening the door.  He knew I’d just put him right back into bed…or change his diaper.  Instead, he turned on his little lamp and sat in the rocking chair by himself.  I left him there for a while each time, hoping he’d fall asleep in the chair, but he kept needing diaper changes so there wasn’t a chance for him to fall asleep.  Between 8 and 10 pm last night I changed 6 diapers, nursed him to the point of drowsiness 4 times and rocked him to sleep 3 times.  He climbed out of his crib at least 30 times.  At least we were both in a reasonably mild mood for most of that time.  I started losing it a bit after 10.  I’m so terrified of long, drawn out sleep struggles after what we went through last February and March.  Things seem more manageable this morning.  I just don’t think it’s going to go smoothly until he’s over this stomach virus.  At least if we get him a big-boy bed I can lie next to him and try to keep him still long enough to fall asleep.  We can work on reminding him how to fall asleep on his own again once he’s well.

By the way, we bought a toddler bed that uses a standard crib mattress a few months ago, but now I think he’s too tall for it.  It has a maple finish and rails half-way down each side.  It’s too late to return it, but is still unopened and in the box.  Anyone want it?  E-mail me if you want it and I’ll bring it to you if you live in ABQ or ship it to you if you live far away.

So what have we been doing all week while I wasn’t posting?  Tommy played with his new toys and was introduced to Toy Story 2 (new word of the day: Zurg!).  David worked on upgrading the computer.  I spent way too much time choosing just the right color for the kitchen and office.  My big Christmas present this year is new paint and new blinds for these rooms.  I’m much more excited about it than I should be.  I’ve hated the taupe-pink scalloped blinds and prissy floral stencils on the kitchen walls since the day we moved in.  After three years, we’re finally re-doing it. 

The kitchen shares a wall with the office (originally a dining room) and they both open onto the big living room, so we have to do the kitchen and office at the same time.  We wanted to pick a white with some noticeable tint to it, but needed to make sure the paint wouldn’t clash too much with the existing white in rest of the house.  We’ll re-paint the rest of the white walls in the same color at a later date.  There will also be some accent blue in the kitchen, but choosing that one wasn’t nearly as difficult as choosing the right white.  I’m good with color.  I’m not so good with neutrals. 

There are lots of different whites out there, and it’s almost impossible to see exactly how they’ll look without buying test quarts and painting large swaths of varying shades onto the walls.  We needed something tan/beige to go with the tile, but wanted to avoid pink undertones as much as possible.  We also didn’t want it to be too blue or too yellow.  I do know that tans and browns are made up of a mixture of red, yellow and blue but we didn’t want too much of any of them.  The kitchen faces west and is in full sun in the evening, so all the paints we tried look very different as the day progresses from artificial light through the changing levels of natural light during the day and evening.  Then we ran into the whole Lowe’s economy vs. Sherwin-Williams quality debate.  After picking up a 4-inch tall stack of paint swatches and buying many test quarts, we found just the right color.  It’s a 2:1 mix of two Sherwin-Williams colors, Pacer White and Sand Dollar.  In an effort to save money, we had Lowe’s color match our favorite shade and bought 3 gallons from them.  That was a Big Mistake, and a Big Waste of Money.  The color did not match and wasn’t something I could live with.  We bought three new gallons at Sherwin-Williams today and David is starting to paint.  I’ll post pictures when he finishes…and when I get PaintShop Pro re-loaded onto the computer.

David got the computer up and running.  He was stalled after a couple of hours the first day and it took a few days to figure out that a little lost screw in the bottom of the case was grounding the new motherboard, making the system inoperable.  He was so happy when he finally discovered the problem.  The only stuff that didn’t seem to survive the upgrade were PaintShop Pro and Microsoft FrontPage – the two programs I use every day to update this site.  We have to figure out if we need to buy new copies, etc since we don’t have discs for them.  (Yes, they were legal copies originally.)  I can’t put up any pictures for now, and I’m going to try using MS Word for update.  Things might look strange until we figure everything out, but for now, I’m back!

David got computer components for Christmas, so this will be my last post until he finishes updating our system and works out all the inevitable bugs.  It might take a few days.

Here are the pictures from Christmas morning.  Tommy ended up with a stomach bug by mid-day.  Combine a dozen diaper changes with an exploding turkey pan and you have a relatively surreal Christmas day.  The present opening was fun though!

Enough about napping!  Time for philosophical ramblings!

You may remember that Tommy likes the movie Fantasia.  We started him off on the Nutcracker Suite segment when he was really small.  I like classical music, and I think it's good to figure out that you can imagine stories that match the flow of complex music.  I know.  One isn't really imagining anything while watching TV, but it's a beginning exercise.  As one would expect, he really likes Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice with Mickey Mouse, the classical mythology stuff in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and the dancing hippo and crocodile in Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.  I'm just subversive enough to not be bothered by the drunken Bacchus or the nude fairies and centaur girls.  

I am, however, slightly bothered by his favorite segment.  He loves the dinosaurs in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.  He loves dinosaurs in general, and anytime he's playing with his dinosaur toys he eventually asks to watch the Fantasia dinosaurs.  His favorite part is the battle between the T-Rex an the Stegosaurus.  There isn't any blood, but it's a violent battle and the Stegosaurus dies in the end.  Tommy isn't at all bothered by this.  He calls the T-Rex the "mean dino" and says "spiky dino hurt!" at the end.  The part of me that sympathizes with Jean-Jacques Rousseau thinks that there's nothing wrong with letting Tommy see the realities of nature.  Predators kill to eat.  It's nature's way.  The modern Mommy part of me thinks, "Violence is Bad! Shelter the toddler's innocence!  He's not even two yet!  Censor!  Censor!"  For now, I'm letting him watch it because he loves it and honestly doesn't seem to be bothered or affected by the violence.  I'd rather let him watch and read (when he's older) anything he believes he's mature enough for and then have lots of discussions about everything.  I guess I'm just sensitive since one of David's co-workers told him Tommy was going to grow up to be a bully because we let him watch TV.  Ok.  My thoughts on this are out there.  Discuss!  (Yes, I realize no one is going to discuss this with me or e-mail me about it.)

Oh, and don't even get me started on the hell-fire and damnation imagery or Moussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain.  I don't let him watch that one.  David does occasionally though -- because Tommy loves it.  Me?  A hypocrite?  Maybe.

12/21/05

12/20/05

Snip snip!

12/19/05

Tommy's been very affectionate lately.  I think it upset him to see me sick, so he's showering me with affection now that I'm well.  Every hug is accompanied by a "Nuvd (love) you Mama."  He's wanting hugs and kisses and snuggles even more than usual.  He's also decided that the best sign of affection is to kiss my hand and then kiss all the way up my arm just like Gomez Adams.  He's never seen anyone do this as far as I know.  He just came up with it on his own.  I'm raising a little Casanova.

12/17/05

Tommy Tidbits...

• He's started calling us "guys" as in "Come guys!" or "Hi guys!"  I find it highly amusing.
• We have an ongoing knock-knock game.  Tommy closes himself behind a door.  Then he knocks on the door, and says "knock, knock."  We answer "Who's there?"  Tommy opens the door and proudly proclaims "Tommy!"  Tonight he was knocking on the wall and saying "Knock, knock."  I asked him "Who's there?"  He stopped knocking, looked at me quizzically and said "Wall is there."  Makes sense to me!
• Tommy was incredibly sweet to me when I was sick.  He was very concerned.  He's pat me on my head and whisper "Sorry Mama.  Poor Mama."  He'd check to see if I was sleeping and then whisper "Shhh.  Mama sleep."  Usually, if I close my eyes on the couch during the day, he immediately yells "Wake up Mama!"  He didn't do that at all while I was sick.  He didn't exactly leave me alone without lots of coaching from David, but he did understand that I was sick and wanted to sleep.  He'd check on me frequently but almost always whisper and tiptoe away as soon as he saw that I was still in bed.  What a sweet boy.
• Have I mentioned that he can count to seven?  He can.  When he wants to.  He doesn't often want to.
• Last night there was some hysterical laughter coming from the bathroom while David was bathing Tommy.  At one point I heard David proudly say "Good job Tommy!"  Then there was more laughter.  When it was time for me to help with the drying off I asked David what they'd been doing.  They always have fun in there, but this sounded like an extra-exciting night.  David proudly showed me how he taught Tommy how to spit on the wall of the bathtub.  Yeah.  I don't really get what there is to be proud about in that.  I guess it has something to do with little boys learning how to spit AND learning that we only spit towards the wall and not out of the tub.  Something like that.
• Speaking of baths, Tommy still hates being dried off.  His pleas for "Help Tommy!" while we're trying to dry him off are quite pitiful.  I think he thinks it's a game though, because he isn't at all upset after we finish.

12/15/05

I'm feeling relaxed for the first time in about 2 weeks.  I still have a cold, but it's getting better.  It just seems like I haven't been able to catch up from being really sick until today.  Maybe I'm just feeling better because I gave up and called the maid service.  When we got home after lunch the house was completely clean.  Glorious.  I don't think I've done any real cleaning at all except daily dishwasher/kitchen triage since before Thanksgiving.  It was that bad.  I'm probably also feeling better because I finally got the Christmas cards out and all of the professional photos cut apart, divvied up and mailed off.  Whew.  We're totally out of food and none of the presents are wrapped, but there's always take-out and at least all the presents are here ready to wrap.  I really do love Christmas.  Being sick just threw me off and made the stuff I usually enjoy doing unusually stressful.  Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know that I'm still here.  Tommy's as cute as ever.  He's decided that Royal Dansk Butter Cookies are a favorite Christmas treat.  Now that I'm relaxing a bit I can start noticing Tommy stuff to tell you about and start taking pictures again.  But first I'm going to have a cup of tea and watch TV in my clean living room while Tommy finishes his nap.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?

12/13/05 - later

We went to a photo studio this morning to have Tommy's Christmas portraits taken.  Tommy was an excellent model, and had SO MUCH FUN.  I am not so good at making decisions about what to buy while keeping an eye on Tommy.  I think I got prints of some of the best, but my mediocre math skills failed me so I have to go back to get more wallets for Christmas cards.  Anyway, enough words.  What you really want is pictures.  I put them on a new page because there are so many.  Here are the professional portraits.  (I've also linked to them in the sidebar so you don't have to keep coming back to this page.)

12/13/05

We have a bit of snow this morning.  It will probably melt when the sun comes out, but it's pretty right this moment.  We only have one thing we have to go out for today.  That's good, because I have a cold.  That's right.  My immune system is completely useless.  First I had that stomach flu that showed up Monday of last week.  I finally started keeping food down Thursday.  I'm on antibiotics for a case of Mastitis which started Thursday.  I felt marginally better for all of Sunday afternoon, and by Monday morning I had a sore throat and cough that triggers asthma wheezing.  I'm falling apart!  At least Tommy still hasn't gotten sick...so far.  Let's hope his sturdy immune system keeps on working as it has been.

12/12/05