14 posts tagged “28 months”

It's Sunday and I have so much too do in preparation for our trip this week, but instead I am sitting in the dark in the guest room at the computer. Since I am not being that productive, join me in filipping around and check out this shirt my friend Bo made for her son using his hand as a template - isn't it cool?! Then check out this sweet baby one of my many friends named Karen had this week. Then, in more baby news, one of the blogs I follow, Soule Mama, also had a baby, so check out this wonderful photo. If you click through to read more of Soule Mama's blog, don't miss the great henna covered belly shot taken the week before Harper was born.

You didn't come to read about my freinds? You want to know about T? Well he is sleeping wonderfully peacefully after a special light lunch at the church and Advent crafts. T deocrated two Angel cards for folks that are homebound, a bag for a luminaria that will be part of our town's Christmas tour of homes and neighborhoods in December, we started an advent wreath for our home, and got materials for an advent chain. He ate three chicken nuggets, some salad (mixed greens), some spicy veggetable soup and some smokey split pea soup, two cookies and milk. He's growing. He also ate a fair amount at breakfast (two of them) and had snack at church. He said he was going to throw up on the ride home and I had to stop and unbutton his pants. Go figure.

Anyway, he also ran up and down the ramp into the fellowship hall a million times, half of which he ran with a boy named Noah who is about a year or two older than he is. They had a blast. Then we delivered the presents we purchased for a little three and a half year old named Hahliv (??). We pulled her name off an angel tree two weeks ago and spent much of yesterday gathering together the items. I might still get her a tin tea set from a local shop, but we put together a dress-up box for her with three bead necklaces, a tiara, a boa, a pair of gloves, a small bag, a tutu (that I made), and some fairly wings. We also got her two books (Princess Smartypants and Charlie and Lolo But I Am an Aligator), and an educational matching game and puzzle combo. Oh, and the only specific request on the angel was for underwear so we got her a Carters 10 pack in bright colors. I really hope she will like it all! T was good with buying the items "for the little girl.'

No pictures to post this Monday. I didn't take a single photo of little Mr. T. He was a very good boy however and we had a nice weekend. The play yesterday was a success, though it was partially over his head. It was recommended for children three and above and I think in another eight months he would have enjoyed it more. I think he didn't get some of it (I had to explain the tooth fairy) and I think some of it was a little scary. However, he sat on my lap through the whole thing and was a very good boy. He clapped after every song, did smile some, and didn't squirm, scream, or chatter (like some.)

We also had a good time at the craft fairs we went to and T was pretty good at those as well. I had to chat with him and grab him a couple of times, but he is only 28 months, so considering his age he was very good. I got several gifts and came home with a bunch of cards of items I like. I will try to post the web sites for these artists as there was some really great stuff at the shows.

Weekend activities: Kindermusik, Craft show, church, a childrens play, another craft show?

Wish us luck as I take T to his first production. It's a musical adaptation of a childrens book and will take an hour. An hour - do you think the little one can do it? Do you think he can sit in my lap for that long? Cause here is the other kicker, I didn't buy him his own $10 seat, I bought him a $5 lap pass. Oh wish us luck... adding to all the stress in this situation, I have to make sure he goes down for his nap at 1230 and is up by 230 cause we have to be in our seats at 330... could be quite tight!!

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Now we have another opportunity. Turns out B's employer is having a special night at one of the local attractions. A big deal one that we haven't been to yet, and one that T would love. Fish, lots of fish. I learned about it from the mom of one of T's friends: Easton whom we had a great playdate with two weeks ago. But timing is tight with T's bedtime and we'd take a shuttle so as not to pay for parking ($10 otherwise)...

I don’t know if T is headed in to the terrible twos, but we have been having more trouble recently. He doesn’t really throw tantrums, but he does scream and cry when he can’t do something he wants. The bigger issue has been scratching, biting, and hitting. This weekend twice he tried to bite my leg when he was upset and he tried to scratch me a bunch of times. Same for B. We have to figure out how to channel some f his abounding energy, get him to sleep some more, and find more things he can control. This morning I know there were too many things he was told he couldn’t do and not enough things that he got to decide.

"Why?""Where is it?" "What's this street/song called?" "Why" "What's her name?" "Why" "What do I smell?" "What do I hear?" "What's that?" "Why" "Where's {name}?" repeat...

This morning T did some more joking. I was getting him dressed and he climbed out of my lap after I got one shoe on him. “I don’t want the other shoe,” he said. “You are going to be one-shoe-T?” I asked. “Yes.” So we went about our business and I was getting ready to leave him with B and head to work. “Bye-bye one-shoe-T,” I said. “Bye-bye two-shoe mommy!” was his reply with a little grin. You had to be there to hear how he thought through the reply and how proud he was when B and I laughed.

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Last night as T and I were doing the bedtime routine and he picked out a book to read. “This one. I want to read this book. I like it. … some people don’t; I like it.”

This came after we had a discussion about The Napping House. T got The Napping House as a Christmas gift from our cousin Steve; it is a great favorite with his brood of three. For some reason however T has never liked it that much and actually been a little afraid of it. At first I decided it might be the granny (“Grannies are coming,” T said in fear several times after waking in the night. This is the only book T owns with a granny.) But last night T expressed that it might be the flea. T’s classroom now has the book and I think they have been reading it.

 

“T lets pick out three books to read.” “Not The Napping House,” T said. “OK,” I replied. “There is a flea in it. It bites,” he said very seriously. “Yes and then what happens?” “It bites the dog and he jumps.” “What happens next?” “The dog eats him,” he continued, still very serious. “I see,” I said. “I don’t want to read The Napping House.” Eventually we picked out two library books, On the Day Tall Ships Sailed (this is the book he commented about liking), Drawing Lessons from a Bear, and Little Lambs Big Question, an old favorite I received for T as a shower gift from Karen K.

T is on amoxycillan again. B took him to the pediatrician's on Monday as a cough he developed a couple of days before mom visited was getting worse and worse. While I hate to over medicate, T has hardly coughe since he has been on it, his nose is less runny, and he seems to be acting like he feels better. T was a little cranky this weekend and we wondered if it had to do with not feeling well.

[Edit 11/11] With four doses left before the end of the Amoxycilan, T is not better. As written above he was showing signs of improvement, but after a couple days he was coughing with a runny nose again. When we finish with the Amoxycillan we're on to Augmenton.

B, T and I are all wearing I voted stickers this morning. We got to our polling place at 7:15 or so and left an hour later. The first part of the line moved really fast, the second part seemed to stop. T did pretty well spending the first 35 or so minutes coloring dinosaurs on paper. He covered several sheets with squiggles of color that are all mean dinosaurs. Later he got very active and we might have upset one or two non-morning people, but in all he did quite well. Although, when we first got there T told people as we headed down the line, "Go away! GO TO YOUR HOMES." I had to explain that we really should be telling them thank you for coming. He was quite while he contemplated that.

A bit of a 'sad' part for T, he was not allowed to push the buttons on the touchscreen this time. In the past I have told him which button to push and he has loved being a part of the process. Today after I had him push the 'next' button I was told that T was not allowed to touch the touchscreen. He was sad, but watched me calmly.

Unfortunately I was not as informed a voter as I would like to be. For reasons I won't go in to I did not educate myself on some of our local elections and issues like I would have liked. Thus I didn't vote in one race and feel very uneasy about two others that I did cast a ballot for. Fingers crossed that my memory served me as I had had a cheat sheet to bring with me that I left at home by accident.

[edit] Obama's victory speech and McCain's concession speech.

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I got the following IM from B about out fast approaching two-and-a-half-year old boy (when they say the terrible twos really kick in):

DO [drop off] was very bad. He caused trouble. Grabbed hair, pushed, put a snake in the trash. Generally caused trouble
Then, when I left he cried alot. I observed for about 3 min, he was still crying for his daddy
Before I left I took him aside 2 times and told him to be a good nice boy. He said he would. Then ran off to hit, push, change the radio song, etc.
I suspect he'll have a write-up today

[edit]  No write ups, but that doesn’t mean T was a good boy. B talked with a couple of the teachers about T’s behavior. Apparently he often does things, or is about to do things, that they don’t write up. Apparently he also doesn’t acknowledge that he is about to do something he shouldn’t when he is told to stop. The teacher ‘in charge’ of T during the day says that his actions are typical for the age.

This morning T told me that he friend Belle bit him yesterday (we didn’t get a write up about it.) I asked if he told her that she may not do that, and he said yes. I asked if she apologized and he said yes. I asked him why she bit him and he said it was because he took away her book. I told him he shouldn’t do that. He said that he gave her another book. We talked about this and that giving her another book wasn’t really what she wanted, and he said, “Why?”

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The other day T wanted to water the (outside) plants. This entails going under the deck to the rain barrel. On the way in I failed to lean down enough and hit my head very hard against the bottom of the deck. All I could do for several minutes was to say, “ow”, hold my head, and tell T why I was doing both things.

After we had taken the filled watering can to the front potted plants and were headed back for more water, we saw B. I mentioned that I hit my head very hard and it hurt. T looked up at me, dropped his hand from the watering can and came around to the front of me. “I’m gonnu give you a hug!” he said and threw his arms around me and buried his face into my neck (I had bent down to his level.)

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Monday on the ride to school I asked T if he wanted to listen to You Are My Little Bird CD. He said yes, and then proceeded to say in increasingly whiney voices, “I don’t want this song!” as I made my way through various songs. At the end he was crying like he was in pain, “Quiet, quiet!!”

His yelling for quiet started a couple of weeks ago and obviously it is my queue to turn off the music. Usually I can turn it back on after some time (I like driving to music or the radio) which is what I did more or less on Monday. I went through the list of CDs we have in the car asking if he wanted to listen to any of them. We settled on My First Sing A Long CD from Parents magazine and he was adorable as we sang Itsy Bitsy Spider, If Your Happy and You Know It, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and Mary Had a Little Lamb. He did all the hand signals to Itsy spider, and clapped, stomped, attempted snapping, and said, “hooray!” to Happy and You Know It.

Recently after T asked for quite he told me he wanted me to talk to him. It was a little bit of a wake up call that I can go into my head too much when we are driving. I don’t think he liked my talking however, as we eventually lapsed into silence before we saw a digger and construction site.

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T has quite a little sense of humor. You knew it had to be there as he is such a happy, gregarious, and exuberant little boy. He has been trying to tell jokes and likes to kid about what things are. He also has been doing word plays and alliteration.

Sunday night at dinner I gave T a banana bread muffin. He turned to B and said, “Do you know the muffin man?” “Yes, he lives next door,” said B. There was one of two more back and forth and then I piped in with, “He lives on Drury Lane.” T turned to B again and said, “You don’t see very well.” “No?” replied B. “No,” said T, and we said together, “we live on Dyson.” T continued, “he’s not our neighbor.”

B got T some more fish and they are named Coo-coo, Poo-poo, Paint, Monk, and Catfish (or Leopard says B.) The first two were first in the new tank and are both black. The next two are darting red fish, and Catfish is a bottom feeder leopard catfish. B told me this morning that T has also been calling his class friends Howie and Jason Poo-poo and Coo-coo. T laughed when I asked him about this and he told me Howie is Poo-poo. Poo-poo-head is not far a way I am sure.