January 2005

01/31/05

Whew!  I almost didn't get anything written to commemorate Tommy's birthday before the end of the month.  Here are some thoughts on the occasion.

• I know every baby goes through the same steps of development, but it's still amazing to me how he's changed in just a year.  Even more surprising are the changes of the past month.  Now that he's walking most places his personality has subtly changed.  He's more confident and less clingy.  He's much more likely to wander around the house.  As long as he knows where I am he doesn't always need for me to be in sight.  
• He's still very intense when he focuses on something.  It's not uncommon for him to spend 30 minutes on the same book or object.
• He doesn't say any words yet, but he understands almost everything we say to him in normal conversation.  He understands almost anything I would want to tell him to do or not to do.  He's probably going to be one of those kids who waits a long time to talk but then jumps right into sentences.  
• He was like that with walking.  He had no interest and didn't seem to ever really practice, then all of a sudden he just started walking very proficiently.  None of that falling over and over stuff for him!
• His favorite book right now is The Owl and the Pussycat with illustrations by Jan Brett.  I don't think he cares about the poem or the owl or the pussycat at all.  He just likes the fish that appear on every page.
• I can't really say what his favorite toy is.  It seems to change from day to day.  The ones he seems to consistently like are his walking hippo, his farm set, any sort of ball, blocks and legos.  Stuffed animals are becoming more loved.  It seems he likes things that need one of us to play with him (balls!) and things that he can really interact with (buttons! sounds!).  Long gone are the days when something shiny or crinkly or just interesting looking would fascinate him for hours.  
• He's wearing size 18 month pretty consistently now.  Some brands shrink too much so their 18 month clothes are too short.  I'm probably only going to buy him 24 month clothes from now on since I'd rather they be too big than too small.  When we move into short sleeves for spring I'll probably start buying regular tee shirts instead of the ones with the snaps at the crotch.  He's on his feet most of the time now so riding up won't be a problem and getting him to stay still for diaper changes is challenging so I'd rather avoid all those little snaps.
• I'll have to give you his weight and height next week.  His one-year doctor visit isn't until Feb 7 because David wants to come along.
• I'll also have more birthday-themed pictures next week because we're having friends over to eat cake on Feb 6.  Almost everyone we know is at the same conference as David this week.

01/29/05

Happy Birthday Tommy!

I'm not going to write anything now.  I just wanted to put up the pictures of our busy but happy day.  I'll write sometime in the next few days.

Spinning in the chair with Grandma

Balloons are fun!

  Opening Presents

Playing outside after lunch 

  The cake (I put it together, Sylvia baked it, Mel decorated it)

Hmmm, strange yet squishy

I like playing with it it! (eating it not as much)

Dancing in the kitchen with grandma

  with Mommy

01/25/05

Sometimes a busy boy just has to stop and rest his head on something relatively soft.

A spoon-user in training

01/23/05

Once again Tommy proved me wrong as soon as I wrote about him.  He started walking the day after the last post (the 20th).  He's not walking everywhere, but if he's standing and wants to go someplace he almost always starts out walking.  He won't fall until something gets in his way.  I also have to retract the first word announcement.  He hasn't said bear since I wrote about it.  Maybe he just got bored with it since he really did do it consistently for a few days, but it's also possible it was just a fun sound that he was playing with and not a real word.

Walking.  Get ready for lots of out-of-focus pictures!

His big birthday present.  I think this table will get lots of use with art, crafts, snacks, etc.  He already loves to stand at it and play.  Thanks to Aunt Inga whose Christmas gift money helped purchase it.

Part three of the fish tank development.  David has some live plants in there too. We've never tried to keep any alive before but it will look nice if we can do it.  He did manage to get some to sprout from seed pods so that was exciting.  (We need to get out more if growing aquatic plants is as exciting as it gets.)

01/19/05

FYI: I'm over my cold now, but Tommy's is still lingering.  David never got sick

We think Tommy has learned to say his first word -- bear.  He says it frequently.  He can't do the r sound yet, so it sounds like beyah.  Very Bostonian.  The only confusing thing is that he's started trying to say other words that start with B -- bed, ball, book.  They all sound like bear too.  He uses it for most bear-shaped stuffed animals, especially his hugging bear (see 01/05).  He also uses it for Bear in the Big Blue House, which we watch every morning after breakfast.  He'll bring me the remote and say it over and over until I turn on the TV.  If he starts saying it in a room with no bears we can tell him to go get it and he'll try to bring one to us.  That's not an easy task since he can't walk yet.     

Speaking of not walking, he isn't even trying these days.  He can take multiple steps if urged to do it, but he almost always drops down to crawl instead.  He does get frustrated when he can't move around with something big in his hands, so he's started "walking" on his knees when he wants to move something from here to there.  It doesn't seem to be particularly efficient, but I guess it feels more stable than trying to walk on his feet.

But Mommy, this rock might taste different than the others!

Now that he's thoroughly proficient at door opening and closing we spend a lot of time waiting on the other side of a door while he closes it and then opens it to surprise us.  He'll go into a dark room and close himself in and wait for one of us to come find him before opening it.  He'll wait a LONG time.

He's very good at turning his lamp on and off.  He can also push the buttons on the CD player, but hasn't quite figured out how to turn it on since there's a slight delay between pushing play and the start of the music.

01/16/05

Tommy and I both ended up sick.  We think David's coming down with it too, but at least he felt well enough to play with Tommy all weekend while I slept.  I may feel yucky tomorrow, but at least I'll be rested (unless the boy has a bad night).

Tommy and David were outside playing while I read on the couch.

This was taken after the first round of cleaning.  Burritos are messy.

01/14/05

Tommy is sick AGAIN.  We must be doing something wrong.  He was only well for about 10 days this time.  At least it's just a cold with no fever this time.  That last cold was horrible.  Here's hoping this one is over quickly.  I'm pretty bummed about it though.  We won't be able to go on our date tomorrow.  Oh well.  Maybe later.  (I'm sure he picked up this cold waiting around with me at my doctor's office Monday.)

Captain Pajamas had only pulled a few tissues when I turned the corner.  In the time it took me to pick up the camera and shoot the picture he emptied half the box.  We'll use them all in the next couple of days.  His nose is a fountain of snot this time around.

01/13/05

Some good news for those of you following along at home...

David's mom is going to come stay with me at the end of the month.  David has a conference he must attend each year which will always fall on the dates for both Tommy's birthday and my birthday.  I was pretty bummed that I was going to have to be alone on our birthdays.  Huzzah for Sylvia!  The conference is in Orlando every other year, so we'll get to spend Tommy's 3rd birthday in Disney World.  I'm not sure what we'll do next year.

Tommy has successfully napped in his crib four times this week.  I'm trying not to make the transition too traumatic.  I think it's harder on me than him.  It's been nice spending 2-3 hours a day reading with him sleeping on my lap.  I went to the doctor to find out if my moodiness is depression, however, and she said it's not.  I'm just hormones and exhaustion and she prescribed time to myself (ie get that napping baby in his crib).  She also said I should nurse him less, but I'm not going to listen to that advice.  I'm only nursing him 7-8 times in a 24 hour period (only once during the night) and that's not much more than the number of bottles he'd get at this age.  Some doctors just don't have a clue about nursing.

David and I have a date this weekend.  Our 9th anniversary was Tuesday and we're going to go out to dinner to celebrate.  Except for a few brief stretches with grandparents, we haven't ever left Tommy with a sitter.  Our friends Eric and Karen are going to watch him for a couple of hours.  I wanted it to be for three, but David wants to ease them into it.  We're going to Outback -- David's favorite place.  We haven't been there since before Tommy was born because he doesn't do well in dark restaurants.  He does great at places where he can look around at stuff though.

I finally spent the duplicate Christmas present return money.  I got Tommy a xylophone/piano combo and a set of farm magnets for the fridge.  Both are a big hit.

  Note the drool -- he's still working on the top two 1st molars.

01/10/05

Part two of the fish tank development -- still not finished!  (The water's yellow because of the bog-wood.  It's supposed to clear up after a few water changes.) 

01/08/05

I don't know what game Tommy and David are playing during bath time tonight, but it sure sounds like fun.  I snuck in to take a picture...

01/05/05

His language comprehension is expanding by leaps and bounds.  We were listening to our Sing Along with Putumayo CD this afternoon. (Putumayo is a great world music company that also has great children's CDs.)  The soul/funk version of Old MacDonald Had a Farm came on and I was singing along as usual.  All of a sudden, Tommy started poking his face and gleefully cackling.  I was very confused.  About ten minutes later I realized that he was pointing to his eye...as in E I E I O.  Ah, the workings of a young brain.  It seems like everything we do these days reminds him of something else and he goes shooting off in another direction.  Yes, mom, he's making connections.  

My favorite thought chain is still his bear hug routine.  He started doing this a long time ago, but still wants to do it multiple times a day.  When he wants a hug he finds his dark brown teddy bear -- no substitutions.  Then he shoves it at you until you give it a hug.  Then he wants to be included in the hug, but you must maintain hold of the bear.  When he's done hugging, he points to the bookcase.  You are supposed to take down the book Can You Cuddle Like a Koala? by John Butler.  Turn to the page where there's a big bear hugging a baby bear with the caption, "Can you hug like a bear with all your might?"  Read that page, then read the whole book.  Sometimes this all starts when he wants a hug, but if you read the book first then the bear page will initiate the bear hug sequence.  

The Bear Hug Routine

Reading before bed

01/02/05

We had a nice holiday weekend.  We went out to lunch yesterday and they were serving little cups of good luck.  The waitress said they were afraid "foreigners" would feel neglected so they offered black-eyed peas as well as the traditional New Mexican posole.   My mom chastised me for not passing on the black-eyed pea tradition to Tommy.  She'll be happy to know he got to eat some even though I didn't cook them.  "Mmmm... squishy," he said, non-verbally of course.

In the past week he's decided that I need some positive reinforcement to encourage me to hold him even more.  As soon as I pick him up he pats me on the back with his hand while he rests his head.  What a sweetie.  He's always been a very snuggly baby and still wants to be held a lot.  I think I'm really lucky he's like this.  Lots of babies this age are too busy to be held.  

Captain Pajamas helps Mommy take down the Christmas tree.

He's figured out how to make these cars work. They're the kind you pull backwards to wind up the mechanism then release so they'll shoot forward.

Captain Pajamas checks out our new fish tank.  We have a long way to go until it's completely finished.  David built the stand, but still has to finish the drawer and doors.  We'll put rocks, wood, plants and more fish in over the next few weeks.

This is pretty much a perfect representation of Tommy most of the time.  He's a pretty happy little boy.  (His mouth looks strange because he was still sucking on the skin of a pea from dinner.)    

01/01/05

Happy New Year everyone!

I haven't taken any pictures yet, but wanted to get this page re-done for the new month.  I'll probably take pictures tomorrow.  I put the earliest months of pictures back up in the archive.

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