Fan Ninja

The clumsiness I display on an almost daily basis is nothing short of impressive. Impressive that I do not seriously injured myself more. I am constantly finding bruises...the origin of which completely baffle me. The stupidity of my clumsiness is also something to behold. Things like smacking my head on a car door-roof-edge area while bending over to put something in the back seat. Because you know, who wouldn't see there is A CAR THERE.

Anyway, last night was another impressive showing. We were making dinner. It was hot in the kitchen. I ran upstairs to put on some shorts and a t-shirt. Upstairs to our bedroom, which has low ceilings and not very good air movement so we also have a ceiling fan on our low ceilings. We have had this ceiling fan for well over a year. Of course I wasn't paying attention, pulled my shirt up over my head and caught one of the fan blades with the side of my wrist...and ripped the fan blade off the fan. Like completely broke it off and the blade smashed to the floor. I kicked that fan's ass!...And got a big ol' welt on my wrist.

I come back downstairs and Travis says, "Did you turn the fan off then?" Nah, I just left it spinning all helter skelter like a drunk Humpty Dumpty. I thought we could place bets on how long it would take before the fan ripped itself out of the ceiling.

Toilets and Brushes and Plungers! Oh my!

All things bathroom have been discovered. So far as long as the lid to the toilet is down, he isn't too interested in it...thank goodness. And it is almost always down because Travis and I have an agreement. If I make sure to clear the shower drain of the freakish amount of hair I lose everyday, he will make sure to put the seat and lid down. It works out quite well.

The problem with Alex is that he found everything else in there. Not that it took long since our bathroom is the size of a postage stamp. He loves loves loves it when the toilet paper roll is on the holder. The look of amazement and joy as he pulls and watches it spin into a pile on the floor is almost worth just letting him do it. Almost. However almost doesn't cut it, so I take the roll off the holder. But then he just pulls on the holder, violently swinging the little holder arm up and down, bringing the entire apparatus within a hair of being ripped off the wall. This is before he notices the toilet brush and plunger. Treasure! Nasty nasty treasure. I am not saying I am a stickler about germs (i.e., letting him chew on the safety strap on a Target cart), but it is just nasty to be playing with toilet accessories.

He also has started full on temper tantrums when you take something away from him. I am talking head thrown back, back arched, red faced screaming. Or he just collapses in a crying sad little pile of baby on the floor.

So yeah, it's just easier to never ever let him in the bathroom. He may be the only kid still in diapers in 6th grade, but I won't have to deal with the toilet-germ covered hands and subsequent meltdown.

Thank you Jillian.

Today is a good day. The boy slept well, I finally slept well, the sun is shining...and...AND, I am wearing jeans I haven't fit into for well over a year. Probably pushing 1&1/2 - 2 years. And I am in them comfortably. No giant muffin top here folks.

It may be silly, but the store these jeans are from is a big part of why I am so happy about it. They are from Charolette Russe. For those of us that have never experienced Miss Russe, I will explain. 99% of the clothes there were clearly made for toddlers. Inappropriately dressed toddlers, but toddlers nonetheless. Or at least people with stunted growth. Normally I can only buy accessories there. But, I found a pair of jeans there once upon a time. They are the biggest size jeans this self esteem crushing store carries, but they fit! And they fit once again. It's a good day.

He's advanced.

Not really sure why we bothered with the stupid latches. He has figured them out. So on all but two cabinets, they are only useful as a slowing-him-down-so-hopefully-I-can-get-there-before-he-opens-it mechanism. Fabulous. It only works on two of them because he can't reach the latches.

I am kinda proud of him for figuring them out quickly. But that is grossly overshadowed by the frustration of having to close doors that have latches installed for the sole purpose of keeping a 1 year old out.

Latches!

Cabinet safety thingys...my new nemesis. We finally got around to baby proofing things around the house. You know, with Alex being mobile and all. We obviously didn't want to rush into anything, but I was getting really tired of trying to hold the cabinet full of lethal cleaning products closed with my knee while stretching to the coffee pot. So safety latches it is.

I hate them. I forget about them every single fucking time. Every time. I try to open the cabinet, it opens an inch, rips out of my grasp, and slams shut. Usually bending at least one fingernail backwards on its way. And then I yell. Or growl. The first dozen or so times it happens EVERY day, I usually just growl. But after that magical 13th fingernail bending/cabinet slamming incident, I yell. And stomp my feet. And growl while I am yelling. All very mature. Travis promised not to laugh at me if I don't laugh at him when he forgets...every single time.

Alex really really hates them. And he forgets about them every time too. He gets the door open that little inch, and it's like a horrible teaser for him. It leads him to believe he can get in and get the goodies that are protected inside. And then it slams shut, and squelches his dreams. And he screams. And growls. The worst is when he hangs on. Pulling as hard as his chubby little hand can. The frustration starts as a low whine, and quickly escalates to full on a-n-g-r-y baby.

So yeah, he's safe. I have no fingernails left. And we are all pissed off. Yay for baby safety!

New pictures!

We received some recent pictures from daycare. I don't think they are the cutest pictures of him, but for some reason that I can't put my finger on, I really really like both of them.

Even though he looks so sad in this one:

This one cracks me up. I can hear him talking just looking at this picture. And, you can see a hint of the Elvis lip curl.

He looks so innocent in both of them...you would never think that he would hit another, much smaller, baby in the head. Oh yeah. Apparently more than once, he hit one of the little baby girls...in the head. And when the teachers told him, "No! That's not nice! Don't hit!", he would hug the little girl. Ummm..I am not sure what the hell to do with that.

Holy Calories Batman!

This past weekend was Kari's bachelorette party in the Dells. Fun was had. A lot of food was consumed...mostly of the cheese variety. There were drinks to be drunk and homemade chex mix to be devoured.

In all the fun, I lost track of how much I was actually consuming. Three extra pounds is the answer. I gained three pounds in one weekend. But thanks to Jillian and a normal dinner sans cheese, I am only a half a pound up from before the weekend began. There is hope I will still fit into my bridesmaid dress!

Mini Van Gogh

We are working on getting Alex off the bottle and onto a sippy cup. There is one big problem. He isn't particularly interested in holding his own drinking vessel. Oh he can, he just doesn't really want to be bothered with it. His hands have much more busy work to do than hold a silly bottle or sippy cup. So, I will hand him whatever I am giving him to drink, he will take one slug off it, and hand it back to me with his mouth open. Like, See, I can do it. Now hold this for me so I can drink while terrorizing this blanket.

There are two times I don't try to have him hold onto his bottle, in the morning and at night. Those are usually the two times he will actually snuggle with me. Usually. Lately the bedtime bottle has turned into a gymnastics routine/wrestling match, and the morning bottle consists of him drinking one ounce of milk and then taking off. This morning he didn't even bother with the one ounce. He had things to do, toys to play with, a dog to chase. Later in the morning he was doing his best hungry fish impression so I sat him down on the floor and handed him his bottle. He did a really good job of sitting there and drinking. But apparently his thirst was quenched rather quickly. After taking .7 seconds to put my bagel in the toaster, I turn around to see him still sitting where I left him, but no longer drinking. In that short time, his bottle when from a source of nutrition to a giant milk marker. He was "drawing" large milk streaks across the kitchen floor. He's advanced.

Hold still!

Alex likes to occupy every single square inch of his crib each night. He fidgets and moves around more than an excited insomniac the night before a big trip. Throughout the course of one night he will quite literally move the entire length and width of the crib. I am concerned for when he moves into a big kid's bed and is no longer contained on all four sides. There is gonna be a lot of splats onto the floor at night. But that is a concern for a later date.

The current issue is that the last couple of nights Alex has woken up because one of his legs is stuck between the slats of the side of his crib. He occasionally sleeps with one of his legs hanging out and over the side of his crib...but then rolls over without getting his leg back into the crib first and gets stuck. I have to say, before the rolling over and getting stuck and crying part, it is so cute when you look in the room and just see a chubby little leg sticking out.

Because of aforementioned thrashing, and you know, because he is still a baby, the crib has gots to stay. I would be all about just putting him in a big storage container with solid sides, but I think he might get a little cramped. So to rectify the situation we are employing a new "breathable" bumper. It is basically just a mesh bumper designed to keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times...without the suffocation issue of regular bumpers. Which is a nice feature.

Awwww

WARNING: This is going to be a gooey warm fuzzy mess of a post. Proceed with caution.

I am so in love with Alex it is amazing. I could sit and watch him forever. He is just so funny and interesting and goofy. It is just nuts watching him explore and learn and figure things out. There are still days the reality that we get to be a part of his learning for the rest of our lives is daunting, but so cool.

It has taken me a whole year to really appreciate what is going on in our lives, but man I get it now. This kid is personality overload. And aside from his whining spells, I love every part of it. I think we are going to have our hands full with this one, but I am just so excited to be along for the ride at every turn, I can't even begin to think about what our future with him is going to be like.

I have always loved him. But now it's different. I can't wait to pick him up every day and I love the extra time I get with him on Fridays. I went from loving the baby I squeezed out, to absolutely head over heels loving my son.

For almost this whole past year, I didn't believe people when they told me it is all worth it. He is exhausting. My social life is not even in the same galaxy it was before. I get poop under my nails more than once a week. I am awake by 6 every stinkin' day. We are constantly moving and climbing over gates. All the sleepless nights, the car seats, the giant diaper bag, the severe dent in our financials. My entertainment center is taped shut with bright blue freaking painter's tape. It's fancy.

But holy cats I was wrong. It is so worth it.

It's The Never Ending Story!

I so wish I could understand what this kid is saying. The story telling is virtually non stop. And it's not just the ba ba ba ba da da da ffffftttt type of baby babble I expected. He is definitely using different "words"...Not just one syllable sounds on constant repeat. Except for this new screech/laugh sound he's got goin' on. That is one syllable we could definitely do without.

Yesterday Alex was playing in the living room while Travis and I blabbed about our days. He crawled over the doorway into the kitchen, stood up, and launched into a very detailed story. He stood there the whole time looking back and forth between Travis and I with one hand on the door frame while the other hand continually punctuated and highlighted points of his story. And apparently whatever he was telling us that we couldn't understand was very funny. Every third "sentence" or so he would pause and laugh like a psychotic hyena on its tip toes, and then carry on with the story.

I have tried many a time to get his narratives on video. But due to a certain Grandma that takes a zillion and one pictures of him, every time he sees a camera he stops whatever he is doing to smile for a picture. Aside from wanting to run some sort of translator program on the video, I want it for documentation of the lip curl he gets when he talks. It's very Elvis meets Sesame Street.

Walk. Plop. Clap.

The four little steps on Wednesday night were only gently alluding to what was to come. We now have a walking baby in our house. Yes Mariah, I realize I should be calling him a toddler, but I am quite positive I am not old enough to have a toddler, so he is a walking baby. Suck it.

He is so proud of himself each and every time he takes some steps. He gets all geared up, takes anywhere from 3 to 12 steps, plops down on his butt, and claps...all while brandishing the biggest smile possible. He was pretty stingy with the demonstrations yesterday. Only a couple steps here and there. And the stingy-ness continued this morning when I dropped him off at daycare. Not one single step. Every time I put him down he immediately went down to his hands and knees and attempted to escape into the "big kids" room. But I just got a message from daycare. The walking strike is over. According to them, he is a walking maniac.

I am a bit scared of the amount of chasing I am going to be required to do once he really figures this all out. But for now he is just so damn cute trying to figure it out, the fear doesn't stand a chance over every other happy emotion.

He can be taught!

We have a couple new developments.

1. Alex has said Mama and Dada. Not sure if he gets that I am Mama, but he for sure gets that Trav is Dada. This past weekend, when Travis left the room, Alex tried to climb over my shoulder while calling out "Dadadadada." I think he gets it. Now for the Mama thing. This morning before work was the first time he actually said it while crawling toward me. Most times he only says it when he is mad you are making him do something horribe he doesn't want to do...you know like lay down to have his diaper changed. So I am super pumped that he is already equating Mama with misery. Awesome.

2. There were a couple steps last night. Four very small, fast, shuffling steps, but they were genuine unassisted steps from Travis to me. I am interested to see what happens at daycare today. I found out that for the last couple of weeks they have been doing everything and anything they can think of to get this kid to walk. And I thought they liked me. Why would they want to ruin any peace I have whatsoever? Apparently yesterday their antics escalated to one of the teachers wrapping masking tape around her phone so she could dangle it as bait for Alex, but still be far enough away from him that he couldn't climb up on her. They are not messin' around. So I fully expect him to be all out running when I get there this afternoon.

A Little Early

Alex has started something new. A very bad something new. A makes me want to pull my hair out something new.

He screams and cries when I take something away from him. Close the door so he can't get out into the mud room, which is full of multiple large and sharp objects just waiting to fall on a baby's head, and watch out! He will sit on his butt right there next to the door and scream. Take away the dog dishes when he is trying to play in the dog's water...flailing arms while screaming and crying. I was really hoping the terrible 2's would skip our family. Ha! Those stupid terrible 2's not only didn't skip us, they showed up 12 months early. I hate them.

This past weekend was tough. Alex was...challenging. I am pretty sure he is working on another tooth, so I tried to cut him some slack, but good gravy. We were out of town visiting with Travis's family for the weekend. And Alex was a Whiney McWhinerston the whole weekend. He didn't want to do anything for more than .2 minutes. He didn't want to be held, but he didn't want to be put down. Whine Whine Whine Whining. But he can't talk yet to tell me what is wrong. At least not with words I can understand. So he just makes this noise. This horrible noise. It sounds like a cow with its batteries running low. It makes me insane.

So far these are the things I have come up with to combat this lovely behavior. When he is upset that he can't have or do something, I let him cry and try to distract him with something he can have. When he whines, I very maturely...totally just imitate and mock him. I honestly don't know what else to do. Not that the imitating does any good to stop him. It does kinda make me feel better though, so it does have some purpose.

Yesterday morning I could feel myself quickly approaching that dreaded point where I was going to lose it. Travis was at work and it was too early to wake anybody else up. So over the river and through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa's house we went. I just knew I needed to be home. And I needed some extra hands to help me deal with the whining, temper tantrum throwing beast I used to call my baby.

I don't know if he could tell I was more relaxed when we arrived, or if it was the pool and never ending attention when we got there, but he was all of a sudden pretty much back to normal. Playing, "talking", giggling, crawling everywhere he could fit. There were still a couple minor melt downs when he wasn't allowed to play in the refrigerator, but otherwise he was back to being a sweet baby.

And then last night before I put him down, he really iced the kissing up to mommy cake. He finished his bottle, twisted and turned and crawled until he was laying against me with his head resting on my shoulder. And then he just laid there quietly telling me a story, of which I couldn't understand a single word. I didn't want that story to ever ever end.

Progress

As of this morning, I have officially lost 8 pounds. Not a super impressive amount, but nothing to scoff at either. The credit goes all to Jillian. Seriously. I totally and completely suck at dieting. It's ridiculous. But I really do like exercising. One out of two ain't bad...right? One of the nice side effects of having Jillian make me gargle my heart in my throat, (she actually says that to you in Level 2!) is I am finding myself not nearly as hungry. I am not by any means claiming that I eat well, or better than I used to, but I am definitely not eating as much. And not snacking hardly at all anymore.

So here's to Jillian. I will not curse her name today. But only until I turn on the DVD tonight. Then all bets are off and the name calling will resume.