Discovering magnetism

Yes, all you geeks out there will be thrilled to hear A has discovered magnetism.

I have a large, powerful magnet (a little smaller than a hockey puck) on a long stick to pick up stray pins after sewing. It lives under the stairs. A found it today and stuck it to the railing of the stairs, which lit his little face up like Christmas. Then he had to get it off the railing, and that got him frustrated enough that he started yelling in frustration at the end. We let him figure it out and he did get the magnet off the railing. He also discovered in the process something about how levers work.

Then he walked over to me, brandishing this stick which is longer than he is, and stuck it to his high chair, where he left it. Magnets might be neat-o but the attention span is just not that long right now.

Photos and walking and plumerias, oh my

The boy is walking. We've had a whirlwind of a weekend. Saturday we cleaned and saw our Navy pilot's photos from around the world, and that was fabulous. A sat down in his lap and handed him a book. Don't know what it is about that family, but the babies and animals love them.

This morning we did a photo shoot with my decreasingly-amateur and increasingly-professional photographer mom friend, but A was unhappy. He wanted to nap and run around. He's walking now, so walking is everything. It's like the entire world looks different to him and he has to stop and inspect everything. He seems to think we've been holding out on him. He's getting fast, too. We're going to be spending a lot more time in parks and playgrounds from now on.

This afternoon I had the last plumeria society meeting of the year. Some people lost houses and animals; it's horrible. But some people didn't. We had lunch and a big raffle and I won three times, two plumeria cuttings (a Samoan Fluff and a Rebecca's White) and an orchid. So there you go.

The people at our local Trader Joe's recognize A and say, "You're not with Mom today," when C does the shopping. How do you like that?

Official walking

I know I've been saying that he's walking, but A is really walking now. He's spent the last half hour walking around this room, squatting down, picking something up off the floor and bringing it to me. He's also walking around with a headset in his mouth. It's pretty darn cute.

Boy am I glad we don't have TV

I'm sure we'd just be glued to it watching people's houses burn down. The internet is bad enough.

So far, we're not in immediate fire danger. There are a lot of houses and highways between us and the fires. It's getting smokier all the time. Monday we went to the zoo and I was coughing and wheezing for the rest of the day. Yesterday we had swim class, hit the Trader Joe's, then came home and stayed in. It smells pretty strongly of smoke even inside now. I hit my inhaler last night before I went to bed. A seems mostly unaffected. He's not getting as much outside time as he normally gets, so we're getting a little cabin-punchy here. Let's hope for rain and less wind.

C's been off work this week; we'll see if he makes it in today. His workplace is closer to the evacuated areas than I would like.

Fires and excitement and more

I knew Dumbledore was gay since J. K. put him in a purple velvet suit to pick up old Voldy from the orphanage.

There are fires in SD county right now, and the only place I've found that gives a nice comprehensive map is here. There's a lot that would need to be burned through before we'd get evacuated. I'm actually more concerned about the Wild Animal Park right now since it's close to them, but being all by itself with a lot of land in the high desert I'm hoping they have well-laid plans for fires.

We took A out on a boat at the Maritime Museum yesterday and followed it up with ribs. Boy does he like ribs. Little carnivore.

Oh, and research

I've signed A up to be part of a research study where he's going to sit in a room on my lap and watch a screen with pictures of him and another baby while they monitor what parts of his brain light up. This is next Wednesday. Apparently they're batting 50/50 on babies who are willing to wear the hat with the gel and the brainsuckers on it.

Walking, walking, and scary hippos

Yesterday A walked all the way from "his" cabinet in the kitchen to the couch, while holding a pan. It was impressive, and he knew it, and he grinned the whole way. So we're bobbing along into toddlerhood here.

We went to the zoo Monday and got scared by a hippo. The hippo was underwater right in front of us. It looked like it was trying to kiss us through the glass, then it yawned and man, do hippos have scary snarly vicious teeth. A began waving, which is his new way of telling me he's done and bored with something at the zoo. He waves bye-bye.

Weekend insomnia break

A's really not been sleeping well. He ends up in bed with us and then I can't sleep next to the two snoring boychiks. So off I go around the house like a ghost in the night to find someplace else to sleep, which is difficult.

It's very tiring.

I don't know why he's sleeping so poorly. He's still got teeth coming in; he's also keen on the walking right now and the books say (stupid books) that kids wake a lot when they're working on new things.

What did we do this weekend? We bought new sleepers because his old ones looked like sausage casings. I realized how out of practice I am at buying baby clothes because I didn't check the fiber content on the sleepers. I realized when we got home that three of them were polyester. So back we drove to the outlets to exchange them for cotton ones. Now he has three sleepers in the same penguin pattern and two with the same dog appliqué, but that's okay. I was just happy to find footed zipper sleepers for him in the 18 month size.

Swimming and playdate

We had swim class Tuesday. It was fabulous. The other student missed last week too. A's getting really good at holding his breath. He just needs to float on his back and we'll be off to another level of class. I'm not actually eager to mix him in with the toddlers yet.

He's walking in spurts. I think the biggest gap he's crossed has been six feet. He hasn't decided that walking's faster than crawling yet. It's still a party trick.

Yesterday we had playdate. The boys (and they suddenly are boys, not babies) wanted to hit each other. L hit A on the head many, many times, then A grabbed L by the bridge of L's nose, right between the eyes. Ouchie. It was crazy. I'm not sure I signed up to have a toddler. L is much, much farther along on the toddler spectrum, though. A was still pretty easy-going; L was outright contrary to his mom sometimes. It's coming, I know.

New word

Down. As in, "Get down, Niles." Good grief. That actually started this weekend.

He spent yesterday walking across gaps. It's amazing what English he understands. He was sitting across the room from me and I said, "Come on, walk over here to me," and he got up and started walking. He almost made it, but did we just need to ask him to walk all this time?

Also in cute behavior: he now waves at the animals in the zoo when we say hi and bye. "Hi lemur!" Wave wave wave. "Bye panda bear!" Wave wave wave.

Weekends and sickness and walking

The Misses D, E, and M were in town this weekend and we had a lovely time with them, even though my car broke down again (radiator reservoir cracked at the bottom). At least my car waited until D and crew were ready to meet us. Play date with L was moved to Saturday and K brought a Greek feast for lunch, which was nice. We had Saffron and Bronx Pizza and the Mission and all those local type places people who move to Portland can't get there. So that was fine and lovely. I can't believe how well M walks. It's amazing. She glides. She might be the most graceful toddler I've ever seen.

Exactly at the time they left (about 5AM Monday), I got sick, violently, gastrointestinally sick. During breakfast, A got violently sick too (all over C, since I was already in the bathroom being sick myself). A and I were both so incredibly nastily sick that I'm sparing you the details because the details might make me sick again. I was so sick that lying on the floor next to the bathroom was as much as I could do. I ended up putting down old blankets and towels to lessen the mess from A. C went to work but then got called back home when I realized I couldn't be sick, have A sick, watch A and clean up all our sick messes at the same time, especially when one of us doesn't walk and can't make it to the bathroom. C came home and I went to bed. Neither of us could keep anything down for about seven hours. C seemed to have dodged a bullet yet again. A and I are slowly making our way back to the world of solid food.

Unfortunately, Monday morning my monitor didn't work, and that was the last of the monitors in this house, so no email for me. I wasn't seriously up for it until yesterday. I used C's computer which doesn't let me blog, for some strange reason. C got a loaner from work for the short-term, so that's why I can blog now.

Anyway, yesterday morning, A is burbling happily with me and C in our bed, then crawled down off the bed and started walking off towards the office. C and I started clapping about four or five steps into this display and A promptly fell down. But he's walking across three-foot gaps now like nobody's business. He's such a weird kid sometimes. He's not really w0bbling or anything. He's just walking. It's like he's been practicing when we're not paying attention.