Boredom Sets In

This afternoon when I was fixing you a snack, you must have been bored or something, I’m not really sure. You were in the family room and I heard you start “motorboating”, then I peeked in and saw you with your head on the floor and your butt up in the air and then you started to “crawl”… pushing yourself across the floor, the side of your head sliding on the carpet and the motorboat still going. Thank god you didn’t get a rug burn because that would have definitely required some explanation to strangers – and to your father when he got home!

Remote Everything

One of your most favorite activities is to play and bounce around on our bed. You love to throw your hands in the air and then flop face first into the comforter. You’ve also learned how to use the remote control for the fan and light in the room. You love playing with the remote control… turning the light on and off, making the fan go faster and slower.

Yesterday, you were playing around in the family room and came across one of the remote controls. We also have a fan and a light in the room, so you sat there with the television remote, hitting all the buttons, looking up at the light, waiting for something to happen.

Oh, and everytime you turn the light on or see any light, you sat “ta”, which is your word for light. Why? Because when you’re mommy and daddy were teaching you this word, we were enunciating it, and when you enunciate light, it sounds like: “lie-ta”.

Too Hot

The other day I came into the kitchen while Alyssa was feeding you your lunch. The first thing she said to me was “I’m never going to let him see me take his food from the microwave again.”

See, you seem to know that all things come from the microwave are “hot”… and you tell us this repeatedly. Even as we’re spooning it into your mouth or onto your tray, you can only say “hot hot hot hot hot hot”… and then you typically refuse to eat it.

We then began to commiserate about how we try to negotiate with a toddler. Alyssa said she finds herself explaining that she only heated up the Spaghetti-Os for 10 seconds. I find myself constantly saying, “No, not hot. See? Mama will blow on it.” None of this works, of course. It typically ends with you whispering the word “hhhhot” through a mouthful of mildly warm oatmeal.

Lap-Seeking Butt

There’s just no other title for this entry. I’m not even sure how to explain it, but I can say it’s pretty darned funny. Even Alyssa saw you do this today and just busted up laughing.

So, today at 4pm when we had The Changing of the Guard, I came into the family room and sat down on the floor. You immediately started crawling towards me and wanted to sit squarely in my lap. Except that you turned around too soon… and had to back up with your butt up in the air until it found my lap. Then you settled in and started sucking your thumb.

You did this last Friday when we went to “Eggs and Bacon” at the Cherry Creek Mall: you saw me from across the room and started crawling towards me, turned around too soon and then completed your journey led by your little butt.

I don’t know why, but it reminds me of little gorilla babies; I searched YouTube to see if I could find an appropriate example to no avail. But I did find this little nugget: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx-_RCwVEqY

Ahhh, cracks me up every time.

Cross-Pollination

You found your nose. I guess I should be more specific: you’ve found your nostrils. It was about Wednesday of last week that most times we would look at you, you had your little finger shoved up your nostril. It’s not that you were necessarily picking your nose, that’s a bit advanced for you, but it’s just another opening to shove your finger into.

The problem is, you’ve also found our nostrils. During the past few weeks, both Alyssa and I have complained about the fact that, out of the blue, suddenly a small finger would get shoved up our nostrils. So, it’s no wonder that you now have a cold. Your nose is runny and stuffy, you have a little cough and you’re looking pretty miserable. It’s also not a big surprise to find that yesterday, your daddy complained of sneezes and this morning both Alyssa and I complained of runny noses and sneezes.

It’s all very disgusting if you think about it, so let’s just not. Point is, we were trying to not continually tell you to get your finger out of your nose because you’re a bit young to understand all of it. But, from this point forward, we have no problem pulling your finger out of your nose and quickly wiping it with an anti-bacterial wipe!

And Two Became One

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time. I’ve told this story to quite a few people, but decided that it really should be documented properly.

You now are a big boy who takes only ONE nap per day… one, long, two-hour nap (typically). We had been anticipating this change for awhile and thought that maybe it would happen naturally, but it never did. We finally had to intervene, change a few things and make it happen. Your morning nap was getting later and later in the day, and then we’d try to make your afternoon nap very short, but we found that sometimes you were waking up at 6pm… which then your bedtime was getting later and later. Worst of all, it was affecting your nighttime sleep. You started waking up at about 1:30 in the morning screaming and crying – and we figured somehow your late afternoon nap was the culprit.

Typically, when you’d wake up at 1:30am, it was less than a minute and you’d go back to sleep without our intervention. But, one morning, you weren’t settling down. Mommy, in her drug-induced state (just 1/2 a Unisom!) thought that I’d go into your room to see if I could settle you… which turned out to be a pretty bad idea. See, you’re in a very clingy stage right now. If Mommy and Daddy could carry you 24 hours a day, then life would be fine. So, at about 2am, after sitting in the chair with you, I tried for the third time to put you back in your crib… where you immediately sat up and screamed your head off for the third time.

The problem was, you weren’t sleeping in my lap either. If I could have, I would have slept with you in the chair the rest of the night, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea… so I had to leave you there. Crying. And screaming. And crying. I went into your bathroom, and peered through the closed door to make sure you didn’t choke on the little piece of my heart that I left in the crib with you. You started to calm down, lay down and wimper, so I decided I would head back to bed… and send in your father if you didn’t settle down all the way. But, here’s where it gets a little weird. Somehow in the darkness, at 2am, with my glasses on and my mind in a fog, I got disoriented and got lost in your bathroom.

I’m not sure how it happened, really. Anyone who’s been in your bathroom knows that it’s just a small jack-and-jill bathroom with two sinks and three doors: one to your room, one to the guest room and one to the tub room. Somehow I thought I had felt my way to the door leading to the guest room, but then I think I was actually facing the tub room. When I tried to follow your cries to find where I came from, everything just echoed and I couldn’t be for sure which way that was… but, I knew I didn’t want to open the wrong door and end up back in your room, because you were just starting to calm down because your heartless mommy left you alone there. The last thing you needed to see was her again!

In the end, I located the sinks and figured it out. To this day, I’m really uncertain what happened in there, but I am certain it ranks up there as one of the worst nights of my life. Sweetheart, I really thought it was the best idea… I would never leave you alone if I didn’t think you would be fine on your own. Me? Not so much.

Good thing you already have the little car…

You’re set for the next parade, as a member of The Shriners.

Another thing you like to do is put things on your head. Pretty much any object goes from toes to head, back to toes and then to head. Sometimes, you’ll balance an item on your head and when it stays up for a matter of seconds, you emit a little giggle, like “tee-hee, there’s something ON. MY. HEAD!”

So, when Mommy found this little bucket about a week ago, I’m not sure why I didn’t anticipate that you’d automatically put it on your head, let alone crawl around the house like it was just meant to be there.

A Little Sliver Every Day

I was thinking about this blog and how unattended it has been lately. The main purpose of this site was for all of us to, one day, look back and remember all the little happenings in your life. Basically, Mommy and Daddy know we’re not getting any younger, which means our memories are only going to get worse. I believe this blog may be the only way we’ll remember the little AND big things. Like your birthday.

So, on that note, Mommy is going to really really try to write something every day… every other day… just something cute that you did. Something big or something small. Just something that I’ll know I’ll want to remember when I’m old.

Today:

You have this adorable habit of putting everything on your toes. And I mean everything. It seems that every new or familiar object needs to touch your toes. If it can be placed over your toes, like a hat, well that’s just funny. If it’s a ring that can fit over your feet, even better.

You’re even obsessed with other people’s toes. Alyssa said the other day she had taken her socks off and you crawled over and placed each sock onto each foot… just so she would know where they would go.

Today, we were in the kitchen – I was doing dishes and you were playing with your bin of empty, old bottles in the cabinet. You suddenly reached over and forcibly grabbed my foot to turn it towards you to place a small tupperware bowl on my toes. What took me by surprise was how emphatic you were that this particular dish needed to be on my toes, this instant. And when it was placed in the correct position, you sat back and held both palms up and away from you, gesturing “there!”

Sidenote:

I honestly believe this obsession with your feet and toes came about when your Auntie Lara was here and she played this little game with you putting your socks on your feet. She’d put one on and you’d take it off. Then she’d put one on the other foot and you’d grab and take it off… then she’d quickly put it back on the other foot. You two went round and round until you were both giggling. Since then, toes have always been fun!

From China to Paris

Not so long ago, our house was filled with the musings of a little man from China. Now, it’s reminiscent of Paris. Paris Hilton.

Yep, everything in our house it “hot”. Mommy’s coffee cup? Hot. Your yellow block? Hot. A spot of sun on the floor? Hot. Icecubes? Hot.

And when I say hot, it’s a very enunciated hot. Real strong “t” and the “h” is often stretched out: hhhot.

You have a few other words in your repertoire. We have cat… sometimes. It typically it comes out “tat”, but you know it’s Ming. This morning after you woke and I opened your door to release you from your room, Ming was at the end of the hallway and you immediately went crawling, very quickly, towards her saying “tat. tat. tat. tat.” Even after she ran under the bed, you said “tat” for about 30 minutes.

Until Mommy got a cup of coffee… then everything was “hot” again.

Goodbye, Olivia

We weren’t able to get a good picture of Olivia on her last day… but, we are surely going to miss her. We do wish her the best of luck (with our fingers crossed behind our backs) in her new position in Corporate America. Alyssa will be starting tomorrow and we’re sure she’s wonderful and great and excited to get started. She does have some pretty big shoes to fill, though.

Yes, one of Olivia’s few drawbacks was that she had gigantic feet.