Someone didn't do what he was supposed to do

On Breech Day morning we went to a factory sale at Florence Eiseman, the locally based design company of kids clothing, with his Granny and Aunties Trucker & Vi. Many bargains were scored. Peter found it boring (note to my boy: it won’t get any easier). Afterwards we all went to the Pancake House on the East Side for a Saturday Brunch. Peter sat in a high chair and did a good job of feeding himself scrambled eggs, pancake bits and potato chunks. He also did a good job of tossing many bits of food on the floor. We then went to Granny’s house and he played with the now 13 week old kitten, Mitzi, and her toys. He got an early birthday present from Granny (or a Breech Day present) in the form of a handmade bookcase. It is very nice and Peter has lots of books he can put in it.

 

After going home and having dinner, Peter did the unthinkable. At 7:35 he turned upside down while we played on the sofa and laughed. About a year too late. Oh well.

 

Version Day was a quiet day. The mid-day wrestling took the form of “church,” but he was pretty well behaved so, again, Peter did the unthinkable. He was supposed to whup us one real good, but instead was docile. Again, oh well.

 

Now everything is leading up to his birthday on Saturday. We’ll be heading out to Madison to have his pictures taken on Friday, and we plan on going to the farmer’s market Saturday morning and possibly the zoo. But the weather so far looks iffy. Let’s hope it gets nice in time.

The other news of the weekend

It was warmish this past weekend, so we took Peter for several walks. He definitely likes going outside. It’s very easy to get him strapped into his stroller before a walk now, he doesn’t fuss or anything. When we’re out walking he may chat a little bit, but he mostly looks around. No shrieking, that’s for sure.

 

Peter’s mom noticed Saturday morning that one of the teeth on his lower jaw that had been lurking under the surface of his gums for the past month has finally broken through, but at the rate it’s been moving it may take a while before it’s noticeable. So he’ll just have those two bottom teeth by themselves for a little while longer.

 

At one point in the middle of the day Peter filled his diaper with a little something special. I had to remove his pants to make sure it was what I thought it was, and after confirming that it in fact was what I thought it was I left him standing next to his mom, minus any pants. She had been eating an orange and had a paper napkin to hold the rind and pith bits. Peter took the napkin while I was getting out his changing equipment and he gently started wiping the outside of his diaper. I can only hope he is this helpful when we’re doing the actual diaper change itself.

 

He got another compliment at the grocery store that afternoon, too. He’s a magnet for that kind of stuff. Sometimes I think people just notice him and say nice things, but we’ve caught him flirting, so he may be working his charm on purpose.

 

Saturday evening Peter crawled up the stairs at 8:30, all the way to the top. I asked him if he was going to bed, and sure enough he kept crawling all the way to the bed and stood up. He must have just been playing with our heads, because he spent the next hour pretty much just jumping up and down.

 

Sunday we were up and about earlier than normal, and it seemed to throw him off his sleep schedule. He barely napped all day (and only in the car, at that) and then got cranky in the evening. We put him down at an extremely early 7:30, and he was out of commission until this morning.

High Holy Days

Coming up this weekend are the new Days Of No Little Importance on the calendar of Peterism. Saturday will be the first celebration of Breech Day, observed on the anniversary of the discovery of Peter’s uprightness (when he should have been downright). On Breech Day we shall make sure that Peter keeps his head up, all day long. We will decorate the Breech Day tree in the morning, in the afternoon we will take part in the Parade To The Chiropractor In Waukesha, and in the evening we shall toss all previously made plans in the air and figure out The New Way Of How It’s Gonna Be.

 

Sunday marks the commemoration of Version Day, where at mid-day Peter will wrestle 2 grown adults at once and win. Following the athletic festivities is the sacred Feast of Applebees, where Peter’s Mom is praised for her pain threshold.

 

There are, of course, the smaller observances that will occur this week, like the Easting of Spicy Food. But the biggest holiday comes on May 3rd, and that will get its own posting, I’m sure.

Busting out

Last night, early in the evening, Peter was getting rather uppity, for lack of a better term. He got antsy while being fed and started swatting away anything we tried to feed him. When he was out of his high chair he didn’t know what to do and just kind of whined while bouncing around from here to there. We tried feeding him again, with me holding him and his mom giving him spoonfuls of a nice berry & banana smoothie. He liked it and was doing well eating it, until he shifted gears back into cranky mode and wound up kicking the bowl and sending smoothie all over the place.

 

I took Peter upstairs to try and calm him down and see if he would nap, since he was acting in a way that oftentimes is an indicator or fatigue, although he hadn’t done any of the other typical moves like rubbing his eyes. I was able to calm him down a little bit, and even changed his diaper, but he wasn’t interested in going down. His mom came up after de-smoothie-fying the living room, and we turned out the lights to see if that would get his motor to shut down. It didn’t. In fact, it riled him up even more. At that point we decided he needs to be transitioned into a different environment. So we took him outside for a walk. It had been up to 75 degrees during the day, but very windy like the day before, if not more so. But the sun was setting and we hoped the winds would calm somewhat, and they did, somewhat. We were out for maybe 20 minutes, and it changed him back into his normal charming self. His mom reminded me that Peter turns into another kid when he’s taken outside, which I had forgotten since it had been something like 80 bajillion months since it was nice enough to go on a walk like that and we had been buried under a glacier over the winter.

 

And then, when we got back, Peter decided to put on a show. I had gone upstairs for a couple minutes and started coming down, when, about 5 steps from the bottom, I saw Peter crawl to the foot of the stairs and look up. He then put a hand on the first step, and his knee followed. Tentatively at first, with gusto in no time, he started climbing the stairs, stopping along the way to check out the view. There are about 14 steps on the stairs, and he made it up to the last 2 before stopping. His mother and I congratulated him, and he clapped along with us, and I took him back down to the living room. He immediately turned around and went back to the stairs and climbed, this time all the way up to the top. He did it about five times in total. You would think it would have pooped him out, but he stayed up past 10:00.

 

Now the question is what he will do next.

Things Peter Does

Being an ever-changing type of kid, Peter seems to have new tricks every day. Take the feeding his father trick. He did it again the other night when we had him in his highchair. He likes cinnamon raisin bread, and he had a bunch of ripped up bits on the tray for him to feed himself. I was sitting with him, and he would wad up a bit of bread in his hand and reach out towards my face so he could feed me. How long will he keep doing this?

 

His vocalizations are increasing in variety and frequency. His mom has discovered that when he says “ah dah” he’s trying to say “all done” as in “I’m not hungry anymore.” So we have two distinct messages that we get out of him, “ah dah” and “na na nuh” which is “no.” I’m not sure if the “ahhhhn nuh” that he sometimes says means anything, or if it was him working on saying “ah dah.”

 

I think I’ve mentioned it before, but he does signs for things too. “Book” and “more” are frequently done, although we aren’t sure if he conceptualized “more” the way we do, since it is an abstract concept. It’s usually been done in reference to his snacks, so it could be an indicator that he’s hungry. He woke up Saturday morning doing the sign, which could lend credence to him thinking it means food.

 

His mom has been teaching him to do the “all done” sign (raising both hands up and shaking them a little), but he’s started speaking it instead. He can be goaded into doing it, but we’ve done hand raising movements in the past with him where it didn’t mean anything, so he may not perceive it the way we mean him to.

 

He’s developed quite the ear-piercing shriek. Great.

 

His mother thinks (or worries) that he’s going to be quite the ladies man, since he attracts so much attention from the opposite sex and he’s not at all shy about flirting. We’ll see if that lasts past the point he discovers mud.

 

Another thing that’s new with him is that he has no patience for diaper changing. He hates it, actually. Hopefully it’s just a phase, but we’ve had to do some changes with him standing up lately.

 

It’s supposed to be warmer this week, so we’re hoping to get him out of the house. He’s been cooped up inside most of his life, it seems…

The Foodie

Last night Peter was being the naughtiest he had ever been in his life. We aren’t sure why. Was he hungry? Tired? Were there diaper issues? It could have been any or all of those reasons, but whatever it was made him loud and thrashy, with an attention span that needed expensive scientific equipment to measure. Fortunately it didn’t last too long. Later in the evening he was sitting on my lap on the couch while his mom was feeding him little bits of chicken. She had been putting them directly into his mouth, but then she put it up to his hand so he could feed himself. Only he didn’t feed himself. He turned around and started putting his chicken bits into his dad’s mouth. Later on he gave me some apple, too. It’s endearing, but I hope he’s not trying to fatten me up. My waist is expanding enough on its own, thank you very much.

 

It should be noted, though, that Peter is giving up on baby food, and will now make an effort to get whatever his parents are eating. If you are in his field of vision and you are eating something that isn’t strained or mushy, you will find yourself being climbed like just another obstacle, as a hungry hungry hippo tries to sample your chow. The only thing to do is fast whenever we’re near him.

Victory!

Peter won the cute baby tournament with 59% of the vote. Objectively, he was obviously the cutest, but the competition was fierce in the last round and the lead changed several times. Peter started out strong as the early morning voters got in their say before that first cup of coffee, but the the Kylie machine revved up and surged out to a 12 percentage point lead by 9:30. Surely those people didn't really think that Peter was less cute than Kylie?

 

Anyway, the Peter campaign kicked it up several notches at that point and started cranking out e-mails all across the land, letting them know that Peter was being dissed! Before you know it, Peter was only down by 2 votes, and then The Peter Party must have hit the retirement homes because he then surged out to 60% by mid-day. Kylie had a little run at the end of regulation, but by that time the damage was done and the truth won out. Peter is the cutest.

 

Darn tootin' he is.

Final Voting Tomorrow

Peter won on Friday. He's in the finals against Kylie, the girl in the bumbo. Voting starts early in the morning, before 6:00. Be sure to vote early as they shut down voting earlier than 4:00 in the afternoon. Tell your friends and family. Tell strangers. Be the crazy person walking down the street muttering "Vote for Peter" incessantly. YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

The Only Boy in the Final Four

Peter is up today in the second semi-final match. The winner faces Kylie, the girl in the bumbo with neck problems. If you haven't yet voted for Peter today, get yourself to http://www.mighty92.com/pages/cutestbaby08.html and cast a ballot for Baby J.

11

As I mentioned yesterday, Peter is 11 months old today.

 

Blah blah blah time goes by so fast yadda yadda.

 

At this point in time, Peter is able to use sign language for certain things ("book", "more", and what looks like "huh?"), and can say some basic sounds, but not yet fully discernible words. He can stand rather easily with a chair, sofa, or anything else to support him, but the support is getting less necessary by the day. He also waves to people when they wave to him. He is also losing interest in identifiable baby food, preferring to get what his parents eat.

 

The first Saturday in May will see him cross the threshold of one full year. Will he be walking by then? Saying full words? Flipping the bird to people who cut him off in traffic? Eating the potato chips in the bag he likes to abuse? I guess only time will tell.

An upset

So the voting for today is the semifinals on the other side of the bracket, and I was expecting the Brett Favre kid to be there. But what do you know, it looks like he was retired! It's the cute little girl with the drool on her lip and the floral background vs. the creepy girl in the bumbo that doesn't have the neck strength to lift her head. Now, if my kid couldn't lift their head I wouldn't be putting them in a bumbo, much less taking pictures of it. But then Peter could support his head only a few hours after he was born, so this is just conjecture on my part.

Peter won his round of voting again yesterday, so he should be up for another match (against the winner of today’s pair) on Friday. If he wins that then he’d be up again Monday against the winner of tomorrow’s match, and my money is on the kid in the Brett Favre jersey being the finalist on that side of the brackets. Why? Because it’s a Pavlovian reaction here in Wisconsin, like how Sports Illustrated can basically make its yearly profit on anything with a Brett Favre cover being sold in Wisconsin in mass quantities.

 

Tomorrow is Peter’s 11 month birthday. If you want to get him a gift that keeps on giving, vote for the opponent of the kid in the Brett Favre jersey.

VOTE

Peter's up in the next round of voting. Go to http://www.mighty92.com/main.html and vote now.