Saturday, January 26, 2008

Random Progress

Just wanted to send out some milestone news from Nicole:

"Currently, R can pat her tummy, touch her head and touch her ears. She can get up on her knees and crawl (army-style). She can also say quite a few words: Mom, Ma-Ma, Hi, Ba-Ba, Da-Da, Ga, Baby and she says something that sounds like "bounce". With her current diet plan and favorite food being banana, I am guessing that we are just days away from her saying banana.

"Also, K wrote a blog the other night about R getting around more and more. Well, to our surprise, she got up on her knees last night and didn't even need to hold onto anything - see recently posted pics on phanfare. And today? Today she was holding on to her crib rails and contemplating steps. It won't be long now. Go Random, go!"

Blockhead

I'm just glad I wasn't here for the festivities.

Last night, Nicole had to call 911 because of a Gamble emergency.

He's fine now. He didn't even have to go to the hospital, and the problem was resolved before the authorities arrived, but I'm sure it was nerve-wracking for Nicole, who was here alone with both kids while I drove downtown to pick up Kathy from the Megabus. By the way, if any family members want to come visit for the weekend, it's about $40 round trip to bus it from Toledo, and We can certainly come out to Union Station to pick you up. It's a great way to spend a long weekend seeing these two faboo kids.

When I left the house, I had just tucked Gamble into bed. He was trying to sleep like a big boy without his normal nightlight, so it was pitch black in his room. When I put him in there, his bed was full of toys. I even asked him if he wanted me to sweep the toys out of his bed so he wouldn't roll over on top of them. We left with happy thoughts and dreams for good wishes.

So I was surprised when Nicole called me in the car and told me that she'd just gotten done with the emergency folks after calling 911. I immediately asked her what happened.

"He had a block stuck in his mouth?"

"WHAT?!? How big was it?"

Kid's just like me. He's already a nail-biter, and puts just about everything absentmindedly into his mouth. It's not a surprise, but definitely presents a risk for this sort of thing to happen.

"It was a big green block." She explained that when she went into his room because he was screaming, she saw that it was pitch black and figured that he was freaking out because it was dark. She was surprised that the screaming didn't stop.

She called in the emergency immediately, and then tried to help get it out. It was wedged behind his teeth, and eventually, they managed to work it out, but it was quite the scare.

Nicole confessed to me that if there had been a camera handy and she could have ensured a clear
airway, she would have taken a picture of him, with his mouth wedged open and his tears and his
terror. I suggested that it would have been a good object lesson to take a picture with his thumb up and smiling as well.

That way, whenever he was making a bad decision, we could hold up both pictures and ask him, "Ok, Gamble. Which boy made the good decision, and which one made the bad decision?"

Not to worry. All is well.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Mobilization

Random loves to rock, and while she still isn't crawling in the typical way, she is getting around. She moves quite quickly by doing the army crawl (utilizing one leg, her right leg).

When she is crawling around, she loves to look in the mirrors and see her reflection on the stove. She has also started taking steps while holding onto our hands, as well as pulling up on furniture. She even gets up on her knees, though still hasn't really grasped the knee-crawling yet.

It won't be long now until we have two fully mobile children. Ahhhh. And we think we're tired now?

Allergic

From Nicole:

"Well, as we approach R's first birthday, I was feeling more and more pressure to ensure that she was eating all the foods that she is suppose to be eating.

"Unfortunately, we have had some set-backs. About a month ago, I realized that a lot of her little symptoms - acidic bowel movements, congestion, black circles around the eyes - may have all been related and potentially due to food allergies.

"I'm sad to report that I was right. Random went to the doctor on Wednesday and of the 16 things that they tested for, she is allergic to most with the most severe being peaches and eggs. Fortunately, her allergies aren't severe but definitely something to keep an eye out for in case you're with her."

Confidence

So we have had a Painter here the past couple of days. His name is Phill and he and Gamble would talk frequently while he was here. Anyway, Gamble had thought his name was something other than Phill. He called him Vill or Pill. Nicole corrected him to tell him that the name was Phill, he responded with, "Oh! Phill with an 'F'... Got it!"

Score one for confidence!

Monday, January 14, 2008

Halloween

Gamble and Mommie were driving in the car the other day when Gamble piped that he had his costume picked out for Halloween.

Surprised and excited (because she put a lot of effort into Halloween costumes), Nicole asked him what he wanted to be.

"I want to be a Brutha."

Mommie thought, "Hmmm. Where do I go with this one?" Out loud, she offered, "A brutha, huh?"

"Yeah, Mommie, I want to be a Mario brutha."

Silly Mommie thinks, "Oh, well, of *course*." To Gamble, "Which one?"

"I want to be Mario because he flips over and bounces."

That, and Luigi doesn't have the same screen presence...

Friday, January 11, 2008

Printing Receipts

Random is such a different baby than Gamble was. Everything about her - the way that she plays, her demeanor, her curiousity - is different.

Gamble wasn't very curious as a baby, and he didn't play with toys the way we assumed "normal" babies played with them. He didn't get into things he was supposed to stay out of, and he didn't try to, say, put those yummy ends of the mop strings in his mouth. He also didn't play with the really small baby toys. He bypassed them and headed right to the more advanced stuff. I was always kind of disappointed, like we were cheated out of watching him learn.

Random, however, does play with baby toys, and seems fascinated with them. This is fascinating to me. Combine that with her natural happiness, and she's a joy.

But the getting into things she's not supposed to? Well, she's keeping us on our toes.

For example, yesterday Nicole walked into her bedroom after letting her play in her crib for a while. Nic found most of Random's dirty laundry (that she could reach) in her crib! She'd reached out into her hamper, which was pretty full, and started rescuing her clothes. The other day, Nicole found in her playing in the garbage can that normally resides in Random's room, but was in the hallway. We put the garbage can in the hallway when it has dirty stinky diapers in it. And little girl was curious about dirty diapers.

Just yesterday, I came home from work to find Nic slaving away in the kitchen with Random sitting in her high chair. In her concentration, Nicole hadn't noticed that Random had leaned out of her high chair to grab a bunch of Wendy's coupons. She had one pretty chewed up.

"Honey!" Nic exclaimed. "Sweep her mouth and get that paper out of there."

"Whoops! Sorry. She swallowed it. At this point you're more likely to see a receipt out of her!"

Monday, January 7, 2008

Defeat

Having divested my son of many of his cute sayings, I finally decided to let him keep them as long as they stick around. Not all of them, probably, but certainly a few.

Like now. He's so into video games that he's always talking about defeating bad guys, but most of the time, that's not what he says.

"I'm going to make him defeat."

I can't bring myself to break him of this one. He sounds like a bad Japanese translation, and on him, it's cute. Whether he's pretending he's Sonic talking about defeating "Eggman Nega" from Sonic Rush, or whether he's yelling, "Get ready to be schooled!" Or even "Daddie, want to watch me do a boss fight?" he's having some kind of internal battle.

Of course, he talks all the time still, but now someone else is learning to do the same. Miss Random is now chattering and squealing all the time. Lots of strings of babble, mostly, but we're getting Dadadadada and Mom-mum-mum-mum all the time.

In fact, one of her recent patterns is that she'll say Ma-mum-mum-mum Ba-ba-ba-ba. You have 10 minutes to get her a bottle before she goes thermonuclear, and she occasionally does just that. She had a fit the other night and started slapping and kicking at Nicole for no great reason other than she wasn't happy about going to bed or somesuch.

I just want to know, when they finally start talking to each other, who will get made defeat?

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Bump

Gamble's working on being strong. But that's not how he says it.

He says he wants bumps on his arms. Meaning biceps.

I asked him to help carry the baggage in from the car this evening, and he said, "Oh, of course, Daddie! This will help me get bumps on my arms."

Next stop, dumbbells.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Well, Gamble and I are home. We left a little earlier than Mommie and Random, and we got out in front of a little more snow than they did, so they're stuck, bored and missing us, in a hotel room off the interstate in Indiana. It was almost whiteout conditions when we went through, and by the time Mommie pulled off, it was really bad out.

So we have a little while to make the house a little more livable for Mommie and to get a few chores done that maybe I forgot to do before I left.

We wanted to thank everyone who made time to see us while we were out. It was probably our longest time in Ohio since we lived there, and it really helped us see so many people that we don't ordinarily get to spend time with!

Cheers, and Happy New Year!