Gametes In Love

It’s time for an iPhone picture dump.

Surely if I show them my belly they’ll give me extra Won-Tons

I jump in the water to chase after daddy’s silly head ring

Rubber Ducky, you’re the one, that makes swim-time so much fun. Especially when you’re supersized!

Check out the new Do

Auntie P reading books at bedtime

Hmn…. obviously the inspector didn’t come through this play-kitchen

If kitties go on a plane ride, do they ride in special chairs?

Want me to sweep the carpet too?

Look Ma! No hands.

I learned an interesting lesson today: apparently the “ie” suffix is not an appropriate addition to all words.

Remember Nubs? One of G’s buddies? Well, occasionally I call Nubs, Nubsie. Well, G has his own name for his giraffe: he calls him Nuk. I don’t know how we got from Nubs to Nuk, but whatever.

G’s routine in the morning is to get up, stand up in his crib and then toss his buddy as far out of the bed as possible. And then point and go “Nuk fall” (No darlin’, Nuk didn’t fall, he was pushed!). I picked up Nuk, handing it to G asking him if he wanted his buddy. Except I didn’t use the word “buddy”. Instead I used the name G gives him. And I added an “ie” at the end. And then I realized that didn’t sound good. At all.

Here’s hoping G won’t use this new word to name his friend.

What is better than cookies, you ask? Dirt! Good ole’ potting dirt. Or at least G thinks so.

Tonight after dinner B made some cookies for the kids, and while little K was going coo-coo over her too-hot to handle cookie, G was sampling the dirt from the living room potted plant. Yeah, a call for cookies goes out, and my child runs for the plant soil.

I don’t know if I should be proud or hang my head in shame.

You know what? Childproofing kitchen cabinets is much easier said than done. Either the childproof locks we have aren’t very good — or our cabinets are especially made for parental torture.

S had to get creative in locking 3 of our cabinets (the ones that contain things like mandolyns and like sharp objects), but we have a few drawers that are out of the childproofing rhealm. The one with the pots I can handle: I mean how much trouble can G get in with a pot? Unless he decides to go hunting rabbit in the backyard by hitting it over the head with a pan, there’s not much I can complain about. The spice drawer on the other hand? Not my favorite child-toy.

Not only does G LOOOVE the spice rack, but he has learned to unscrew the tops off the little spice jars. I came into the kitchen today (where S was making dinner and G was “helping”) to find all my whole cloves on the floor. G was proudly standing over them. I guess he was getting ready to make a brine? I took a deep sigh and moved on. G then decided to gather up the cloves and throw them in the trash. Well, after the floor soup, I wasn’t going to use them again so I suppose he was kind of assisting with disposal.

THEN he decided to help me clean up. He stole the broom from me and brushed all the cloves under a cabinet I can’t reach anymore.

I guess our vacuum cleaner will be smelling pretty.

We’re in the 20’s now. I have a hard time grasping that in 4 months (4 MONTHS!!!) we’ll have a 2-year old on our hands. I don’t know about you, but the term Terrible Two’s sends shivvers down my back.

G has an awesome sense of humor. This kid laughs (mostly at himself) any time he’s not in a pissy mood (which luckily is rare). I really, really can’t wait for him to start speaking in phrases I can understand. Maybe then I can laugh with him.

He’s also become a huge book lover. He loves to sit in my lap and be read to. He’ll bring me 3-4 books at a time and just power through. He likes to bring books in the car too and sometimes won’t leave for school without one. He’s favorite these days is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.

Weight: 22lb 6oz (no change since last month)

Number of teeth: 15 (we got 2 more canines this month, and the last is about to poke out any day now too)

Words: Holy cow this has been a crazy word month! He added at least 20 this month alone. Pretty soon I’m going to have to stop keeping track. G is also becoming an incredible mimic. He’s repeat a word after us all the time. Even if he doesn’t know what it means, he can repeat it. The one that stumped me a few weeks ago is repeating “Elephant”. That’s a lot of syllables for a short little dude.
* shoe
* fly (butterfly)
* ducky
* moonka
* nuk (Nubsie)
* muk (milk)
* beca-boo (peekaboo)
* cup
* foggie (Froggie)
* cow
* pug (pig)
* owl
* chuck (chick)
* airpeen (airplane)
* tuck (stuck)
* bok (block)
* book
* pungin (penguin)
* bugel (bagel)
* stop
* buckle
* open

Phrases & Sentences: +3
* All done
* Sit down
* I got it

Favorite food: Pot stickers. Big fan of Sushi Monster (our favorite sushi hangout) pot stickers. He gets a whole order all to himself, as this child easily inhales 6 of them in a sitting on his own.

Favorite activity: Jumping. He’s trying to figure out how to jump. He can bounce one foot off the floor, but hasn’t yet figured out how to get both feet off the floor at the same time. He loves to jump though.

My hopes for next month: That he gains some weight. Kid’s been at the low end of 22lbs for 2 months now.

Potty trained?: HAHAHAHAHHA!

Naughtiest moment of the month: Throwing objects at the TV & standing up on his trycicle. He’s lost a few toys this month to this behavior.

Sweetest moment of the month: Backing up to my lap (seriously in dump-truck fashion) with a book in hand.

Temper tantrum meter: mild

We’re taking G to meet my grandmother in Bulgaria this summer. And as luck would have it, Bulgaria is in the middle of a measles outbreak. Fun, right?

G hasn’t had his MMR vaccine yet. It’s on our schedule for when he turns 2 (Happy Birthday, baby!).Unfortunately, our trip is planned before the shot. However, in light of the recent outbreak, and the fact that 2’s only 4 months away, I called the pedi’s office to ask if we can give him the shot early.

I spoke with an on-call nurse (our pedi was on vacation), who said that Yes, we can give him the shot early, and Yes, as long as he gets it at least 2 weeks before the trip he should be “OK!”.

However, during our call she also said that G also needs his DTaP shot, and would I like to schedule both for when I came in? Say whaaaat? This sounded fishy to me. G is up to date on all of his shots, and I’ve been diligent to check our vaccination schedule before each visit so that I knew what he was supposed to be getting. I agreed to the MMR only and asked to consult with G’s pedi before we gave him any additional shots.

This is where things got strange.

The pedi called back and confirmed that G had his last DTaP in Dec (as part of his Pentacel combo), so he’s good and that this booster should be given 6 months apart at this point. This made me a little perturbed at the nurse, who was looking at G’s record while we were talking and should’ve just done her math.

However, the part that was strange is that even the pedi was only referring to G having 3 Pentacel administrations. I knew this was wrong! G’s been on track with all of his shots. So I came home today, and turned my filing cabinet upside down looking for proof. In the last print-out of his record, sure enough, it only reads 3 Pentacel doses. I compared the date of each vaccine to my notes. Everything matched… except for Feb 27th, when he had his 3rd Pentacel dose. I saw his Rototeq vaccine on the print-out from the office, but not his Pentacel.  The Rota is an oral vaccine. The Pentacel is a shot. I had even blogged that day about G being such an awesome kid and didn’t cry when he got his shot. That means he def. got his Pentacel. A few more papers later I found an older record print-out that lists BOTH the Pentacel and the Rota as administered on 2/27. Ha! My proof. I guess when he got his last Pentacel booster in Dec, the person who entered it in over-wrote the 3rd entry.

So, lessons learned:

1. Don’t let a medical provider talk me into doing something that feels wrong.

2. Go into each vaccination appointment knowing what’s supposed to happen and not agree to anything more without pediatrician consultation. If S (or anyone else) takes the kids to an apt they are to be armed with the schedule and not accept any immunization not on the lsit.

3. Keep a personal record of each shot.

4. Keep a copy of each vaccination print-out from the office after each visit. This helps catch record-keeping inconsistencies on their part.

I’m a little skeeved at the nurse, but I’m glad I know what’s going on and we can straighten this whole thing out. More than that G can thank me in that I spared him from another prick ;p

Since I whined about G’s latest sleep habits,  it’s only fair I follow-up with an update.

Overall? Things are good. Not 100% back to normal, but a lot better than the clingy, cry-ie mess we had on our hands.

The second night we had no tears. At all. He just stood up in his crib until story time was over. I kind of had to talk him into sitting down, and later lying down, but he got the program. It got progressively easier with each night since. We’re now down to 1 story, and 1 song. I sit in the glider until he snoozes, but I do so in silence. He occasionally pops up his head like a prairie dog to make sure I’m still there, but it’s working.

The next step is to put him down, read, sing and just get up and walk away while he falls asleep on his own. We’ll get there soon enough though.

Look! IKEA offers a hidden toddler option for their closet systems

Apparently G can stack blocks only a toddler high

Bert & Ernie…

… the bane to a G’s Saturday

Do you think the lions objected to the lion on G’s back?

Makin’ like a prairie dog in a tunnel

I gotta pump my own water? What kind of farm is this?

Hello Goat! Please, don’t munch my finger while I offer you some imaginary food!

Chucks! Chucks! Chucks! Over here, chucks!

Eeee — how!

Somewhere in the past few weeks while I’ve been licking my wounds in bed feeling icky, G in the room over decided to switch up his bed-time routine.

S loves to snuggle with G. Who can blame him? G is so great to hold. However, my easy-to-put-down child, has become a holy terror. What used to be a 15 minute bed-time at best, is now taking an hour an a half. Our routine was simple: teeth-brushing, diaper, jammies, medicine, book, song, crib WHILE AWAKE, and I walk out of the room. G stares up at the ceiling, talks to his lovey and crashes out.

NOW on the other hand? Teeth-brushing, diaper, jammies, medicine, book, book, sometimes ANOTHER book, song, rock and hold until he’s asleep to put down. And God have mercy on your soul if you try to put him down before he’s been asleep for at least 15 minutes, because then he wakes up and the screaming begins and you gotta start with the rocking and the holding all over again. Tiring? Yes! Irritating? Beyond belief.

Last week S and I had a heart-to-heart. I couldn’t do this new routine with G. I have patience, but not an hour and a half’s worth of bed-time patience. S has been great, and has done it, but it can’t go on. We decided to wait, since G was teething, and we wanted to make sure that he wasn’t so clingy because he wasn’t feeling great.

But the battle of wills began yesterday at nap-time. I put him down in his crib, layed down next to his crib on the floor and told him “Mommy is napping, and you nap too”. He proceeded to jump up and rock out the crib for about 30 minutes. Hi Go-Go-Gadget arms reached his (thankfully empty) humidifier and crashed it to the floor. I took all this in stride, ignored it all and pretended I kept on sleeping. After awhile of figuring out the party in his crib wasn’t going anywhere, he planted face first and crashed out. Ensue 2 hour nap.

Tonight, more or less same deal. G got dressed, I put him in his crib, I pulled a chair over and began reading. He quickly caught on that he wasn’t getting the treatment he had gotten used to and immediately began protesting. He was pointing to our glider, cried, and kept saying “Up!”. Meanwhile, I kept reading. When our 3 books were up, I rubbed his back and sang. Meanwhile G continued crying. It was rough, but I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was he. He quieted down after awhile, while I again told him I loved him, while rubbing his back, but I wasn’t going to pick him up. So he plopped down, snuggled with Moonka and stared up at the ceiling. I stayed by his crib, singing, and he fell asleep. Then I walked out.

Tomorrow we do the same thing with hopefully less of the crying. While not fun, tonight at least didn’t take an hour and a half.

Wish me well! I want my old routine back!

G is really liking his blocks these days. He’s managing to stack them up pretty darn high too. I love watching him finish what he set out to do. He applauds himself with pride. It’s pretty cute. What’s even cooler is how much he’s maturing. Three weeks ago if his top block tumbled he would crash the whole structure down. Now he’s more patient and tries again. The part that amazes me is how symmetrical he likes to keep things. Is it a little early to worry about OCD?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMojPt6R8cY]

***

Thanx to Becoming-Mom we decided to introduce G to his first at-bat baseball experience. Honestly for S and I that’s like the blind leading the blind, since we both suck/know little of major sports, but G had a good time. Bat, wooden dowel? What’s the difference? Toilet paper holder vs. t-ball set? Eh, it works just as well. Plus G is cackling and having a jolly old time.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwIWdk6NSBI]

***

Mom and Dad might not be much in the way of exercise these days, but G’s making it up for the 2 of us. Here’s the little man doing leg lifts. He’s amazingly strong. Have I mentioned that before? Kid is gonna have a six-pack by the time he’s 7.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvP4UAUKgQc]