Pictures, pictures, pictures

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Pictures, pictures, pictures

Look! Marmosets!

Last night we went to the zoo with our friends John and Crystal and their 9 month old son, Braiden. It was a perfect evening weather-wise and the mosquitoes weren’t too bad. Peter didn’t have much of a nap during the afternoon and by the time we got to the zoo he had just fallen asleep in the car, only to be transferred to the stroller. He was in a fog for a while, but one we sat down for a picnic dinner he started perking up. It helped that there was a band playing and he instinctively was wiggling along to the music in his seat.

 

Peter got to see elephants, giraffes, lionsandtigersandbearsohmy, penguins, flamingos, and a bunch of fish and lizards. As opposed to his trip to the zoo when he was 2 months old, this time he really got into it. He would point at the animals and point to his palm in the “more” sign (which has become his default communication, meaning, in addition to “more,” “I want,” “make this thing work” and, when done forcefully and quickly, “hurry up, already”). We took the 2 boys to the big cat building and the tigers and lions were actually awake for a change. We had Peter and Braiden standing next to each other next to the lion cage, leaning up against the glass, and Peter would gently pat Braiden on the arm and then giggle excitedly. When Peter is with his cousins he’s the little guy in the group, but with Braiden he’s the big kid and he plays the part well.

 

One of the benefits of the trip was that Peter was pretty much wiped out by it and slept the whole night through (as did his parents). Sweet.

A Midsummer Day's Report

We’ve been pretty busy this summer, so I haven’t been able to post much lately. That said, we’re still busy, and I don’t have a lot of time at the moment to write a Russian novel-length post, so I have to be quick.

 

Do you know what it’s like to visit houses for sale with a toddler who is pumped up and ready to go? It’s isn’t easy…

 

Peter is getting big. Not chunky, far from it. But he’s tall and strong. He’s also got his evasive moves down for when he wants to get away from being held. There’s “The Swim,” “The Twist,” “The Buck,” and “The Squirm.” A strong, lithe toddler employing any one of those moves is difficult to control, but when he throws them at you in combos he usually gets what he wants pretty quickly.

 

He learned how to turn the cable power on and off, along with changing channels and volume on the TV. I had to move the cable box to the top of the TV so he doesn’t ruin our watching the vast nothingness of cable. When he first figured out he could turn off the cable box he’d put his finger next to the button and wait for us to tell him not to do it. Then he’d push the button and stick out his jaw and squint while stomping away with a diabolical laugh. He used to be so nice…

 

Peter now will mimic hair washing. He will sit on our bed and play with a lotion bottle by touching the top of it, then raising his hands to his hair and rubbing his fingers through his hair. Obviously he can read directions, because he’ll rinse and repeat it several times.

 

He has also been working on whining. His shrieking is down, but he’s replaced it with a more persistent whine whenever he’s of the mind to do so. Usually it’s while in the car. I’m able to distract him by opening and closing the sunroof, but every time I do it lessens the effect of the following time I do it, so he’s developing a resistance to it. Once that’s of no use I’ll have to figure out some other method of entertaining him. Perhaps we could hire a jester for car rides.

 

He’s still dancing a lot. He’s getting kind of ethnic on us, too, as he’s gone a little Fiddler on the Roof-y by raising his arms up in the air and stepping around like a peasant milkman in Russia. But then he starts shaking his butt around, which I don’t remember Tevye doing.

 

And if you want to have tons of fun with him, he loves to fall back while sitting up on the bed. Especially if you do it at the same time with him. Sit up, fall back. Sit up, fall back. Laugh, laugh, laugh. Life should be so entertaining when you’re in your thirties and beyond.

Calendar Note

It’s the 3rd day of the month, which means Peter is a month older. Today sees him turning 14 months old, and the difference between Peter at 13 months and Peter at 14 months is actually pretty significant. He has pretty much mastered walking, and is even running some now when he’s outside. We think he may have gone through another growth spurt, as he seems noticeably taller. He’s also developing new behaviors, like tapping his fingers when he has to wait for something, or taking advantage of his parents’ bared midsections by blowing raspberries on them. He’s no baby anymore, and calling him a toddler is selling him short. He’s a full-blown little boy now.

No Peter, Bluetooth is a wireless protocol...

Apparently Peter was quiet for some time, looking out a window peacefully late yesterday evening. Me, I was up in the bedroom getting ready to go to sleep for the night.

 

Peter’s Mom comes up, one toddler with a puzzled expression in her arms. His plaid shirt was rather wet, so something was up. Peter, she explained to me, was chewing on a blue crayon like it was a soothing teething toy. She took him to the kitchen sink to try to wash out the crayon bits in his mouth, but brought him up to me to enlist more hands to do the job. Peter didn’t get what the big deal was, but his blue-flecked smile was not something we wanted him to keep. Peter’s Mom tried cleaning out the inside of his mouth with a washcloth, and it did a pretty good job, but ultimately we had to go with his new toothbrush.

 

Peter likes getting his teeth brushed. He’d see his parents using their Sonicare toothbrush and he thought that was the neatest thing, and last week we decided he was toothy enough for a junior sized brush instead of the little rubber fingertip thing we had gotten a while ago (product review: “ehhh…”). So while I held him up his mom scrubbed. Out came some more blue chunks. We think we go most if not all of the bits out by the time he was growing cranky from the cleansing.

 

Saturday also saw us heading out to a “breakfast of the farm” event which was so crowded we decided to skip it. Then we went to Cedarburg, the site of the Strawberry Fair (or Festival, I honestly can’t keep it straight in my head) which was huh-yoooooge. Later in the afternoon we took Peter to the park overlooking Lake Michigan where we took the pictures of him in his snappy blue baseball cap (that doesn’t fit him anymore) last fall, and took some new pictures of him in another hat and sunglasses as he played on a swing and a slide. Eventually he was getting kind of droopy in the swing seat so we took him home, but not before we got some fixin’s for dinner. While we were in the grocery store the sky above us got ominouser and ominouser (that better be a proper word). We scurried home, only to pull into the driveway when sheets of rain were flying sideways. I got Peter & his mom inside ok, but I was soaked.

 

I think every anecdote for Wisconsinites this summer has “and then we got rained on” in it somewhere…

Summer Vacation

When was the last time I posted something here? March?

 

Well, the latest thing isn’t so new these days. Peter’s walking more and more every day, but as has been his personality, while his natural ability is high, he’s cautious in his approach. He can get up on his feet on his own and go for a stroll, but he still likes to have a hand to hold his while he gets from Point A to Point B even though he doesn’t need it. He’ll grab onto a finger and lead you in the direction he wants to go in, which is a change from us leading him. We still need to remind him to take it slow or take shorter steps, and he’ll stumble and fall on his butt every one in a while, but he’s pretty much going wherever he wants.

 

One of the fringe benefits of Peter officially becoming a toddler is that he can dance on his own. I used to hold him up and dance him around when we was but a wee little laddie, but now that he’s in charge he will do his own moves. I don’t know if I should be surprised or not, but his dancing is very butt-centric. When he hears music his hips start gyrating and he’ll shake his rump like a 20 year old with a fake ID. He has his preferences for the music he likes, but it usually comes down to him being able to hear the rhythm and the beat pretty prominently in the music. And he’ll do it almost at any time, too. He’s gotten up in the morning after a good night’s sleep and turned on the radio, stood up on his own, and busted a move. We’re thinking if we can teach him the correct moves that we can dress him up in an Elvis jumpsuit for Halloween.

 

Let’s see, what else is new…? Um, he’s showing an interest and ability in using a fork or spoon to feed himself. I figure we can take him out to an expensive restaurant now and he can feed himself, especially since he’s so tall and could probably get away without using a highchair.

 

He apparently said “hat” yesterday in relation to the thing that one puts atop one’s head. We shall see if he does it again soon.

 

The temperature has been getting up into the 80s the past couple days, and we are reminded again that this is a boy who can sweat with the best of them.

First Steps

Last night, at about 8:30, Peter got up and took about 4-5 steps on his own before falling down. We got very excited and clapped for his accomplishment. However, he linked the applause to the falling down part, so he spent the following ten minutes tumbling over and then clapping and laughing. We'll have to work on that.

 

The walk itself was interesting. If you ever seen how Ed Grimley walks, it was kind of like that. I'll see if we can do Peter's hair in a Grimleyesque fashion we can probably shoot a re-enactment for posterity's sake.