Tuesday, January 27, 2009

A Conversation with The Boy

I am in my room, folding clothes and Xander is wandering around in his bedroom.

X: Icky!*

I look up as Xander wanders into the room holding a dirty cloth diaper.

Hugs: Yes, that is icky. Put that back.

X (holding the diaper up to me): Icky!

Hugs (takes the diaper and walks with Xander back to his room): Yes, it's icky and goes in the diaper pail. See? (I put the diaper back in the pail and put the lid on)

X: Yeah! (claps)

Apparently I am the one who needs positive reinforcement to clean up.

Actually, Xander is doing this with a lot of things. He picked up trash at the play area and handed it to me to throw away. He picked up a dead bug at play group and handed it to me. But it's only 'icky' to him if he has pulled it out of the trash or diaper pail.

* 'Icky' is Xander's first two syllable word. Except you have to imagine it, it sounds like "ee-key!"

Sunday, January 18, 2009

play area at the mall

We trekked out today as a family so Amanda could get some winter maternity clothes. We made it to the mall and Amanda wanted Xander to burn off energy at the kiddie play area. I didn't mind since the whole point of the trip out was to allow her Xander free time to do some clothes shopping, so we followed the screaming, screeching and crying noises to their epicenter at the mall. It's a nice circular area with giant soft plastic animals and slides. As we approached Xander screamed with excitement. Amanda took off to so some more shopping and I played the helicopter dad and followed 5 feet behind as he weaved in and out of kids (the place was packed).

It was a fine time, he ran around tree stumps, crawled through tree logs, and sat on a kid. The majority of the time he spent climbing up to the treehouse and sliding down FACE FIRST onto the carpet. I let him keep doing it in the hopes that he would learn to go down butt first, but instead he learned how to control his speed with his hands. Eeeh, good enough...and there's no rug burn on his face so everything is okay.

Monday, January 12, 2009

play area

In an effort to try and be able to do the things we want to do (exercise - me, sew and exercise - Amanda) with Xander entertained we created a little play area for him in the basement. Sarah B came over during the summer and painted a nice mural and Santa (Aunt Trisha) bought Xander some foam mats to cushion the floor. We even got a free slide and a table for a dollar to go down there to keep him entertained.

However, the area only had 3 sides. And, if you didn't know it, 16 month olds don't stay in one area. They need to be fenced in. We tried using the pack n play create a little wall, but that didn't work. So I decieded to make a half wall.



Ta da! So, why can you see the studs below the fiberboard? Well, the fiberboard comes in 2'x4' sheets, but I thought if it was only 2' tall that Xander would manage to pull some toy over and use it to step over the wall....which is exaclty what he does to get onto the couch. So I just made the studs a little longer. The fiberboard worked well and doesn't have any sharp edges or anything to poke little fingers.

Then after Sergey and I finish the wall he points out that he could probably crawl under it....slight oversight on my part, but I don't think he can or will. Ignore it and it won't happen, right?

Meanwhile, Preggers is off at a baby shower and I hope to surprise her with my carpentry skills when she comes home. She goes downstairs to look at it and comes back up and says "There's no gate."

"What do you mean gate? There is no gate."

"Well in your plans I though I saw a gate drawn on there."

"Whaddaya talkin about?! You don't need a gate, you just step over it" I tell her.

We then move the conversation downstairs so I can demonstrate the ease of stepping over.

"See, no big deal."

"Yea, well what am I going to do when my belly is out to here?" she exclaims with her hands holding an imaginary basketball in front of her uterus.

I then demonstrate again with my hands holding an imaginary basketball in front of my non existant uterus and say "See, it's....uhm. You don't need to step over." And by this time Pregnant Tears was ready to show up and made their (unnecessary) appearance, so the decision was made to make another trip to home depot and buy plywood to reinforce the wall and acquire gate hardware.

Of course, Xander could care less, he just wants to run wild.


The gate and wall did turn out nice. Thanks for your help Sergey!

Etiquette

Since Xander is such a good eater, I figure he should learn to use utensils instead of his hands for everything. And many of you have seen the double-fisted chomp of death he has going on. Using a spoon would less...uncouth.

However, I still can't figure out if he is right handed or left handed! Maybe it doesn't show up by now, but some of my info says babies can start using spoons. I'm trying to teach him, but one time he'll grab the spoon with one hand and then next he'll use another. So I guess I'll just work with it for now.

At least he'll make a good pitcher.

He's doing so much better with things like following directions. At bed time we'll tell Xander to 'clean up' and he will start putting his toys away. He surprises me every day with little things like picking up the washcloth and wiping his mouth with it. He know 'shoes' means to go to the closet and get his shoes and get ready to go.

Our favorite right now is running through the routine of body parts.
"Where is your... foot?" and he'll bend over and touch his foot.
"Where is your... hand?" and he'll dry wash his hands together.
" Where is your...nose?" which sometimes he hits and sometimes he misses.
and "Where is your belly?" which I will post a video of when I find it.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

A (Boring) Doctor's Visit

We went to the doctor for a pregnancy check up yesterday. We were able to hear Enchilada's heartbeat for the first time (Xander wasn't impressed). Other than that, there was nothing new to report from there. Next month is the big ultrasound though! People keep asking and, yes, we will try to find out if the baby is a girl or boy.

We've also been asked about belly pictures this time around, since we posted them weekly before. Well, I'm way more embarrassed by my belly this time around. I'm getting a baby belly at 14 weeks and last time it didn't show until after at least 20 weeks. It's normal, but after all of the holiday food I just feel fat pulling out the maternity pants. So once I've adjusted, we'll post a few pictures here and there.

Fortunately, the morning sickness and food aversion seem to be totally passed. The one weird thing during this pregnancy (because every pregnancy is different, you know) is I keep getting really hot and flushed. The doctor said it's just hormones. But I don't remember this last time and it's just weird when I'm telling Chris it's too hot. One day he commented about me looking flushed and I told him to feel my hand. He did and looked at me a little wide-eyed and said "They feel normal! Which for you is really warm!"

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Xander went to his first birthday party on saturday. I don't know who had more fun, him or myself. It was at a gymnastics training building and they had trampolines, mats, things to jump on, things to climb on and very few things that he had to stay out of.

I put him in the octogon below and rolled him along the mats and he loved it. Then all the other kids started copying us and we had to share. We spent some time on the trampoline too, but that made his mother cringe and simply look the other direction (but it was still fun).

At some point we sang happy birthday to the birthday girl, but we were too busy crashing, landing, crawling, jumping, hanging and running to get caught up in the evenings' scheduled activities.

I have some video clips of us on the trampoline. I was going to put them up here, but after reviewing them I think I'll not have any open invitations to Child Protective Services to take my kid away.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Xander's had a bit of a sinus cold this past week. He's a wee bit gross



Catching up from the past week....
We had a nice Christmas. Xander got plenty of toys with batteries that make noise. He also had a good time learning how to open presents.


Unfortunately we only took 9 pictures. 9 pictures for our kid's 2nd Christmas. So I'll have to email family and ask for them.

New year's eve was great too. We went to a party and played rock band while Xander turned into a whirling dervish. It was great despite him giving himself a fat lip after tripping over my foot. He incredibly made it to 10:30pm, which is ridiculously late for him.