Gametes In Love

When we moved G into his big boy room and his big boy bed, we put a gate on his door. We kid-proofed his room, but there was still lots we didn’t want him to have free roam of when we couldn’t pay attention (say at 3am in the morning while we’re sleeping).

And the gate had worked out great… until last week. Last week, you see, G discovered the foot-stool to the rocker in his room. To be more specific, he discovered that the stool 1) could be easily moved around, and 2) was light enough for HIM to move it around. He first tested this by turning on the lights in his room on off. It was only half a day later, when in the middle of nap-time, as I said on my bed, I heard the pitter-patter of toddler paws. They were accompanied by G’s grinning face, who was beaming at his accomplishment of getting out. What he had done was bring the foot stool up to the gate; climbed on the stool and then jumped over the gate.

So there went our toddler jail. For now we just removed the foot stool, but I know that him dragging the rocker itself is only days away. At this rate, we’re investigating just moving the gate to the bathroom door, where he can cause the most havoc and just call him the victor of the confinement battle.

I’m also learning that in addition to watching my language, I have to stop doing things I don’t want him to repeat. He is the epitome of Monkey-see-Monkey-do. The other night, I used a chair from the dining room to reach a Tupperware container from our cabinets. Yeah, yeah, I’m short. Whatever. I did this out of pure laziness to go and hunt down a ladder. G saw this, however, and guess how he gets in his seat for dinner now? That’s right: he brings a chair from his toddler activity table. I get bad mommy points. 100%.

This child amazes me every day in how his mind works.

I wanted to write this down because I know, this too, will stop and it’s too cute to forget.

A little while back, G started to want “in” on S and mine’s conversations. Whenever the two of us get babbling about our day, or a task at hand, if we don’t take a break to talk to G, we will end up with the following exchange:

G: No! Stop! My tuuhn. MY TUUHN!!!

Me (or S): Ok, buddy. Your turn. What do you want to say?

G: Hmn… Zeba (meaning “zebra”)

and then he grins.

It’s always “zebra”. Every time it’s his turn, he says “zebra”. And it’s stinkin’ cute every time he does it.

Today’s Foto Friday is brought to you by Augie Chang Photography. We did our maternity pics with him back in October, and it’s high time I share.

I miss my belly 🙁

See the full set here.

10.2010

10.22.2010

11.2010

11.2010

11.2010

11.2.2010

11.23.2010

11.24.2010

11.24.2010

12.3.2010

12.07.2010

One of G’s classmates brought her umbrella to school today. Practical? Sure. Also a bane in the existence of a parent whose child does NOT have an umbrella. Why? Because all G could talk about on the drive home was how HE wanted an umbrella of his own. A yellow one.

I’ll be honest, actually having an umbrella for him is, in fact, kind of practical. So I told him that I would look for one the next day. Except that after we got home, he went nuts. Apparently the concept of “tomorrow” doesn’t exist in a toddler’s vocabulary. Tomorrow meant today, and more specifically, NOW. Normally I’d deal with the tantrum that was brewing, but given that it was early enough in the evening, S2 had just been fed and was quietly napping, I decided to take G on a shopping spree and get him his yellow umbrella.

You’d think that finding an umbrella during rain season would be easy. Well… not so much. Ok, finding an umbrella itself isn’t difficult, but finding a YELLOW umbrella as it turns out, is. A yellow, CHILDREN-sized umbrella? Impossible. We went to two stores tonight (Safeway and Walgreens), which in the past have had these adorable ducky-handle umbrellas. I thought, they for sure would have what I need. Not so much. Not even anything in yellow.

So we came home empty handed. G was placated by me showing him Dad’s blue umbrella, but I know I am now on a mission tomorrow to get him the darn yellow one.

Now where do I find this golden goose?

A year ago, I scavenged my local parks for fall foliage. I was surprised just how many of my local parks have ever greens. It’s fall, dang it. I wanna see some colors. Well, I found one, and had a really fun time taking pics of G amongst the leaves. This year, I wanted to go back, now that G was older, and take more pictures. I had high hopes, and grandiose plans that we could have a great photo shoot, again amongst the leaves, with G frolicking and throwing them up in the air. Clearly I’d forgotten who I’m dealing with, because the only thing that interested G were the fallen branches off the trees. Any interaction he had with the fallen leaves was to stir them up with his sticks. Oh well… maybe next year? But fear not, I shall not leave you without G cuteness.

I love these pants. The rear view is just too cute.

The park is right on the edge of the CalTrain tracks, so when a train rode right by, G went crazy nuts excited.

Auntie P spent the week-end with us too. She read to G a bit

And hold S2 (she’s been sick the last few weeks, so this was their first snuggle session)

Speaking of S2, here’s Little Dude enjoying his crib mobile

I picked up G from daycare today. There were only 4 kids left and they were helping put their toys away.

This is the conversation I had with E. She’s maybe 2.5-2.75 (and her speech and clarity is pretty gosh remarkable)?

E: My mommy will be here soon
Me: I know! Very soon. [It was a quarter to 6 and with a 6pm close time, I felt pretty confident in saying so]
…
E: Why are you G’s mommy?
Me: Wow, I don’t know. I guess it just worked out that way.
E: Yes, but why?

Ughmn… How do you answer that? She might as well have asked what the meaning of life is.

Why couldn’t she just ask me where babies come from instead?

And just like that a month has gone by. Someone is going to have to talk to me about the physics of time passing (and getting older), because this feels like one of the quickest months ever.

But it’s been a good month. S2 has been growing well, and he’s spending most of his time sleeping. I’m not objecting to that, since I have the 2yr old version, which, in contrast, doesn’t sleep nearly as much as he should. So I’m enjoying the sleepy time now for as long as it lasts. Little Dude these days wakes up twice between the hours of 9pm and 6am: once between 12 and 1, and another between 3 and 4. He’s typically up for the day between 6 and 7, and if I get him early enough, I can do a feed and go back down for a snooze until 8. We’ve been sharing a bed for all but 2 nights this past month, but we’ve recently started having night-time naps in the swing (next to our bed) too. And Sssh, I’ll tell you a secret — this past month has conditioned me to actually like having a baby sleep on my arm. Last night, after S2’s 12am feed, I wanted baby cuddles, so I just kept him in bed with me. I’m still planning to get him in his own room soon, but at least I’m not as freaked out as before.

Reflux did rear it’s ugly head in this little guy as well. After the hell we lived through, and put G through,  we were on the lookout since day one. We started treating it right away. S2 is on a Prevacid/Zentac cocktail right now, and we’re weaning off the Zentac. Hopefully S2 won’t be on the meds for as long as G, but we’ll see.

Speaking of G, I am amazed how well he’s taken to his brother. I was so afraid that his reaction in the hospital was indicative that he wanted nothing to do with S2, but it hasn’t been the case at all. G walks over to his brother when he’s crying, and tries to help him get his paci. He pushes (gently) on his swing to calm him, and generally wants to help with baby care. Last night he even “helped” us give S2 a bath. He’s proving to be an amazing big brother and I’m so proud of him in that regard. I know that we’re only a year? maybe two, away from “Mommy, tell him to stop bugging me” screams, and breaking up wrestling fights on the living floor, so I’m hoping this sweet trend will last as long as possible.

Anyway, some baby stats…

Weight: 8lb 12oz.

Favorite activity: Sleeping. This happens to be mommy’s favorite activity for him too 🙂

Sweetest moment: Cackling in his sleep the other day. He had the most awesome, almost evil-ish laugh falling asleep. I so hoped he’d do it again because I was a step away from my camera to record it. Oh well.