Ted calls one of his favorite books Good Night, Rhode Island by his own title, which is Good Night Low Lieland. Where not sure where this mythical place is, but we did go to Rhode Island in March to celebrate Ted’s birthday and see some family.
Ted has been doing a new trick every day these days. One day he is stacking his rings, the next day he is hugging his stuffed animals, then handing me his toys, the day after that getting into a sitting position on his own, after that stacking blocks, then crawling with his belly off the floor, then insisting that he walk everywhere with us holding his hands. Everyday he is a new little kid just trying out his skills. One time he even managed to stack a ball on a block. He is pretty talented.
He went a week of constantly saying ma ma ma. That was nice. This week it is na na na. I think this may be less of a coincidence and more due to the fact that now that he is mobile we have to say “no” to him. No going after the laptop cord… No picking up and dropping the bathroom scale… no eating the cat food. I believe this weekend we will finally be buying some gates and installing cabinet locks.
His newest foods are strawberry applesauce, chunks of cantaloupe, graham crackers, and goldfish crackers. This week I also gave him formula for the first time. I tried mixing it with his oatmeal to fill him up instead of the usual water. He didn’t like the taste of it and I didn’t like the resulting diapers, so I don’t think we will try it again. Somehow I forgot to mention that I have given him wheat bread. Not sure when the first time I gave it to him was. He doesn’t really like it. He eats maybe two bites max before tossing the rest.
Last weekend we flew up to RI to celebrate Pat’s birthday. Ted handled the flights wonderfully, mostly happy or sleeping. At one point he was insisting on throwing all his toys on the floor, but at least he wasn’t throwing them at other passengers or crying. And he didn’t end up getting a cold from all those germs on the plane floor… more than we could have hoped for.
We arrived at my Mom’s late Friday night and then Saturday morning went straight to Kim’s to decorate and get the food ready. The party was lots of fun. So happy that we got to see so many of our friends and family. Ted was a little party animal. Laughing up a storm and generally showing off. Then Sunday we had a quick visit with Pat’s parents and then headed up to my Dad’s in the afternoon with Chris, Kim, Anne, and Jack. It is so much fun to watch Ted and Jack play together. Then Monday morning I got to spend some time talking with Great Grammie before we headed back to the airport. It was another great trip!
Time to catch up on my weekiversaries posts! These days Ted is hard at work learning to crawl. He tends to scooch backwards when he tries. Mostly whining when he is doing it, as if to say, why can’t you just give me my toy/ sit me up/ pick me up and carry me where I want to go.
He is also learning to clap. He hasn’t quite perfected it yet, he kid of wildly throws his arms around (getting points for enthusiasm) and crashes his fists into one another or he puts one hand down to stabilize it and claps it with the other. He gives great big smiles while he is clapping, so proud of himself. So cute.
He loves to jump and goes crazy in his Jumperoo, jumping up a storm. He also still really enjoys spending time in his Exersaucer. He is getting better with books. He will turn the pages now… Not always in the order you want them and will frequently snap the book shut during a story, but he is starting to get the idea. Sometimes he will sit by himself and flip through a board book. Of course his favorite play time activity is Mom or Dad lifting him high in the air.
He mostly says da-da, sometimes Bob or gah or tszzz, rarely ma-ma. Frequently he growls or makes an aaah noise that always makes me think of those Whassup? commercials.
His top two teeth are coming in. The have not broken the surface yet, but you can see them clearly under his gums. He also has an ear infection and he is handling it all so well… knock on wood. He had his first cold the week before last. He has been waking up a lot at night since the cold, but who can blame him? Hopefully when the ear infection is under control he will go back to sleeping through the night.
His newest foods are corn, blueberry, zwieback toast, chicken, and mango. He seems sensitive to bananas and pears, so we will wait awhile before trying those again. The doctor gave the go ahead to try dairy (lots of allergies in our families.) Once we are sure there is no reaction from the Amoxicillin for the ear infection (which I am allergic to) then we will try out some yogurt.
For his first Christmas we spent Christmas Eve with my family in Rhode Island at my Mom’s house. This year it was just my Mom and Bill, my sisters, Anne, Jack and us. My grandmother is rehabilitating in a nursing home, so we visited her in the afternoon. We ate ham and played with the babies and then sent them to bed and opened gifts. In the morning Jack and Ted got to open their presents together.
At the nursing home with Great Grammie
Then we headed over to Pat’s parents’ house with Kristen and Josh and opened some more presents with them and played with Ted and had some turkey.
Next we headed to my Dad’s house and ate some pork roast with him and Nancy, my sisters, Anne, Jack, my cousins, and my uncle. We opened even more presents and played with the kids some more. Friday we headed up to Natick to spend time with Pat’s grandparents.
Now this post has gone on way longer than I intended, but I might as well note that Ted watched the ball and the acorn drop last night with us at midnight. We weren’t planning on having him up for his first New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. We put him to bed at 8:00 but he woke up crying at 11:30, so I brought him downstairs with us.
Lots of green traffic lights on my way into work today, which is great, except that I'm 20 minutes early. So random. 2010/07/29
@DaraDemiLevine Time to start injecting secret messages into your speeches? Or maybe start each one with "Four score and seven years ago..." 2010/07/29
Glad skype video chat is free.The 98 minute video call between Ted and his Grammie tonight would've been pricey on a long distance land line 2010/07/28
Happy that mowing the lawn was pleasantly interrupted by the rain. 2010/07/28
Cooled off a bit this morning. Nice to step out of the house and not hear every central air unit in the neighborhood running at full speed. 2010/07/27
@DaraDemiLevine It was a good time. We went to Fort Macon, the beach, and then the aquarium. 2010/07/25
Whoa that last tweet was timed all wrong - we were at the beach at like 10am. We just got home. Good times. 2010/07/25
At the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores. 2010/07/25
Off to the beach. 2010/07/25
Watching toilet tank valve repair videos on youtube. Please, don't be jealous. 2010/07/24
Door to door political people -.calling me by my name without me introducing myself to you isn't heartwarming, it's creepy. 2010/07/24
Watching Ted dance to punk rock makes me a happy dad.Although he'll probably rebel in his teens and listen to adult contemporary soft rock:) 2010/07/23
Learning a lesson about user passwords.Turns out 64 character generated pw's w/lots of extended characters are hard to type in mobile phones 2010/07/23