Thursday, June 28, 2007

Octopus

Another quickie from Mommie:

I asked Gamble to carry his own blanket down the stairs like a big boy.

How does he respond? "Mom, how do you expect me to carry that down the stairs? I am not an Octopus!"

Oh, he's discovering the typical parent's dream of having many arms to handle everything.

Poole and Company

From Mommie:

Well, apparently, Poole has a friend. His name is Kim and yes, he is a boy. In addition, he has another friend. His name is Sorry, which is his nickname. It's short for Surath (I think). There is also this whole story that Pool is never around for Gamble because he is always at practice. He apparently takes softball, soccer, and tennis lessons and in fact, is never at school because he is always practicing.

Have you ever known a kid to have an imaginary friend who is never around?

This reminds me, we really should get him into a sports class.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Four

I put my boy to bed tonight.

He was three.

When he wakes, he'll be four.

I'll never see my three year-old boy again. I'm kinda sad, I think.

I'm going to really miss my little three year-old. We've had a really good year together.

Happy Birthday, baby boy! We love you!

I'm going to go check on my three year-old one last time before bed, I think.

Chow

We've been watching Random closely, and one thing we noticed is that she's been watching us closely.

Especially when we eat. All the time. Whenever we're putting something in our mouths, she's watching, fascinated.

So Nicole decided to give her what she wanted.

With the camera ready and a little bowl of rice, Nicole set out to feed her some solid food.

She hated it. Cried and spat it out. Sometimes, she spat it out forcefully.

Tonight, Nicole tried again. It was a huge success. Somewhere recently I heard that you have to introduce a food to a baby seventeen times before it will like it. For Random and rice, the count was simply two.

She went through it, and everytime Nicole stopped feeding her, she freaked out. She giggled and squealed. And she lit up every time she saw the spoon, arms waving in a frenzy.

Chow on, baby Random!

Action Hero

Well, it's Gamble's birthday tomorrow, and I stopped by Toys R Us on the way home tonight to see if I could find something cool for him. I typically don't get him presents at all, but with him getting a little bit older, I thought I would pick him up stuff we would like to play together with.

You know. Man stuff.

He's been playing a lot with action figures. He has Dora and Swiper, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael, some number of evil looking robots with light-up swords, and he mixes and matches them with great delight, creating stories and having adventures.

So I figured on some figures.

Full disclosure. I got him a Spiderman "Bump 'n Go" Web Rider (with motorcycle). He'll almost certainly like it, but I'm really hoping he likes my other two action figures: Bumblebee of the Autobots, and Barricade of the Decepticon. Transformers were the bees knees when I were a lad, and I'm looking forward to showing him how they work.

I'm expecting to hear a Spidey, Swiper, Michelangelo, and Bumblebee melee within days.

Poole

"Well, I don't want to do that. My brother doesn't like it either."

"You don't have a brother, Gamble. You have a beautiful baby sister."

"Well, actually, yes I do have a baby brother."

"Lukie?" For the longest time, he kept calling his cousin Luke his baby brother. He still can't get the whole familial relation thing yet.

"No, Daddie. Pool. He's my brother. He's right here," and he gestured with a sweep of his hand.

Uh huh.

You know, I'd always heard about this imaginary friend thing. I always thought it was kind of a joke, or something the parents suggested so the child would occupy himself while being able to talk to a "friend."

Or maybe a psychosis.

Now I know for sure that it's not something I suggested. It's something he seems to have come up with on his own (or better yet, he probably got it from day care. Yeah, that's it. Day care).

And on occasion, he refers to his good friend Pool, which I always see in my head as "Poole", and sometimes, there's another friend with Poole. That other friend's name is Water. Except that Water isn't always around, and Poole's his brother.

Oh, brother.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Father's Day

I wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory for father's day, so we went. Aside from the great time, the great food, and great dessert, it was overall a wonderful treat from Mommie to this Daddie. I didn't mention this particular event to her at the restaurant, however.

There was this guy with a group of tattooed friends who walked by on his way out, and he was wearing a "Danger: enormous penis" novelty T-shirt. I wanted to jump up and yell, "OH MY GOD! HE'S GOT AN ENORMOUS PENIS! RUUUNNNN!!!!" and book out the door, leaving the other restaurant-goers to gawk at him embarrassingly.

For some reason, I find myself with a strong dislike for novelty T-shirts that have messages I don't want my children to see.

And that thar? Means I'm too old.

And a father.

Happy Father's Day, everyone!

Saturday, June 16, 2007

The Exorsister

Random growls. She does. She's trying so hard to talk, but in between and around the coos, ahs, and bbbbs, she growls.

It sounds, no kidding, like the sounds Linda Blair makes on the bed in The Exorcist. The sounds between the talking. The ones where you can hear her voice, but you can hear the demon talking through her as well.

For some reason, that's almost literally what it's like. She seems to be of two voices. There's the normal voice that she coos and caws in, but there's another. An undertone. And that's the one that's growling.

It's a bit cute, and a bit freaky.

Jessica said that Thursday morning, she slept until almost 10 am. When Jessica woke her up to give her Zantac and her first bottle, she apparently growled first thing.

Just like her momma, she likes to sleep in, and if you wake her up early, she growls.

Just kidding, honey!

(Alternate blog title: Twisted Sister)

Updated to include video.

Monday, June 11, 2007

G Dizzizzle

So on the way home last night, Gamble was playing with words.

"Mommie, sometimes you call Random 'R'."

"Yes, that's true."

"That means I can call you 'M'." This is what I call my mom. Two peas in a pottie.

"Yeah, I guess you could."

"And Daddie is 'D', and that means... I'm 'G'!" he cried proudly.

And I had to go one further: "Gamble, next time you call your grandparents, you can call yourself 'G Dizzizzle'."

Sure enough, a little later, he was on the phone to Nic's parents, calling himself 'G Dizzizzle' and laughing hysterically.

Fo' sheezie.

New School Lunch Programs

First day back at school today, after a prolonged outage. Gamble had some separation anxiety, but according to the Kindercare director, he did great.

I'm a little concerned about the changes they've made to the lunch menu, but I'm not sure how to approach it with the director. Check this out:

On the way home, "Daddie? I need to go home and have lunch."

"What are you talking about, Gamble? You had lunch at school."

"They served yuckie stuff at school for lunch."

"What was it?"

"Daddie, it was rice."

"That doesn't sound so bad. You love rice."

"But Daddie? They put diarrhea on it."

"What?!?"

"Yeah, and I really don't like diarrhea for lunch."

"I don't blame you."

I really don't blame him. I don't prefer that as a rice topping, either. I don't really know what he meant. Honestly.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Hello?

Gamble's started a number of new behaviors, and started using a whole bunch of new phrases. Probably the most annoying to have come through is the ol' sarcastic "Hello?"

As in, "Daddie, I didn't want the waffles for breakfast. I wanted oat-a-meal. Hello?"

Oh, so much like a teenager that you just want to take away his car keys.

I mean, he's only three. Hello?

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Gaming Firsts

Ok, so he's a junior gamer now. It's no secret that one of my biggest time sinks is playing video games. It helps me relax and keeps me mentally active at the same time. The biggest obstacle to getting this prized time, however, has been the fact that most games are too complicated or too violent to play in front of children.

Gamble and I picked up Super Paper Mario the other day. It's tame enough for kids, interesting enough for me, and best of all, the controls are simple enough for him to start picking up.

And he loves to play it.

Now, instead of begging to watch TV all the time, he's now asking to spend time with his dad, playing Mario.
Interesting firsts:

1) Yesterday we had the first time Gamble suggested something Daddie had not thought of while playing a video game. There was a puzzle in front of us, and I didn't think it was obvious what to do next.

"Daddie, try switching to Slim. He can make you skinny."

Ah, yes. He's outfoxing me already.

2) A couple days ago we had our first video game tantrum when I told him that we were done playing for a while. He wanted to keep playing, and he had a fit.

3) First use of Mario characters out of context. Kid's got quite the imagination, and he started involving the Mario universe in his bathtime play. Mario and Bowser got to interact with the diver and the dolphin. Hilarious!

4) First use of video games as an incentive. "Hey, Gamble, I was thinking that if your room were clean, we could go play that Mario game." Like a charm.

5) First unsolicited tag-team play. "Mommie? Can Daddie and I go play Mario?" She raised an eyebrow at me, and I had to shrug to indicate that I had totally not put him up to it.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Aware

Random is so much more aware now. When you walk into the room and say something, she tracks you. She looks at you.

If the TV is on, she tries to watch it. The doctor recommended Baby Einstein time for her, and she just loves watching the colors.

Between that and the jabbering, she's really getting interested and interesting.