Call and Response

The other night we played with a puzzle App on my iPhone. The point of the puzzle application (it's called Tozzle and actually kind of sucks but it is a free demo version) is for the child to match the picture appearing in the upper corner of the screen with the appropriate empty outline on the puzzle --then drag and drop the item into said space.

My boy has yet to master the drag-and-drop puzzle technique, but he does like to tap the shapes on the various puzzle screens because they make neat sounds. In this story, the shapes on the puzzle were the numbers 1-9, so the App announced the names of the numbers.

You still with me? Our child began to tap...

App Voice: "Seven"
He:  Eight!

App Voice: "Two"
He: Three!

I got a little excited, thinking there might be someone in the family naturally gifted with numbers, so I tapped a couple on my own to see if our prodigy knew them:

Me/App Voice: "One"
He: (Nothing)

Me/App Voice: "Three"
He: (Nothing)

Me/App Voice: "Ten"
He: (Grins and looks at me) "All Done"

Oh well.

Vocab Inventory

Agua

Airplane

Apple

Baby

Ball

Block

Book

Bowl

Car

Chair

Cheeeeeese

Cheek

Cow

Crow

Cup

Daddy

Dark

Door

Duck (Quack)

Eyes

Fan

Foot

Knee

Light

Mine

Momma

Moon

Mouth

No

Nose

On

Oscar

Shirt

Shoe

Sock

Star

Teeth

Toes!

Train

Tree

Truck

Turtle

Up

"All Gone"
"All Done"

43 words and two phrases that my 19-month-old kid says.

Surprise Nap

90 minutes before the 'scheduled' time, E just conked out. D is going to the store so we can feed our Thanksgiving guests. I cannot believe that the holidays are here. Yet they are. Me + new Direct TV remote have a matinee date.

Oh, what horrible chick flick to watch?!

Is it tacky to pee behind your garage?

File this under: Household Bummers

Every 7-8 months or so, our toilet backs up and creepiness comes up the tub drain, putting everything else onto the back burner until we get our friends at Roto Rooter out to clear the line, and are able to use the toilet and shower of our ONLY bathroom again.

Today is that day. The issue has been resolved by the snake, but we've decided to bite the bullet on the larger problem. As I type this,there are two men vigorously digging near the front of the house where they will install an access point to our drain so that we are (a) up to code, and so (b) if this happens again, the back-up will happen in the yard, not our bathroom.

Price tag: $1,800.
Time job will be complete: ??:?? pm.

Begs the question "Why am I drinking a third cup of coffee?"

Edited to add: 3:20 pm. That's when they finished.

My Dream Came True

Husband and Child asleep, while I sipped hot tea and answered emails, very very quietly in the same bed. They slept til 8!

Daylight Savings & Bagel Delivery

Can never remember if the savings start now or end now. Either way, all I know is that this morning, being woken at 6:30 am really meant being woken at 5:30 am. As soon as he was loosed on the world, E ran to the living room because that's where the trains are.

Milk and bagels for breakfast; F1 race on the TV; Mr. N brought bagels and stayed for a bit. Ordered my long-impossible-to-find Vincent Longo loose powder in 'Porcelain.' Nice morning, so far.

Should probably note some stats about the toddler formerly known as...

32 inches tall
26.3 lbs
49 cm head circumference

For those playing along at home, that's 50 percentile for height, 60 percentile for weight and a whopping 80 percentile for head size. My guess is that the extra large noggin has something to do with the slightly above average weight.

For the record, he is 18 months, 1 week old and counting.

Go E!

Boring is better than trying too hard

The sprout got into a tub of Vaseline and smeared the clock radio, bedside table, floor, himself before running in to share the situation with me. I tried to wipe his hands but by the time I had the cloth available, he was gleefully smearing the goo on his hands on the glass of our framed Airstream print (which happened to be leaning against a low wall .)

Emphasis on the 'gleefully' part, please.

Oozing Bites

Nope, not describing a Hot Pocket.

Three weird looking bite-like spots on my baby's precious tender skin that appeared on his leg/ankle Tuesday and got worse on Wednesday. Urgent Care doc said maybe they were bites that were infected (one's ready to get oozy) or else an allergic reaction to a bug bite. Ick, ick, ick. Urgent care doc's analysis sounded a little like the theories we were floating at home, but with less conviction than I expect from a medical professional. A phone consult with the sis-in-law pediatrician contradicted some of his advice.

We got his antibiotics and a little bit of Benadryl cream for the affected areas; he goes to his regular pediatrician tomorrow to get a more child-specific diagnosis, given that the two current sets of information (phone consult and non-pediatric visit) conflict.

David vacuumed the perimeter of the child's crib and the corners of his room, should their be spiders. I suspect this happened at daycare, where strange things often happen and no one notices.

Molar

Somebody has a molar. A little earlier than expected (13 months). Just one. But look out future steaks, this kid's gunning for you.

One year!

We're hitting the one-year mark tomorrow. E is a superstar! Feeding himself little cubes of squishy stuff (tofu, kiwi, banana, cooked carrot) and cruising around the living room. Sleeping through the night and waking up to talk with his toys until we parents get it together enough to map out the a.m. plan of attack (D takes dog, J goes to baby and we work in the pee opportunities as needed.) He has 6 teeth. 4 adorably jagged uppers that are killing me with their cuteness. We 'brush' them with the little fingertip brush and his banana and apple flavored toothpaste. He's a giggling maniac and a lighting enthusiast. Love him!

His best move is the spontaneous Humpy Dance (not to be confused with the Humpty Dance) - he will be standing, holding onto something and then some repetitive beat starts and he's boom-boom-boom knees bent, looking around the room with a smile, like a wee little DJ at some imaginary turntables.

Family in town for the Big First Birthday party on Sunday. Ok, the little party. I'm not going crazy. He'll have a cake and some decorations and gifts, but none of that insane over-the-top stuff like hired entertainers or mobile petting zoo. I'm a spaz and we have a dog. Done and done.

9 months old

He's been on the outside as long as he was on the inside. Crazy that we're 18 months into the journey...

The big stuff right now:

a. Teaching E to fall asleep on his own - 20 minutes of low-grade crying and he's out. So much better for everyone!

b. Stage 3 "lumpy" foods and getting used to a cup.

c. E is learning to cruise from piece of furniture to piece of furniture. Except our living room is in an "L" shape and that's not a very fun route, so there's not a lot of incentive for him to excel in this area at home.

We are now babyproofed - and our living/dining room renovation is nearly complete! Very excited about our home finally feeling like home. All that's left is the FLOR tiles for E's room and for us to paint our room and get better curtains figured out. Yay!