"no"

he says "no" now - quite clearly. just started last thursday. especially when you are coming at him with food and he doesn't want to eat it. he says "nuo nuooo" and runs under the dining room table. he also now says:
"ooohhh nuuuu" (aka oh no)
"nuduu" (aka noodle) and
"teebee" (TV)
"bee beee" (beep beep for car horn)
"peeeas" (please)


look at that round tummy on him. he likes to get on your belly and bounce as hard as he can. the more exaggerated your reaction, the better he likes it, and the harder he bounces. it hurts sometimes if you don't tense your stomach fast enough.

thomas loves all his new activities

is that not the cheesiest cheese you have ever seen? i mean, i am sure all of you with kids have the goofiest shots of your kids when they actually learn to smile for the camera. but it is funny isn't it? plus he is still chubby, so this pic shows him in all his rolly polly glory. little anime dimples and all. i think this is what william would look like if he gained 50 pounds.

on tuesday we went to mother goose toddler story time at dublin library. there were probably 30 toddlers there with moms/caretakers. it was CRAZY! thomas loved it. he loved watching the other kids, and following along with all the dancing and scarf waving. i need to get a pic next time. it only goes for about 2 months unfortunately.... and i don't want to pay a place like little gym. need to find another way to get playtime with other tots.

of course, when you say "smile thomas, say cheese!!!" you get this occasionally:


and after every shot, he has to get down and come over to see the pic i had just taken. so i started saying, "thomas thomas, wait wait! one more pic ok?? one more!"


------------------------------------
he has this little imitation ipod with 15 songs from Sponge Bob. we use it for poop changes to keep him still on the changing table. he knows the songs so well we can ask him to "Find the Sponge Bob Squarepants song!" and he just gets busy. little thumbs working that little dial, until he finds the right icon, hits play. sometimes, he scrolls through the icons, hitting play for each one, just to hear the beginning. then on the song you ask for, he lets the whole song play... or at least most of the song. wish i knew what was going on in that little brain of his.

back again with a Thomas update

they say like father like son. so true! william's morning bed hair...

thomas' morning bed hair... with more examples to come.
Hi everyone! sorry about the lack of activity on our blog but it has been really busy and time to blog has been usurped by busy work elsewhere. not to mention the need to sleep. warning... this is a long post. mostly just details i don't want to forget along with memorable pics.
you know what i need?? a video cam eyeball! then i could record the funny things he does w/o him knowing it. everytime i get the camcorder out, he stops doing what he is doing and just wants to see playback. little shyster!

william gets a goodbye kiss each morning... more like 2 or 3. i get kisses too. thomas loves to give us kisses. we call them marshmellow kisses b/c his little lips are SOO soft and completely wonderful to kiss. we've discovered that's why witches always eat babies in the fairy tales... they are so squishably delicious. :)

Thomas is now almost 20 months old! we can't believe how big he is. all the clichés are true... they grow up right b4 your eyes and b4 u know it, they are off to college. btw, this is a truly CUTE age. i keep thinking he can't get any cuter but this has to be it! b/c i can't stand it. i actually get sad thinking about him growing up and out of this stage.

here is a nifty trick: i showed him once that he can use a stick to get toys back out from under the computer armoire. he now knows exactly what to do. but he does get frustrated when it takes more than a couple tries to get it out. wonder where that trait came from...

i have him in bunches of activities now that it is september. there is a reason people with kids go by the school year. everything starts and ends with it! so every Tuesday we have a local church-sponsored, mothers/preschoolers event called MOPS. sara's mom (Regina) CONVINCED me to go and i LOVE it! and i love her for pestering me about it. for 2 hours i get to relax, eat yummy homemade goodies (frm other ladies in the group) and listen to the wisdom they have to share about raising kids and keeping home where the heart is. 2 of the Tuesdays each month are called "$2 Tuesdays". for only TWO dollars (that's only $1/hour), you drop your kid off, and bring anything you want to work on AWAY from kids. i am going to bring my laptop and catch up on emails! thursdays are Barnes & Noble days. we go to story time, catch up with some of the friends i've made there wth toddlers around thomas' age and let him run around until he is tired enough to nap. then grandparents come around 5pm (william's parents). they have been very devoted to coming every thursday, bringing us food and a little break from watching thomas.

fridays, we have mother goose story time at the dublin library. it starts tomorrow from 1:30-2pm. i think thomas will love it. it is geared specifically for his age and involves lots of songs, matching motions, dancing and waving scarves around.

thomas wanted to wear william's t-shirt one day. so william obliged by wrapping him up like a little sumo wrestler. he had lots of fun walking around flapping his arms.
and can you believe how much thomas looks like william when william was a little boy??! the only difference is personality. william was more of a quiet boy that would sit doing his little activities. probably more cautious and shy as well. thomas is one crazy busy little boy.

i'm just going to list some funny things he has been doing lately. it is hard to remember off the top of my head all the changes he has been going through lately. every week something new crops up!

thomas' lower teeth are crooked exactly the same way william's teeth are. and look! if you click on the full-size of this pic, even their tongues are the same shape. ha ha... they waste no time being completely silly together.

here's another winner. look at that concentration as he tries to copy what daddy is doing... tada!!!
he's eating like a typical toddler. has a good appetite but is picky. the food has to taste good to him. if i ask him to try it once, he usually does. but if he doesn't like it, he will NOT open that little mouth again... unless he sees that it is something different being offered. he is very good about examining what is on the spoon or fork as it is coming towards him. it is very cute, but very frustrating when you just want to eat so you can get out the door. makes u want to laugh and just squash him flat!

he drinks milk 3 times a day, about 3 cups. usually 6 oz in the morning when he wakes up. 1-2 cups before his mid-day nap and another cup in the evening b4 brushing his teeth. btw, we use a braun vibrating toothbrush on the low setting. it is a lifesaver and makes toothbrushing much easier. in the mornings, i will usually brush with a regular toothbrush so he can try to copy me. want him to at least learn how.
one thing i have noticed is he likes to chug milk b4 his nap. sometimes he will even drink over one pint! that's right, 10 oz, followed by 8 oz. down the hatch. i don't think i can even drink that much milk in one sitting.

he loves to play ball, rolling, throwing, kicking, any which way. we have this big exercise ball upstairs and a couple weeks ago, i got this great shot of him sitting, just as I rolled it towards him. all you see is 2 feet and hair. too bad his arms aren't long enough to show his finger tips around the sides :)

just yesterday, i was laying with him at nap time. since he sleeps on the twin, one of us has to lay next to him until he falls asleep. (yes this is ALL william's fault. he has undone a lot of my very good training in the sleep and eating areas.)
anyways, he was not wanting to take his nap. he kept pointing to his toys. so i told him he could get one toy and bring it back to the bed. this little guy, actually starts walking, but reeeeal slow. he NEVER walks slow. but there he was, one slow step at a time, not even going in a straight line!?!! can you believe this little creature?? so i told him to hurry up. he took 3 fast steps and then looked back at me, and proceeded to take slow little steps. sheesh!!! i can't believe at this age, they comprehend on that level, that they can delay bed time by slowing their actions down. amazing! completely frustrating wonderfully amazing!

another good moment was at barnes & noble last week. there were a lot of kids (mostly older than him) at the train table and no free trains. so thomas was hovering near me just observing. then one boy (who turned out to be 3) happened to put both his trains down. well, thomas quickly zipped in, swiftly grabbed the smaller of the two, and zipped back over to me. he stared at the other boy (who was now crying) and "hid"the train behind his back. LOL!
the other boy's mom told him to stop crying and to share with the baby. "he's just a baby, you can share, you still have one." but he was not happy. so i leaned down and said to thomas, "you know that little boy is crying b/c you took his train. can you please go and give it back?"
to my surprise and joy, thomas took the train out from behind his back, looked at the boy, and walked over to him and held it out. the boy grabbed it. his mom said "look! the baby is sharing with you! how nice of him to share. can you share back and give one to him?" the boy did not want to share. so thomas decided to read a book with me. the mom gave her boy 4 chances to share as he choo-choo-ed around the train table. each time, he did not want to give either train up. the last time, she finally said last chance, and when he didn't give one up, she grabbed them both out of his hands, and half carried/dragged him crying and kicking out of the store. thomas cried just a little when he saw that but i told him it was ok, b/c it was his mommy. then he went over and picked up both trains. i was so proud of him that he gave that train back to that boy :)


one final moment. today, he was not wanting to nap (yet again) but this time he stayed on the bed. he re-discovered his puppy stuffed animal. he kept hugging and kissing and putting his feet on puppy, then squealing or giggling. lifting up his ears, pulling the nose side to side. i was tired so i closed my eyes but every time i peeked on him, he was hugging puppy, talking to him, giggling, rolling around, trying to find different ways to love puppy. (again, need that videocam eyeball replacement!!) a couple times, he just flopped down, with puppy on top of him, and all four arms and legs wrapped around puppy.
i must have drifted off to sleep for a bit, because when i opened my eyes next, all was still in thomas-land...

thomas singing... sort of

you can almost make out the second stanza ("up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, etc...") if you listen REEEEEALLy closely. he loves music but really can't sing. funny boy...

family visit

catherine's side of the family on recent lunch time visit - her sister, Anita, with their 2 kids, Ariana (3.5) and Joshua (1.5). grandpa has a break from grad school.

sleeping

various sleeping positions of thomas.

thomas rolls around a lot so we have his mattress on the ground so he doesn't fall too far. i like to sleep next to him but have to use a pillow guard otherwise, he lands right on top of me.
here he is again using his pillow - the flattest pillow we could find.

rolled onto the floor, dragging blanket with him.



back on his bed

hooo hum.... weddings are sooooo boring.

what's a kid to do waiting for parents to finishing yapping?


yeah... ok yeah, bye.... yeah catch ya later.


hope they don't discover my bottle o booze...


gotta eat. those booze are really strong. gotta get some food in my stomach to soak it up.

ah, finally home and ready for bed. quit taking pictures of me. can a guy get any privacy around here??

catherine's taking a blog vacation...

so here are some recent pics of thomas. keeps growing up!

We've been so busy that it's been tough to find time to post! William started a new job back on June 18th and i've been swamped...so that means Catherine gets less time to be on the computer...but we're still taking lots of pictures and videos!




-william

learning to drink from a cup

when he wants to drink - he is very adept at drinking from a regular cup. once he's satisfied his thirst, he likes to test "spilling is bad". he had already soaked his shirt that day, so i stripped that off and just put a bib on him. sidebar: don't you just love their round, little tummies??

i have just reprimanded him and yet, i am still taking photos. i think that confuses him sometimes. but from that little droop in his mouth, he understands that i am not happy.

yet, a second later, he makes sure i see right where the water puddle is. and he doesn't stop pointing until i clean it up.


i have been on craigslist a lot lately. trying to find certain items that i don't want to pay for new. sometimes i get tired of all the effort though, and just buy it. i am ready to buy an elmo doll. i have been having a really hard time finding a small plush elmo, with no electronics. i just want a soft, huggable elmo doll. but the one at nordstrom's is $20 for this little tiny 6" elmo. ridiculous.

i also want a tricycle with pedals... but none of them are small enough for thomas' short little legs. i went to walmart and didn't find anything there either. oh well... just have to wait for him to grow.


on another note, i was talking to my mom today. she reads my blog (hi MOM!) and she said ("don't take this wrong way, but i think you love thomas too much.") that i was fawning over thomas. yes i agree. she said i really shouldn't spoil him. i agree. so i told her it was her fault for not pushing me to have kids earlier. now that i have been deprived for 10 years, i am trying to suck up as much of the experience as i can. and all i can see are his sparkly little eyes. ha ha sorry! she was always saying, oh take your time, don't rush into it. maybe it was reverse psychology, but it failed.

well, i am strict about some things. no sweets other than fruit and toddler alphabet cookies. no chips or other junk food except at special events (baby-showers or other parties). no hitting, bitting, avoiding the toothbrush or disregarding naptime is tolerated and goes strictly punished with 2 min time out in "jail". uh... what else. i guess those are the main ones.
anyways, sorry to our friends if i am tiring you all out with thomas love, "oh sheesh, there she goes again. can't she think of anything better to blog about??" but i can't help it! :)

car seat safety

in case you are interested, car-safety.org has a pretty comprehensive list of resources and FAQS on infant/toddler car seat safety. i learned why it is so important to have both the car seat and thomas strapped down as tight as possible as well as why he should really be rear-facing until he hits 30 lbs. did you know that only 4% of all crashes are rear and rear-offset crashes? interesting read on the mechanics of car crashes esp. as related to little ones.
also, it is a commonly floated myth that the car seat is less safe if the toddler can kick the seat, or has knees bent when they are rear-facing. probably started by parents who want the ease of front-facing. and... i also learned that all current car seats on the market exceed government standards. so the price is more related to the luxuriousness of the seat, not the safety. anyways, good reading!

this summer is getting tough

he demanded to see the lime that i was cutting. after examining, he bit
right in. hrmmm.... kind of funny tasting...
need a second bite to make sure it really tastes as sour as it is.
ok, this time, he really gets it. but after that, he still bit into it two more times. babies are so funny!

he has certainly thrown us a curve ball lately. naps are so hard to predict. sometimes it is 12-2, sometimes 3-4:30, sometimes 3:30 to 6pm... i never know when he is going to go down. i used to insist on a certain time, but then we would just lay there for an hour, sometime more and he would not fall asleep. about 3 weeks ago, i started just waiting until he is ready to plop down and go to sleep. it is much easier and once he was so tired by 2:45, he actually went to his bed, tucked himself in and fell asleep by himself!!! that was so cute - i was almost overwhelmed with the urge to wake him up and hug him.

we have also started bypassing naps when it just isn't convenient. i.e. when we have special events. on sat we had a baby shower right at his nap time. he only slept for 30 minutes on the car ride there, but he was soooo exhausted by 8:30pm that he fell asleep in 10 minutes and didn't wake up until 8am. that was great.... almost like being able to sleep in :)

at least he still sleeps pretty well through the night. avg of 10 hrs a night. BUT he almost always wakes up at some point, storms over to our room (he sleeps in a twin now) and demands daddy. so daddy jumps out of bed and goes to sleep with thomas for the remainder of the night. sometimes as soon as he sees William rolling out of bed, he turns around, runs back and plops into bed. as long as he knows daddy is coming and sees him lay down, he goes right back to sleep. daddy has Sleep SPOILED thomas. yes siree, all of my training has gone right out the door.

one thing i'm not looking forward to that last set of molars coming in. i am sure that it will take at least a few weeks of clingy-ness, as well as one of us sleeping with him at night to get him through. hope we don't have a heat wave when that happens. that will just make it worse.

and he has been on a food strike for the last 3 days as well. he is sooo picky, looking at everything very closely before deciding whether to allow it to go into his mouth or not. and if he doesn't like the way it tastes, it comes right back out. sometimes if he doesn't like the way it smells, he won't even open up. needless to say, he has still been pooping at least once or twice a day, so i figure he is getting enough.

a last word about temper tantrums... how to describe it. hmmmm.... an angry bee? a mad puppy? knashing of teeth and banging of head on the floor? it is all those things rolled in one. and you want to laugh sooooo bad - but at this age, he knows you are laughing at him and it makes him even more mad. so you try to keep a straight face and ask him what is wrong. it is really hard. and he has learned to pout - he does it exquisitely well. i will have to post pics of that. no idea where he got that b/c i don't think either william or i pout... do i? don't think so. maybe from tv. who knows!

hide-a-computer

we moved into our house in 1999. i have always wanted to get a piece to fit into the spot next to our fireplace so that we could better use the space. but custom-built furniture is not cheap and when we moved in, we had to spend money on landscaping, window coverings, etc. last year, we put hardwood flooring in. but this year - it was finally time to get the built-in!!
we found this great guy that builds things in his home workshop. he was the middle of 3 estimates i got. the guy that was cheaper was such a flake, i didn't trust him to do quality work.
i am so glad i went with this guy. he did a beautiful job and i love how the piece matches our dinning set. it is solid wood, walnut, with a maple interior. and when you open it up - voila! a computer desk emerges! :)

we are both really happy with the piece and it is a great place to tuck everything (aka junk) into. plus, Thomas is so facsinated with the computer, it is nice to be able to put it out of sight, so he is not constantly asking for the computer.
of course, he knows it's there, but at least when he doesn't see it, it is easier to distract him with other activities.
if you look closer, he made sure that the wood grain all goes the same way on all the doors in the front. i thought that was a nice touch. plus since we didn't get a true built-in, we get to take it with us, if we ever decide to move.


if anyone needs a built-in custom made, this is the guy to call:
Meadowlark Woodworks
Russell Monroe
(925) 689-4966

some cool artsy pics of thomas that we got on our trip to LA. should have buttoned that middle button on his onesie. oh well...

still organizing bottles :)

order and chaos

it is hard to see exactly what these little people are going to grow up to be, but by this age you definitely start to see some inclinations. we noticed that thomas has a thing for patterns and order. i.e. if there are 3 light switches in a row, he likes them all up or down. if there are 4 shutter panels on a window, he likes them all open, or all closed. if there is any deviation, he exclaims, points anxiously, then goes and makes it all symmetrical. if he can't reach, he will point until you help him make it symmetrical.

we have a costco pack of water bottles in a sideboard by the front door. he loves to take those all out, one by one, and put them in a row or a semi-circle. at the end, he does the olympic layout finale pose to make sure you are clapping for him :)


we also have a bunch of those hotel shampoos and lotions in our lower bathroom drawers - probably from the last 10 years or so. he used to just take them all out, willy nilly. now he takes out only the ones he wants and groups them collectively. a week ago, i was walking into the bathroom and as i rounded the corner, i was stopped in my tracks by this nice little formation, placed squarely in the middle of the entrance to our closet. if you notice, all of the white caps are together, as are the gold caps.


yesterday morning, he decided to stop with the bottles (only black caps) and started lining up O's. they were in the den, so he ran back and forth several times to complete his row. as he was placing the 9th or 10th one down, he bumped some of them and got so mad he was almost ready to cry. so i came over and helped straighten out the strays for him.


here's a winner from just this morning. these are organized on the edge of our bathtub. it is a favorite staging area of his. again, notice similar bottles grouped together. pretty amazing!!


of course he is a little boy and definitely has destruction mode as well. but that is usually once he is bored with an item, or when he is tired/cranky. so maybe we have a budding engineer or architect. or maybe one of those chinese acrobats that can balance 40 plates while riding a unicycle. ha ha...