Category: growing

My Little Theiving Magpie


E is fascinated by our toiletries. And he’s tall enough now that if I forget to push everything back at least six inches from the edge of the bathroom counter there is no guarantee that it will be there the next time I need it. I’ve gotten out of the shower only to discover that my deodorant, moisturizer, or hairbrush is missing and then I have to wrap my towel around myself and go on an impromptu scavenger hunt.

I’ve been keeping this hair creme in the cabinet but yesterday I left it on the counter. As you can see, the container is super shiny. You should have seen E’s eyes light up when he saw it this morning. He clutched it to his chest and carried it around as if it were the most precious thing in the world. I guess at that moment, it was.

Weekend Numbers

10 loads of laundry washed.
9 loads of laundry folded and put away.
8 hours of my church’s general conference watched on tv.
7 sacks of old clothes sorted, bagged, and donated.
6 times a crochet project was unraveled and begun again.
5 times E got into the kitchen trash (once smearing garlic butter all over his shirt and the floor).
4 marshmallow peeps eaten.
3 days of enjoying N’s company all day (he took Friday off of work).
2 big molars trying to break the surface in E’s mouth.
1 cranky toddler who frequently shrieked or cried at the drop of a hat.

Whew! The weekend was pretty productive but it was a little hard to deal with E sometimes. He would cry or let loose a super high-pitched shriek when things weren’t going exactly the way he wanted them to (like when we told him to stay out of the trash can or no, you aren’t going to watch your Korean vegetable video again).

I feel bad for him, though. I felt inside his mouth and he has two big angry bumps where two lower molars are trying to poke through. It’s weird because E only has his two front bottom teeth. I though he would get his cuspids and bicuspids before his molars. And his top molars don’t show any signs of coming in right now (for which I guess I should be grateful). But having only a patchwork set of teeth must make chewing pretty difficult.

Today was going to be pretty crazy even if E was in a good mood: we’re refinancing our house to get a better interest rate and the appraiser is coming by this morning, I have several hours worth of work to do, and I have a conference call this afternoon (hopefully E will be taking a nap at that time because if I’m sitting at the computer and not showing him that Pororo video he starts shrieking). Oh yeah, and I need to finish my taxes. Bleh.

Happy Monday, everyone.

And So It Begins

Up until now E has been a pretty good eater: not very picky and fairly cooperative. But during the last few days he has started to be difficult at meal times. He refuses things that he used to like or food that needs to be eaten with a spoon.

This morning he decided that oatmeal should be reclassified as finger food and enthusiastically proceeded to eat it as such. Predictably, the results were not pretty.

E’s Second Haircut

Yesterday afternoon I took E to get a haircut. It was only the second time he’s been to have one and well, he flipped out. He cried and cried and stood up out of the little car he was sitting in and tried to escape. The cut ended up being shorter than I would have liked but I can’t really blame the stylist since E was such a difficult customer.

Thankfully E got over the trauma pretty quickly and since then has been rockin’ his new look. This morning at breakfast he was being pretty sassy.


The next Carrot Top?

So it turns out that E and Carrot Top have something in common. Can you guess what it is? It’s not bright red hair or suspicious muscle gain likely due to steroids…
…it’s a love of prop comedy!

Yesterday E was being a little fussy as I getting him ready for a nap and so I grabbed one of his pacifiers and popped it in my mouth and made some funny faces. This is guaranteed to crack him up; it has since he was tiny. Laughing, E pulled the binky out of my mouth (which he normally does) and then he pushed it back into my mouth (which he’s never done before). With a mischievous glint in his eye E repeated the process several times, giggling near-hysterically.

It was pretty funny.

E gets a haircut

E has needed a haircut for at least a couple of months. But N and I both thought his hair was really cute and so we’ve been putting it off. I loved the way his shaggy baby hair fell over his ears and across his forehead–so cute! But then E’s bangs got too long and started getting into his eyes and bothering him. I was too chicken to cut it myself and so on Saturday we too him to one of those places that specializes in haircuts for kids.

Even though he was tired, E was a trooper. He sat in a little toy police car (which, when I strapped him in I noticed had a surprisingly low back to it …more on this later) and didn’t cry while the stylist wet down his hair and went at it with scissors. He did start to get a little fussy but then the stylist gave him a lollipop which kept him pretty distracted. The only time he got really freaked out was when he decided to fling himself backwards out of his seat. He almost fell but was saved by his seat belt. It took a little bit of work to calm him down after that but we did and the stylist finished up. It was pretty awesome to watch her work so quickly and so well with such a squirmy client.


I think the results turned out pretty well. I know it’s not a huge difference, but E suddenly looks older to me: more toddler than baby. *Sigh.* When did he get so big?


On the Edge of Our Seats

This past week we’ve been seeing a lot more of this than is usual:

Yep, one of E.’s teeth has finally decided to grace us with its presence. But it’s being a total drama queen and has decided to keep us writhing in suspense for over a week. In the mean time, E. is congested and drooly, cries at the drop of a hat (or if you take too long getting him a Cheerio), and has trouble napping (but thankfully he still sleeps okay at night).

All and all, I guess it’s not too bad. But it’s been going on since last Friday. Just how long does this whole thing normally take? When I feel inside his mouth it seems sometimes like the tooth is very close to the surface but at other times it feels like it has sunk down some. Do teeth actually do that? This tooth is such a tease!

On a brighter note, N.’s grandpa is arriving tonight to stay with us for a week and a half while he attends a conference in town. It’s always fun to have Grandpa around and I’m hoping to get some good pictures of E. with his great-grandpa.

Laying Down the Law

(I was going to post some more pictures today, but our mouse mysteriously quit working and I have no idea how to edit and upload pictures using just the keyboard. Navigating around websites using only TAB and ALT is bad enough. Try it for “fun” sometime.)

So on Wednesday I disciplined E. for the first time.

He had picked up a cold while we were on vacation and was/is still feeling under the weather and acting kind of fussy. Anyway, I was nursing him and he, um, bit down. He didn’t do it that hard and I was feeling sorry for him and so I let it slide with a mild, “no.”

A minute later he bit down again HARD. Yeouch! Definitely not cool.

I sat him up and looked him in the eye and sternly said, “No!” E. looked at me quizzically for a second and then his face crumpled and he started crying. It was a pretty sad sight. To be honest, I was pretty surprised. I hadn’t really expected him to understand. Anyway, I settled him down and then we went on with the feeding.

It’s been a couple of days and so far he hasn’t done it again. Here’s hoping the lesson stuck!