Pile of Kittens

Pile of Kittens
Originally uploaded by peter_hasselbom

It is called Tea and Devons, after all. Not mine, but freakishly adorable still.

Good? I'll show you good...

I got sick. A's doing better. I'm doing better. We're crazy busy for the holidays, as I'm sure you all are.

It's pouring rain here. Yesterday, C and I attempted to mail off the Christmas goodness and found a self-service postal office kiosk--with no place to put the packages. So we bought all the postage and slapped labels on things and left them all in the car for shipping on Monday.

This morning, C's late. Our local post office isn't open when we swing by and they don't have a nifty package drop either. A falls asleep on the way home from dropping off C, and I'm thrilled because I've got a list. Bake a quick-bread for his speech therapist, who is coming at 1pm. Wrap presents. Sew stockings. Whip up a gingerbread house dough. Identify any last-minute giftees and figure out last-minute presents. Put together a grocery store list for Xmas. I'm thrilled in the way only mothers of toddlers can be when their sweet cherubs are conked out.

We pull into the garage, and A wakes up.

I snuggle and cuddle and coax and A won't go back to sleep.

Fine. Now I'm mad and snarly mommy. I'm sick. I'd like to sleep. I'd like to be anything other than in charge of a Christmas cornucopia of errands in the pouring rain with a sick toddler, but here I am. Back in the car, off to the post office. We get a spot next to the door, but I am in a bad enough mood that I do not care. A doesn't want to put on his raincoat but no, he has no choice and he is standing beside the boxes on the sidewalk as I run from the trunk to the car in the rain.

It takes me three trips to unload all the boxes. A is screaming and having a tantrum. I have to wait in line because one of the boxes is too big, even though we've already paid for postage. The other people in line look at my snotty, screaming toddler and my red nose and treat us like we have the plague, which I guess we do.

Back in the car. We've got a little under two hours, so we'll go to the grocery store, get our supplies for Christmas, and be able to get a gift for the speech therapist in one swoop.

Now, unless I have driven in a car with you, which is pretty a limited number of people because I really hate to drive, you may not be aware that I turn into Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver when I drive. There's a constant stream-of-consciousness incoherent, delusional rambling commentary every time I get behind the wheel. My most flagrant, eyebrow-lifting obscenity happens when I'm driving. I try to rein it in, of course, since the boy, but when that baby lets something obscene fly there will be no question at all where he learned it.

The underground parking garage is full, with vultures circling. I go up to the uncovered parking lot, since I'm not made of sugar (definitely not today), and I start listening to myself as I pass by parking space. I'm in so much of a snit that I'm saying things like, "Oh, yeah, great space there, should be a handicapped but it's not, and I drove right past it. And by the time I come back, there'll be some idiot there. And there's a great space, parallel that I could get into easy, but no, I'm driving right by it. Oh, that space I saw before, yes, that's full now too."

And I listen to myself, really listen, and I then I start laughing. I am being presented with numerous opportunities to be helped and I am passing by each one with my delusional ranting. I have already benefited from the largess of the universe by getting a spot near the door at the post office and three people who held the door open for me each time.

I apologize to A, and tell him I'm going to be a more cheerful mommy, and turn into the back parking lot and get a space right by the door. Not ten feet from that, under the awnings, is the only Trader Joe's cart that is dry. Bone-dry. And I say thank you to the universe, thank you for being kind to me and giving me two good parking spots in Hillcrest in one hour, a dry place to put my child's bottom, and an appreciation that, even with the Christmas cornucopia and colds and lack of naps, my life's pretty darn good.

I got the speech therapist a big box of Rocher, and I am glad I did, because she brought A a book. And now I am going to go sit with some chai and sew a stocking by the lights of our Christmas tree.

Sick again

A's sick. Again. I'm pretty sick of him being sick. He's sick of it too. He didn't sleep much last night. He's napping fitfully today. He gets a hit of albuterol, a little bit of food, and then he sleeps for a time. Then the albuterol wears off; it's time for another dose, and the whole cycle starts again.

It's been pouring rain here, which means we're cooped up and sick. Not much else to say. Christmas preparations are taking a backseat to baby care, so if your cards and packages are late, this is why.

Disneyland Hiatus

Oh yes, my friends, we went to the big D yet again. It's the Year of Disney here, or at least the fall and winter of Disney. The kid loves Disneyland. We love Disneyland. It's relatively close. We got a great discount on the hotel with our annual pass.

What does A love?

• Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters - now he's figured out he can shoot
  
• Winnie the Pooh
• Tarzan's Treehouse - a surprise to both of us, Tarzan was a big hit
• Haunted Mansion Holiday
• it's a small world
  
• Autopia - Stupid cars on a track. A drove, which means he turned the wheel back and forth as far as the track would let him while I pushed the gas pedal. He loved it. Laughed the whole time.
• the teacups - boy howdy
  
• Peter Pan
• the Carousel
• Dumbo
• Astro Orbiter (although C and I discovered that this is probably the most uncomfortable ride in all of Disney and I had to operate the lifting gear with my feet)
• Alice in Wonderland

We finally saw the Billy Hill and the Hillbillies show at the Golden Horseshoe, so I was pleased. The parks are beautiful at holiday time, really amazingly decorated. We saw the holiday parade, which has extremely cool wooden toy soldiers who actually play their instruments, which is very neat. The much-vaunted snow on Main Street is actually foam, disappointing for those of us who know snow, but the holiday fireworks show is pretty dazzling. And it's a small world is so much better with the holiday carols mixed in so it's not one incessant song over and over again.

The baby swap, more formally referred to as the "rider switch," is possibly the most fabulous thing in the universe. If two people with a baby want to ride something like Space Mountain, one person goes while another person waits, then they switch. The pass allows the person who waited to bypass the line and go pretty much straight to the ride.

The parks were more crowded than we would have liked due to Cast Member Holiday Party days, but we actually walked onto most things with little or no wait. Longest wait: Peter Pan. Fastpasses really help. We rode Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain a lot. I love BTM at night. We rode Indy a lot too; I got to go through all three doors of mystery and satisfied my curiosity that they all look the same.

We discovered too late the legal loophole created by the conjunction of Fastpass and the Rider Switch, but my friends with babies, let me tell you how to work this system. I believe this is legitimate, even though it felt a little sneaky to C and me:

1. You and your smoochie-person pick out two different rides with Fastpass.
2. Get one Fastpass from each ride. It helps if the Fastpasses ripen about the same time.
   
3. Once it's Fastpass time, go to the first ride and ask for a rider switch pass.
4. When the nice cast member directs the first rider to the line, whip out your Fastpass and get in the fast lane.
5. The second rider uses the rider switch pass to bypass the line.
6. Go to the second ride and repeat. Voila! Two rides done as Fastpasses for the price of one Fastpass each. You can double your line-bypassing this way.
   

Also, those of you with more than one kid should be aware that the Rider Switch Pass acts as a Fastpass for two people, so if you've got a friend or another kid who can ride the coaster (Hi, E!) , they can ride twice, once with their own Fastpass, and once with the Rider Switch Pass.

But it was fun, and it was fun to have C off of work, and when A drank too much Jamba Juice and threw up on the carpet of our hotel room, it was fun to call housekeeping and have them come clean it up (with a tip, of course, but it's not like I packed the Nature's Miracle carpet cleaner in my overnight bag, what else were we supposed to do?).

A was so tired he fell asleep at 4PM on Wednesday (3PM, but we woke him up to ride Buzz Lightyear two more times before we left) and slept until the alarm went off at 6AM Thursday morning.

What else? He had preschool today; they painted and played outside and had speech therapy and he cried when I said it was time to go home. So he's enjoying preschool. His teachers tell me he is so sweet and they only have to show him how to do something once and he's got it. Yes, I know. It's a little frightening. Good when it's painting with cookie cutters, bad when it's watering the Christmas tree.

First Day of Preschool

I didn't see him off; his dad did, so I should probably get a guest-blog from him.

But I picked him up. The teacher reported that they played with shaving cream and glue; they played outside on the playground. He dug in the sandbox with another kid and heeded his teachers when they told him to keep the sand in the sandbox. He sat during circle time and paid attention.

The teachers said A did great; he's so even-tempered and easy-going. No tears, no upsets, just a cheerful little guy. Really, he had an excellent first day.

I can't believe he's old enough for preschool.

Preschool #2: the marshmallow that broke the camel's back

A's feeling better. Friday is our official check-up, but he is ornery and running around and happy with only vestiges of a runny nose.

Today we went to check out the other preschool vying for contention as the place where A goes to get enriched twice a week. On paper, it sounds fine: focused on kids with speech issues, small classes, structured play, 1-to-3 teacher-student ratio. I thought it sounded like it was better suited to A's needs, actually.

Physically: It's small. There's no outside area to play in, no play structures. There are some climbing things inside, but not a lot. It seems clean and the toys are in good shape.

We're twenty minutes late because I got lost. (It's in an obscure area, and I get lost easily.) We join in time for circle time, which is more of a semi-circle but that's not the point. They sing some songs, which is more of the teacher singing sometimes with a CD while the kids sit in their chairs.

I notice that most of the kids (five others) don't seem to be having any fun. A has fun with the singing.

Then circle time is over and it's activity time. They're doing snowman pictures, gluing pieces of paper together to make a snowman. The kids sit in a half-circle while a teacher comes by and gives them something to glue to their paper. The kids don't pick what to glue or are given working glue to play with, just pieces to stick to the paper. The snowmen all look suspiciously the same when they're done.

A is bored. He wants to play with the toys.

The teacher announces snack time, and I think, "Hmm, maybe this will re-capture his attention." The snack is Juicy Juice grape juice box, Scooby Snack cookies shaped like dog biscuits, and strawberry marshmallows. Sugar, sugar, and more sugar. Only my indoctrination as a consummately and sometimes detrimentally polite citizen keeps me from yanking him out of the chair, out the door, and home to our organic-o-rama of low-fat yogurt, apple slices, and diluted organic juice.

A eats his marshmallow and cookie and asks for another. He eats the second cookie but not the second marshmallow. The juice box is history.

They begin to play a game, a matching game, match your card to a picture on the poster. A goes first and quickly. Then he gets bored waiting for it to be his turn again (because it takes about ten minutes, people, to go through six kids who don't all match things yet). He heads over to the bookshelf, picks out a book, and starts flipping through it. (Ah, yes, that would be my son.)

The teacher takes the book away and tells him to sit in his chair. She tells him not to do things by saying, "Thank you," in that "Thank you, you're done now," way. This is not how we say thank you in our household. Thank you is what we say when A complies with what we've asked him to do. She takes the book away and he's pissed. I calm him down, but he doesn't want to sit in the chair.

Then it's story time, so they get to move from the chairs to a big stuffed animal and listen to a story, then it's the bye-bye song, where the kids individually get farewelled and get to leave the teacher's sitting kingdom to wait for their parents. A is farewelled first, picks up the book the teacher took away from him, and sits behind her, looking at the pages. I subdue the compulsion to give him a high-five and a fruit leather for subverting the paradigm.

I talk to the teachers after class, if nothing else to make sure this was a typical day, typical activities, typical snack, but the whole time I'm thinking: it didn't look like the kids had any fun. It's way too early to teach A that school is no fun. An hour and half is too long to expect my two-year-old to sit quietly without serious entertainment.

And I pretty much outright despise anyone who scolds a child for looking at books.

So tomorrow, he'll start at preschool #1. The snack there was bagels and cream cheese and healthy Goldfish knock-off crackers and they specifically asked me not to bring cookies or candy as a snack for him. I feel a lot more comfortable leaving him there.

We are thankful for nebulizers

Thanksgiving kind of petered out around here, and I feel like we need a couple days to recover from the weekend.

Thursday A was very sick with a head cold, so sick he couldn't sleep. We didn't do our fancy Thanksgiving dinner because A and I both felt like crap. C spent Thursday night holding A upright so he could try and sleep. It didn't really work. A and I both got sick enough from coughing Wednesday night that we both threw up. I spent most of the night on the couch so I could sleep.

By Friday morning, A was lethargic and not breathing really well, so I called the doctor's office when they opened. They didn't have any appointments until 1:20PM.

"Well," I said, "I guess the emergency room wouldn't see us before then if we left now and I'd rather he saw you guys."

"Just come on in," she said. "Bring him in and we'll look at him." We were there about twenty minutes later.

If you've ever waited at a doctor's office, you'll appreciate how serious it is when you show up and are immediately shown to a room and have a nurse come in to take an oxygen reading, about 92-93%. The nurse then says, "The doctor will be right with you; you're next."

Then the doctor comes in, not our regular one but one we like, the one who makes jokes and plays with the kids, although A is not interested in playing at all. A gets three albuterol treatments, one with oxygen. After second, the doctor prepares us that if the third treatment doesn't have a measurable effect, A will be spending the night in the hospital.

But it does work. We're given a scary list of things to watch for changes that indicate A needs to be hospitalized immediately (color, shoulders, belly, the hollow at the base of his throat), we're sent home with the nebulizer and prescriptions for albuterol and steriods, with instructions to treat him every two hours through the day and night andcome back tomorrow for a check-up. Diagnosis is bronchiolitis, with the definite possibility that he has asthma on the horizon.

We go to the drugstore. We get a boatload of albuterol. We give him treatments every two hours. He hates it. He cries and yells. But he is breathing and smiling and getting more towards his normal self. He sleeps more that night.

Saturday, we get to see our actual doctor. She says to decrease the frequency to every four to six hours and come back for a check-up next week.

Now he seems a lot better, although he still does not care for the treatments. We spent the rest of our weekend (Saturday afternoon-Sunday) doing errands, cleaning up the vomit from the rug (which still smells, sigh), getting and putting up a Christmas tree.

So what am I thankful for? Air. Being able to breathe. A getting better. Good doctors. The nurse who heard the tension in my voice and got us in without an appointment. A husband who spent many nights sitting up with a sick boy so I could sleep. A boy who is sleeping, finally.

Lastly, I am thankful for our health insurance, because I'm pretty sure the line-item for that visit would have been in the hundreds if not thousands of dollars, including the equipment we were sent home with. A's life literally depended on the treatments he received. They weren't optional or elective. And we came home only worried about his recovery, not how we were going to pay for a staggering doctor's bill. We're worried about him having asthma, but we're not making financial decisions based on paying for a possible future chronic health problem out of pocket. I can't imagine how making any parent worry about finances when their kids are sick makes this a better country.

Preschool #1

A just finished his speech therapy, during which he said absolutely nothing, but he picked up a fire engine for a week and his play is "fabulous." (I think the fire engine will have batteries before the weekend gets very long.)

I never realized until we started going through all this that play could be graded and assessed.

This morning A and I headed to a preschool for a test-run. I was concerned because he didn't sleep well and I think the cold has boomeranged back on him. He started motioning and pointing the minute we saw the playground, and then he didn't hesitate to run right into the room and start playing with a toy garage once we got there.

This is a regular preschool that has some developmentally disabled kids mainstreamed in the classroom. The DD kids have two teachers who specifically watch and guide them among the other two teachers for the regular kids in the room. It would be for two hours, twice a week.

The preschool itself seemed to be pretty loosely structured: free play time, snack, music/dance time, and then a special visit from the speech therapist (not ours). The time they would have spent on the playground today was spent with the speech therapist. He had a grand old time. I was concerned because all the art on the walls seemed to be from the regular kids, but I asked and was told that the DD kids always have the option to put their art up but most parents just take it home with them.

What else? The teacher asked me if I'd like the speech therapist to do an evaluation of A, and I said, no, not really, he's been evaluated a lot. The speech therapist took a minute at the end to ask me if I really had no concerns because she thought he certainly should see someone for his speech. I explained that no, he's been evaluated about six times by now, he's tracking here for expressive and there for receptive, and we've been prompting two- and three-syllables from him, pressing on two and celebrating three.

A had to be dragged to the car, crying. I think this preschool's certainly a contender, but there's still one other one I'd like to see.

He's sick. We did Costco and IKEA (his idea; he kept frantically pointing at IKEA and would not let up, so we went, jeez) and he fell asleep by the time we pulled into the garage; unfortunately, he wouldn't sleep for longer than half an hour before he'd wake up, crying and sniffling. He took a two-hour nap in half-hour increments with me rubbing his back. He may be sleeping in the car seat tonight.

And tomorrow's Thanksgiving, and we're having raclette and sweet potato pie, which just made me remember the sweet potatoes steaming on the stove. Yikes.

Last Day of First Five

Sigh. I'm melancholic here. A is trying to figure out all the ways the Aquadoodler pens interact with the humidifier.

Today was A's last speech class with his wonderful teacher. I made blueberry muffins for the staff there and C and I baked several batches of fussy butter cookies from Cook's Illustrated which I put into cute tiny gift bags for his caseworker and his speech teacher.

The other kid (who has some issues, shall we say it kindly?) in his class didn't show, so she got A all to herself for their last class, which they both enjoyed.

His teacher was teary-eyed. She talked about how much she loved working with him, what a sweetie he is, how far he's come with his language. He has come far. He can produce three-syllable phrases now, puts two words together, has expanded his vocabulary significantly, by at least fifty percent if not more, and imitates our speech more often. She's been really good for him. Besides, how can you not love anyone who recognizes how amazing your child is and enjoys him as much as you do?

It's hard to have a melancholic farewell with a two-year-old, though. We were saying goodbye and she and I were teary. I was trying to emote the fact that we wouldn't be back again to A when another family with a dog showed up. He completely focused on the dog and didn't give his teacher a backwards glance, let alone a goodbye hug. Happily, she knows the ways of two-year-olds, and I do too, so we left it at that. The upshot of two-year-olds not having a concept of time is that they don't have a concept of grief.

One phase over, another begins. Tomorrow we try out our first preschool, then home for a nap and lunch before the speech therapist comes over. At least I've already vacuumed. (This is an issue of consternation when you have a virtual stranger sitting on your floor for an hour.)

Return of the voice

I can speak again, quietly and mumbly, and that is a good thing.

A has always mimicked us when it comes to cats and his food. A cat would approach him and he would say, "No, no, no!" and vocalize a lot of irritated, urgent scoldings.

Well, this week he discovered that if he fed the cats turkey, they would come to him and sit by him and even lick his fingers. So he's changed modes now.

The cats are growing more tolerant. I just put A down for a nap (he fought sleep dreadfully today) on our bed, which is occupied during the day by Jake and Niles. The cats were curled up together in the center of the bed, so there really wasn't a place to put a mostly-sleeping baby without being next to them. Niles gave it a minute and then left; Jake stayed because Jake is a pudding. Very sleepily, A pet Jake on his legs, and Jake watched him carefully and didn't move. Now they're both asleep, close together. It's so freaking cute.

UCSD Study

A's taking part in a UCSD study on 27-month-olds. They're studying something about autism; A's a control subject. We went this morning and he had basically the same assessment process he's had everywhere else for the past few months, so it was very familiar to him, at least.

He'll get a toy out of the next visit, which will require the infamous skull cap of many sensors. Oy. This is why we needed the haircut.

First haircut

Still no voice. It's pretty sad here. I tried calling my darling husband, and after rasping, "Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?" for what felt like forever, he said, "I can't hear you, so I'm going to hang up. Maybe you should text me." So we texted. No voice sucks.

A's signed up to be part of a study this week where they'll put a cap with gooey gel on his head and track his brain activity. Fun, no? This meant that I needed to get his hair cut.

Which I did. It's a little shorter overall, but still the same boy. Pictures will be uploaded as soon as I get someone small and sweet down for a nap, which he's been fighting all day, and I have no voice to sing him to sleep.

Sigh.

Chewbacca and R2-D2

House-bound and a little nutty. I don't feel like I can take him out since I can't talk to him to give him directions, so we've been at home all day, which is not our normal mode and makes us both cranky. He's provoked me a couple times to loud grunts not unlike Chewbacca, which he finds a little disturbing; conversely, it's difficult to calm someone down who's howling when you can only hoarsely whisper at a tiny, tiny volume.

And I have done pretty much nothing to help him with his speech today, since it seems odd to prompt for speech when I can't speak. But this doesn't make me feel better about his speech development. I whisper and grunt; he babbles in R2-D2-ese.

In short, today has been like Chewie and R2-D2 doing Waiting for Godot. This sounds great as a two-minute YouTube clip, but bad as an all-day thing.

Laryngitis

I've been sick. Yesterday, I lost my voice and am reduced to a tiny, hoarse whisper.

I woke up this morning and--no voice. Still. Do you any idea how difficult it is to parent a toddler without a voice? At least C's here as my knight in shining, talkative armor, but boy, my voice better return before tomorrow or it'll be an exciting day.

Torque

I don't know why we're on a physics theme for subjects but...

A can open the fridge. And the doors to the TV cabinet. And anything else that just requires torque.

It's a brave new dawn around here.

You can't push a string.

A had speech therapy for the first time this week. These are in-house visits, where the speech therapist comes to our house (which requires a certain amount of cleaning, of course) for an hour or so. (Of course, A turned over a glass of water on the couch, which required the couch being disassembled for the course of her visit.)

So she showed up, said, "Hi, I'm Janis," and in she came with a bag of toys, sat on the floor with A, and played with all the toys.

I sat nearby and watched and tried to stay out of the way. She played with him and talked to him in short, one or two word sentences about what they were doing. He was interested in the toys and didn't say much at all, like he normally is with new people.

I had to restrain myself from not translating when he did speak. He was funny. He would decide a toy was boring and sing a little bit of the clean-up song and put the toy away so he could move on to the next toy--what a fabulous little guy.

Janis desperately wanted A to play with a fishing set. This had: various small felt fishes, two fishing poles with strings that had a Velcro piece on the end.

A has a fishing set, a pole tipped in Velcro (no string) and some fish, so I guessed he would be pretty bored with her fishing set, and he was. She was firm in trying to redirect him to play with the fish, finally showing him how she fished. She put the string over a fish, pressed the Velcro piece into the fish, and picked it up by the pole. "Look, fish! Fish up!"

With a look I can only characterize as bemusement, he took the other fishing pole, pressed the Velcro to the fish with his hand, picked up the pole, and dumped it into her bag. Yes, this is how it works and this is the most efficient way to play with it instead of messing around with that string; next toy please.

So at the end of the session, I asked what I should be doing or if this was representative of how their sessions would go. She said she's using short sentences to urge him to imitate her and eventually she'll encourage me to use short sentences for periods of playtime throughout the day (though not obviously the whole day, since we can't live our lives in caveman-like grunts).

She said his receptive language is extremely high and she was surprised by his focus, because the report she read said he could be somewhat distracted.

He's two. Distracted is the name of the game. But A is a pretty focused kid.

So I'm not sure how it went, but I think he had fun and she left a toy here for him to play with, so it's all good.

Drive-by parenting

We were in the library yesterday, picking up my book on reserve (and damn you, SD Public Library System, for receiving eight (8!) of my holds the day after I pick up my one lonely book on reserve). A loves the library but the whole waiting in line to get checked out makes him cranky, because it's right next to the kids' DVDs and he wants to go look through them all again.

Anyway, I'm saying no and he has a tantrum. I'm calming him down as quickly as I can--I can't leave with an armful of books; I have reserve items I need to pick up or I'll get fined--and he settles easy enough. It's never quick enough in the library, though. In the process of having a tantrum, he's kicked a shoe off.

There's an older woman behind me. She says to me, "How old?" and I tell her he's two. She picks up his shoe, but instead of handing it back to me, she says to A, "Look at this nice shoe I found. Maybe someone doesn't want it any more. Maybe I'll take it." She mimes putting it on her own foot, and A holds his hand out for it. "Maybe if you said, 'Please, can I have my shoe back?' Hmm? Nice boys ask for things." A holds his hand out again and makes an agitated grunting noise, which to my mommy-sense, means tantrum #2 is on its way.

"No, not until you ask nicely," this woman says.

"He doesn't talk," I say. "He's got a moderate speech delay." A is pressing his hand against his chest in the sign for 'please.' "He's signing please."

She hands the shoe over to me. "I didn't know," she said. "But he was certainly loud enough before." Yes, lady, thanks; I didn't feel enough like a crappy parent before you decided to turn into the question Nazi and of course all children are silent angelic cherubs until they gain the power of speech.

"Car, please?"

We're back. C's putting A down for a nap while I sort years of cosmetics, bath gels, and expired medications that are taking up valuable space in our too-small bathroom. The purge is on.

I forgot to blog about Halloween. We had Halloween. We have a costume for A but did not dress him up. C got off work early, which allowed him and A to carve a pumpkin together. Then dinner, birthday cake, and bed for A.

Tuesday night, basking in the warm glow of Obamarama, we headed to Disneyland. C was off work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We bought annual passes (for an absurdly low price compared to the WDW tickets, good God) and rode rides: the new Finding Nemo submarines (very cool), the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (for the small boy who loved every minute and was ready to go again), Space Mountain (smoother and darker than its WDW counterpart), and all sorts of other stuff. We walked onto every ride. We left at four-ish so I could make my read-and-critique group.

Thursday A had speech and a vision test. C had a meeting at work to check in for. His vision is fine (-0.25 in the left eye, 0 in the right, which for right now, is within normal tolerances). His speech class went great; he was the only one and the teacher adores him.

Friday we were slated to go to the last of our parenting classes, the review and post-test, and C and I decided we would rather spend the day going to Disneyland. So after breakfast, we bundled A into the car, drove up, and were at the front gate not much later than we were Wednesday morning. Plus, A got his normal morning nap in the car. It worked out beautifully.

It was more crowded than Wednesday but still mighty manageable. We had completely skipped Fantasyland on Wednesday, so we took some time letting a small boy point us from ride to ride. After Peter Pan, the carrousel. After the carrousel, Dumbo. And so on. The pommes frites at Cafe Orleans are fabulous, btw. We drove home at seven or so, got home in time for our normal bedtimes.

So Saturday morning, A leads me to the door to the garage and points. "Car?"

"You want to go in the car?" I say. Happy acknowledgement noise from A.

"You want to go in the car and go to Disneyland?"

Happy dancing from A. "Car, please!"

It's bizarre to me that Disneyland is within a reasonable drive. I think of it as being very far away, but it's not any farther than Park Meadows used to be from our house in Colorado.

Obama won

We're going to Disneyland.

Seriously.

Vote, vote, vote

I voted weeks ago, but C voted first thing this morning, fourth in line at our local polling place. But get out there today and vote.

See, I'm not introducing politics, because I think anyone who reads this blog already has made up their stubborn minds as to whom they're going to vote for. But I'll shamelessly plug a No on Prop 8 again, just for any Californians who really haven't come to their senses and want to spread hatred and fascism. No on Prop 8. Hopefully there will be lots of celebrations in the morning.

Second dentist visit

He's got good teeth, happily.

First of all, the people at our dentist's office love A. I was in there all the time when I was pregnant, got my braces off and had a bunch of work done postpartum when I could wheel A in in the stroller and have him stay put. So they've known him since before his debut and they adore him.

So we go for his cleaning today and everyone in the office has to say hi. He high-fives everyone. He doesn't want to sit in the chair, but he sits in my lap in the chair. Then he doesn't want to open his mouth. He takes a toothbrush, brushes with his lips tightly shut, and drops the toothbrush on the floor.

And then Chris the tech lets him have the air/water gun. And we're off to the races. There's water everywhere: on me, A, the tech, the walls, the floor. Everywhere. But A figured out that he could squirt the water in his mouth for a drink, and then he would open his mouth to have a drink and blow air on his tongue, and voila, the tech can check his teeth.

He brushes and she gets a mirror in to inspect his teeth, then she says, "Do you think he'd let me polish them with the magic toothbrush?" Sure, why not? She shows it to him and lets him lick the (bubble gum flavored) toothpaste, and sure, he'll let her polish his teeth.

Then the dentist comes back to examine him, and yes, with the tech there, he'll let the dentist examine his teeth.

Happily, it all looks good. His teeth are plaque-free, even in the front where they expect toddlers to have plaque, and there's no signs of decay, even in his molars. His bite looks good; he may have a deep bite but the dentist wouldn't be worried about that for some time anyway. And he does officially have all twenty teeth, which is super.

So he's doing good, we're doing good, and the only improvement to A's dental regime that the dentist could offer was brushing after every meal instead of twice a day. But that's it.

This kid has had two parents in braces for most of the time he's been alive. He's seen a lot of tooth brushing and tooth maintenance. C says I spend an inordinate amount of time brushing, but that's because I am not a slave to the timer on my Sonicare.

We go again in six months. Whee! I'm so glad his teeth are turning out to be more like C's than mine.

Individual Family Service Plan

That's the IFSP, which sounds like a Meyer-Briggs personality type. C and I met with the intake coordinator to establish an IFSP for A. This sets up goals (that the family--that's us--can measure) and, more importantly, lists what classes and services he'll be getting.

Right now, he's set up for twelve sessions of speech therapy and an hour or two of pseudo-preschool twice a week. The speech therapist will be coming to our house weekly (eep); A and I have to tour all the available preschools until we find one we like (maybe not the one for behavioral issue kids, for example).

A just went down to sleep and he was so tired that I'm tired. He didn't want to sleep; he kept being almost asleep then waking up to say, "Daddy?" Daddy should be on his way home from work.

A had speech today; they played musical instruments to practice blowing air. He's only got a couple weeks left there; I'm hoping they'll let him finish. There will be one week of overlap with the Regional Center stuff. I can't mention enough how immensely thankful I am that all of this assessment stuff has moved so quickly. I know government and bureaucracy is bad and evil, especially in an election year, but man, I'm glad they have all this stuff available for free, so quickly. These little people grow fast.

Please!

Everyone's braces-free in the C/K/A household, and there is much rejoicing. We are now accepting your donations of toffee, sugar-crusted nuts and pizza bones.

A had the speech teacher all to himself today, and he talked up a storm. He did all the animal noises with his teacher, then sang (sang!) and said, "Please!" He's signed please for the longest time, but now we're supposed to make sure he says it consistently. His teacher places a finger under her lower lip sometimes to remind A to talk, and if he's not paying enough attention to her, she'll do it to him, so that's something we're supposed to work on with him.

But she thinks he's making excellent progress, so there we are.

A and I went to the Birch Aquarium today after speech with a writer friend of mine and her two-year-old (who is huge! huge!). We all had a good time. They have these elaborate water tables with partitions you can move around to create currents and flows and float tiny boats down. A loved that. C would love it. I would have loved it more if I wasn't on baby duty and got to play with it myself.

They have tidepools (which we did not go into since A's apparently allergic to starfish protein) and fake tidepools with all sorts of rubber creatures (lobsters, starfish, crabs, shells, shrimp). Unfortunately, they're right next to each other, so A decided he would reallocate a rubber tiger shrimp to the tidepool. "Happens all the time," a docent told me, but they had to debate how best to remove it because A threw it pretty far. They needed a stick to get it.

It's a small museum but it's pretty neat. The displays are well-thought out. I think the boat thing alone is probably worth a membership.

Hatetriots: yes, a political rant

Oh, come now, you didn't think we'd get through this kind of an election year without a rant, did you?

That's pronounced "hate-triots" to rhyme with patriots. I'm a little sick of them here.

Right now, gay marriage is legal in California. There's a proposition on the ballot to amend the California state constitution to make same-sex marriage illegal; it's called Prop 8.

The "Yes on 8" movement is out there with big fat lying ads stating that if Prop 8 does not pass, gay marriage will be taught in schools and churches will lose their tax-exempt status if they don't perform same-sex marriages. These are both big fat honking lies.

If Prop 8 fails, nothing changes. There's no change to the law. There's no change in how your kids are going about their daily lives. If your church or synagogue or mosque won't marry a same-sex couple, it'll still count as a church just as much as the churches that practice love thy neighbor as thyself do. (Sorry--that's my "who's actually Christian?" rant sneaking in.) A No on Prop 8 changes nothing.

This kind of crap really pisses me off. There's no legal reason to deprive a group of people of their civil rights--and I think marriage, with all its social/economic/political constructs, counts as a civil right.

I can't think of any reasons to shoot down same-sex marriage other than fear and hatred. I'm calling the politicos who spew hatred and fear in order to scare people into voting their way hatetriots.

I don't know if A will be gay or straight, but I want him to get married--if he chooses--with the minimum amount of bureaucratic governmental interference either way.

I really hope this thing fails. Down with the hatetriots.

Overtime

C's working overtime. He worked yesterday (although that was a short day, because he was home before A went to bed) and he's still working today.

A and I are spending a lot of time together. A's begun to put two words together again verbally, like "Bye, Daddy!" and (sadly, with big eyes) "Go car? Go Daddy?" Sigh. He's coming out with entire strings of jargon that sound like a complete sentence ("What is this over here?"). We meet with his service coordinator in another week or so to set up speech services. Also, he knows how to operate the DVD player, including swapping disks. From closed cases. Oy.

I've been reading Nigella Lawson which always makes me feel like roasting chickens and baking cakes and being all domestic goddess-y, so today I roasted a chicken and some potatoes for A and I to eat for lunch. They came out perfectly. Perfect moist crispy-skinned chicken, perfect crispy roasted potatoes. And A wouldn't touch either of them until I produced (organic, non-HFCS) ketchup, which he's never eaten before.

Well, he loved it. And he loved chicken as a ketchup conveyance device. But he's still not really interested in potatoes. I know he's mine, but good grief, where's his potato love?

How's the fam?

We're all sick and cranky.

C's work is in the crazy schedule stage. He's sick. He's coughing up a lung all the time. This is coming on the heels of having enough mouth pain that he couldn't speak coherently for a week.

A's sick. He's got a slight fever, stuffy nose, occasional cough, bad attitude. He's not sleeping well. He's tired enough that things that usually don't bug him make him break out in tears. He's not even napping well, which means I spend a lot of time that I normally get to myself soothing him back to sleep. Poor baby, he's sick.

I'm sick, but I'm the least sick of the three so I don't get to be sick. A late night Tuesday turned into an early morning (4AM) Wednesday which turned into a late night last night and really, I could use a nap and maybe some Advil.

C's schedule has turned ugly, coming home at midnight last night, with a week of awful scheduling ahead (working Saturday, Sunday, and 3AM on Tuesday morning, woo hoo), which means my schedule has turned ugly because I love my boy, but I love having time to myself once a day too, which is not happening (unless you count the drive to and from the orthodontist's this morning, which I do not).

Buh, buh, buh; puh, puh, puh; muh, muh, muh

Today A had speech and he was the only one there--lucky! His teacher dotes on him (and really, who doesn't?). She's working on the bilabial sounds with him: B, M, P. So they colored in baby birds and momma birds and then played crash with the buses and trucks and blew bubbles. He said bubbles, beep-beep, and pop. I haven't heard pop at home, so that's good.

She invited me to a parenting class that starts tomorrow on how to help A speak, so I ran over and got the kindly old lady next door signed up to watch A for the next few Friday mornings and we will be in class.

A has a flu shot today. This will not help the doctor rehabilitation program.

Monkey see, monkey do

Yesterday was Free Tuesday here in sunny San Diego, and the boy and I went to the Natural History Museum. Free Tuesday is this great program where every Tuesday of the month, certain Balboa Park museums are open for free. The Natural History Museum has dinosaurs and a baby elephant and a room with a bucket of puppets, so he's happy there.

Since it was Free Tuesday, it was packed, not as packed as it could be, but still packed with kidlets. I kept smelling poop, and kept checking the back of A's pants to make sure it wasn't him (it wasn't). My current theory on the vast amounts of poop is that I saw a lot of dads with kids, and I think dads can feign more oblivion to poop than moms, in general.

Anyway, at some point after I'd checked his pants for the fortieth time, A came around behind me and tried to check my pants, at which point I decided maybe I was sending the wrong message about what we do in the museum.

Regional Center Assessment

Today we had another speech evaluation. It's the same-old, same-old: two assessors, one graduate student observing, playtime for A, talking to me.

His official assessment is 27-30 months for receptive language - with some 33-36 month behaviors - and 15-18 months for expressive language. So he understands everything and says hardly anything. He's very bright and right on track for all his other developmental areas. They mentioned how outgoing and sociable he was. None of this is different from any of our other assessments.

So he meets the 33.33% delay requirement in expressive speech, which is the cut-off line for qualifying for Regional Center services. So next week our coordinator (who was out today) will start setting up a plan for him. He'll probably see a speech therapist regularly as a start.

I just wanted to thank everyone who's asked about how he's doing and how the assessments are going. It means a lot to me that other people are interested in him.

Tired boys

A didn't sleep well last night and C didn't either. I didn't sleep well the night before, so last night I was apparently out of it enough that I wasn't disturbed very much.

Last Friday night, I went to the San Diego Film Festival and saw my friend Julie's film, Broken Windows, which was a lot of fun, since I've never been to a film festival before. The film is good but slow. I hope it does well.

We went to dinner before and A surprised us by eating popcorn shrimp and calamari (even the squiggly bits) but not the mac and cheese. This is a strange kid.

He had speech today and did well although he was tired. We're about to go to the store, run some errands, so he'll just have to cope. He had a short nap this morning but it's hot here and it's hard to nap when it's so freaking hot.

Certificate of Participation

It's graduation day here from Global Group for the little toddler boy. He's finished six weeks of general group activity and as such is done being enriched. He's still going to his specific speech group. He's loving it so far; we're going to have to think seriously about preschool when all of this is done. He used to have to be convinced to go in, and now he has to be restrained from running right into the classroom when we get there.

He's got a speech evaluation scheduled for next week. This is with the regional center and is just speech, so we'll see what shakes out there.

He's using a ton more words now; I don't know if it's the classes or just being around other kids or the general explosion of language that happens, but he's got tons more words: baby, bubbles, crocodile. He's doing a lot more spontaneous imitation, where if I say a word, he says it back. And he's picked up words he knew but had stopped using, like "more."

They gave him a post-class evaluation to see where he was compared to where he started (about the same, with a couple minor improvements). The woman doing the evaluation said to me, "He's such a sweet kid. There were kids crying in the room and he took them toys and tried to play with them." Yup, that's my sweetie.

Arrrgh, mateys!

My pirate name is:

Captain Bess Flint

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Assessment, round 2

We're on to the next agency here in speech development land. They came by the house today to do a general evaluation, all five areas again. Three women: an intake coordinator, a special ed teacher, and a trainee. The intake coordinator asked me questions while the teacher played with A. The trainee watched.

A was in a great mood and was his bubbly outgoing self. He sat them down, brought them toys, and tried to share the toys the teacher gave him with the other two women. "He wants to make sure everyone's involved," the teacher said. "He's got great play skills. He should be a social worker when he grows up."

It was same old, same old for questions. We hit an impasse in the play portion of the exam because A refused to play with the blocks. The teacher had lots more fun things in her bag of tricks and he didn't want to play with blocks when he has a gazillion sets of blocks in the house already. He'd already brought a set of blocks out for the women to play with.

The teacher asked if he was an only child, and then said, "Gosh, with play skills like his and all these toys, you should have five more." Um, no. No no no. She also approved of our toys. They're good toys. Active toys make passive babies, you know.

Anyway, he's a scattered kid. This does not have anything to do with his focus, which is legendary and laser-like and was commented upon by the women; I'm talking test results. He's literally all over. Won't play with blocks, 15 months for cognitive and 12 months for fine motor. Threads three beads on a string, 30 months for cognitive and fine motor. Makes the overall scoring a bit inaccurate.

His receptive language is fine; he's got a delay in his expressive language. According to the math of the test, he's showing a 25% delay in speech development, which is not enough to require the services of the more intensive agency. But they think his expressive is far enough behind that it requires further investigation, so they're going to have a speech evaluation done.

When they were all through, they asked me if I had any questions, and so I asked, "In your opinions, should I be worried about him?"

And they all looked at each other and the teacher said, "No. I wouldn't. On a ten point scale, I'd say you should worry about a 3, which you probably already are. He's very bright; his play skills are great, very directed. Play is the basis for speech. He talks a lot already in jargon and I'm guessing one day you'll be saying, 'We thought he wouldn't talk and now we can't get him to stop.'"

So I'm somewhat relieved, although it felt anticlimactic to have three people tell me what I thought about my kid already was right. They don't know why he doesn't talk either, but there's a ton of money to be had if we figure it out (and apply it across many other kids in the universe).

the House of Mouse

We just got back from Walt Disney World, that altar to childhood and capitalism. A had a fabulous time. This is what he loved:

• Peter Pan's Flight
• It's a Small World
• The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
  
• El Gran Fiesta (the boat ride in Mexico)
• Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party
• the Finding Nemo and Festival of the Lion King shows
• Flights of Wonder
  
• Stealing the chocolate coating off his mother's Mickey Ears ice cream novelties
• Dole Whip and ice cream
  
• Running around with his cousins
  
• Swimming in the pool, especially when his dad picked him and me up and tossed us up in the air together
  
• The little table that slid out from under the desk to eat breakfast on
• Sitting on bench seats to eat with us
  
• Feeding M&Ms to Pluto
• Fountains
• The talking trash can in Tomorrowland

And we loved watching him. There's nothing quite like watching your own kid enjoy something. I've always been a "suck the marrow out of the day" kind of girl at Disney, but this trip, I was more than happy to watch A take yet another trip around London and Neverland in a pirate ship because he was just thrilled to take it in.

Yes, they lost our luggage. But they found it. Yes, two-year-olds need naps and snacks. But they also notice the smallest things and have the biggest smiles.

Visits and travel and more

Well, I neglected to mention that last week our lovely friends the Bumps came to town for the weekend and we all had a fabulous time. They brought cookies and birthday presents and played a lot with A. He was quite sad when everyone went home and C went back to work and it was only me and him.

I'm tired. He's asleep, so I feel like I should blog, but I'm not sure what to blog about.

He's doing super great in swimming. We signed him up for classes--the place we've been taking classes is moving to a swim school where we pay monthly instead of in sessions, so that'll be good for him. And they'll still have the advanced class in the morning so all of us can go, which is nice.

Group is going well. Last time the teachers told me to get out and they'd talk him down from crying. He screamed and cries and I went to a more far-away room where I couldn't hear him, but he did great. He follows directions, cleans up, participates in the activities, so that's all super. One of the other parents (a grandma, actually) told me, "He is really smart. I've been watching him and he's very smart." Yes, I know. It makes me wonder what all the rest of the kids are in there for.

Speech pathologist (finally)

We met with the speech pathologist today. It's the same song and dance we've done the rest of the time: A plays while she asked me questions, then she played with him for a bit. She confirmed what everyone else has been saying; A has a mild to moderate developmental delay in speech.

She's the gate-keeper to all the services, though, so now we get to be on the track for services. He's wait-listed for the Communication Group, which is like the group he goes to now, only smaller and specifically for speech. He'll get a hearing test the next time the hearing test cavalcade rolls into town (once every two months). C and I will get to attend a parenting class to determine how to help A.

The one new thing today was a referral to Regional Services. The department we've been going to is a stop-gap measure to help kids who are a little behind catch up so they're prepared for preschool/kindergarten. There's another department that offers more extensive services for kids who need more help. A is borderline between the groups, mild to moderate. The criterion he's being assessed against is the 24-27 month old criterion, and he's at the beginning of the range. So the pathologist asked me if I wanted to get the paperwork rolling to get him into Regional Services or if I wanted to wait and see how he did in his groups.

I thought about it for maybe thirty seconds, then said, "Let's get the paperwork started." I know that it's a lot harder to get someone into a program than it is to take them out of it, and even if he does great, I want him to have all the resources he can.

He seems to be liking Group; there's lots of toys and books there for him to play with. He's not done at the end of class and has to be convinced that it's time to go home. The facilitators say he's doing really well, pays attention, remains on task, cleans up. I still waver (worry) about the qualities of the other parents, but he's getting playtime with other kids and attention from trained teachers, and I figure that can't hurt.


Oh, and he's got two new words: baby and bear.

Global group

That's what we went to today. It's like mini-preschool. All the kids in the class are two, but he's the youngest and smallest. They have some structured arts and crafts activities, some free play time, they wash their hands and get cookies and water, then they read books and sing songs and are done. There's only five kids, all boys, and two teachers.

He did good. He needed some reassurance at the beginning that I was still around, and when they came out to wash their hands, he latched on and wouldn't let me go, so I came back in for the last part of group. But he had fun and threw a tantrum when we tried to go.

The other parents waiting in the hall give me the shivers. Really. The one teaching her baby to play with the light switch, the one reeking of cigarette smoke who yelled at her five-year-old for waking up the baby after the mother started a tickle fight, yeah, they scare me. But they are there at the center, waiting while their kids get enriched, so they're doing something.

These are just so not the people we hang out with. I usually run with the mommies who debate organic vs. local and Montessori vs. Waldorf. It reminds me of what my mom used to say: the only time in your life you ever have all levels of society together is in the public school system.

A needs a nap and we need to go to the store. Store's lost every day this week, but it's going to win today.

Developmental Assessment

At A's two-year check-up, (he's fine, btw), I talked to our pediatrician about A's speech. He used to use more words than he does now; he used to use two-word phrases and he stopped. This is one of those autism signs that gives me the heebie-jeebies, but he's still very tuned into people and situations, so I thought, no, not autism.

But it's something.

And our super-cool pediatrician agreed that it was odd and so last week we started out on the journey of assessment.

• Tuesday: initial screening: a questionnaire, asked verbally of me, to determine a general development level in five categories: gross motor, fine motor, personal/social (interactions), cognitive (problem solving), communication. He's off the charts for everything but communication, where he's in the 12-24 month category. Ouch. Come back tomorrow to meet with a speech specialist.
• Wednesday: not the speech specialist. This is a more thorough general screening, done by someone who questions me and plays and talks with A. He's in the 30 month range for everything but communication, where he's in the 15-18 month range. Come back tomorrow and meet with another specialist to do a speech assessment, plus we're going to put A into some monitored play groups to make him play with other children and force him to develop communication skills in self-defense.
• Thursday: Speech assessment, general. This is one-hour where the specialist talks mostly to A and some to me and asks him to say things, accomplish tasks, play. He's in the 15-18 month range for expressive communication (him talking) and the 18-21 month range for receptive communication (him listening to what people say).

And so here we are. I figured I'd blog before it got to be too much to describe. He's got the first of the playgroups tomorrow. We have a more in-depth meeting next week with a speech pathologist who will assess him in more detail and set goals.

The last specialist recommended a specific communication-focused play group, an audiology test, and a parenting class for us to be able to help him specifically with communication, but all of those have to be seconded by the speech pathologist.

The audiology test is to make sure he's hearing us since the specialist noted a delay between when A hears a request and when he acts on the request. The suspicion around here is that the delay is the time A takes to decide whether or not he's going to follow a request, but it's good to get him tested anyway.

We're all ambivalent here. I'm glad we got early intervention; I just want to know what's up with him. C still thinks, much like walking, that A just needs to decide he wants to talk and he'll talk. I think assessment is always a good thing, and the earlier the better. But every specialist has taken great pains to tell me: he's smart. He's really really smart. And I say, well, duh.

Flying baby boy

By his second birthday, A has been on twenty flights. I saw a blog post by a friend and thought, gosh, I wonder how many flights A has been on so far. Twenty.

Two!

That's right; he's two.

The grandparents came out for the weekend and we had a birthday party at the zoo that went well, I thought. We fed the giraffes, had some lunch, opened presents, had cupcakes. Low-key, good for a two-year-old (especially one low on naps).

Yesterday he and I didn't do much since we were still in recovery mode from the weekend; I don't think any of us got enough sleep. But he's now got piles of toys (not like he was lacking before) and he was happy to play with the new toys and watch his new Elmo DVD over and over and over again.

And over.

And over.

I can't believe he's two. Two! He's a walking, talking little boy with opinions, when two years ago, we had this tiny, tiny thing that couldn't hold his head up. Yesterday, within the space of two minutes, he climbed up on the counter (using his brand new Tonka truck) and poured a ramekin of cooking oil on the kitchen floor. I would have chosen some other way to highlight his independence and abilities, but ornery is what being two is all about. Two years ago, it took all our combined efforts to nurse; last night he had meatballs and corn chips for dinner like they were going out of style. He ate seven mini-meatballs. Good grief.

So happy birthday, beautiful baby boy of mine.

Napping again

But I've been doing a lot so the nap will end soon so this will be fast, fast.

A is doing super. He's picking up a lot of words recently, elephant and giraffe and hello (finally). He just comes out with them out of the blue, apple and banana (nana). I think he's used to having all his needs anticipated that he hasn't had to say a lot of words, so I've been trying to be less proactive and reactive to him so he has to ask.

He's into the occasional temper tantrum right now. He's into throwing things and that's bad when we're already down one monitor in this house due to him throwing things. He got a lot of timeouts with Dad for throwing things at people, cats, and screens this weekend.

We go to the Zoo frequently in the evenings now, since the zoo is on extended hours for the summer. The weather is perfect; the air is cooler and the animals are more active. It's a lot of fun.

He adores ice cream. Loves it. Sat in the kitchen with us and polished off two bowls of roasted banana ice cream last night.

Today was swim class, where he is a rock star. He loves to kick around the pool holding onto a noodle to keep him up, and thought he was doing well enough today that he let go of the noodle and dunked himself. Oops.

And we are still getting our CSA share. Yesterday we made a zucchini-basil-squash blossom frittata and a batch of mint ice cream which will become mint stracciatella when I churn it, maybe tonight.

Down for a nap

He's just stopped fighting me and is now napping, which means I can blog.

We had a rock-star Fourth. One of my writing group friends who has a son a month and a week older than A invited us over for a BBQ, and we went and had a good time. Yay! A had a fabulous time playing with all their water toys.

This weekend's excitement was getting our first share of the CSA we joined. C signed us up last week while I was out of town, and wa-la, we have fresh, local, organic produce for the week. Gaze upon and be jealous of our haul. Then go support your own local CSA.


In other news: we started our new swimming lessons today, the advanced toddler class (can't you all just see my motherly pride from here?). There's only three kids in the class and it's taught by who I consider the best instructors there. It's the "next step" class that's supposed to still emphasize water safety while giving them a push towards independence in the water.

And I must say, he had a good time. They put him in a wacky noodle and let him swim around--and he did. He swam around. It was amazing.

The Cannoli and the Mouse

Yesterday was also a good day to be almost-two and disgusting.

We went to buy cat food. The store has these chi-chi dog biscuits shaped like cookies and bon bons and what not, complete with little bakery-style bags and napkins to put them in.

A decided to take a big bite out of a cannoli-shaped dog biscuit, which I then bought in mortification. He almost took a bite out of a faux sugar cookie, but the sales girl told me, "It's okay, I'll just rub the teethmarks out of it," when I offered to buy that one as well.

Anyway, if that wasn't disgusting enough, then we went to the zoo. On one of the paths, there's a catchbasin filled with water, and A likes to throw a leaf or two in there when we walk by.

Yesterday, he throws a leaf in and looks down and picks up something else and is about to throw it in when I realize what it is: a dead mouse. Actually, it's a small dead rat, but it could have been a large mouse. Maybe.

So I scream, "No, no, no, no, no," like a banshee, make him drop it, then keep his hand firmly in my grip while I pull the stroller over and rummage one-handed through the diaper bag for the Purell. A begins to cry.

A nice woman with two kids who saw this whole incident stopped and took A's arm and kept him occupied while I looked for hand sanitizer. I found it and doused him with half the bottle. Then I washed his hands at the next bathroom. And I took him to First Aid, where they basically said, "Oh, dead mouse, well, wash his hands with warm water, that's about it." I think they had just gotten through a macaw biting someone, so I understand they were preoccupied.

As a fun fact, the zoo apparently keeps a virologist on staff to study disease vectors in vermin deaths.

I'll be happier when A develops a disgust factor. Yup.

Enter the Allergist

A had a rash after playing in the starfish tidepool at Sea World, and the first aid person there said that A may have an iodine allergy. We took him to the pediatrician, who referred us to a pediatric allergist to get him tested.

We saw her yesterday. The pediatrician's office had one of those large plastic mini-houses to play in and lots of riding toys, so A had fun while we were waiting. The allergist told us that actual iodine allergies are pretty rare, and it's usually a reaction to the protein in the animal itself. She didn't have anenome or starfish to test, but she tested all the seafood she had: lobster, crab, shrimp, scallops, cod, salmon, clams, oysters, etc. She added in dust mites, peanuts, cat, and dog as a bonus since he's had croup recently.

He ran around the office shirtless with sixteen little dots of oil on his back. Sure enough, a couple of them welled up almost immediately. I was relieved, so relieved, that he could run around the office instead of trying to keep a toddler sitting on a table for fifteen minutes.

A is allergic to cats and dogs. Yes, just like his mom. I felt very badly about it. We're not getting rid of the cats, but I felt terribly irresponsible sitting there not even pretending like I was considering getting rid of the cats to the doctor.

She suggested that we watch A for any lower respiratory diseases, get a HEPA filter for his room, and follow up in six months to see how he's doing. Oh, and that we stay out of the tidepools.

I'm glad he's not allergic to any seafood and I'm really glad he's steered clear of the peanut allergy. I guess that means I can start him on a PBJ now. He just got tested for all the things we hadn't introduced and is free and clear. Maybe a PB & shrimp sandwich?

Leaping Lizard

I owe the world an update. The boy's meds are helping the croup. He's cranky.

But today, we had a lizard run under our front door into the house, which mostly freaked me out. I called my husband, whose great advice was "catch it." I called my friend, who listened as I moaned and groaned and bitched and moved furniture and peered under bookshelves with a flashlight.

Anyway, once the lizard had gone the entire length of the bookshelf and ensconced itself on the slate coasters in the corner under the baby books, I quietly played Jenga with everything on top of the lizard, then used a Tupperware lid to convince the lizard to get into a kid's meal bucket from the zoo. Once it entered the bucket, I slammed the lid on top and took it outside to the sidewalk where I freed the lizard.

So I am a rock star, but a quiet one, because the baby is sleeping and it took him a long time to do so.

The cats were completely useless, btw. Even when the lizard sat on top of the bookshelf, they were not interested at all. No prey instinct. Maybe they don't like lizards, too chewy, not enough meat to be of effort.

Grumbel growl grumble

Well, I was hoping to have time to write a nice happy upbeat post about our fabulous trip to CO, but since the boy has croup and put a sippy cup top down the sink, lost the Robin Hood DVD somewhere, and partially destroyed an unread magazine, I'm working on getting my blood pressure down. All this happened while I was discovering that Netflix is doing away with Profiles, that is, the ability to keep one queue for the guy who likes obscure anime and sci-fi stinkers and one for me. So now I have to figure out what alternatives there are to Netflix, so I'm already cranky. Boys with croup are also cranky.

Okay. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. More later when I am not so cranky.

Washing is fun

Having a washing machine is such a blessing that I can't even tell you. Thanks to J & T for, well, allowing us to benefit from seriously unfun life upheavals.

Washing machines aside, we went to the new children's museum this weekend and A had a fabulous time. We bought a membership because, well, if the three of us visit twice in the next year, it'll be paid for. I think A and I will go there during the week anyway.

They had a toddlers' gallery that was a virtual forest: trees to climb through and in, big wool boulders and hills to climb on. A liked the clouds on the wall that were all geared together; turn one and a set all rotated together. There was also a fishpond that you could pull back the surface to see the fish underneath.

There's lots of stuff, and it's all hands-on. There was a go-kart ramp with little wooden cars that A loved. Another big hit: a bubble machine surrounded by bowls of soapy water and bubble wands at kid height. Boy, did we have a hard time getting him to leave that. There's a room downstairs that looks like you're in a tank with dolphins, but it's a loud echoing basement room with children screeching like banshees. A wasn't quite so into that.

And I'm up so early because we have to take back the U-haul pick-up used for transporting the washer and go to the orthodontist this morning. C is still snoring away, despite the annoying loud top 40 playing.

His father's son

A and I went to swimming today (A was cranky, cranky, cranky) and then to Sea World. They've just re-opened the children's area, which went from being Shamu's Happy Harbor to the Sesame Street Bay of Play.

The major change is that there are now three actual rides there: a Dumbo knock-off of flying fish, a spinning ride not unlike the teacup ride, and a third that's hard to describe. We went on flying fish last Monday when the Bay of Play opened, but it was pouring and the rides were all shut down before we could ride the other two.

The spinning ride is basically this: you get into a cup-like thing with a wheel in the center. The cups spin around and you can rotate your own cup by spinning the wheel for even more stomach-lurching fun.

Now A has been on one ride, the flying fish ride, which is very gentle and easy-going. He wasn't thrilled; he wasn't scared. It was okay.

But the spinning ride, boy howdy--this is a hit. He got in and started turning the wheel. I didn't tell him to. I didn't show him that it moved the car. He started turning the wheel while we were waiting for the ride to start, got enough motion to confirm that he was moving the cup, and then giggled like mad and kept spinning it. The sheer joy he took in figuring that out, that's C all the way. Then he giggled throughout the entire ride. That might be me.

The problem with twenty-two (!) month olds on rides: they want to go again. Right now. Now now now! Look, all these people just got out and walked away (the fools!) and we can go into their cups and sit before anyone else comes in. Of course, I am from New York and this child will learn the hierarchy of lines and the bellows of hellfire that await cutters. But I did take him all the way through the line so he could ride it again. I think the teacups are going to have to make it back onto our list of things to ride at Disney World.

Washing a go-go

Our washing machine was found dead (or at least maimed) Saturday morning, with the un-agitated wet swim stuff in it. I didn't realize how critical washing machines were to houses with children until ours died.

So we spent some time this weekend learning our local laundromats. The Lucky Laundromat takes top honors for their free (and massive, and hot) dryers. The Corner Wash had better seating but the dryers were more costly and less efficient.

A thinks laundromats are fabulous playgrounds. There's open space to run, vending machines and video games to play with, doors to open and shut, and, best of all, lots of carts that are just his size to push around. He spent a fair amount of time the second day rolling carts into rows, then crashing through them and re-aligning them. Life's almost always fascinating when you're almost two.

The washer may have a baby sock crammed into it or the transmission may be going. I'm not the engineer; I don't troubleshoot this crap.

I've suddenly realized that it's near the end of May and we're almost into June, which means we're going on a trip to CO for a wedding, grandparents, and friends. Woo hoo. I need to get someone to watch the cats. Yikes.

Things that amaze my husband about the boy

• A likes to take his cars and crawl around the floor making "vroom-vroom" noises.
• He expects a parent to accompany him on these treks.
• A allocates the cars. If he hands you the green VW van, then you drive that one, not the purple hot rod he has chosen for himself. If you switch cars on him, he will straighten you out.
• A repeats new words randomly, like "mermaid."
• A loves piggyback rides.
• A likes to roll a ball inside a pan.
• If A gives you a hug, he'll make you look at him so he can give you a kiss too.

In short, A is offering an invitation to play. It's super cute.

Things that amaze me: A turned down a chance to lick the spoon while I was making strawberry jam. I knew we only tried to feed him healthy stuff, but jeez, the kid doesn't even want to lick a spoon while we're making something sweet. Of course, I was able to find a taker for the jam spoon.

First dentist visit

Yesterday. He was great.

First of all, I have to mention how much my dentist's office loves my boy. They do. I had braces when I was pregnant so I was in for cleanings every three months and they saw me get huger and huger. The hygienist was due two weeks before me and our kids are eleven days apart. I scheduled my cleaning to be her first day back after maternity leave. We sent the office a birth announcement. Then the braces came off and I needed a fair amount of post-braces work when the boy was tiny, so they saw him a lot. Now that he's bigger, he can't really go along and sit on my lap when I have a cleaning. (Yes, he did, really.) So they were all excited to see him.

He sat in the chair. He would not open his mouth. He did brush his teeth with the free toothbrush. I think everyone in the office came by to coo over him. They made me take pictures.

The dentist showed off his leet ninja dentist skills by saying to me, "Well, he's got eight teeth upper and eight lower, and everything that I can see looks like it's well-aligned and coming in okay, including the molars. It looks like he's got space for those last four. The teeth themselves look good." Since this was all ascertained by peeking at A's teeth between baby talk and toothbrushing, this is good.

So the teeth are good and we'll go back in six months and maybe he'll open his mouth that time. Maybe.

I know, I know.

It's been a busy life. Sorry.

The grandparents came to town and much fun was had by all. We went all over town: the Maritime Museum, Point Loma, Sea World. A got sick and threw up spectacularly over all of us, with Grandma jumping in like the saint she is to catch vomit with her hands. But he's recovered and we're looking forward to seeing the grandparents again in June.

Milestones: Last Monday, A floated on his back on his own for the first time. This is a huge thing. He didn't do it for very long before he kicked his way out of it, but he's at least started to get the concept of buoyancy. He's moving up to the toddler swim class next session, sniff.

This last week, A discovered his shadow. We were at the fountain in Balboa Park near the Fleet, and he was running around the fountain in lovely circles. He stopped at the edge and I didn't know what he was looking at until I saw him swinging his arms and watching his shadow. He's watching his shadow all the time now.

It's been hot here, like July hot. We went to the rose garden in Balboa Park yesterday but it was so hot we took A in.

Sigh.

I went to the plumeria society cutting sale this weekend, which went great and I had a great time and won more cuttings than seems possible and was given even more, blah blah blah, but one of the people there who I really liked died a couple days ago. Nobody in the society heard about it until her obituary ran today.

She was 53. She'd had breast cancer in 2001 and recovered, but the cancer came back and got her liver before she got diagnosed.

Two months ago, she was joking with me at a plumeria society meeting. She was a very cool lady, sweet and sassy and funny, and I will miss her.

Happy day!

A made it through the night without waking or needing to be snuggled and comforted due to0 immense ear pain, so we're all much, much happier here. I'm not sure he's 100% better, but he's definitely through the worst of it.

Whew.

Boy is sick

We've been having a bad couple days here. A is sick and in pain, enough pain that he's on the occasional crying jag where nothing helps and all he wants to do is cry.

So I took him to the doctor this morning (the choices: 8:10 last night or 8:45 this morning--considering their track record with late night appointments, I decided the morning was better).

No ear infection, nothing wrong with heart or lungs, he's just got a head cold that's giving him ear and sinus pain. Now, you and I can take Sudafed, but the boy has to wing it with saline. Sigh.

He's crying again. We are all apparently Argentina here.

Let's go fly

A picked out a kite today at Costco. It looks like a scarlet macaw. He's busy banging it into every piece of furniture downstairs right now.

I called the airline to buy A a ticket for our flight to CO in June. The woman who got me was brand spanking new and was extremely well-intentioned but completely incapable of getting me a ticket for A. Having done this a couple times now, I know the process:

1. They have to create a completely new reservation for A since adding to ours results in change fees.
2. They have to put in some overrides on whatever the current pricing is to buy another seat with the discount code we bought our ticket under.
3. They have to mark this seat as "infant" and put it through some algorithm to come up with a price that's 50% less than the adult ticket.
4. They have to apply his frequent flier number.
   
5. They have to apply taxes and fees, which makes the price closer to 25% off the adult ticket.
6. They have to add a note to his reservation that says "Infant traveling with parents."
   
7. They have to seat him with us.
   
8. They have to cross-reference our reservation with his reservation just in case the seating changes for some reason and someone tries to seat an infant away from his parents.
9. They have to take the $15 phone ticketing fee off since they don't allow infant seats to be purchased through the website.

This is a little complicated for one's first day of ticketing, don't you think? After a couple game tries, she put me through to a supervisor. I felt so bad for her that at the end of the call, I told the supervisor that the new person had been very kind and accommodating and that she should pass my regards along to her, that I understood this was a weird thing.

This will probably be his last flight as an infant. Sigh.

Easter and whatnot

I've gotten some alone time and seen A be cranky around C, so I'm feeling better.

We tried coloring eggs here but that wasn't happening. I handed A an egg to put in dye. He banged it against the table until it cracked, then threw the peeled egg on the floor. C and I did two dozen eggs ourselves. Maybe next year he'll be more into coloring eggs....

He did much better with the egg hunt we had around the house Sunday morning. We put pretzels in plastic eggs and once he'd gotten into the swing of the egg thing, he was happy. He got one dark chocolate nonpareil. This kid likes the good stuff.

Yesterday we had swimming, which A did fabulous in, really. He kicked and paddled and almost floated but didn't quite. He's close to floating. He smiles and claps and plays along with the songs.

End of my rope

I realize this should be an upbeat, peppy post because it's been so freaking long since I posted, but it's not going to be. This is a mommy angst post.

A is twenty months now, almost. And he's full-on into establishing his independence and testing boundaries and all of that. He runs everywhere and has ginormous amounts of energy from reserves I cannot access.

And I am tired, people. I am tired and worn and run-down and frustrated.

It feels like one step forward, three steps back. When he says "thank you" now, he often adds "you're welcome," which is so freaking cute and endearing. Sometimes he listens very well when I tell him that as we walk down the street, he needs to hold my hand or hold onto the stroller (wall, whatever). And he holds out his hand for me to hold as sweet as pie.

Then he runs into the street in front of a car, or hits another kid in the head with a toy, or tries to bite me when I remove him from the street or the fracas. Then I feel like a complete failure, like this boy of mine will be a terror or a brat or a demon due to my inability to apply the proper parenting techniques at the right time.

And I am so frustrated I could just scream and cry and have my own fit. Does A do this with C? Not really, but C's not with him as much as I am. But maybe C has the big boy voice that makes A obey him. Or maybe A's into daddy worship these days. Or C's a mountain compared to me who scares the crap out of A. I can't decipher this one in my current state.

I know this will pass. I know consistency is the name of this game. Some day A will learn and borrow the car and get Axe body spray. But right now, I feel very frustrated and sad and alone.

First compound sentence

First legible by other people one, anyway, and the first one without signs. (Most of our compound sentences seem to include the signs for "more" and "please.") Leaving the house Thursday night, giving A running commentary on what we're doing: "Now, we have to get your shoes on and get in the car, because we have to go in the car and get Daddy from work."

A runs to the garage door, a shoe in each hand, laughing and saying, "Get Daddy! Get Daddy!"

Mommy the monster

I'm sure all parents have the "oh hell" days, where they realize (after the fact) that their kid has recognized something they had not and parenting decisions were made in error.

This is today for me.

We went to the zoo after A's morning nap. He was walking around pretty well. I offered him his cup, and he didn't want it, which is pretty common, so we walked around some more. He kept signing drink at me, and I offered him the cup, which he threw on the ground.

I got irritated and told him that if he didn't want a drink, he should just put it back in the basket where it belongs. He took the cup out of the basket and threw it, with great vehemence, on the ground, away from the stroller.

I picked up the cup, put it back in the basket, informed A that he had a choice between continuing to walk or riding in the stroller but that he was going to leave that cup alone and if he didn't he would be put into the stroller and we would leave the zoo immediately.

He threw the cup on the ground again.

He kicked and screamed when I buckled him into the stroller but quieted quickly and I walked him out of the middle of the zoo as quickly as possible with no conversation.

We get to the car and what is there? A's sippy cup.

What cup have I been offering him? The one from yesterday with mildew-scented bacteria-laden disgusting nasty water.

Was my boy trying to communicate, hey, Mom, this water is nasty; could you get me some more? Yes. Did I get it? No.

So now I'm going to assuage my bad parent guilt with Mary Poppins and cookies. He's already got fresh water. I wonder what disease he'll get from sipping nasty day-old water.

Wow, he's growing

We went to the doctor for a bad case of diaper rash (which is fine, really, I'm just a first-time overprotective mommy who thinks one week is really too long for a diaper rash) and he's 26.4 pounds (with shoes). He is huge.

He's adding words like crazy. After a visit from L, he picked up "that," which is his new favorite word. Yesterday at swimming he picked up "gog" for goggles. It's hard for me to document what words he's picking up because he's often repeating words when we say them but not replicating them on his own later.

Swimming is going fabulously well, btw. He's this close to floating on his own, which is the next big step for him. He's kicking and paddling through water when we dip him now.

Visitors away

We've had a flurry of visitors from Denver and Portland and now it's back to just the three of us. It's fun to have visitors and we're sad to see them go, but it's also nice to say, ah, what will we do today, just us three?

A is super smart. I know you all knew that. At nineteen months, he has figured out how to get movies to play from a menu by pushing the buttons on the DVD player itself, something C and I don't know how to do (and C is not a clueless Luddite when it comes to technology). That's a milestone right there.

He's into kissing and hugging right now, which is so cute. Big hugs, big kisses.

Niles is fine

Sorry for anyone who has been concerned. We've been hosting our lovely friends the Bumps so there's my excuse for lagging.

Actually, Niles looked fine that evening, although he had a ping-pong ball-sized squishy thing on his right foreleg. They gave him fluids, so I assumed it was just the fluids pooling somewhere. It was gone the next morning, but the vet called to ask if he was okay and I mentioned that he'd had it but it was gone and Niles looked fine.

Oh no. The vet would like to see him. ASAP.

Now, I had planned to clean Wednesday but didn't since we were running Niles around to the vet. So on Thursday when we have this conversation I haven't showered, I am mid-ice-cream-making, and I cannot be there in twenty minutes for a cat who honestly looks healthy and happy.

How about 3:40? Fine. That gives me enough time to shop, shower, wrangle tot and cat, and get out the door in the pouring rain. I drive over to OB, find parking not too far away, and wake a sleeping baby to take him and the cat out in the absolute pouring drenching rain to go to the vet.

Oh, the vet says, a front leg. She thought I meant a back leg and thought Niles could be having a hematoma. The vet feels so bad she ushers me to the door herself, which means I don't have a happy vet tech asking me if I would like help taking the cat to the car. I really could have used the help, but I didn't want to make the vet feel worse, which she obviously did.

Back out into the pouring rain with tot and cat. Rain in SoCal is the equivalent of snow in CO; there are accidents and traffic slowing galore. I get back on the interstate for high speeds of 20 MPH and low speeds of 7. It takes me an hour to get home when it took me twenty minutes to get there.

But Niles is fine. He's gotten a couple days of wet cat food out of this, so he's super.

Cat sitting

Our sweet little white kitty was sick today and gave us a scare. He spent the day at the vet's getting X-rays (number 7, 8, and 9, good lord he'll get radiation tumors soon) and blood tests to discover nothing specific was wrong other than some elevated lipase levels. They gave him fluids. We brought him home and he's been perkier this evening.

A was a psycho demon at the vet's. He got licked by a couple dogs and got to give one treats (heaven!), but man, he's fast and doesn't sit still. He's into everything. He almost shut off the vet's PC while she was showing me the X-rays.

So tomorrow we'll be on cat watch. Poor Niles.

Cat attack

We go to the zoo a lot. The mountain lions in particular are interested in A, as in interested in having him for lunch. If he's out of the stroller and toddling along, a lion will pace back and forth, following him, looking like he's ready to pounce.

Last week, A was running and fell (and cut his palm, poor baby). The lion had been crouching in a corner, but once A fell, the lion jumped up and ran to the front of the cage, right across from where A was. It was frightening. Then the lion continued to stalk him while he cried. I've taken some video; I'll try to remember to put it on YouTube.

ETA:


Today the snow leopard jumped at us. That was scary enough (and fast enough) that I jumped.

Milestone

Today's the day I got caught up in writing and only realized how much time had elapsed when (not to reveal too much information) A handed me a box of condoms. Thanks, sweetie. I'm a first-born too; I get it. I'm popping off to put this in the baby book right now.

Death of a car

C and I drive very old Volvos. Well, we did, except that C's car died. It died died. It wouldn't start. He tried putting the paddles on it to shock it back to life, but alas, it was lost. We towed it to the garage and after the mechanic said, well, so far, I've found that you need a new engine, we said, stop right there and sent the car off to the donation junkyard.

So we're car shopping. My car today decided that it didn't want to change gears, which is a problem since it's an automatic and it's supposed to change gears (you know, automatically).

I know my car is twenty years old and it's tired.

I even had it in my head that I would drive it for ten years, until it was twenty years old, and then I would get a new car.

But now the time has come and I'm just not ready. Sigh.

Have you ever tried car shopping with an 18-month-old? It's short. You can go for a test drive and then you're pretty much done for the day. It's the perfect excuse to get away from slimy salesmen. Why don't women sell cars (aside from that hottie in the Sopranos who took a roll with Tony)?

Anyone have car buying advice? I'm pretty much open to anything.

Hello, officer

A is fascinated with the phone. Fascinated. He'll get a hold of it and push buttons. He's only called one person, I think, and that was on my cell, which I don't let him play with any more. Our home phone is so freaking complicated to use that it hasn't been a problem. There's no intuitive way to dial our phone.

Yesterday he was playing with the home phone. I took it away from him and pushed the End button, and noticed it said, "Line on hold." (Recently we switched phone packages and got call waiting, which I despise.) I clicked over and there was a recording in Spanish. I hung up.

Then we get a call coming through. It shows up as "unknown name, unknown number." I let it ring through to voice mail, which is my standard mode for unknown calls. It's election season in California and we get a lot of unknown numbers calling in the evening now.

They actually leave a message, so I check voice mail:

"Hello, this is the San Diego Police. There was a 9-1-1 hang up call from this number, so we are returning the call. If you are there, pick up. Again, this is the San Diego Police. Please pick up. Since nobody has picked up, we will be dispatching officers to Our Address..."

Oh shit on a shingle. I Google the SD police department and call the non-emergency number. Hello, I am a horrible mother with a one-year-old who can actually dial 911 but we're all fine here, thanks. You don't need to send anyone. I should be leaving to pick up my husband from work soon. I'm not just saying that; we really are fine. It's just me and this one-year-old. We live at the end of nowhere and I'd like to save the officers the trip and minimize the mortification and embarrassment I'm already drowning in.

Then we waited forty-five minutes, which was as long as I could possibly stand to wait, before leaving to pick up C. And nobody had knocked down the door while we were gone, so everything's okay.

But the phones are moving out of reach.

His father's son

We went to the zoo on Friday. We were walking up a pretty steep hill (up to the lemurs from Cat Canyon). A was walking behind the stroller, leaning on both sides. He had a sippy cup that I kept trying to put in the pocket of the stroller. He kept taking it out and fussing with the stroller so finally I stopped to let him do what he needed to do.

There's a rubber L-shaped latch that holds the stroller together when it's collapsed. It's located just above the basket. It's right on A's eye level.

He figured out that he could put his sippy cup in the basket, held upright by the longer arm of this latch. Insta-cup holder for the toddler set.

Does this not sound like exactly something C would do?

No year end in review

Good grief; I don't have time to keep up now.

We're back. We've been back a week. We went to Colorado for Christmas and had a fabulous time. A played in snow and with his cousins, which made him giggle madly.

We're at home now on the downward slope of C's liquid diet. Maybe by the end of this month he'll be back on solid foods.

A and I are back to our daily zoo treks but man, the zoo has been packed. What are all these people doing in our zoo? Anyway, we did finally get to see the new baby panda and the grizzly cubs, so we're all happy on a zoo front.

A has been adding words left and right. Cracker (in CO), car, apple, out.