Don't know where he picked it up...

...but A shakes hands now. We didn't teach him. I was someplace I can't remember now where we were all shaking hands and A held out his hand to the person we were greeting. I wish I could remember where we were when he did that.

He did it again today at the doctor's office. It's so strange what he picks up.

His latest favorite things: watching airplanes and helicopters. He hears a plane and holds a finger up to the sky. If he's near a window, he peeks his head out.

We have a "Little Golden Book" but A is not impressed with it. He is impressed with the picture of the Pokey Little Puppy on the back cover, so we'll have to get one of those.

First Day of Autumn

Sunny SD was supposed to get a major storm, with thunder and lightening and everything, and we got maybe an hour's worth of rain on Saturday.

I'm writing this from my old screen that was SO BIG ten years ago when C and I got hitched and now looks so tiny and quaint. A threw a book at my beautiful flatscreen last Friday and that was the end of it. You can actually see the impact site (and not much else). No workee. Sigh.

Friday I wanted to join the circus. Friday night A didn't sleep and both C and I wanted to join the circus Saturday morning. Last night was better so we're all still here and A is not banned to a cat carrier, which has been the follow-up threat.

But we're still keeping him.

We went to Sea World Saturday and looked at the penguins and puffins, which were fascinating to A. A played in one of the sand play areas with a shovel and bucket. A pair of Sea World employees came through the play area, walking an arctic fox on a leash. This was super cool until the fox started pissing in the sand box. Really. I'm trying to be as dirt-friendly as I can be with A, but after that I felt like jumping on A every time he went to eat the sand. The employees did nothing but look slightly abashed.

At least he'll have immunity to arctic fox things or be a candidate for a very special episode of House where the little baby gets an arctic-fox-transmitted parasite from a play area.

It was some whoop de doo music weekend at Sea World. A loves music. He starts bopping his head and clapping. We ran into a R&B band on our way out and listened to them for a while since A enjoyed it so much. His new favorite word is, "Look!" which is usually "Look look look." This is accompanied by a lot of pointing.

How's the walking? He's doing two or three steps on his own now, not a ton. His confidence is still not there. He's trying to walk in hard places, like sand and on the bed.

Today A and C went on the carousel while I was at my plumeria society meeting. I won three more cuttings in the raffle. I should go buy a lotto ticket.

Walking

We had a lovely weekend (although I wanted more sleep today). We had lunch with J&T Saturday on Coronado by the pretty pretty water, had a picnic at the Presidio yesterday and visited the museum there.

A's been on the cusp of walking since his birthday. He's taken steps on his own between C and me (and between pieces of furniture and each of us where he's not holding on), but it doesn't seem like walking. He's got no problems with the strength or coordination or balance; A's just not convinced yet that he can walk. It's completely cognitive.

But that may be a-changing. Yesterday he kept standing up from a squat (on a steep hillside) and taking a step or two. So he's really close. He just has to decide that he knows how to walk.

Why does he always figure this out when I'm not looking?

Pencils.

He just figured out how to make marks on a piece of paper with a pencil.

Pens and pencils have thus far been oblong tapping things of no special significance.

Now we're in trouble.

the banana bread incident

Today I thought we'd have some Mother-Son baking bonding time. There were a couple bananas left over from A's bout with herpangina when he was only on liquids, but they were banana bread-tastic.

I put the bananas in a bowl, gave A a spoon, and showed him how to mush them up. He thought this was super, didn't fling too many everywhere, and did a good job. (I say "Good job!" four hundred million billion times a day now.) I put together the rest of the batter, and A happily stirred and ate banana mush.

Then it was time for the bananas to be added to the rest of the batter. Oh no, lots of screaming. Screaming at a volume and pitch I didn't know he was capable of. I showed him how I was adding it to the big bowl of batter, and he tried to eat the batter. Of course, it has raw egg in it and of course, I've read Marion Nestle's What to Eat so I'm no longer eating batter with raw eggs. So I explain to him that he can't eat it and that there's salmonella and the rates of salmonella poisoning have increased exponentially since I was a kid so I'm going to have to get pasteurized eggs for him to eat batter, and then I realize I'm trying to explain salmonella to a one-year-old.

I can't wait for him to have language.

Serious boy

We had swimming today. A wanted to sleep. He spent a lot of time with his head on my shoulder.

He also banged his face on the floor this afternoon, giving himself a vicious bloody lip. Once he got over the whole blood in the mouth thing, he didn't seem to mind. Now he's yelling his head off and refusing to go to sleep. Oh dear, I think we're in for a napping drive-by.

Last week, we went to a swimming instructor training session. They had a guest teacher in to teach their swimming instructors new techniques. A didn't trust her. Maybe it was the late hour, but every time she tried to take A for a demonstration, he'd start to wail. He'd let our normal swim instructor take him for a swim, but not the new lady.

The molars are almost through. Whew.

Car seat drama

It should be car seat trauma. We bought a cheaper, smaller car seat for C's car because we know we'll be traveling by plane in the next year (or two or three) and the grand seat doesn't fit in plane seats. I know that seems silly but these seats are huge.

Buying the smaller seat was its own comic farce where we discovered no convertible car seat fits in the center seat of C's car after we'd taken back the smaller seat on the grounds that it didn't fit. Then we ended up back in Target five hours later buying the same seat we'd returned earlier that day.

The problem is that A cries when he sits in this seat for very long. It's not as well padded, the angle and width of the seat is such that his head goes to an uncomfortable angle when he's sleeping. But all of this is nothing against the fact that he cries when he's awake and in the seat. Our guy is pretty easy-going and often sleeps in the car. Crying means something's wrong. He cried all the way back from the Wild Animal Park last week, which I thought was because he was still sick. But he cried just as much yesterday when he's perfectly well.

So yesterday, after listening to much crying while driving around doing normal Saturday errands, we decided to get another swanky car seat and keep the other seat as a travel one. This means we'll be scraping for the next couple weeks to pay for the seat, but A actually burbled happily in the new seat yesterday so it's worth it.

There was drama in buying it. It was like a what not to do for customer service. We wanted to buy it at Target, since the color at Target matches C's car better. Can you check to see if you have one in the back, I ask the Target person who comes to the little beep. Sorry, ma'am, we don't do that. (Funny, the manager I talked to a week ago did.) But take this number to Guest Services and they'll check other stores for you. Oh, the computer's not working at Guest Services. But the Guest Services person will give me the phone number of the other Targets so I can call and find one there. (Not so they can call. So I can call.) I actually called another Target before I finally got through to someone who said, "Okay, I'll check, no I don't need the number," and then hung up on me. So we bought the car seat at the baby hellhole and I think I'm going to write a letter to Target explaining why I took my $220 to their competitor.

The other baby drama is that I fed A some Kashi multigrain crackers and he had a minor allergic reaction to them. Of course, they are 12-grain crackers and it's impossible to troubleshoot from there. So he's back on less-grainy crackers and we'll try and figure which of the 12 grains he's allergic to. He loves crackers right now.

Baby food news: he loves, loves, loves the Peach Perfection All-Fruit smoothies from Jamba Juice. I had a strawberry one and he thought that was okay, but once he had a bite of C's, oh my, that was it, lots of frantic and insistent pointing to C's cup. Once he figures out straws, we'll be in serious trouble. I think he ate a third of C's smoothie.

Labor Day Weekend Update

Wow, more than a week! It's been damn hot here. It felt cooler last night and so I'm hoping things have taken a turn for the less broiling.

A was sick for most of last week. This ended up in a couple days of non-stop crying and screaming which was enough to drive me around the bend. The poor guy just didn't understand that I couldn't fix his poor sore throat. C would get home and I'd be jabbering to myself and unable to communicate.

Thursday our dear friends showed up, which was lovely. A got over his sickness before they left so he was back to his cheerful little self. We went to the Wild Animal Park, the bookstore, the farmer's market and IKEA. It's wonderful having them visit and we miss them madly now.

A and I had swimming yesterday. It was lovely. There's only one other kid in the class, an 11-week-old who looks tiny. It's amazing the difference a year makes. We may be going to another lesson this week as part of a training session for new swim instructors. A's such an easy-going guy that I think he'd be up for another swim lesson this week.

I've been up since 4AM and I'm not thrilled about that. But it's nice and cool, at least.