November 2006

November 2006
Yes, it has been too long since we gave him a haircut... Here he is sporting the Ed Grimly look. And yes that is an ear wax remover in his hand, not only is it functional, it's fun in the tub! This is what transpires when Rob doesn't help bath him.
He has come off of his Halloween Candy High....no wait, that was us who ate all his candy. Hmmm, well you know we were only looking out for his safety by taking all the chocolate "choking hazards" away. And he did not bring in too much of a haul for the effort expended, maybe 20 pieces of candy and a ton of yucky lollipops (not even Tootsie Pops). We thought he'd at least be able to eat the Halloween Raisins, but he was less than thrilled with those and tossed them on the floor one at a time. Even the cats would not touch them. Mental note: stepping on Nature's Snack in bare foot is downright ookie. Before Halloween escapes us for another year, here's the tamed Halloween Monster, securely buckled in the car. Yes, he was growling like a caged animal on the verge of nodding off.

This Month's MileStone
Our big development milestone this month: wash clothes. After a couple months of us washing him in the bath tub, he now gets the idea of the wash cloth and sort of swipes it across his legs and belly. And to make bath time and hair washing less traumatic, I now wait until he is REALLY tired for bathtime and too exhausted to scream when the shampoo water gets in his eyes. Now most of the time he just waits patiently for the hair suds to go away so he can have splash time. And by the time I am toweling off his hair, he sometimes starts to nod off while getting diapered.

This Month's Cheap Entertainment
We found that Andrew likes to pull the refrigerator magnet clip off the fridge, thus dumping all of his fine artwork on the floor. Then he walks around with the clip like it's a treasure. We took it from him one night and quickly clipped it to the loose part of his sleeve by his armpit. It was just out of his reach when he tried to unclip it with the opposite hand, causing him to slowly rotate in hopes that somehow that would make his arm grow 2 inches longer. After about 5 rotations his limb did not magically grow, he got dizzy and fell over. Which then led to rolling across the floor trying to get the clip. Finally he rolled up against a piece of furniture, pinned the clip and victoriously released it. To celebrate his domination of the clip, he presented it to us, which we then re-clipped to him and had another 5 minutes of entertainment.

After a couple nights he got bored with that and we moved on to clothes pins, which have a much loser grip. And we upped the ante by clipping 5 or 6 to his shirt and/or pants at a time. Sometimes it takes a while for him to realize there is one clipped to the back of his shirt, but eventually feels it flopping around and has a confused look on his face like someone farted. He has picked up some skills from the cats and now rubs along the doorframe to knock the clip off, then walks around with the clip for a while, opening and closing it while repeating 'ohhhhh". I highly suggest purchasing a pack of 50 clothes pins for 79 cents.

And just when we thought the fun would not end, the socks came out. He must be keeping a stock pile of them in with his toys because whenever we turn around he has another pair. He'll run around the family room with them, drop one, stop in his tracks and say 'uh oh' and backtrack to pick it up. Then he struggles to climb up on the sofa with them in his hands and bounces up and down on the sofa and rolls around with them. Was it the Socks, the Sofa, or the 1970's Styx playing on the stereo that had him jamming? Who knows, but he was having a blast. They just can't teach stuff like this in a Parenting Class.

This Month's Top Ten Cheap 'Toys'
10. Socks
9. Boxes
8. Sleeping Cat's Belly Hair
7. Empty Cereal Box, with a smaller box inside.
6. Toilet Paper roll filled with rice.
5. Toilet Plunger
4. Fridge Magnet
3. Tissue
2. Post-It Notes
1. Fridge magnet IN the plunger

In case you are wondering what #6 looks like, here it is. You may laugh at it, but it has provided hours of cheap entertainment. Especially when I used packing tape instead of Duct tape and the rice got sprayed everywhere upon the first few vigorous shakes. It's a good thing that rice is cheap, and not a choking hazard. For some reason when he pulls it out of the toy basket (yes, we did downgrade from a toy BOX to a toy BASKET, but it is a Longaberger Basket-- I knew my Basket Habit of the 1990's would come in handy) he giggles when he shakes it, as if he forgot the sound it makes. It also brings the cats running as they think it is the sound of catnip.

This Month's Word

We were sitting around one night watching Celebrity Jeopardy, also known as Jeopardy for Dummies. Let's just say it was so easy that Lenny of "Lenny & Squiggy" fame got just about every question correct. Some category about foreign words came up and it was a Video Daily Double. They showed the word, Водка, Russian for Vodka. Alex Trebeck says the word and Andrew immediately repeats it, exactly as Alex did, but with a little bit of an accent pronouncing Russian letters only as baby exposed to the language can. We were surprised, and repeated the word, and he said it again. Oh how proud we are of our little Kazak.<> Between his new found discovery of vocabulary and his growing Foosball skills, he will be ready for college before Doogie Howser, M.D.

This Month's Toilet Antics

Andrew is quickly finding out what happens when he won't let me take of his clothes before potty and bath time.....the camera comes out. If he could talk, you can imagine what words would be spewing from his mouth. Until that time, or he starts dating, this little gem will be saved away on shutterfly.com. Believe it or not, the shirt he 'almost was wearing' is a very manly 3/4 sleeve baseball jersey. But when you wear it on your head like a Russian babushka, it loses some of it's masculinity. And yes, the dark gray area is the 'slobber zone'; he is never at a loss for saliva.

And to prove that not all habits are inherited, some are learned, here is Andrew sitting on the Infamous Ship Door Table. It's quite an ugly beast circa 1970, but it is durable and made it through my youth. I guess Andrew sees us sitting on it, and figured it was like an elevated floor seat. So now he climbs up there at night and colors in his ubercool Crayola coloring book. Crayola has these special books and markers where the marker colors only clear, but when you color in their magic book, which comes with a hefty price tag, the colors shows up, but only inside the lines. So he can scribble away and the pictures doesn't end up too bad. Unfortunately we lost most of the markers except the pink one, so everything is now pink. But when he accidentally colors on the table, carpet, sofa, wood floor or himself it does not show up. Well worth the extra cost of the book and markers.

First Thanksgiving

The month finished up with our first Thanksgiving together. We decided to stay home and make a turkey feast.....well I would not exactly call it a feast but it was tasty,and probably would have been better if I set the oven to 325 instead of 230. So we ended up cooking the bird an extra hour to avoid poisoning ourselves, which means tasty meat, but wickedly dried out left overs. Andrew did not seem to care, he put on his Pilgrim hat he made in school. Well he did not quite put it on, it took about 20 attempts at pictures with the hat flying off to get this one. In the picture please take note of the Thanksgiving Sippy Cup (for Andrew) and Pilgrim Red Bull and Vodka glass (for Rob). It took a while for Andrew to warm up to Thanksgiving dinner being served 2 hours before his normal meal time; we had to start off with Yogurt to tame him. He liked the turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, but took to flinging the cranberry stuff. Needless to say, there was quite a bit to clean up off the floor after dinner. Luckily Andrew's fondness for the vacuum is still going strong and he helped to clean up. You may notice he is wearing only 1 sock-- let's just say that you don't want to get any loose clothing near the vacuum. Tigger sleeps with one eye open now.

Here's a picture of the Fearless Tigger. He takes whatever it is Andrew has to dish out, usually tail grabbing and head smacks with the occasional eye jabbing or nose picking. Tigger has learned to take refuge behind the computer monitor, on top of the router, and stare down at Andrew. I am sure it's only a matter of time before Andrew climbs up on the computer desk and chases him down. But until that time, tigger will muffle the wireless network signal to prevent the neighbors from picking up our network. How's that for hi-tech security measures ? But I think Tigger is getting tired of Andrew harassing him during his frequent nap times; Andrew needs a new playmate.

Parenting Techniques Gone Wild

We are trying a new parenting technique for discipline. Back in the 1950's it was paddling, in the 1980's it was TimeOuts, in the 1990's it was Re-Direction. And we are now ready to forge into ground breaking territory: Punishment By Ugly Outfits. These heinous pants, hot off the Kaz clothing shelves, are hiked up to his armpits. They are so ugly Rob believes they are stylish; to me they look like something Brittany Spears would wear to the supermarket. The punishment does not seem to be working as he plays like normal, unphased by his fashion faux pas. I guess we will have to resort to Sitting On Your Hands for punishment.