September 2005

09/29/05

Tommy says, "Happy Birthday Uncle Terry!"

Tommy also has a birthday of sorts today.  He's 20 months old today.  That sounds so old!  Four more months and he'll be two.  Then I'll have to start saying he's two and a quarter, two and a half, etc. instead of counting months.

I think the boy is starting to get his last four teeth, the 2-year molars.  Nooooo!  I'm not ready.  We see no signs of them on his gums, but Baby Hyde is starting to appear more and more often.  Lunch today?  The whites of 3 hard boiled eggs.  This was all he'd eat despite my best efforts and a beautifully presented plate of well-balanced, favorite foods.  The picky eating, resistance to anything I ask him to do, desire to watch TV all day, requests to nurse 15 times a day and three meltdown temper tantrums last week are certainly evidence of something.  It's too early to tell what that something is, but I suspect the following will happen.  He'll be this way for a month, then we'll see the first signs of those four molars, and then he'll continue to be miserable for another month after that.  If we're lucky, our happy, easy-going, calm and loving Baby Jekyll will return by Thanksgiving.  Not that I'm being pessimistic or anything.  Who me?  Never. 

09/28/05

The Mr. Potato Head Love-fest continues.  MPH got to eat dinner with us, but was not allowed to sleep in the crib with Tommy.  He also wasn't allowed into the bathtub.

Tommy wanted to play in his bed with MPH for about 40 minutes after dinner.  Of course, MPH took lots of swan dives off the rails and Mommy and Daddy got to save him and his pieces.  Heroes!

David actually got Tommy to pose for these pictures by telling Tommy he wanted to take a picture of MPH.  I guess even little boys have fake camera smiles.

Tommy and MPH watch the antics of MPH in Toy Story this morning.  How meta is that?!

09/27/05

Yippie skippie!  The Amazing Race starts tonight.  I love that show.

I'd like to take a walk now mother.

After dropping Mr. Potato Head behind the couch, which scatters some of the body parts, Tommy runs around to him yelling, "O-tay Tato Head?  Oh No!  Where toes?  Ah Ha!  Tommy find toes.  Here Tato Head.  Ank Tu!  Oh No!  Where nose?  Ah Ha!  Tommy find nose.  Orange nose.  Here Tato Head.  Ank Tu!  O-tay Tato Head?  Mmmm-mah (kiss)!

09/26/05

Daddy's home!  We had a do-nothing weekend so I don't really have much to write about.  David's return late Friday night made everything better.  On Saturday, I went out to breakfast and went shopping in the morning and then I went out to a movie while Tommy was napping.  We all went to the park together Sunday and I got to sit at a shaded picnic table while David chased Tommy around for an hour.  That's about it.  Oh, and Tommy had a huge meltdown temper-tantrum before dinner last night, but we weathered it and he was wonderfully happy and calm once he got all of those emotions out of his system.  Unfortunately, the meltdown meant he didn't end up eating dinner until about 6:15.  He ate at least 1/2 a cantaloupe (replacing fluids lost from crying!) and didn't have time to pee out all the excess liquid before he went to sleep.  His diaper leaked at about midnight and getting him changed was like wrestling a groggy but furious alligator.  He was so upset to be naked in the middle of the night when he wanted to be sleeping.  It took both David and me 30 minutes to get him into a dry diaper and clothes.  Tommy and I are both pretty tired today, but at least life is back to normal.

Here are a couple of funny things that will make Sylvia happy.  Tommy has designated one of the sinks in the hall bathroom as "Gramma's sink."  He also runs madly to the door anytime a car pulls up outside our house, yelling "Gramma!  Papa!"  He's so disappointed that it's never them.   

09/23/05

So, you ask, what went wrong yesterday?  Let's see.  He fell into the water at the zoo.  I had brought a change of clothes, but no extra shoes so he was barefoot for most of the zoo trip.  He fell asleep on the way home from the zoo which greatly increased the chances of a no-nap day.  I let him take his small plastic Buzz Lightyear with him for his nap and when Buzz fell through the slats of his crib the chances for napping plummeted to zero percent.  After a no-nap afternoon he zonked out in the car in my desperate attempt to reset the cranky boy, but I forgot to open the windows before parking the car in the driveway so the heat woke him up after only 30 minutes.  For dinner, we ended up eating Popsicles (one for each hand, green and red) and cold macaroni and cheese sitting on the kitchen floor (with the fridge door OPEN).  By that time he was so unhappy and tired that the table and chairs were seen as torture devices and immediate reminders that Daddy wasn't there for dinner AGAIN.  After our wrestling match over pajamas he ended up going to sleep 20 minutes early and slept until 6:20 this morning.  Ten hours and 40 minutes!  Heavenly...but not worth it.  Your world will be back to normal tomorrow, little guy.

Many zoo animals and one Buzz Lightyear.

My hat's too small, but my new shirt from Uncle Benny and Aunt Erin is just right.

09/22/05 -- later 

Riddle me this...  Why is it that when Tommy and I don't agree on what he should be doing, he responds to my frustration by pointing out that my eyes are blue?  He tells David his eyes are green at similar moments.  So tonight, after one of those days when everything that could go wrong did go wrong,  I was trying desperately to get Tommy to let me put his pajamas on.  He was bouncing off the walls in that over-tired, fighting sleep sort of way and I eventually had to just hold him still and tell him to STOP.  He did stop.  He went very still, reached up, touched the edge of my eye lid and said "blue" very seriously.  Once I acknowledged what he was trying to say he grinned and started wriggling around and fighting the pajamas again.  What's up with that?  Is he trying to diffuse my frustration?  Has he learned that we think this is sweet?  Is he trying to change the subject?  I don't know.  I guess it works because it is impossible to be truly angry with him when he does this.  Not that I was angry anyway, just firm and frustrated and tired.  Going to bed wasn't optional and telling me my eyes are blue didn't change this.

09/22/05

Our roses were completely useless all spring and summer, but they look good now!

Right before this picture was taken, I broke one of the cardinal rules of parenting.  I laughed when I shouldn't have.  We'd had a rocky dinner.  Tommy's not too happy that David's out of town, but he only really expresses it during dinner.  The three of us always eat dinner together, so he really misses Daddy when it's time to sit down.  We tried a series of dinner options, each one more upsetting and messy.  There's yogurt in his hair, you'll note.  Finally, he agreed to eat a peach.  When his hands and face were all slippery with peach juice he accidentally managed to end up with one finger up his nose.  I guess it just slipped in there.  The look on his face was priceless -- shocked surprise combined with disgusted shudders.  I couldn't help myself.  I laughed.  'Oh!  Mommy's laughing! Putting my finger up my nose must be a good thing!  It feels weird, and I don't really like it, but I'll do it again to humor Mommy.'  He spent the next 5 minutes trying it over and over, experimenting with a variety of fingers and insertion depths, while I tried to stop laughing.  Not my proudest moment as a parent.  Hopefully he'll forget about it...or associate it with juicy peaches which we can avoid now that summer's winding down.  

09/21/05

We brought the sand toys to the park today.  Quartz, Breanna and Isabella enjoyed playing with them.  Tommy shares other people's toys better than he shares his own, but he did pretty well.  However, sand toys, swings and slides aren't nearly as exciting as the.... 

MUD PUDDLE!

  I threw the socks away.  I think we'll have to make these our designated Park Shoes from now on and buy him a second pair.  They probably won't dry out today so we won't be going out this afternoon.

09/20/05

Tommy Tidbits...

• Sitting on the counter in "Daddy's Bath Room" is one of Tommy new favorite activities.  We let him sit up there before his nap and after his night time bath so we can brush his teeth.  There are mirrors on three sides, and he really enjoys making faces in the mirror.  So far, his repertoire includes raised eyebrows, sideways looking, and teeth baring.
• We bought him a Jack-in-the-box.  Coolest.  Toy.  Ever.
• If I haven't mentioned it before, he wears an 8 wide in shoes.  He's still in 2T in pants (although lots of the long pants I'm buying are too big in the waist even though shorts in the same brands fit fine).  I'm buying 3T for fall/winter shirts.  His short sleeved 2T shirts still fit, but some of them show a bit of belly because of his long torso.  I'd rather buy too big than too small for the next season.  One piece things like overalls, etc are still best in 2T.  He might be in such big sizes because we wash everything in warm water and things shrink.
• Tommy and I are both starting to make some friends when we go to the park.  Tommy really looks forward to playing with the kids he sees on a regular basis.  He's pretty outgoing and always surprises me with his empathy and willingness to share.  Of course, he is just shy of 20 months old so he still acts very selfish like a normal toddler lots of the time.  
• He has a fan club on the tennis courts at the park.  He stands at the fence watching them play and they give him balls.  He'll only share his tennis balls with the other kids at the park if he has one in each hand and there are extras.  He will play catch (um...take turns throwing and running after the ball) with them if they faithfully alternate taking turns with him.
• The shortened nap yesterday worked.  He slept 10 hours last night.  I love it when I get to sleep until 6 am.  It could just have been that he was relieved to have Daddy home though.  We'll see if he sleeps well again tonight now that David's gone again. 

09/19/05

I actually had to wake Tommy up from his nap today.  He consistently sleeps 12 of every 24 hours.  In the last week he's stretched his nap to 3 1/2 hours, which in turn reduced his night sleep to 8 1/2 hours.  That's not enough!  I love the super long naps, but I can't handle him sleeping less than 9 hours at night.  So I woke him up after a 2 1/2 hour nap today.  I figured as long as I was waking him up anyway, I could risk the camera flash to get a sleeping baby picture.  Awww!  Hopefully the shorter nap will help him fall asleep more easily tonight.

Oh, and David got home safely from camping last night.  Tommy was very happy to see him.  I don't like to think about how Tommy's going to react when David packs his suitcase again tomorrow.

09/18/05

I think Tommy's starting to choose a security object.  He's been testing various items for the role all week.  A lot of kids do this before their first birthday, but Tommy hasn't been interested until now.  So far, the candidates are his hard plastic "Super", his hollow rubber "Puffer" fish bath toy, his small knitted "Kitten" from Great Grandma Reiger, his electronic singing "Puppy" with the sound turned off, or his hard rubber pair of "Daddy" and "Baby" polar bears.  I put quotes around his names for them.  None of them seem to be particularly snuggly or portable to me, but then it's not my decision.  So far he's napped with all of them at various times in the past week.  He refused to leave the house without Puppy yesterday, so we had to take him to the park.  Once we got there my suggestion to leave Puppy in the car while he played was met with great sobbing protest, so Puppy got to slide and play in the sand too.  He just now fell asleep clutching one polar bear in each hand.  He always needs to know where his Super is, although it's usually OK if he stays in the bathtub most of the time.  Kitten got to eat lunch with him on Friday, and had her face pressed into the plate before every one of Tommy's bites.

I need to start paying attention to the location of these special toys at all times.  Friday afternoon, Tommy was watching Finding Nemo and wanted Puffer to watch with him.  Right before bedtime, Tommy started asking for Puffer again and we couldn't find him.  We looked everywhere.  Tommy ran from room to room saying "Find Puffer," and I searched everywhere.  Eventually, I told him we couldn't find him and Tommy wasn't too upset by it.  After he went to sleep, I looked around for another 30 minutes and still couldn't find him.  He wasn't anywhere in the house, car or yard.  First thing Saturday morning, Tommy wanted to "Find Puffer" again.  He looked for Puffer on and off all day.  This morning I was stepping out of the shower and Tommy was on the floor halfway under our bed.  I was only halfway listening because it sounded like he was saying "Find Puffer" again.  Eventually I realized he was saying "Neach (reach) Puffer!"  I looked and there he was, pushed halfway under the bed.  Tommy was so happy when I reached in to get him.  "Ah ha!  Tommy find Puffer.  Yay!  Mommy neach Puffer.  Ank tue (thank you).  Yay!"    

09/16/05

It has begun.  While playing in the parked car the other day (one of Tommy's favorite pastimes), he sat in the drivers seat, frantically turning the steering wheel, madly cranking the turn signal, and loudly yelling "Shoot!  Shoot!  Shoot!"  I'm the guilty source.  I don't swear, but I do say "shoot" in a mildly swear-like manner all the time.  I guess I have to decide if this is something I should stop saying or if it's OK for him to say it.  I always thought he'd pick up on one of David's uncensored bon mots first.  I wanted to be all holier-than-thou about it.  Sigh.  I'm sure David's turn will come around eventually.   

"Miss Daddy.  Backpack!  All gone.  Trip."

09/15/05

This morning David went into work late so I could go out to breakfast.  David leaves for a 3 day camping trip tomorrow and then leaves for a work trip on Tuesday.  He'll be gone 7 of the next 8 days.  I usually go out by myself the day before he has a trip as a preparatory mental relaxation exercise.  I don't cope very well when he's gone.  So I told Tommy I was going out and Tommy immediately started looking for his shoes and begging for "Tommy come! Peese!"  Poor little guy.  I hated to say no, but it really wouldn't be as relaxing if we all went out to breakfast together.  As soon as I got home he ran to me as fast as he could, yelling "Mommy!"  After the all-important hug of infinite relief he gets down to business.  My shoes must come off.  My watch must come off.  These two things are signs that Mommy might leave the house.  No watch or shoes?  Then I can't go anywhere.  Once he has ensured the removal of these dangerous items, he says "Bye Daddy," as in "you should go to work now because Mommy's home."      

09/14/05

Tommy's version of the yawn and stretch technique ends with a kiss so it's not really all that different from the traditional dating ploy.  When reading books before his nap, Tommy knows he's supposed to stay in his room.  He'll sprawl on the carpet just inside his door and listen to the story from a distance.  While I'm reading, I can see him slowly stretch towards the transition from carpet to tile.  He'll tap his fingers on the tile and then look back at me to see if this counts as leaving the room.  When I don't say anything, he'll scoot a little farther forward and rest head in his hands, elbows on the tile.  After listening for a few more seconds, he'll stretch again and roll around a bit, ending up with his cheek resting on the tile.  A quick check tells him I'm watching but haven't said anything yet.  Another roll and stretch, and he's half-way out the door.  At this point I usually say something.  He'll run back into the room, give me a big kiss and grin as if to say, "I knew you were watching.  I was just testing you."    

09/13/05

First off, I must say we already suck at this potty training thing.  We haven't even started potty training yet, and we've already managed to accidentally teach Tommy that a toilet is called a "poop" instead of a "potty."  Hopefully we can remedy this before the real training begins.

"Poop!  In there?"

"Hat!"

09/12/05

Tommy started purposefully saying two-word sentences yesterday.  He's been stringing related words together for a couple of months now, but he's just figured out that two words together mean something different than the two words said separately.  He was repeating the noun-verb and adjective-noun combinations we said all day.  Big pickle.  Find Karen.  Hurt toe.  Eat dinner.  Help Mommy.  Drive car.  Clean movie.  Roll apple.

This is Tommy's new travel bed.  He's totally outgrown the Pac 'n Play, and we have a trip planned for Thanksgiving.  We might have to move him out of his crib and into a regular bed before the trip so that he knows how to sleep in this travel bed.  I'd rather leave him in his crib as long as possible, but I also don't want to spend a week at the beach with no sleep because Tommy won't sleep in a bed without walls.  He seems to already know what to do with with type of bed, so I don't think the transition will be that hard.  He does love this travel bed.  He keeps wanting to pretend to sleep, and wants to get under the covers.  Elmo wants to be under the covers too. 

Elmo also wants to eat some oranges.

09/11/05

Where have I been the last few days?  I'm not really sure why I haven't posted anything since Thursday, but here are a few possibilities.

• I smashed the heck out of my baby toe 10 days ago.  After 4 days of bruising, it started looking normal again, but it still really hurts.  I've spent the last four days obsessing about it.  Is it broken?  Will I ever be able to move my toes without pain again?  Should I go to the doctor?  Will the doctor laugh at me?  Should I go to a podiatrist?  What is a podiatrist anyway, a chiropractor for feet?  Should I poke at it some more?  Yes, I took a picture of it the day after it happened but decided that posting said picture would be a bit too self-absorbed, even for me.
• Tommy has also had some sort of foot/toe injury but since he's still mostly pre-verbal we couldn't figure out what was wrong.  He tripped over a laundry basket Thursday morning and immediately started limping and crying every time he tired to walk.  Every five minutes he'd forget about it, stand up to run, immediately crumple to the ground, and cry.  I, of course, completely freaked out about it.  He can now successfully point out his ankle, foot, heel and toes, and remind himself to sit when it hurts, but he can't tell us exactly what hurts.  There was no bruising and he didn't react when we poked, prodded, pulled and stretched everything below his knee.  I made an appointment with his pediatrician, but ended up canceling it because he was perfectly fine three hours after it started.  Then he did exactly the same thing last night.  He ran smack into the closed glass sliding door (too clean for once?), and started the limping, crying thing again.  Exactly three hours later he was perfectly fine.  I've spent the last four days watching him walk and obsessing about this too.    
• The fall TV season is starting up this month so I've spent way too much time reading blurbs about the new shows and plotting the ones I'd potentially like to watch on a schedule.  Yes, I'm a dork.  I only have about three Tommy-free hours a day (if I go to bed early enough to get 7 hours of sleep) so I need to have a plan in place before all the new shows start.  I've decided the maximum amount of TV I can watch each week is 10 hours.  I have 5 shows I know I'll watch no matter what and another 3 that I'll probably watch unless something better replaces them on my schedule.  The problem is that I don't know which of the new shows are going to be interesting enough to fill those last 2 slots.  I'll want to try out a few extra new shows the first couple of weeks so that I don't miss the beginnings of storylines.  Eh, it's all way more complicated than it should be, but it does explain how I've been spending my time the last few days.  I'll try really hard not to let new TV derail this website the rest of the month!
• I got the new Jasper Fforde book from the library Friday, so I was probably reading anytime I wasn't obsessing about feet or TV.

So that's it.  I guess the last few days have been pretty boring.  I've been obsessed with some things that don't lend themselves to quippy anecdotes and cute pictures.  I also just haven't sat down at the computer or pulled out the camera very often.  Here are a bunch of new pictures from our trip to a new park this morning to make up for my absence.

Look at how big he looks in his car seat!  This is a super-mega car seat that is rated for kids up to 65 lbs and 49 inches.  

Up the ladder and down the slide.

  Walking down the arroyo.

09/08/05

Tommy and David were sprawled on their backs in the grass last night looking at the clouds.  David was telling Tommy what he saw.  I think the concept was a bit beyond Tommy, but he was trying so hard to figure out what he was supposed to do!  Here's an approximation of their conversation...

D:  There's Mickey.  See?  That cloud has two round bumps that could be Mickey's ears.

T:  Mickey?  Mickey?  Where?  Mickey?  No.

D:  Oh, and there's a sheep.  See?  That fluffy one? 

T:  Sheep?  Up there?  Baa.  Sheep?  No.

D:  Do you see the clouds?  That one's Mickey and that one's a sheep.

T:  Pig.

D:  A pig?  You see a pig?  Where?

T:  Pig.  snort, snort.  Sheep Baa Baa.  Cow  Moo Moo.

D:  I don't think he really sees a pig.  He's just naming animals.

In other news, I've discovered that the key to reading all of Blueberries for Sal in one sitting (it's very long) is to give Tommy a bowl of blueberries to eat while he's listening.  I'll risk massive blueberry diapers for that book!

09/07/05

"Mmmmm smell rose flower pretty yellow two!"

09/06/05

Tommy Tidbits...

• Tommy was watching Aladdin one morning when Sylvia and Mel were here. Sylvia came into the living room and asked herself, out loud, "What movie is this?"  Tommy very helpfully opened the TV cabinet door and started sorting through the DVD cases so he could show her which one it was.  He probably told her it was "Genie", but since most people aren't fluent in Tomish he needed a visual aid.
• Tommy was playing in the guest room while Sylvia was packing on their last day here.  She left the room to gather up some things in the bathroom.  He yelled "Stop!" as soon as she left the room.
• Tommy was working his way through an apple before his nap today.  At naptime, I told him he needed to set his apple down and get ready for his nap.  He carefully set the apple on the hearth in the living room and ran into his room.  While he was sleeping, I ate the rest of his apple.  When he woke up, he immediately ran into the living room back to the exact spot where he left the apple.  "Apple?" he asked.  He was very disappointed that it wasn't there.
• Tommy has only seen The Incredibles one time, about a month ago at some friends' house.  He recently rediscovered his plastic Dash toy (a happy meal freebie).  The name he has given this toy is "Super".  I guess he remembers the term from the movie, even though he only saw it once quite a while ago.
• Yesterday, Tommy was eating a snack of apple chunks and sliced turkey.  He covered a piece of apple with the slice of turkey and said the apple was sleeping.  The turkey was the blanket.
• Tommy's newest vocabulary word is try.  If I tell him I can't do something -- break a piece of slate, open something that does not open, reach something really high --  he demands that I "Try!".  
• Tommy has picked up on the phrases "Ready?  Go!"  and "1, 2, 3, Go!"  He loves to yell "Go!" and almost always pushes one hand out in front of him for emphasis.

09/05/05

Mel and Sylvia just left.  We had a wonderful time...probably one of the best company visits we've ever had at our house.  Pretty impressive considering Tommy and I were both recovering from colds.  I'll write more about the visit tomorrow.  For now, here are the pictures I ended up with.  I didn't take nearly as many as I should have. 

The boys sat and talked on the patio quite a bit in the evenings.  By the end of the weekend Tommy was interjecting his own nonsense exclamations into mealtime conversation.

Hunting for grasshoppers in the ground cover of the flower bed.

Tickle time!  "Tee! Tee!"

At the botanical gardens...again.

Grandma lifted Tommy up so he could see the sharks, turtle and puffer fish better.

09/03/05

Tommy is so excited to have some grandparents here.  David's parents arrived last night and Tommy really seems to be enjoying them.  He successfully says Gramma and Papa and wants to know where each one is at all times.  We had a quiet morning and went to the park for our before-nap outing.  I'll take pictures the next couple of days.

A teenager in training.

09/02/05

According to my stats, I got my first hit from an accidental, unrelated search engine query yesterday.  Google and the major U.S. search engines don't pick up this site because I haven't set it up so they see it.  I guess some random European search engine can find it though. Someone from Zurich, Switzerland ended up on the March 2005 page after doing a search for "down the slide" and "static electricity".  I'm assuming it was an engineering or science search.  The search engine picked up on my ramblings about Tommy sliding at the park and running around with a balloon stuck to his head due to static electricity.  

Mel & Sylvia arrive today!  I'm still feeling yucky, so David stayed home today to help with the final laundry and cleaning tasks.

Sorting broken slate.  We've been breaking bigger pieces into smaller pieces for him all summer.  Most of them are too small to break now, so he just looks through them, searching for triangles and occasionally asking us to "broke!" one for him.

Claudia and Cindy came over for a play date yesterday.  Claudia is almost as big as Tommy!

 Watching the fish eat their dinner.

09/01/05

Tommy was feeling better yesterday, but his cold is still bothering him.  Unfortunately our power went out during his bath last night.  He handled the change in bedtime routine OK and even went to sleep in his very dark and quiet room at his usual 8 pm.  The power came back on at 8:30 and the resumption of our normal house sounds and lights, including the white noise fan and digital clock in his room, woke him up.  He was pretty excited by the whole thing, so we had to read books and go through most of the bedtime routine again before he'd go back to sleep.  On a normal night, this wouldn't be a problem, but since he has a cold that lost hour of sleep really hurts.  He woke up crying at about 5:20 (a normal wake up time, but too early considering his late bedtime) .  As soon as I went into him he said "boo boo" and "hurt" over and over until I started nursing him.  Then he was very disoriented and cranky until about 6.  Hopefully he'll take a long nap today to make up for it and resume what looked like a speedy recovery yesterday.

On our way to Costco yesterday, Tommy started saying these words, "cat, cow, moon, dog, hahahaha, spoon."  It only took me a couple of repetitions to figure out that he wanted me to recite Hey Diddle Diddle to him.  He was so happy when I figured it out.

On Monday, we went out for a bagel mid-morning.  Tommy charmed all the customers by pretending his banana was a phone.  He picked this trick up all by himself from listening to the Bananaphone song we have on one of our CDs.  He would say "ring ring", pick it up, put it to his ear, say "hi" and "bye", then set it down.

  Tommy is lucky to have a mommy who easily succumbs to the lure of cheap puppets at Cosco.  Sure, I could have just bought a set of four puppets for $7.  No!  I bought $30 worth because I couldn't decide which were better.  I'm going to have to break this habit before Tommy gets much older or he'll never learn how to make reasonable purchasing decisions.

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