Pool Boy

After much administrative wrangling, we finally managed to comply with the ridiculously onerous requirements of our local Park District to get pool passes for the whole family and our nanny, K. With the crazy hoops we had to jump through (it took three hours, two separate applications, photo ID, legal proof of residency, four different Park District employees plus one manager and two separate checks), you would think the pools in our town are filled with gold, rather than water and little kids' urine. After all of this, I have been encouraging pool use at every opportunity for the last week since we got the passes so that I can convince myself it was worth the effort. Joe has been too busy to go, but AJ's Uncle D. generously offered to take him last weekend. As first-time parents, we are a little uptight when it comes to AJ being around water. Joe approved Uncle D's solo trip to the pool with AJ after I reminded him that D. is a trained EMT and knows CPR. Definitely more qualified for the job of pool time supervisor than either of us. Uncle D reported that AJ did not like the sensation of water in his swim trunks at first (who does?) but eventually braved it after staring at the little fountains of water in the middle of the baby pool long enough that he couldn't sit on the side any longer. AJ had prune hands by the time he came home.

Another Bad Idea

Chalk it up to live-and-learn parenting; letting AJ play with my makeup to buy myself some extra time to get ready in the morning was another bad idea. As it probably is for all families with small children, mornings at our house can get a little crazy. It works best when Joe and I are leaving at the same time in the morning so that we can take turns showering and getting ready while the other feeds and dresses AJ. Joe has been busy at work and going in early lately, so I have been on my own with the little guy in the morning. There have been a few days when I have not even managed to take a shower by the time our nanny arrives. One morning last week when things were not running smoothly, I was desperate to finish getting ready so that I could catch my train on time and make it to a meeting at work. AJ wanted attention, and I made the mistake of substituting the closest interesting household object that I could find--a tube of eyeliner. Not that I even wear eyeliner anymore--I am lucky these days to get out of the house with a shower and brushed teeth. I have even given up on drying my hair most days and hope people at the office are assuming that I hit the gym for an early workout on my way in. (Anyone who knows me realizes that this is laughable.) Back to the eyeliner. It had a cap, and AJ is obsessed lately with items that have caps, lids, and tops. I thought he would be busy figuring our the cap to the eyeliner for a few minutes while I finished brushing my teeth. Thirty seconds later, I turned around to find the face in the picture above, which might inspire a Halloween costume for a Baby Frankenstein this year.

Wearin' My Shades

My mom came to visit this weekend to see our new house and to catch up with AJ. Although it had been a little over a month since she last saw him, he recognized Grammy J. at the airport and they picked up right where they left off. She even got him to wear these cool sunglasses that I wasn't able to get him to put on before her visit. It is harder living a plane ride away from my family now that AJ is around, so I was delighted to see the rapport they have built up from past visits.

Birthday Par-Tay

AJ survived his first birthday party this weekend. As you can see from the third picture, he was not pleased when people sang Happy Birthday to him. I think he was intimidated by the half-circle of people surrounding him and looking at him. AJ's buddies, E., H., and L. all came over to celebrate. We had the oddest weather--it was sunny for the first 20 minutes people were here, then poured and hailed for 20 minutes, got sunny again and then rained and hailed a second time. We were outside, inside, outside briefly and then inside again. AJ's little friend, E., braved the bad weather to run through the sprinkler during the second sunny break. That girl has spunk!

Handyman

AJ is still highly interested in helping with any project that is going on around the house. Having recently moved, we have been through a parade lately of electricians, plumbers, carpet layers, and security system technicians, and AJ is fascinated by each one. These poor people can hardly get their jobs done for all the "help" that they are getting from their pint-sized, self-appointed apprentice. AJ helped his uncles assemble a couple of pieces of furniture for us this weekend, and they were amazed that AJ watched what they were doing and tried to mimic their actions with the wrench by holding it up to the bolt and nut that they had just been working on and turning the wrench. For my part, I was amazed that anything held AJ's attention as long as watching and helping with the project did--much longer than playing with any toys.

Sickie

Found my camera, found my camera, found my camera laa-ast niiiiight! Hooray! It was in the drawer of the computer desk this entire time. Joe "forgot" that he unpacked it the day we moved in, and it has been there ever since. Since he kept suggesting that the camera was in one of the 20 boxes left to unpack and that I should just unpack them to see if I could find it, I am not sure if I believe his story. Regardless, I'm glad to have it back.

AJ's fever at his one year checkup did end up being the beginning of a virus that was just presenting itself, as his pediatrician predicted. Hand, foot and mouth disease has been going around our part of Chicago, and AJ's buddy came down with it on Tuesday as well. A return trip to the pediatrician was inconclusive on diagnosis--the doc said that since he didn't develop the telltale sores on his hands and feet (although he definitely had them in his mouth), it made hand, foot and mouth unlikely and said it was probably another "summer virus" that has symptoms of fever and sores in the mouth. To summarize a long four days, he had a fever of up to 103.5 for a day or two and was miserable with painful sores in his mouth that made it difficult for him to eat, sleep or just be. Lots of yogurt, chilled watermelon and walks in his stroller helped, and I was amazed at how much water he drank--probably three to four times as much as usual. It made sense, though, that he needed all of those extra fluids because he drooled like a bloodhound to the point where his shirt and my shirt were constantly soaked. You can see in the pictures the extent of the swelling in his mouth and cheeks.

Good Humor

AJ's sense of humor has been coming out more and more these past few weeks, and it is the most fun to watch it develop. A week ago I took his toy hammer and taught him how to "test" the reflexes in my knee like they do in the cartoons, and he remembers every time he sees the toy hammer in his toy bin and rushes over with the hammer to pound on my knee while I jerk it around in the air and we giggle. He also once dipped his hand in the water in the bath tub to sprinkled it on my cheek and loved my silly reaction, so he will remember and do that from time to time in the tub, which always sends him into giggle fits. Joe and AJ have started to develop a shared sense of humor as well and have their own little inside jokes.

The person who can get AJ to giggle the loudest and the hardest by far, though, is his nanny, K. I think AJ has a bit of a crush on K., because she can do something small and silly and he will go into gales of laughter, but when anyone else does the same thing immediately after, they just get a "that's not funny" look. K. once got AJ to scream with laughter by taking a sippy cup and tilting it back and forth while saying "tick-tock, tick-tock...woah!" You would have thought the guy was watching Seinfeld do live stand-up comedy from his reaction. It is neat that they have this connection, though, because it makes it clear that AJ adores her.

New Words?

AJ has been saying "MA-MAAAA!" for a while now when he is frustrated or upset. Never a polite ma-ma, just the screamed version. But I'll take it. Lately we think he has been saying "boom" as well, as in "I just dropped my cup/spoon/plate/food/ball/toy on the floor, and it went boom!" I think he learned this from a game we play in the tub where I line up several shampoo and soap bottles on the edge of the tub and he takes great pleasure in knocking them onto the bathroom floor while I yell "boom!" and provide other sound effects for him.

This morning, I swear he also said "down" when I was getting something he had pointed at down off his shelf for him. We were practicing "up, up, up" and "down, down, down" with demonstrations from a grocery store balloon a few weeks ago, so I am wondering if he picked it up then. Still no da-da or kitty despite much prompting.

Big Boy

We had AJ's one year checkup today, and he still continues to be a big boy for his age. He is up to 33 and 3/4 inches, which puts him off the growth chart for height, and he is 27.5 lbs, which puts him in the 95th percentile for weight. Frankly, I was surprised that he didn't weigh more, because he has been eating like a 16 year-old boy lately. On Sunday he ate three breakfasts--yogurt and cereal with me at home, half a bagel with cream cheese and a whole banana at a bagel shop and then a blueberry pancake and a whole piece of Canadian bacon at an impromptu Father's Day breakfast with his Chicago grandpa. The waitress at the pancake shop even said to us out of the blue "What a good little eater you have! Don't worry--he will thin out once he starts walking. Mine did."

When I got him home, his little tummy looked distended, but he was happy. And he wanted lunch on top of all that.

Other than the height and weight, everything looked normal at the doctor's office with the exception of the 101.5 degree temp that he was running. I knew something was up when AJ's nanny, K., told us that he had taken a two hour nap. The pediatrician says it looks like the onset of a virus that is just beginning to reveal itself. I think AJ just managed to pull a Ferris Bueller prank knowing that the temperature would get him out of having two immunization shots.

2007 v. 2008

Tonight we had dinner at AJ's Chicago grandparents' house in the back yard, and it definitely brought back memories from last summer when AJ was a little guy and we would take him over for an extra couple sets of hands to soothe him when he was fussy and a good home-cooked meal. Last summer he was in that fussy newborn stage when he cried for no reason, and we were still getting to know him, so he was hard for us to read.

Tonight he was swinging in his swing, playing with his plastic lawn chair, sitting up in his highchair sampling a cheeseburger and watermelon and hamming it up for his audience. He was laughing and playing peek-a-boo and adorably snuggling up to his dada when he got sleepy. We know him much better now and can usually read when he is getting hungry or cranky or tired, so things are easier on that front as well. What a difference a year makes!

Birthday Boy

I will post more on the birthday boy later, but I wanted to share a few quick pictures of the cake eating with you. Although he looks pretty clean in these shots, trust me when I tell you that he was a sticky bomb after this. A big thank you to Uncle Dave's girlfriend, Kim, who took these pictures. We still haven't found our camera after unpacking. I have a feeling it will turn up three years from now inside a shoe box in Joe's closet or somewhere similar.

Mother Versus Son, Round I

AJ and I had our first little tiff the other day. I feel like I saw a glimpse of my future with the terrible twos, and it was not pretty. Our disagreement involved a spring that was part of the baby gate AJ's grandpa was installing for him. Gene left the spring sitting safely on the newel post of the staircase overnight. AJ saw the spring and wanted it with all of his little being. He stood on his tippy toes and tried to shimmy up the newel post, grunting about how much he wanted that spring. Then he looked at me and tried pleading for it, hugging me and pointing at the object of his desire. I told him no and explained that it was too small for him to play with because he might choke on it. More grunting and pointing was followed by more "no--mommy said no-no." Then the tears turned on, followed by a little mini-tantrum where he pounded on the newel post and screamed. Finally, convinced that I was not going to give in to him, AJ got quiet for a minute and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. Then he looked at me, crawled straight over to the diaper pail in his room and touched it while giving me the naughty look. AJ knows the diaper pail is off limits because it is dirty and will often point it out to me and shake his head "no-no", so I am certain that he knew he was being defiant. I told Joe the story and his comment was "let the games begin!"

The Lawn Guys

AJ has developed a new fascination with the lawn guys. We decided to hire a lawn service this year since we have so much to do already on the weekends (Joe's despised "honey-do" list is already booked solid through August with fun activities like installing toilet paper holders in the bathrooms and hanging 30 curtain rods.) But Joe assures me that he wants to do the lawn himself once AJ is hold enough to "help", because Joe remembers how much he loved following his dad around the yard pushing his toy mower while his dad pushed the real thing. Joe's mom tells a story about Joe bursting through the door when he was about 4 or 5 yelling "mom, I need a rag!" She rushed over because she thought he was bleeding or had gotten into the gas that Joe's dad was using with the mower. But Joe just explained that he needed a rag for his back pocket because his dad had one hanging from his back pocket while he mowed the yard and Joe wanted to be just like his dad.

But until the day when father and son are doing the lawn (I will believe it when I see it), we have some nice guys from a lawn service who do it for us. They came for the first time today, and AJ's nanny reports that he was glued to the window, fascinated by what those guys were doing to the yard. AJ hasn't waved to people much since he was about nine months old and had just learned how to wave (apparently he was too cool for waving there for a while), but K reports that when the lawn guy waved to AJ in the window today, he excitedly pumped his arm up and down waving back. Kind of like he was seeing his rock star idol for the first time in person and the rock star acknowledged his presence. I have a feeling this fascination for lawn care will wane by the time AJ is a teenager and is old enough to actually mow the lawn himself.

What's That All About?

One of the most endearing things that AJ has been doing lately is to make the "what's that all about" gesture where he has his arms at his sides, bent at the elbows with palms up at shoulder level. It is the universal gesture for "what are you doing?" Joe, Kari and I all claim that we did not teach AJ this gesture, so as best we can tell, it must be one of those that is innate in all humans. AJ uses it to mean "where did the kitty go?", "why am I out of water?", "what is that squirrel doing in the yard?" and dozens of other things each day. Sometimes it is accompanied by a no-no shake of the head back and forth. I can't wait for AJ to talk, because based on his gestures, I think he will have some humorous things to say.

The Next Step

It's official--we have a walker! Two Sundays ago, AJ's Chicago grandma told me that she saw him take a step from the rocking chair to the toy basket. Then last Wednesday, AJ's nanny, K., told me that he took three steps. And I myself got to see him take eight steps toward me last night. It is definitely still not his preferred mode of transportation, but we will get there soon. In the meantime, the baby gates have been installed at the top and bottom of the stairs by AJ's Chicago grandpa, and the rest of us have been busy nailing down everything else within reach.

The Closer

First, let me apologize for the huge delay in posting. We packed up and moved over Memorial Day weekend, so things are just starting to get sorted through. I still haven't found my digital camera yet, so no new pictures, but a lot of news. I will break it up into several smaller posts.

So AJ's latest nickname is The Closer because he loves to close containers. He will pick up a shampoo bottle in the tub and hold it out to me as he grunts to indicate "open it, mama!" I flip the cap open and he squeals with delight as he firmly slams the lid shut and it makes a satisfying click. This gets repeated ad infinitum throughout tubby time. When he is eating in his highchair, I will often pull something out of the refrigerator in a Tupperware container, and he howls while I open it and get the food out because he wants to take the lid off and put it back on, take it off and put it back on. Same story with the glass milk bottle and lid.

His latest is that he is into closing doors, and he loves to do this so much that he will stand on his tippy toes and try to turn the handle to open the door so that he can have the pleasure of slamming it shut again. This is especially cute when he is just out of the tub and doesn't have a diaper on yet, because you see his little bare buns while he laughs at you over his shoulder. He is tall enough to get the handle turned but hasn't figured out yet that the door won't open because he is leaning his weight against it. I started to show him how to shift his weight back onto his heels once the handle is turned so that he can open the door but thought better of it because once he learns that trick, all privacy will be gone for the next 5 years at least.