Chatterbox

I haven't kept up with updating his word list because he just says so much now. He'll repeat things I say and say things he remembered me saying in the past. He had two things he refused to say in the past: 1) Oskar 2) his name After he went concrete diving on Saturday he now says both!

In preschool they sing the same song everytime welcoming the kids. He has never said his name, so we've been working on that at home and were not making any progress. All of a sudden, today he said his name!! He said it multiple times and looked really proud of himself. I wonder how long before he says it in school.

He had his third day at preschool with Grandma and he did so well. Everyone tells me he's like a different boy. I wonder what it is that makes him so clingy and whiny when I'm there. Sadly Grandma can't take him anymore so we are back to velcro child.

Future satellite engineer?

Leave Dave and G alone to play with tinker toys and this is what happens:


In case you can't figure it out, it's a satellite with a docked rocket. And the loud outfit was G's doing. He now has an opinion on his wardrobe!

Urgent Care and Outback, the perfect Saturday night

Friday night we all ate pizza on the front porch at Grandma's and Gigantor decided to face dive off the retaining wall. He scraped his nose and got a nice shiner on the upper right part of his forehead. After he screamed through his bath and we got him to bed at Grandma's, we met up at Outback the next evening for dinner. When I saw him in the parking lot he wasn't excited to see me, but looked like a lump. We went and sat down and ordered and he wasn't interested in the bread! That's just unheard of! He sat quietly in my lap for a while, then asked to be put down and he stood next to me and laid his head in my lap which is not like G at all.

I canceled my order, went home took his temp which was 101.7. Then I gave him motrin and called the advice nurse. I was worried that the fall yesterday and fever were related. She told us to get to Urgent Care. At Urgent Care they took his rectal temp which was 101.5 and checked his ears and eyes and mouth. They said we should go to Childrens because they can't do CAT scans. But his fever was coming down and he was interested in eating snacks and hungry for dinner. We decided to go home first and have dinner and by then, he was acting completely normal and talking and running around. The only thing was he was calling Oskar "Oskar" instead of "Aya". We decided to skip Children's and see how he is in the morning. The next day his fever was gone and he was back to his energetic self.

The good day and the bad day

Yesterday I had to wait for some repair people to come to the house, so Grandma took G too preschool. I was worried he would give Grandma a hard time, but no he let her leave the room for more than half of the time! Grandma said as soon as it was snack time he ran off to get food and didn't care where she was the rest of the time. Today everyone kept telling me how well he did yesterday and how he didn't fuss or anything! I guess it's the old saying, "it's not [G], it's me".

Today was a COMPLETELY different story. He started fussing/crying as soon as we got in the door. To top it off today was my day to help out and do snacks, but I had a screaming child for half of the class! He didn't even calm down during snack time! I had to remove him from the classroom area because he was starting to upset the other kids. Then when it was time for free play he got on a tricycle and started doing laps and was okay again. He even sang along to the alphabet song and tried to copy hand motions for the itsy bitsy spider. I just don't get his moods.

It seems every week he has one good day and one bad day. I have to say I'm a little relieved when Wednesday afternoon comes around...preschool is stressful for me!

Poop awareness day

He told me he pooped today! It was before breakfast and I was trying to get him to come downstairs to eat. He was reluctant and kept saying what I thought was "book". He walked into his room and laid down to be changed! Holy cow was I surprised!

Just some observations....

I'm surprised by a few things. I thought G would be tossing all his toys through the railings in the loft down below, but he doesn't. I thought he would be playing with the knobs on the stove every chance he got, but he doesn't (good thing because I can't for the life of me find childproof covers that fit!). I also thought he would be opening and closing the shutters on the door to the balcony in the loft, but so far hasn't touched it. He does turn his light and ceiling fan on and off every chance he gets though...and I expected that! I also find the dome light on my car on many mornings from G driving the car after we get home. One of these days I'm going to have a dead battery.

The biggest surprise is how well he is learning to take turns. At his preschool, Miss Esther has the kids count to 10 and then they take turns with the toy if two kids are fighting over it. They get 10 seconds with the toy until one finally loses interest. When I count for G, he usually gives it up by the time I get to 5. He'll hand it over on his own. I can't believe how well that works.

Also I started eliminating "no" statements and I notice he responds in a more appropriate way. Instead of saying "Don't stand on the chair", I say "sit on the chair, please". I'm taking a parenting class and I think this is the biggest takeaway for me. The instructor says they don't hear the negative and just hear "stand on the chair". Instead if you tell them what to do, you are likely to get a better response.

Preparations for the big day

Next month G turns 2! Now that the house is clean we can be more social and invite people over. We've decided to have a party for him despite not even starting on the backyard. We were hoping to have a backyard for a bbq and kid play, but instead we are just hoping for furniture. A place to sit and a table would be nice additions to the house.

His birthday is on Memorial Day weekend this year so I'm trying to decide if we should push it to the following week or not. Neither set of Grandparents will be in town to celebrate with the little guy though.

Unfortunately, Dave is out in the desert for a couple of days so he has put a damper on my list of projects to be completed. He'll just have to work double time when he gets back. Poor Oskar is going to sit by the front door waiting while Dave is gone.

RC Show

...or C Show as G referred to it. Dave and G went to an RC Show today and he was so excited to go. He had so much fun checking out all the planes, trains, and cars. He was too busy with all the rc action he wouldn't ever look at the camera, so there are lots of pictures of the back of his head.

Wahhhh

Yesterday G flipped out at preschool. I tried to leave the room and he lost it. He screamed and cried very LOUDLY non stop until I came back in after about 5 minutes. He was so grumpy and clingy the rest of the day.

Today I was prepared for a horrible day, but he surprised me. I brought his teddy bear to help him feel more secure, but he wasn't interested in it once we got to school. He was clingy at first, but got some super burst of energy and was almost bouncing off the walls! He found a tricycle and started doing laps around the house. He even let one of the teachers wash his hands without screaming his head off. He's getting better about following directions and sitting on his colored square for songs and storytime. I suppose we are making progress.

The Beach

We went to the beach today with Dave and his parents. It was nice and empty at the beach since it was a Monday. G had fun playing chicken with the waves, until he slipped and fell into the water. He was knee deep and doing well despite the 59 degree water, but once his bottom his the water, he was not a happy camper.He built sand castles (or rather destroyed) with Grandpa and raced his quad on a sand track with Dave. Oskar and Chelsea were also enjoying the beach day. Oskar barked at random dogs that walked by, and Chelsea chased rocks...the usual.

Help us with names....

Now that we know it's a boy, we need help with names. Post a comment with a name suggestion! Then I'll post a poll in a week or so.

The Zoo

Today Gigantor and I went to the zoo with Shannon, Ian, and Tyler. Gigantor was really excited about the zoo. He was happily pointing out all the tour buses and golf carts and then realized there were animals to see too! He saw birds, fish, flamingos, monkeys, bears, pandas, lions, and a lot of other animals I have never heard of.

He has been to the Zoo and Wild Animal Park in the past, but wasn't really interested in the animals. This time was different. He was more than willing to get back in his stroller to continue onward and see more animals. He stuffed his face at lunch time and passed out when we got home.

Here he is chillin' with Miss Tyler just before lunch and looking for trouble with Ian.

The Big News

Gigantor is having a little brother! Looks like the guesses were about 50/50 anyway so you all obviously had no clue! :) I would have posted sooner, but my laptop crashed on Tuesday night. Having worked for a backup software company for six years you would think I would be religious about backing up. However since moving I have slacked and I was very stressed out that I lost months worth of Gigantor pictures. Luckily Dave was able to take the drive out and put it in his desktop and recover all my pictures (and my taxes!).

Hopefully one of these days I'll hook up the scanner so I can post the sonogram.

1st day of preschool

The first 30 minutes were pretty rough since Ethan was attached to my leg and wouldn't even leave me to go play in a car. At first he was hesitant to participate in the activities like coloring, but when we got around to snacks and painting he was having a blast. He would still check on where I was every few minutes and sometimes come and sit in my lap for a few seconds before returning to his seat. I think he got more paint on his shirt, hands, and yes even his hair than on his paper. He would say "wow" when he slapped more paint on his paper. By the end of the day, he was venturing off to be 20 ft away from me before checking in on me so I'll call that progress. One of these days I hope to leave him for the entire time! We shall see...
Here he is enjoying his favorite time of day....snack time! (He's in the left corner)Wish I had taken some more pictures, but it's hard to take pictures of someone when they are attached to you!

Tantrum Tuesday

First some good news....we got Gigantor into the playgroup co-op preschool! It's 8 weeks and they plan on having future sessions so we will have something for him in the fall. We are going to be attending the Tuesday and Wednesday class. All of the kids he's familiar with so I'm hoping he'll get adjusted pretty quickly. I know the first few days (at least) will be rough, but I hope I will be able to leave him soon. It will be nice to be able to run errands Gigantor-free for a couple of hours in the morning.

I also start my parenting class tonight. I really need some help dealing with Gigantor's tantrums. Like today at lunch, he declared he was done and there was still food left on his tray. I asked if he was sure and he said yes, so I cleaned him up and got him out of his chair. Then he demanded a snack. I said he could have a snack later, but he screamed and tried to grab my legs. Then he carried a stool over to the pantry in front of his shelf and started to climb up to help himself to a snack. I grabbed him off the stool and moved him into the dining room and told him we could go play with the trains. He ran back to the pantry to repeat the process. UGH! He's more stubborn than I am, and he has a lot more energy.

If that isn't enough this morning we went to the park and he started throwing sand. Luckily no one else was there, but I still don't want him to throw sand. I warned him we would go home if he threw sand, so he picks up two handfuls and chucks them. I said okay, we are going home then. He screamed when I picked him up and cried "play play play" all the way out of the playground.