END OF SUMMER
2011
September
13
I never appreciated being outside as much as I do now. Spending the summer playing outside with Dash has been so much fun. I don’t know what we’re going to do when winter comes.
2011
ONE AND THREE QUARTERS
2011
September
11
Dash continues to amaze me. I had no idea that somebody not even two years old could do so much. Before I had kids, I thought they would be small and helpless for years. But that’s not the case at all. Dash is definitely a little boy now, no longer a baby. His physical abilities are limitless (or so he thinks) and he understands so much of what we say. Eric and I have to spell words so that he won’t know what we’re talking about. At the rate he is learning, I’m not sure that spelling words will be enough to confuse him for much longer.
One of the first things he did that demonstrated his comprehension abilities and ought to have prepared me with what to expect was this: I had unplugged the vacuum so that he wouldn’t trip over the cord. I noticed that he was watching me and it crossed my mind that he wanted to plug it back in. In an effort to obscure the connection between the plug and the outlet, I discreetly moved the plug to the other side of the sofa. A few hours later, I still hadn’t put the vacuum away. He found the plug, dragged it around the sofa, and tried to stick it in the outlet. I was floored that he remembered where it went after seeing me use it only once earlier in the day. Then I took it from him.
He can follow instructions now. He happily puts away toys when he’s done playing. He gets his shoes out of the closet when it’s time to go. One time, I even asked him to bring Sam’s blankie to me. I wasn’t sure that he knew what a blankie was or where to find it, but he walked straight to it and brought it back without needing further explanation. He also knows that “time to eat” means that he should climb into his booster seat.
He’s been out of his high chair and in a booster seat for a few months. We knew that he was too big for the high chair when he started climbing up and into it by himself. That boy scales furniture like a mountain goat.
He also graduated from his crib to a twin bed. We were worried that he was going to fall trying to climb out of his crib, so we moved him before he had the chance to figure that out. We also took away his pacifier this quarter. When Sam was born, Dash tried to use Sam’s pacifiers at first. But now he knows that they are for Sam only. In fact, if he sees that Sam doesn’t have a pacifier in his mouth, Dash will try to shove one in his face. He means well.
The months when Dash refused to sleep seem so long ago. Dash sleeps – and puts himself to sleep – beautifully now. It’s almost too easy. His bedtime routine includes many new skills: brushing his teeth, peeing on the potty, pulling up his pajama pants, then giving kisses and turning off the light. If we don’t let him turn off the light himself, he gets mad. Getting ready for bed has been rote for so long that he anticipates what comes next. He says “nigh nigh” as we leave his room, then we watch him flip through some books on the video monitor before he cuddles up with his blankies to fall asleep on his own.
We’ve been working on potty training a bit more consistently this quarter. We switched from diapers to Pull-Ups and then from Pull-Ups to real underwear. He still wears Pull-Ups when he’s sleeping, at preschool, and any time we leave the house. But at home, I’ve been letting him run around without pants or with real underwear on. He still has accidents, but every day is better than the previous. I’m sure he’ll be potty trained by the time he’s two.
He is such a big boy now. He can climb into the car and up into his car seat by himself. He gets mad if I try to help him. In fact, insisting on being independent has become a trend. He wants to do everything by himself! He doesn’t even want to hold my hand when going up and down stairs anymore. Thankfully, he’s pretty steady on stairs now so I don’t worry too much about him falling. But I still hover just behind him in case he trips.
Until a month ago, Dash had a hydrocele. A hydrocele is a pocket of fluid trapped in the scrotum. Supposedly, 80% of boy babies have them, but most are absorbed by the time they are 18 months old. His was only getting bigger at his 18 month check-up, so his doctor recommended surgery to drain it. It involved anesthesia, an incision in his groin, and stitches. He was so brave and he recovered quickly.
My mom always said that she enjoyed it when her kids were sick because they were so sweet to care for. Now I know what she means. Dash was extra cuddly when we brought him home from the hospital.
Dash is such a sweetie all the time, though. He gives big, squeezy hugs and loud, smacking kisses. One of his teachers said that he even kissed a girl in his class! He also gives high fives, up high and down low. He sits in my lap when we watch TV or read books. When he’s teething and having a rough time getting to sleep, he falls asleep laying against my chest. I hope he stays this lovable forever.
Dash loves his brother so much. While I was breastfeeding Sam under a nursing cover, Dash noticed that Sam was missing. He said “baby?” and held his hands up in the air to gesture “where?”. And if we don’t bring Sam into Dash’s room when he is getting ready for bed, he notices his absence. He brings a pacifier to Sam when he is crying, he covers him with a blankie when he sees him without one, and he tries to share his toys and snacks.
Eric and Dash have been bonding a lot, spending time together alone while I care for Sam. They go on walks to the lake and the playground. Dash loves Eric so much that it seems like all he says when Eric is at work is “Dada? Dada? DADA? Dada work?”.
His vocabulary is huge now. It may not all be understandable, but he attempts to repeat everything that we say at least once. For some reason, he won’t say “blankie”. Instead, he calls it “daddy”. But he calls Eric “dada”, so we know the difference. We haven’t heard him say “Sam” yet, either. Though, we know that he knows who Sam is because when we ask “Where’s Sam?”, he says “baby?” and points to the baby.
He says “please” and “thank you”. He can say his name. He says “hello” on the phone. And he’s been putting two or three words together in sentences. His favorites are “poo poo potty”, “eat nana” (banana), and “bye bye” followed by anything and everything. At the mall’s play area, he had to say “bye bye” and wave to every piece of equipment on the way out. “Bye bye, tree! Bye bye, bear! Bye bye, slide! Bye bye, balloon! Bye bye, bucket!”
Dash is curious about how things work, especially when it comes to putting things together. He can do big block puzzles that say they are for ages three and up. He can hook together pieces of train track like a jigsaw puzzle, and he is interested in how the magnets on the front and back of his trains work. He also loves to buckle the straps on Sam’s bouncy seat and his booster seat.
Balls and trucks are his favorite toys. He can throw and kick balls very well now, but he isn’t so good at catching them. We push trucks back and forth instead. He also likes to putt balls with his plastic toy golf clubs. He has excellent hand-eye coordination.
He still loves the water. He always has. We went swimming a lot this summer, both in a kiddie pool on our back deck and at the neighborhood pool where my parents are members. He learned how to jump into their pool from the side. He also had splash day at preschool once a week this summer. His teachers said that while the other kids seemed unsure about getting wet, Dash had no hesitation. He gets so excited when it’s bath time, too. He doesn’t even need any bath toys. He’s happy with a plastic cup.
He also discovered squirt bottles. We have several squirt bottles around the house, some for squirting cats when they get on the kitchen table and some for moistening cloth wipes. Once Dash learned how to use them, he would squirt everything and everybody. For a while, we restricted his play with squirt bottles to outside only, but he would throw such a tantrum when we would go inside and have to take the squirt bottle from him that we now hide squirt bottles from him all together, out of his sight and reach.
I mentioned earlier that he is like a mountain goat. Despite our discouragement, he loves to climb all over the sofa. He straddles the back or the arms of the sofa and then, he rolls off onto the cushions, giggling. I got in the habit of surrounding the sofa with pillows to soften inevitable falls, but now he thinks the pillows are part of the game. He dives onto them, clambers over them, and rolls off of them.
Some of his other favorite games are playing peekaboo through the windows of his cardboard castle, rolling trucks and trains along the back of the sofa, coloring, playing the piano and strumming the guitars at my parents’ house, and reading books. His favorite books are The Little Goat (it was mine when I was a kid), The Foot Book, and Mr. Brown Can Moo. He has Mr. Brown Can Moo memorized. He mimics all of the sounds.
After learning about motorcycles and bicycles in one of his books, he started to notice them everywhere. At first, he called all bikes and motorcycles “momo”. But during a camping trip with our cousins, we taught him how to say “bike” and that bikes are different from momos (motorcycles). I wanted to buy a bike for him as soon as I saw how much he was obsessed with them, but I knew that he would be restricted from straddle toys for two weeks after his hydrocelectomy. So I postponed ordering a bike until this month. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about his new bike in the next quarterly update.
This is the longest baby update I’ve written yet. He is growing and changing so fast! Dash seems so big and mature and independent now. But if I could choose only one word to describe his personality, it would be SILLY. He surprises me with his cleverness and makes me laugh every day. I am so excited to see what he will do next.
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TWO MONTH SAM
2011
August
22
Sam spent his second month growing. He’s not so fragile anymore. His arms and legs have baby fat on them. He has reached the point where he looks secure in his car seat rather than looking like a lanky newborn. And unlike the blotchy pink tone of newborns, his skin color is creamy now.
He can hold his head up high for several seconds and he loves to look all around. He smiles when he sees faces. He also does lots of baby talk, goos and oohs and aahs. His voice sounds like Dash’s voice. When he cries, his face and the shape of his lips look like Dash’s features.
Sam is a precious baby. Our only complaint is that he spends about an hour every morning grunting while we’re trying to get that last hour or two of sleep. It happens right after I feed him, but only after the first feeding of the day. We think he might be so hungry after sleeping for so long that he overeats (or eats too fast) and has difficulty digesting that much milk.
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RING SLING
2011
August
11
I pulled my sewing machine out of storage, dusted it off, and sewed a ring sling that allows me to carry Sam close to me while also having both hands free to play with Dash or do chores.
At first, I didn’t like it. Besides the fact that I broke two needles and the sewing quality was mediocre, it was difficult to adjust and I was afraid that Sam was uncomfortable.
I didn’t give up, though. I washed it a few times to soften the fabric, making it easier to adjust. And I tried different positions, eventually finding one that Sam enjoys.
After using it for a week, it has gotten a lot easier. Whenever Sam is fussy and I can’t figure out why, it calms him down within seconds. Highly recommended!
