What a day. We went to the farmers' market, played outside with Stephen in his pool, dropped Jaime's rings off to be re-sized (thank goodness for lifetime warranties that include re-sizings), got Stephen a hair cut, and ate dinner at Chili's. Great day. Now I'm going to lay down for bed at 9pm. I'm old. Goodnight.

I don't know what happened to my son between last night and this morning, but it was something good. When my wife got him up and changed his diaper/clothes, he just stayed in his room and quietly played with his kitchen all by himself for the next thirty minutes. He's never done anything like that before. I kept sneaking halfway up the stairs to check on him, and he was quietly playing with his kitchen. Sometimes he was cleaning it up and sometimes he was pretending to cook stuff. I brought him up a sippy cup of milk and he was drinking it nicely in between cooking some fake pizzas.

For breakfast we had pan fries (southern style hashbrowns, potato cubes, etc) and he was stabbing them all by himself with his fork and blowing on the pieces to cool them down before eating them. He ate the whole plate with no fuss. Then we put him in his stroller and did a bunch of errands that were within walking distance. Bank, post office, drugs store for milk. He was very good and walked a large portion of the way. Now he's on the floor "reading" his interactive wooden ABC spinner from his Grandma LaRaine.

His Uncle Billy gave us a book of children's songs (with chords so I can actually play it). Stephen does the following all by himself... He gets up on the bench and uncovers the piano keys. Then he flips through the book, settles on a page, and starts playing and singing. He can't actually play or sing or read but it's pretty cute. I've been trying to get a video of this for over a week but he's really shy when you pull the camera out. He knows the difference between me using my iPod for myself and using it to record/photograph him. I'll figure it out soon enough.

January 08, 2011

Stephen is quite insistent on going up and down the stairs "like a big kid." Trying to stop him just results in tantrums, so we usually just let him and stand nearby to catch him. He goes down the stairs in our home front-first while reaching up to hold the railing. It's a pretty nerve-wracking experience even though he has proven to be quite adept at it.

He is showing a little more interest in television/movies recently. He crawls up on the couch to watch a few minutes of a PBS Kids show while he drinks his juice. In the afternoon, once the kids programming is over, he starts bringing me the remote control right after he wakes up from his nap. Then, as soon as I put on one of his shows (via Instant Netflix), he walks away satisfied. He pays little or no attention to the entire episode as it runs, but as soon as it ends he brings me the remote again. I don't quite get it.

He has shown little-to-no improvement in the area of speech and this is causing a lot more tantrums. It must be pretty hard for a little guy who can't speak and doesn't know all the house rules yet. All of his "I want " is boiled down to one whine sound that is sometimes accompanied by pointing. Some stuff is easy like "I want my crayons off the shelf" or "I want you to lift me up," but most of the time we are just confused. This leads to anger--and lots of it. This is the part that has gotten much much worse in the past three months. He kicks, spits, slaps, throws, bites... all on purpose, and all in anger. He will run by the coffee table and purposely knock every single thing on the floor when he is mad. Then he looks up at you like "There!" Sometimes this happens only a few times in a day... sometimes 40 or 50.

All in all, we have been really busy. We have been painting walls and assembling furniture for what seems like forever. We are finally getting ahead of the workload. We were able to open Stephen's last Christmas present yesterday because we finally have room to use it. That was a good sign.

I have fallen off the wagon with this blog, and it doesn't look like I'm going to climb back on board anytime soon. I haven't been taking any pictures since we got back from Christmas. Hopefully I can put together some decent wide-angle shots of our newly refinished rooms.

Friday night, we went to eat at Chili's with Martha, Eric, and Brad. Our son started to be a little bit of a pain at the end, but everything turned out all right. When we got back, we all watched some bad youtube videos. I have been needing to replace our kitchen faucet for 2 years, but Eric helped me along by snapping off the faucet handle when he tried to get a glass of water.

Saturday morning, I went to the Grahams' house to take pictures of their children for a Christmas card. It was a lot of fun and I think I got a few good group shots. His kids were quite entertained by our baby, which made the job a lot easier. Stephen is a good prop.

Then I had to go drop Jaime and Stephen off at the house and pick Scott up at the airport. That went without a hitch, and it was so fast that I didn't even get charged for parking in the hourly parking lot at Dulles.

Today, Scott and I went and ran errands at four different locations (one was Total Wine and More, so that doesn't count), and we have all just been watching football all day. Within the past hour, I am getting caught up on laundry, and I cleaned out underneath the sink and started to take the faucet assembly apart. Good, busy weekend. Tomorrow, Scott and I plan to go to the Air and Space museum near Dulles, and maybe do a few abstract paintings. Good visit, good visit.

Well, yesterday I had my first encounter with someone trying to tell me how to raise my kid. Really it was more like chastising me or trying to pass on some not-so-subtle parenting wisdom.

At the grocery store, it took longer than usual (137 dollars' worth of longer-than-usual), so my kiddo was getting restless by the time we got to the registers. He had been playing with his Logan's bucket the whole time, but I decided to give him his favorite treat--the pad of paper on which I write my grocery lists. He just loves to play with the yellow pages and gum/slobber the binding. This very old (70's? 80's?) lady was in the line next to me. She kept looking over with a mixed look of "isn't that cute" and "that's just not right; that dad doesn't know what he's doing." I went through the line, and she finished just before me in her checkout line (real shocker that I picked the wrong line). She walked past and said "That's not good for me." Why does everyone speak as if they are the child, as if that's less offensive? You know, like my child would have told me that he's not supposed to put the pad of paper in his mouth, if only he had the ability to speak. Like the whole world is a cheeky caption contest. I just ignored her and went and got my next bag of groceries from the cashier. When I turned back to load the bag into the cart, she said "That's not good for me, Dad."

Apparently avoidance wasn't going to work. Avoidance is the only way I can deal with things that irk me in a non-combative manner. So, trying to stay calm and be polite, I said "well it's not bad for him," with a somewhat confused look on my face (a look that tried to nonverbally discredit her). She repeated her point verbatim... only this time it took on a condescending tone like the new father clearly does not know what he's doing. The claws came out: "WHAT?! How about you mind your own business?!?" There really is no way to express my tone with caps and italics. It's not any louder than normal, it's just piercing and arrogant, like she just unknowingly crossed a mob boss. I could feel everyone within earshot freeze. All eyes were on me as I grabbed another bag of groceries from the cashier. She still wasn't going away as I loaded the bag into my cart, so I made eye contact. She simply uttered "I'm sorry" and hobbled off.

The only bumper sticker I've thought about getting in the past five years was WWLDD? (What Would Larry David Do?)... I guess you can see why. I'm sure this lady thought she was being helpful. Maybe she thought she was saving me from Child Services coming to my house, I don't know. The fact of the matter is that I don't like to be "helped." When I'm standing on the street corner with a baby stroller and two leashed dogs, don't stop your car to let me cross the street, because you are then putting the pressure on me to cross right then, while you watch. In my mind, cars have the right-of-way. They can kill you. These are the stupid things that upset me, much like Larry David.

Also, my wife has given me a complex about my "old man" products. I roll up to the checkout line with some Icy Hot and a fat can of Metamucil. I keep feeling this nagging urge to throw in "yeah, my dad's visiting from out of town" (or something similar) as the immigrant runs the items over the barcode scanner. Pathetic.

I went to LP's house with Stephen this morning to finish caulking around some exterior lights that I put up. Stephen is always so good outside of this house. I don't know if it is because he is more interested in his surroundings or what. He slept for 11 hours last night, but still napped in the car. Anyway, no one was home when I arrived. I hope everything is okay at the P residence. (EDIT: Turns out they were just out for breakfast)

I realize that Stephen's sleeping habits could change at any time, but I haven't gotten up at night in almost two months. Last time I got up with him, I was up all night, but before that it had been at least another month since the previous time. So far, this kid is a good sleeper and a good eater. He never spits up anymore when I feed him from a bottle. Maybe once a week. He can fully sit up straight on his own now, and can scoot wherever he needs to go. Next comes actual crawling.