December 2006

After 4 months of being home, Andrew has rediscovered the Kazak hat I bought him before I left Kaz. They are cool felt hats, for about $2. We didn't buy too much Kaz stuff while over there, but this hat was cute. We did think it was neat that he picked up his hat one day when we said 'hat' and kept putting it on his head, and not on the cat's head. And he's even color co-ordinated this day, which is not a common occurence in our house. Obviously I did not dress him.


Diaper Genie Entertainment
Do you have a Diaper Genie? Not sure what to do with all of those refill rings? Well, they do stack quite nicely and have a nice deoderizer aroma to freshen the cabinet toys are stored in. Usually he just walks around with one, but this day he decided to stack all 4. And when not used for stacking, they also make good 'pucks' for sliding across the coffee table when playing "Ghetto Shuffleboard". Sure, you laugh and mock me, but it's not only hours of entertainment for a child, but also for parents. Soon Diaper Genie ShuffleBoard will be sweeping the Nation and you can say you read it here first. We may even need to move onto the Diaper Genie II which has a different size refills to mix up the game a bit more.


TV

We don't have the TV on much for Andrew, not that we are granola munching tree huggers, it's just that he doesn't like the TV on because it means he has to compete with the TV for our attention. But every once in a while he will walk by when it's on and something will catch his fancy. One night he was watching some fishing show, which is a total man thing. How anyone can sit there for an hour and watch 2 old fat guys from Deliverance in a boat wearing ugly clothing pull fish into a boat and then marvel at their 'unique' characteristics is beyond me. But close to bath time one night, Father & Son sat next to each other on the sofa in some sort of fishing induced coma. I understand it was close to 'shut down' time for Andrew so he was probably burned out from the day, but what was Daddy's excuse?

Top Five Things Andrew Watches on TV

5. Mustard Pancakes- some Muppet-like Show with a sassy cat named Mr. D.-- it's in High Def. The whold family is mesmerized.

4. Gus the 'other' famous Pennsylvania Groundhog lottery Commercials

3. Bear & The Big Blue House-- ok, I like this too, that opening and closing Bear song makes me happy

2. Any fishing show

1. Victoria's Secret Commercials; These usually elicit a few 'ohhhhhh's and a couple 'uhhhh's (and a couple grunts)

ArtWork?

Every couple days Andrew comes home from daycare with some things we'll call ArtWork, and I use that term loosely. Actually, our artistic abilities are about the same, which is not saying much for my ability. One day he came home with a month's worth of artwork and I can only assume it was barnyard month at daycare. Granted I did not grow up on a farm, but I have no idea what the heck this beast is. It must be some magical creature from Harry Potter that can be mobile without possesing any apparent appendages to propel itself. It's either that or Mr. Hanky the Christmas Pooh grew some ears and a fuzzy tail. Here's the rest of the barnyard animals, don't laugh, you too probably had doznes of these creations hidden away in a closet.

BirdWatching

We, well, make that I, am still experimenting with oddly matched clothing. Try to think outside the box.....clothing patterns do not need to match, they can have a theme. In this case the theme was "Clothes That Came Out Of Other People's Basements". The plaid pants were super heavy weight which not only keeps little kids warm, it also adds another layer of protection for the furniture when a diaper receives more than it's fair share of a load and decides to liberate a portion of the treasure. Sure, you may be saying "ewwww" but think about it, I am a genius! Sorry Schanna, did not mean to foul the awesome pants you lent us. Guess you are in no rush to get them back. Clothing aside, Andrew and Tigger were watching the birds, and if you look closely between Tigger and Andrew you can see a pile of peanuts outside the door that the squirels were snatching. This provided about an hour of entertainment. Tigger and Andrew got along well, until Andrew decides to cover up Tigger....with his body, which Tigger answers with "KHahhhh ssssssssss" (cat speak for "you have until I count to 3 to get off of me")

'Mo Money

One day in the mail Andrew received his first Christmas present, cold hard cash. It literally was cold after sitting in the mailbox all day. Andrew decide to try to warm up the money by rubbing it together, perhaps hoping it would multiply. No such luck, but he did enjoy playing with the bills and ripping them apart (they were glued to each other by the sender). Luckily he did not try to tear them in half, or color on them with Crayons. All was well until Daddy got home and snatched up the dough, I guess he did not see the humor in the situation that I did. But fear not for Andrew, the accounting department took note of the funds and it will be deposited into his college fund. Which leads us to a discussion on cash gifts. First let me start off with, I am in favor of them :-) At this age Andrew could care less about toys, just insert some cash into an empty toilet paper tube, put it in a box and he will be happier than a pig in mud. On one of my drives into work, about 45 minutes each way, I came up with a plan for cash gifts. Any cash gift he gets, he will receive a portion based on a sliding scale dependent upon his age (yes, I have been reading a lot of tax codes where everything is realted to a sliding scale):

• Up until age 5, he receives 0% of the cash, it all goes into his college fund
• For every year after age 5, he receives an additional 5% to use as he wishes as long as his portion of any one gift does not exceed a dollar amount to be determined later, and the rest goes into his college fund
• If Andrew does not like this plan.....well tough. Our household is a dictatorship, not a bi-cameral governmental thing. You can tell I will be of no help with homework about the US civics.
• The only Daddy Defined exception to this rule is if he gets a hockey scholarship to Harvard or makes the NHL. In which case daddy will be getting a Porchse or Land Rover Defender 90 with his college fund OR free tickets to each NHL game.

As you can tell, I have a lot of idle time in the car during commutes. I'm sure I could put it to better use, but I don't.

Kitty Koloring

One day when Andrew was home from daycare (apparently they don't take kindly to vomiting kids and you need to keep your kid out for 24 hours) he found out what Tigger does while he is not around. Tigger likes to sleep on Andrew's playtable which sits in front of a window. The table placement is ideal for Tigger for two reasons: enables birdwatching without the burdensome effort of lifting one's head, and maximized sun exposure for lounging. But this day Tigger's sunbathing was interuppted by Andrew's coloring. Tigger is not one to back down, and neither is Andrew. So they reached an agreement that Andrew would color on one tiny corner of the table while Tigger oversaw this 'coloring'. Andrew then proceeded to color for about an hour, all the while having a conversation with Tigger, who was listening intently to the mystery language of "la la la". (note from dad... Andrew currently speaks "EWOK")

Words

Each night when we put Andrew to bed he is a little chatterbox. He "practices" the words he knows CAHHHHH (cat: it's in capital letters because it's usually yelled...at Tigger as he enters any room), dohhhhhhhhhhg (dog, with a silent g) and eesheeee (fish, and it's pronounced quickly and with eyes squinted as if you are wiffing a fishy smell). At daycare each morning I need to build extra time into our schedule to stop at the fish tank by their front door so we can point to and announce each of the fish. It was cute the first couple days, but after a month now I am hoping it's a phase which will end soon and we can move on to announcing that we are taking off his coat and hat.

Christmas

The month ended out with Christmas. We kept putting off getting a Christmas tree, although we did go to the Tree Farm and let Andrew run trough the trees smelling them, touching them and attempting to hug them. We figured we'd let him get it out of his system on someone else's tree and not in our house. Our plan worked! The day before Christmas Eve we headed to Target to snatch up a last minute sale and get this skinny tree (it makes the limited number of presents look more impressive....look at the presents closely and you'll notice some decorative boxes of Target Tissues as well). Our fake tree offers all the benefits of a real tree, it leans (I did not assemble it correctly) and sheds needles (when the Tigger cat chew on it). But we don't need to water it.

Christmas morning started out like any other morning, with regular breakfast and vitamins. Then while Andrew was feeding himself, and moisturizing his hair with yogurt, I attempted to make French Toast for the first time in my life. The pediatrician had suggested months ago giving him French Toast and I thought "French Toast? How exotic, even I don't eat that!". The Toast turned out pretty good, and it was easy to make. Andrew ate 2 big pieces, same as us, for his 2nd Breakfast. The post-Breakfast activities were topped off by Andrew delivering 2 Yule Logs in the potty after breakfast. Next it was on to presents under the tree.

Andrew was not the most speedy unwrapper. He would rip a piece of paper about the size of your thumbnail off the box, then start walking to the kitchen trashcan. We soon diverted him to a paper bag by the presents for all of his paper recycling needs. The first box took about 15 minutes to unwrap...I'm sure in a year or two when 20 presents are unwrapped in that amount of time we will be relishing the slow unwrapping process. As he unwrapped each one he'd look at it and start to play, so we'd have to hide the freshly unwrapped gift to start on the next box. By the time the unwrapping was done it was time for lunch.

Once all the present were stripped of their paper we started a new family tradition...although I am sure it's more of a Baldwin influence than a Taylor influence. I took all of the shredded paper from Andrew's handy work, dumped it on the floor and let him play it in like it was leaves in the yard. That excitement lasted a couple minutes, so we moved on to makeing 'wrapping paper angels' (like snow angels) on the floor....ok, that was just me. Andrew grew bored, or suspicious of that and decided it was time to get his favorite gift out and put it into action: The Swiffer. The Swiffer also works well to clean up the soapy residue left on the floor when you blow bubbles inside the house.

2006 was a good year, and we look forward to what 2007 has to bring.

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.