Sunday, January 4, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Communist Cats and Other News
There is a language explosion going here; new words, sounds, and signs flying at us from all directions.
E has resisted learning animal sounds until recently. He'd giggle when I said "meow" but ignore me when I'd attempt other animal sounds. It turns out he's been paying a bit of attention after all.
Q: (me) "E, what does the cat say?"
A: (E) "MAO!"
I guess cats talk about the former leader of China?
Sheep now say "baa" but cows say "boo". This is also the name of his favorite game, though he sometimes says "pee-boo".
He's added "baby", and "nose", and "bair-pay" (airplane) to his vocabulary. Anything on wheels is a "choo-choo". He asks for "joo" (juice) but will sign when he wants milk (even though he still doesn't drink white milk, only Ovaltine or chocolate milk). He signs and says "fish" at the same time. He's got a sign for yogurt.
He says "Oh" for cheerios and pinches his fingers together (trying to form an "o").
Maybe my favorite of his new developments: the head nod. Only for little E it's not just the head but the shoulders too. Forward, back, forward, back. Smack goes the head on the chair.
Possibly my least favorite is that he has a word for TV already, something like "deev" or sometimes "dee-dee".
He understands multiple part commands, like "go get that and bring it here." He even does it sometimes.
"No" is still the reigning sound and sentiment though; he's master the art of saying it while shaking his head and running the other direction.
E has resisted learning animal sounds until recently. He'd giggle when I said "meow" but ignore me when I'd attempt other animal sounds. It turns out he's been paying a bit of attention after all.
Q: (me) "E, what does the cat say?"
A: (E) "MAO!"
I guess cats talk about the former leader of China?
Sheep now say "baa" but cows say "boo". This is also the name of his favorite game, though he sometimes says "pee-boo".
He's added "baby", and "nose", and "bair-pay" (airplane) to his vocabulary. Anything on wheels is a "choo-choo". He asks for "joo" (juice) but will sign when he wants milk (even though he still doesn't drink white milk, only Ovaltine or chocolate milk). He signs and says "fish" at the same time. He's got a sign for yogurt.
He says "Oh" for cheerios and pinches his fingers together (trying to form an "o").
Maybe my favorite of his new developments: the head nod. Only for little E it's not just the head but the shoulders too. Forward, back, forward, back. Smack goes the head on the chair.
Possibly my least favorite is that he has a word for TV already, something like "deev" or sometimes "dee-dee".
He understands multiple part commands, like "go get that and bring it here." He even does it sometimes.
"No" is still the reigning sound and sentiment though; he's master the art of saying it while shaking his head and running the other direction.
Happy New Year
A new year, a new name for the blog.
Since Captain Chaos (aka little E) does not actually eat everything anymore the old title had to go.
We had a happy, and remarkably healthy, holiday and hope you all did too.
We made it back from our southwest adventure with minimal difficulties (other than dealing with an over-zealous security person before my first cup of coffee. Why on earth should I have to take a sweatshirt off a small child before taking him through the metal detector, the same sweatshirt he wore without incident on our trip out? Grrr.)
Our house was still standing. It was neither flooded nor torn apart by tornadoes. There was no ice on the cars. There are, in fact, still two newish, comfortable, and well tuned cars in our driveway. There is a living room full of toys. Enough toys to entertain a small village. Actually, probably a very large village and we are awaiting the shipment of 4 boxes from NM. Our cup, and house, runneth over with good fortune.
I think it's a good start to a great year.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Peek-a-boo
We continue our travels with a combined business/pleasure trip to lovely Phoenix, AZ. It was a delightful 62 degrees and sunny today.
E spent the day with his Dad and Granny seeing the sites (well, napping in the car while they saw the sights).
E spent the evening playing peek-a-boo with the Dean of very large university. He also had a blast flirting with the lovely daughters of said Dean, playing choo-choo (a word he pick up from his cousin) and reading books. And posing for pictures. The easiest way to get E to cheer up is to shove a camera in his face. Cheese!
We head back to New Mexico tomorrow; back to his favorite toy; a black lab named Molly.
On our trip out to Phoenix we stopped in the Petrified Forest National Park. The Painted Desert is beautiful but E never did spot a dinosaur. (He looked and looked though).
For a very small child, he's done a lot of traveling. He's been in:
IL, IN, MI, NY, MA, NH, ME, CT, NJ, PA, OH, NM, MO, NC, TN, AZ, and WI. That's 17 states already! And Canada. Not bad, huh? (amended to include the great state of WI, where E spent many a happy hour entertaining the other guests at the former Playboy resort. There are no Bunnies anymore, not even E's favorite little floppy-eared animals but the sophisticated little boy was more charming than Hef could ever hope to be).
E spent the day with his Dad and Granny seeing the sites (well, napping in the car while they saw the sights).
E spent the evening playing peek-a-boo with the Dean of very large university. He also had a blast flirting with the lovely daughters of said Dean, playing choo-choo (a word he pick up from his cousin) and reading books. And posing for pictures. The easiest way to get E to cheer up is to shove a camera in his face. Cheese!
We head back to New Mexico tomorrow; back to his favorite toy; a black lab named Molly.
On our trip out to Phoenix we stopped in the Petrified Forest National Park. The Painted Desert is beautiful but E never did spot a dinosaur. (He looked and looked though).
For a very small child, he's done a lot of traveling. He's been in:
IL, IN, MI, NY, MA, NH, ME, CT, NJ, PA, OH, NM, MO, NC, TN, AZ, and WI. That's 17 states already! And Canada. Not bad, huh? (amended to include the great state of WI, where E spent many a happy hour entertaining the other guests at the former Playboy resort. There are no Bunnies anymore, not even E's favorite little floppy-eared animals but the sophisticated little boy was more charming than Hef could ever hope to be).
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Holiday Greetings From Denver International Airport
local time: 9:33pm. Feels like 10:33pm since we're used to central time. Been on the road since 11:00am (central) this morning.
Travel itinerary:
Leg 1: drive to Indianapolis airport. In ice storm. 3.5 hrs in car. (Usual drive time is less than 2 hrs). Highlight of leg: There is a brand new airport in Indianapolis, open only 6 weeks. Did not know this until we drove by the old airport exit and found a defunct terminal. New airport an extra 15 minute drive away. Real highlight of leg: new airport is extremely family friendly and passenger service oriented. Plus everyone was helpful and nice; way over and above the norm.
Leg 2: fly from Indianapolis to Denver. Flight delayed about 1.5 hours. Small child held still for about 1.5 minutes on 3 hour flight.
Leg 3: sit in DIA airport waiting for airplane. Attempt to eat dinner in restaurant with VERY tired small child. Upon our arrival in Denver we were greeted with the news that our airplane was in Chicago. After getting to Denver it has to go to Salt Lake City then back to Denver. THEN it can take us to Albuquerque.
Legs 4 and 5 will be the flight to New Mexico then a 30 minute drive. Project time for head to meet pillow? around 3 am central.
Small boy is asleep now, snuggled up with his blankie and toy doggie in his stroller. I'm so wishing the camera was with me.
Travel itinerary:
Leg 1: drive to Indianapolis airport. In ice storm. 3.5 hrs in car. (Usual drive time is less than 2 hrs). Highlight of leg: There is a brand new airport in Indianapolis, open only 6 weeks. Did not know this until we drove by the old airport exit and found a defunct terminal. New airport an extra 15 minute drive away. Real highlight of leg: new airport is extremely family friendly and passenger service oriented. Plus everyone was helpful and nice; way over and above the norm.
Leg 2: fly from Indianapolis to Denver. Flight delayed about 1.5 hours. Small child held still for about 1.5 minutes on 3 hour flight.
Leg 3: sit in DIA airport waiting for airplane. Attempt to eat dinner in restaurant with VERY tired small child. Upon our arrival in Denver we were greeted with the news that our airplane was in Chicago. After getting to Denver it has to go to Salt Lake City then back to Denver. THEN it can take us to Albuquerque.
Legs 4 and 5 will be the flight to New Mexico then a 30 minute drive. Project time for head to meet pillow? around 3 am central.
Small boy is asleep now, snuggled up with his blankie and toy doggie in his stroller. I'm so wishing the camera was with me.
Monday, December 22, 2008
16 months old
These pictures were taken when E was 16 months and 1 day old. That was a couple of weeks ago but better late than never.
Now that E is 16 months old, it is high time for him to get to work and become a productive member of the family. You can see him hard at working building the Christmas tree. He also "helps" me with my research by testing all of my laptop's buttons.
Now that E is 16 months old, it is high time for him to get to work and become a productive member of the family. You can see him hard at working building the Christmas tree. He also "helps" me with my research by testing all of my laptop's buttons.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Out of the frying pan, into the fire
Stomach bug? All gone.
Ear infection? Check.
Possible side effects of antibiotic? same as stomach bug.
Days until 10 hour car-airport-plane-airport-plane-car trip out west? 2.5
Little E spent most of the morning (from 1 am on) screaming. Arching his back. Demanding we go from room to room. Demanding to be offered all types of food. Saying "no" to just about everything. Not sleeping. Not even wanting to watch TV.
Tylenol helped for a couple of hours but wore off long before the dosing interval was up.
Our new pediatrician's office has drop-in Saturday morning hours. We got there at nine. Picked up some Infant's Motrin on the way. After 10 minutes of screaming at the clinic we gave E the medicine.
There is no physically possible way that the medicine can work this fast but pain reliever almost always immediately changes E's disposition. No sooner had the dropper dispensed its last drop into his mouth than he turned back to his delightful cheerful normal self. Good thing too, since it was another hour and a half before we saw the doctor. We're talking a reverse incredible hulk transformation. The big green mean monster turns into a sweet happy baby.
We are 3 for 3 at this clinic: all three of the doctors we've seen (our "regular" doctor and 2 on-call doctors) have been great. Today's doc diagnosed a raging ear infection and sent us home while she called in the prescription.
Perhaps the difficulties of last week are already fading from my memory but I think I prefer the mellow, cuddly stomach-bug-baby, even with never-ending laundry, to the screaming, flailing ear-infection-baby in acute, writhing pain. Yet another aspect of motherhood I could not have anticipated: puke is better than pain.
On the up side, the little man weighs a whopping 21.8 lbs (fully clothed) up nearly 1.5 lbs from his worrisome 15 month weigh-in. He's turned into an eating machine. He still extremely picky but if he likes it; bring it on!
He's sleeping fitfully now. Hopefully he'll be good to go by the time we board the plane on Tuesday. We'll have plenty of Motrin on hand, just in case.
Here's a picture from the brief lull between illnesses when E was operating in full happy-toddler mode.
Ear infection? Check.
Possible side effects of antibiotic? same as stomach bug.
Days until 10 hour car-airport-plane-airport-plane-car trip out west? 2.5
Little E spent most of the morning (from 1 am on) screaming. Arching his back. Demanding we go from room to room. Demanding to be offered all types of food. Saying "no" to just about everything. Not sleeping. Not even wanting to watch TV.
Tylenol helped for a couple of hours but wore off long before the dosing interval was up.
Our new pediatrician's office has drop-in Saturday morning hours. We got there at nine. Picked up some Infant's Motrin on the way. After 10 minutes of screaming at the clinic we gave E the medicine.
There is no physically possible way that the medicine can work this fast but pain reliever almost always immediately changes E's disposition. No sooner had the dropper dispensed its last drop into his mouth than he turned back to his delightful cheerful normal self. Good thing too, since it was another hour and a half before we saw the doctor. We're talking a reverse incredible hulk transformation. The big green mean monster turns into a sweet happy baby.
We are 3 for 3 at this clinic: all three of the doctors we've seen (our "regular" doctor and 2 on-call doctors) have been great. Today's doc diagnosed a raging ear infection and sent us home while she called in the prescription.
Perhaps the difficulties of last week are already fading from my memory but I think I prefer the mellow, cuddly stomach-bug-baby, even with never-ending laundry, to the screaming, flailing ear-infection-baby in acute, writhing pain. Yet another aspect of motherhood I could not have anticipated: puke is better than pain.
On the up side, the little man weighs a whopping 21.8 lbs (fully clothed) up nearly 1.5 lbs from his worrisome 15 month weigh-in. He's turned into an eating machine. He still extremely picky but if he likes it; bring it on!
He's sleeping fitfully now. Hopefully he'll be good to go by the time we board the plane on Tuesday. We'll have plenty of Motrin on hand, just in case.
Here's a picture from the brief lull between illnesses when E was operating in full happy-toddler mode.
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