Toot

Tonight you tooted.
Mommy and Daddy asked, “What do you say after you toot?”
To which you replied:

“Bless you, Igloo.”

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy!

Someone told me recently that you’re almost getting too old to be referred to as Baby Boy. That’s a bunch of crap, I say… I plan to toast “my baby boy” at your wedding, so be prepared.

Anyhoodle, you had a party this weekend that I’ll post pictures of shortly. Today was somewhat uneventful with two exceptions. One being your fitting horoscope from The New York Post:

July 14, 2009
What you expect of yourself and what others expect of you will be two entirely different things.
So who is going to be disappointed — you or them?
It’s about time you made a declaration of independence.
Make it now and you will never be under their thumb again.

Now, with that, the second notable thing about today is that you crawled out of your crib again… I still have to write about your first escape attempt, but we did lower the bed after that one. I’ll just note that it can’t go any lower. Tonight, I think it may have been on accident and it did scare the absolute bejeezes out of you. By the time I made it into your bedroom, you were running around screaming your head off. As you sat sobbing in my arms and I was going through the list of your body parts asking you if they hurt, I said “what happened, little one?” To which your reply was “Big Kaboom.” We then had a long talk about how our bed is a nice place to be, your friends, Flop, Romeo and Patches are in there, and because of this there can be No Big Kabooms.  You went back to bed without a fight, repeating “No Big Kaboom” over and over.

Child. I don’t know what we’re going to do if you keep jumping ship. Stop it.

And Happy Birthday, Baby Boy. Mommy loves you.

An Obsession… healthy or not.

I was concerned that your obsession with doors bordered on unhealthy. An odd fixation. Obscure fetish.

You could spend your entire day opening and shutting doors. Every afternoon, we go down to the mailbox to play “openandshut,” which is to say we go and get the mail. At the mailbox “bay” you take rocks and stick them into the bottom large parcel boxes. The neighbors are accustomed to seeing me sitting in the grass next to the mailboxes reading the mail as you open the door, place rocks in, close the door, open the door, take rock out, close the door. Move to the next box, open the door, put the rock in, close the door, open the door, remove the rock, close the door, open the door, put the rock back in… etc. In fact, one neighbor recognized you at the vet’s office and referred to you as The Mailbox Bandit.

Every night when you go to bed, either Mommy or Daddy will blow you kisses at your door as we exit. You blow kisses back and then immediately lean forward with your arm outstretched, hand waving saying “shut. shut. shut.”

Your daddy had to get fitted for a suit recently and you and I sat waiting. When your daddy walked out of the dressing room, he left the door open. There were several people between you and the door and I could tell you really wanted to run over there and shut that door, but you were too afraid. You were literally itching to shut that door, but were stuck to your spot on the floor next to me. Instead, you held out a very agitated hand and said “shut. shut. shut. shut.”

At the very least, we know if we’re anywhere with a door, we don’t have to keep you entertained. When you and I were in Branson and I was shopping, you and Auntie played openandshut with all the doors in the dressing room. When we were on the cruise with Poppa-O and Pam, you spent a majority of the cocktail reception going in and out of their bathroom.

We met another two year old at the wedding and found you’re not alone. According to this little guy’s grandma, he could also spend hours opening and shutting doors. What a relief. We’re now teaching you to knock and say “Who is it?” when you’ve shut yourself into the bathroom.

And Their House Would Never Be the Same

This is a photo of Auntie’s kitchen floor. After the Asherstorm of June…

Let me just mention, Auntie typically has a very neat and organized home. You had one cabinet and one drawer that you took full advantage of, but then you found the cookie sheets below the oven. Mommy doesn’t give you cookie sheets at home and I’m sure I’ll hear about that at some point. The one thing at Auntie and Uncie Monkey’s house that you loved the absolute most was the french doors to the patio. It’s a strange obsession you have to open and shut doors that I will go into further in a separate post, but this is one thing that kept you thoroughly entertained for hours. Seriously. Hours. Luckily, the doors are right at the dining room table and kitchen, so we didn’t have to go far to monitor you — and help when you shut yourself in or outside.

Bombs Away

The most notable thing as of late was our travel schedule. We first took a trip at the beginning of June to visit Aunt Lara and Uncle Craig, who we nicknamed Auntie and Unkie Monkey. And then we went to visit Pappa-O and Pam to celebrate their wedding. Daddy and I were prepared for our flights with a portable DVD player, pipe cleaners, new books, stacking boxes and small pom-poms. Of course, most of this turned out to just be a bunch of crap we had to carry around. You were mostly interested in the DVDs and the small plastic cups we were able to acquire from the stewardess. You are, however, a perfect traveler, somewhere akin to polyester.

On our first flight to Branson I was a bit concerned about security.  It’s tapered off since, but at that time, your favorite word was “Kaboom!” We knew this as your word for falling down, and you’d often illustrate this word with a slow motion demonstration of what it would look like if you fell. However, I wasn’t certain if TSA officials would find this endearing or as a security threat and the entire Olivet clan would be wisked away for questioning.

Even though we cleared security, there was still a bomb that was dropped during this trip. Yep, the f-bomb. Now, it’s not really surprising that you’ve done this, what’s more miraculous is that it’s taken this long. The f-bomb is one of mommy’s favorite words and one day I will explain to you the wonderful characteristics of this word and its usage, BUT admittedly, it loses it’s luster when coming from a 2 year old. Long story short, on our way back from Branson, Mommy was traveling alone with you. You hadn’t had a nap and decided that you couldn’t walk. As soon as I put you down, you would exclaim “lay down” and proceed to lay down at my feet, no matter where we were. After collecting our luggage and dragging it and you all over the concourse, Mommy took a wrong turn, which I felt there was only one word to describe our predicament. You then repeated this word. Oops. Mommy had then realized she didn’t take a wrong turn and had to circle back, again using the only word that fit in that situation. And you repeated it. Oops. Finally, we got in the elevator with this perfectly nice family of 4 and as the elevator descended, you just said it again out of the blue. To which my response was “Yep, here’s our floor!” and quickly exited.

At least it wasn’t on my watch

So, this is an adorable story that happened to Alyssa. My experience from this was that I was sitting in my office at about 4:15 and heard the bath running. I was actually on the phone with a client and said “Oh, that can’t be good.”

So, according to Alyssa, she woke you up from your nap and you had a really wet diaper. She decided that you would love to just air your buns out for a bit. You ran into your bathroom to play. Then she heard “uh. uh. ew. ew.” and wasn’t sure what was going on. Finally, she walked into the bathroom and saw that you had taken a poop on the floor. You were freaked out because there was poop on your bucket. So, Alyssa threw you in the bathtub to clean the bucket and your bum.

Then to clean up the floor, she had decided to stick you in your crib for just a second. Luckily, you had pooped on the tile floor… then she heard an evil little giggle from your crib.  It seems as Alyssa was wiping up the final bits of your bits, you decided to take a little pee off the side of your crib.

Alyssa told me later how silly she felt: off course you’re going to poop and pee – you’re not potty-trained. I know I should tell her that just the other day you took a piss everywhere after we didn’t get a diaper on you fast enough after a bath.  But it’s just much easier to admit it to the internet, really.

Picking Up Where We Left Off…

Well,  not really. Seeming how the last post was several months ago, it won’t be easy to tell all the little stories that have happened since then. Believe it or not, I do have a notebook that I jot little things down in, so from there I will try to put the pieces together of what’s been going on. In no particular order… stay tuned. I promise.

Goodnight Moon

Today is an anniversary that I’d rather not remember. But I do. It was a year ago today that my Uncle Gene passed away, leaving us with a huge hole and wonderful memories.

In addition to those wonderful memories, there is also a reminder of him in your bedroom. It is your book, Goodnight Moon. Every time I see that book or read it to you, I think of Gene and remember the night that I learned Gene had passed as if it were yesterday. That day, a year ago, I had been on the phone with grandma and grandpa getting updates on Gene’s condition. Just before you were headed to bed for the night, we received the call that Gene had died. With that news, I took you upstairs to put you to bed and I read the book Goodnight Moon over and over again.

For anyone that has read the book, you will understand it’s strange significance to that particular event. To this day, I cannot read that book without crying and it will always be powerful, symbolic and sentimental.

One day, I will explain why I cry when I read you that book and you will understand. Last night, all you could do was look at me quizzically and reach out to touch my tears with your little finger.

Your Big Boy Little Chair

Several weeks ago, we took our Mecca to Babies R’ Us to pick up supplies. While there, we happened upon the children’s furniture area. You’ve never been so excited to see a chair. It was like the clouds had parted and there in front of you was a chair MADE. FOR. YOU. After sitting in several different models, you selected this one:

It has Tigger on the seat of it, so when you stand on your chair, we started saying “No, sit on Tigger.” Now every time you sit on your chair, you call out “Sit on Tigger” – which in reality sounds like “Shit on igger”, but we know what you mean.

You’re not the only one, however, excited to find wee furniture:

Various States of Undress

Need I say more?

And, yes, we’re quite aware that this looks like the baby version of a Chippendale’s dancer. But we’ve titled it “Real Men Wear Bibs”: