Daddy's mini-me

Nicholas has taken to picking up the remote control, pointing it at the tv while pushing buttons, and asking for baseball. Now, he doesn't push the correct buttons and "baseball" sounds more like "bay-bah" or something even further off, but baseball is definitely what he wants on the tv.

From 2010 September

I'm outnumbered.

"Mompetitors"

Via Wes, a little humor for your Monday morning on the insanity of raising kids in an Internet age.

Weekend Away

It is time for our weekly update of the blog, but this week I have no photos to post.

Okay, for the 2 people still reading after that opening . . . .

Nicholas spent the weekend with his Grandma Kathleen and Uncle Andrew while Joe and I went to D.C. for our first weekend away since Nicholas was born. We have each individually been away from him for longer periods, but we had never left him with someone else overnight before.

But from all accounts things went well, he was at least mostly well behaved, and they had a good time. Nicholas definitely became more attached to my mom. When he couldn't find her after we got there, he went to where the baby gate often is, stopped, and reached out his arms yelling "Mama!" loudly and plaintively. (I am "Ommy" and Grandma is "Mama" in Nicholas-ese. It is taking some getting used to for me.) And they came up with some new activities that Nicholas was annoyed Joe and I didn't know the rules to. (Apparently when he pulls on my mom's animal quilt I am supposed to lay it on the ground for him to walk on and point to animals. Who knew? He was indignant when I spread it out on the couch for him to look at, and pulled it to the ground with a glare.)

Anyway, Joe and I had a good weekend as well. We definitely missed Nicholas and were excited to get back to him, but it was also refreshing to have some time to ourselves. No parenting, no work, no responsibilities.

I will admit that there were times earlier in Nicholas' life when I desperately wanted to run away, when I craved a trip without him, but this weekend wasn't like that. I was actually sad to not have the weekend with Nicholas. I had a wonderful time and I think we really needed the time away, but I didn't feel like I was running. I attribute this shift in my feelings to daycare. Nicholas has now been in daycare fulltime for almost 2 months and for the past month he has been there close to 50 hours a week. And so rather than feeling trapped and isolated like I sometimes did when at home with a completely dependent and mute baby, I treasure the couple hours a day and weekends with my fun, helpful, interactive little boy. But between taking care of him, working most nights until half an hour before bed, and commuting 10-12 hours a week, I was worn out.

Hopefully the weather next weekend permits fun activities. Because I am now refreshed and looking forward to the Nicholas time in a week.

On a completely unrelated note, Nicholas is apparently still terrified of bubblebath. We decided to try again since it had been a few months and he loves bubbles. Apparently he only loves bubbles in small quantities and not in his bath. He shrieked and refused to get in and ran out of the bathroom. I'm baffled.

Wordless Wednesday: Ready, Set, Go!

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

Happy Fall!

It was cool this morning and the cryroom at church is always freezing, so we dressed Nicholas in some of his new fall clothes. How spiffy does he look?

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

Bubbles

When I went to pick Nicholas up at school this afternoon one of the teachers was blowing bubbles for the kids to try to catch. And Nicholas was so focused that I was able to watch him for a bit before he noticed me. So I will try to paint a picture for you.

The teacher stood blowing bubbles as one kid reached for them, two stood staring in wonder, one sat on the floor whimpering, and Nicholas danced/jumped up and down gleefully yelling "bubble!" The teacher waited a minute before blowing more and Nicholas (still bouncing from foot to foot) yelled "bubble!" again. "Say please," she asked him. "Peas!" Nicholas exclaimed, so proud of himself for this word he only perfected a couple days ago, while also scratching his chest in the sign they taught him for please. Another round of bubbles. Some of the other kids began to lose interest and the teacher went to get Nicholas' lunch bag. Nicholas was not done, however, and when the teacher came back near him he looked up and asked "more-more" while dutifully doing the sign for more. "More bubbles?" "Bubble!" he exclaimed. She blew one more set of bubbles. Then she handed Nicholas his lunch bag and asked him to take it to his mommy. He looked up confused and looked towards the door, and finally saw me. "Hi, Nicholas. Are you having fun?" "Bubble!!!"

The really cool postscript is that at dinner when Joe asked Nicholas what he did at school today he replied, "Bubble!" That is the first time he has answered that question, and he actually answered it correctly.

Tacy!!!

Stacy and her fiance, Paul, came in for a visit last weekend and we all had a great time. Nicholas is still calling for "Tacy," which is his name for Stacy (and occasionally for Paul too).

Nicholas played and played and played, but I took advantage of most of the indoor playtime to take care of household stuff, so I don't have any pictures. Based on some of the new "games" Nicholas has this week, though, I can guess some of the things they did.

What I do have pictures of is our trip to the neighborhood park. Nicholas must have made 15 or 20 circuits climbing up various sets of steps and then going down the slide.

I love this action shot because you can see him racing to get back to the stairs to go again. The little boy is becoming quite the runner. It must be the laps he is continually doing around the house.

From 2010 September

I took tons of pictures of Nicholas gleefully going down the slide, but the lighting was really bad, which I couldn't tell until I uploaded the pictures. But even with bad lighting you can clearly see Nicholas' excitement:

From 2010 September

And here is Nicholas with his Aunt Stacy, although he was more interested in checking out the big fishtank nearby than in posing for a picture:

From 2010 September

Nicholas played so hard that he fell asleep in the car on the way home from taking them to the airport Sunday evening. That is the first time he has fallen asleep since turning to face forwards because he is usually too focused on everything he can see out the front windshield. But he had played really hard all weekend and been too excited to nap much.

As always, the only bad thing about a Stacy visit is that it makes it that much harder to not have her here. And now Nicholas agrees with me. I fully expect him to ask for "Tacy" again tomorrow.

15-month doctor's visit

I took Nicholas to the pediatrician for his 15-month checkup yesterday (yes, a little late), so here are his official stats:
Length: 32 inches
Weight: 24 pounds

I have my doubts about the accuracy of the length measurement since he was squirming a ton and she sort of estimated (and because according to that he shrunk 1/4 inch since his sick visit 3 weeks ago even though we know he has grown since then). But close enough.

The doctor's set of questions were actually sort of interesting this time because we've stopped reading the month-by-month books and so have no idea where he is "supposed" to be at this point. And so as the doctor was going through his list of questions it was enlightening to see how Nicholas stacks up. Rest assured, the doctor is very happy with Nicholas.

The question that was most interesting to me was about language. The doctor wanted to know how many words Nicholas has. I stared at him blankly. I honestly have no idea. It turns out that what he really wanted to know was whether it was close to 10. Apparently 10 words is the 15-month benchmark. That made the question easy because I bet he exceeds that most mornings before he leaves for school at 7:30.

Anyway, for my own curiosity and because this blog has become our record of all things Nicholas (hmm, speaking of which, I need to back this thing up), I'm going to try to compile a list here of his words.

• Words he uses regularly (or at least as regularly as they enter his life) and says relatively clearly: cracker, (gotta) go, mommy, dada, uppy, more, bowl, bye-bye, night-night, ball, animal, Elmo, Big Bird, Ernie, book, pool, bus, yummy
• Words he uses regularly, but they mean something related: hello (phone), apple (grape or other round fruit), meow (cat), choo-choo (train), agua (water), moo (cow)
• Words he uses regularly, but with garbled (although consistent) pronunciations: high chair, dog, stroller, banana, block, fish, bath, school, home, truck
• Words he uses every one in awhile, but are not reliable: elephant, duck, thank you, grandpa, swing

There are probably some others I'm forgetting, but that is close. He also shakes his head no, signs "please," and blows whenever anything is hot (including if it is hot in the car when we get in, as though he is going to cool it off). All in all, he can communicate quite well . . . as long as it is about food, animals, transportation, or Sesame Street.

Showing Off New Skills

We had an absolutely wonderful day yesterday! Since Nicholas' daycare was closed for Labor Day, Joe and I each spent half the day with Nicholas and half the day working. And while we paid for it by having to stay up late to finish class prep, it was totally worth it because Nicholas was in a great mood all day and we did so many fun things.

We went for a walk, played for a long time at the park, thinned out his toys to pack away those he had outgrown, played with the new toys he "discovered" when he could actually see what was there, and took a quick visit to the pool since it was our last chance until Memorial Day.

We took a couple videos of Nicholas at the pool to document what he is able to do this year. It will be interesting to see what he thinks of the pool next summer. (click on the images below to see Nicholas "swimming")

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

Nicholas also surprised me yesterday by sliding all by himself (apparently Joe knew he could do this). I didn't have the camera, but I remembered it when we went to the park this evening, so you can click on the image below to see:

From 2010 September

Also, on a random note, Nicholas apparently grew sometime in the last week and it is all in his legs. He can now climb down the stairs outside because his legs are long enough to reach.

Nicholas Mnemonic

Having a child may some day make me a better teacher.  We'll see.  In any event, it has opened my eyes in new ways to how people (in this case, one rambunctious fifteen-month-old) learn to do new things.  I hadn't really realized that Nicholas would be receptive to mnemonic devices, that is, little ways of making it easier to remember a task (a good example from grade school, the order of the planets via the mnemonic, "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas," though that dates me as pre-Pluto's demotion).

We've been working with Nicholas for a few weeks on using utensils, mostly by letting him try to feed himself his yogurt or cottage cheese.  The forks that he uses just aren't sharp enough to get food on them, and usually the solid food we give him is slippery, either vegetables or pasta/meat with sauce of some kind on it.  So we've been using spoons and dairy, because even if you do it wrong, you can usually get some to stick to the spoon just by swishing it around.

So he's been doing that, but with only limited success.  Today at snack time, I'd given him some cottage cheese, and for some reason (it wasn't conscious), I decided to try to help him by holding my hand over his to show him how to do it.  Fine.  While I was doing it though, I very carefully said, "Down, and Scoop, and Eat!"  When spoken theatrically, this line produced a laugh from Nicholas, so I did it again on the next bite.  And then I let go of the spoon and just said it.  And with a way to focus, he managed to successfully scoop himself his snack for quite a while!

At some point, of course, the bowl got too low for his skill set, so I had to help him finish.  But now I'm going to have to think of more mnemonic devices as we work on more skills with him.  Good to know.

Game One

Today was an important day in Nicholas's young life, even if he will not remember it.  Today he attended his very first Major League Baseball game, at Camden Yards in Baltimore, between the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays.  We all had an awesome time.

We've been looking for an opening to take Nicholas to a game all season, but since most games start at 7pm, it meant Sunday or bust, and until a few weeks ago he was napping for a decent chunk of the late afternoon, which made it difficult to make a 1:30 Sunday game.  But this morning he took a two-hour nap, and seemed refreshed and beaming enough that we decided today was our day.  We put him into his Orioles shirt (a Nick Markakis "jersey"), grabbed our Orioles hats, and headed downtown.

Because the weather is beautiful this weekend, we ended up having to wait on line to buy tickets, which Nicholas tolerated (just barely), mostly because he and Sarah sat in the shade while I worked my way through the line.

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

There were almost 29,000 people in attendance at today's game (most games I attend these days average about 15,000 or so, so we had a big crowd by Baltimore standards).  And the game lived up to our hopes.  The Orioles played terrific offense, if a slightly porous defense.  The ball was flying—the Rays had four home runs, plus one for the O's—and there were several plays at the plate (all in one inning in a row as the Orioles stormed back to re-take the lead).

From 2010 September

Now, we didn't quite see all of the action.  Nicholas did very well, and sat still for about three innings. He even discovered that he could sit on his own, which entertained him for a solid inning or so:

From 2010 September

Then he wanted to get up and walk about, so we walked out to the concourse, attached his backpack/leash (yes, they make those), and he was off and running:

From 2010 September

He did a few circles, and then realized that the game was still going on and charged through the tunnel to get back to the field.

From 2010 September

We ended up wandering out to the center field area and Eutaw Street, which is closed off and part of the stadium, and so has a concourse with food, shops, and wide open areas for new walkers to roam. Within about 20 minutes we figured we had exhausted him, so we ambled back to our seats along the third-base line and got Nicholas his first stadium treat. What else but a pretzel? Classic, edible, and a food he can eat anyway! He sat very carefully eating it and watching the game, as you can see:

From 2010 September

After that the game got really exciting. In the top of the 6th the Rays hit two home runs to go ahead 5-4, but the O's scored four in the bottom of the inning to go back up 8-5, including three consecutive plays at the plate. Nicholas enjoyed all the excitement around him, and joined in the applause:

From 2010 September

By that point he was pretty tired. We ended up leaving at the middle of the 7th inning so that we could be in the car to listen to the end of the game. And as it turns out, Nicholas is a bit of a good-luck charm. I've been to maybe 25 or 30 games in the six years I've lived in Baltimore, and I think I've seen the Orioles win maybe (maybe) twice. Nicholas goes to his first game and they win an exciting close game. Go figure.

While wandering, one of the ushers asked us if it was his first game, to which we enthusiastically responded, "yes!" He kindly pointed us to the fan assistance center, where Nicholas got a certificate for his first game!

From 2010 September

The only thing we didn't get to do was sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." On Sundays, apparently, the O's play "God Bless America" at the 7th inning stretch instead, and still play the John Denver song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." This was truly disappointing, not least because I've been singing "Take Me Out" to Nicholas since back when he was Peanut (i.e., before he was born). It also violates my sense of propriety. "Take Me Out the Ballgame" has been part of baseball for nearly a century. Not to sing it at a major league stadium seems to me so blatantly un-American that it undoes any good karma that comes from singing "God Bless America." But the Orioles have made their decision.

Anyway, I don't want that to ruin a good, exciting post. We had a great time, and Nicholas spent the hours between our departure and bedtime shouting "bay-baw!" every few minutes, so I think we may try to get him to another game soon. And if not before the end of this season, we definitely are going to be making plans for next season as soon as the schedule comes out.

Rock Climber in Training

We spent the morning with my parents and one of my brothers at some cool public gardens a little south of their house, which Nicholas thought was awesome because there were tons of rocks to climb on. By chance I had dressed him today in the shirt I brought back from my rock climbing adventures that says "Rock Climber in Training" and has a picture of a bear in climbing gear. You can't really see the shirt in the pictures because of the clips for Nicholas' monkey leash, but the leash actually functioned a lot like a belay line, so even that is fitting, I think.

Nicholas was interested in touching some of the plants, liked the ponds and fountains (although he was mad that I wouldn't let him go "uppy" into the fountains), enjoyed running around, and thought the butterflies were interesting (too bad he tried to pet them).

But really he was all about anything that presented a challenge and resembled climbing in any way. He walked across stone pathways and stairs really intently, working hard at dealing with the uneven surfaces and varied heights.

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

He enjoyed the children's garden, especially the tree house (and stairs leading up and down) and tree tunnel:

From 2010 September

From 2010 September

But I think his favorite part was this random large rock he decided to climb.

From 2010 September

Uncle Andrew was sitting on the rock and Nicholas wanted up, but got very mad when we passed him up. So Andrew got up and we started on our way. But Nicholas insisted we had to go back to the rock. And then promptly started trying to climb it. He only needed a tiny bit of help getting up, but then got pretty scared at the top and needed to be lifted down. There is a video here, but it is a huge file so I'll only leave it up for a few weeks.

A delightful day all around!