Thursday, September 26, 2013

So much I've been meaning to write down! Here are a few tidbits:

Micah is pretending to put paint on his face.

Mama: What are you painting your face like?

Micah: Andew's face!

Mama: You're painting your face like Andrew's face?

Micah: Yes!

Michael went to hang out with Andrew and Mama explained to Micah where he was.

Micah: I wanna see Andew! Andew come home!

Micah intercepted a granola bar headed for Michael's lunch.

Micah: No Kaya no oboebar! Micah's!

Micah: Hey Kaya! Eata your bone! No share oboebar!

As an aside, two of my favorite words are currently Titten (kitten) and Tebby Bear.

Friday, September 20, 2013 - Potty Training Progress Report

This seemed like it deserved its own post. Today, Micah wore underwear most of the day, pull ups when we went to the store, and he stayed dry ALL day. Not a single wet diaper except for the one he woke up in. He used the potty all day. Amazing.

When I took him to the grocery store, I told him we had to take off his undies and put on "shopping undies." That would be pull ups. He was cool with it but he insisted on carrying his undies with him in his arms. :)

Friday, September 20, 2013 - Birthday Week

I've been meaning to write all week and just haven't gotten my act together. This has been an amazing week. I think that the birthday experience is so unique and there are so many people around that in addition to being fun and interesting for Micah, it has given him the opportunity to visibly grow so much.

I imagine this is the last time we'll be able to have wrapped gifts around the house without them attracting Micah's attention. He got a whole slew of things before his birthday and I opened each package, wrapped the unwrapped gifts, and placed them on the old tv stand in the living room (it houses books these days). He didn't even bat an eye at them.

The first gifts he opened were from Grandma and Frank. It was amazing. He opened a little box of a toy dog, rabbit and cat with a dog house, rabbit cage, cat bed, bowls for each of them, and tiny wooden food items for each. They were doll house sized and he was so content with them that he just sat down and played with them for about 20 minutes. They talked to each other, he moved them in and out of their respective houses, put them in and out of the box they came in, he was as happy as could be. We convinced him to open the firehouse doll house next and he was completely in love with that.The firemen have bunk beds, a toilet, a fire truck, all sorts of other furniture, and he just explored and played with it for quite a while. After a while, Michael asked if he wanted to go to the park, and he actually said no because he was enjoying his gifts so much.

As for the birthday party, I think we planned the perfect 2-year old birthday party. We had planned for kickball but of course, there's no way the toddlers were going to let us get on the baseball field and play with the balls without them. But the field turned out to be an awesome place to let the kids play pretty much on their own. I brought a bowl with kids sunglasses, mardi gras beads, party hats, and racquetball sized bouncy balls. Plus a bag full of kickballs of course. And the kids just loved it all. They put all the stuff on, took it off, I watched one toddler handing necklaces to Micah and he just put them all on one after the other. The adults were able to hang out, eat, drink, and enjoy ourselves. Afterward, Micah was talking about the party and the "hats, and the necklaces, and the glasses." According to another of the moms, her daughter was doing the same. Definitely a good time had by all.

On Monday, he partied at the babysitter. I sent some left over party favors and cupcakes and the babysitter sent a picture of him and the other two toddlers at the table with cupcakes and juice boxes and everyone looked super happy. The babysitter's 3 year old daughter is pretty much his best friend. He talks about Cece all the time and they have become very good playmates together.

Monday night, Micah opened a little bike from grandma and grandpa while we were skyping with them. He  LOVES this bike. It's a tiny bike without pedals and every time he got on it that first day, he broke down in tears because he's just an inch or so too small to really manage it, but we've clocked many hours walking it around the block since then. He's completely content walking it and actually if you ask whether he would like to ride his bike, he says "No riding bike. Walking." Seriously. This kid is the best.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Just a tidbit:

Last Saturday, I took Micah to feed the ducks at the pond by the pool. It was mostly a ploy to get him to go shopping with me and leave the house. We sat down on the concrete and fed the ducks together. Of course, none of the bread he throws makes it as far as the ducks! After we gave the ducks all of the bread that we had, I told him that we were done and he was surprisingly willing to get up and walk away. I said "all done!" And he just got up, and started climbing the stairs!

And then he saw the swimming pool. "Swimming pool!" He picked up the pace and started walking straight over there. I told him it was closed but I figured it didn't do any harm to walk over there with him. He was being really cute and excited about it. 

So as we are walking over there, he starts talking about what he has to do in order to go swimming. "Off ah shoes! Off ah shirt! Off ah pants! SWIMMING!" (complete with gestures toward each thing he was going to take off.) It was adorable. 

When we got to the pool, he walked up to the closed metal gate, pounded on it, turned to look at me, and said, "Open!" I never saw him that excited about going to the pool when it was actually open. I explained that I didn't have the key, that the pool was closed until next summer, I pointed out that there wasn't any water in the pool. It was kind of sad.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Tuesday was a day of firsts. It was also a fairly typical day, so I will talk a little about it. Tuesday was Micah's first day of our mom and tot preschool class at the Waldorf school. I figured we would get up around 7:30 or 8, have some breakfast and by the time we were dressed and ready, it would be time to go to our 9:30 class. Micah had a different plan, he was awake at 6:15. I tried to ignore him, hoping he would fall back to sleep, but at 6:30 I decided I had better get up and brush my teeth and get dressed. We were downstairs by 6:45 and he spent the whole morning whining. I don't know how to get him to cut the whining. It's his absolute first choice for communication but only with us, he doesn't do it with the babysitter. By the time we were leaving the house at 9:10, I was ready to call for back up, I was so glad to be going somewhere where I wouldn't be solely responsible for entertainment.

Preschool was surprisingly fun and Waldorf is a bit strange but also smart. They write chores on the chalkboard each morning and the parents complete them with the toddlers' help if they are interested. We baked biscuits which happens each week and washed building blocks, which is a periodic task. Micah became surprisingly good at squeezing out the sponge. He also spent a lot of time playing with the dollhouse. Quietly. And by himself. It was really cute to watch him moving the little people and furniture around. He really enjoys rocking babies in cradles and spent time doing that with the babies in the dollhouse as well as the babies in the little play area.

When it came time for sitting in a circle and singing (blech!), Micah was into it for about thirty seconds and then he decided to go sit on the bench instead. And then he decided to leave altogether and play with the kitchen set. I went over to try to coax him back but he wasn't interested, so I played with him instead. We pretended to eat foot from little bowls and when I asked what it tasted like, he thought about it, looked at me, and said, "peanut butter sandwich!" Adorable.

After class, I came home, got him down for a nap and had some glorious baby free time. And when he got up he was in a much better mood! I had filled up the baby pool because it was ridiculously hot out and we spent almost an hour playing in the pool, splashing, "swimming," squirting water out of the rubber ducks, and pretending the ducks were swimming and diving down to eat things off the bottom of the pool. After a while his ducks started eating cookies off the bottom of the pool ("mmmm, cookies!") and then Micah got it in his head that he wanted to eat cookies too. I convinced him to have a sandwich instead and he was really good about it even though the thought of cookies can sometimes devastate any appetite for real food.

After Michael got home, we had another first. Micah was just setting out on the sidewalk on his little scoot along car when he started screaming and Michael looked down and saw a yellowjacket on the sidewalk. :( Baby's first wasp sting. He was just beside himself for about 5 minutes, couldn't sit still in my arms, could barely be comforted, and then he started crying that he wanted to get down, I set him down, and he was off. All better,  not another tear. Amazing. 

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Micah is talking and comprehending our conversations like crazy. He spends most of the day ordering us around. He narrates books as we're reading them, knows what's coming next, as I was reading Curious George to him tonight he was trying to open the rabbit cage the page before George opened it up and was holding his little hands out in front of himself to show me that George was going to hold a baby bunny in his hands.

He loves the part in A Book of Sleep where I imitate the pigeon who sleeps with one eye open.

He loves the part in Where the Wild Things Are about the wild rumpus because Michael does a "rumpus" beat and Micah dances around the room until he says "Stop!"

Tonight, we read Otis and he did sound effects, talked about the calf going "night night" and then got a little bit scared when she got stuck in the mud.

On Saturday we took him to a flea market. It was rather uneventful but we did come across some piglets which he was studying very closely. He stuck his finger toward the cage after he saw someone else do it but was afraid they would bite it and has brought that up several times since then.

Last night he took Kaya for a 1 mile walk. On his own, but with adult supervision in case another dog crossed our path. When we came to an intersection with a street, he instructed Kaya to sit (though she required a bit of coaching from the grown ups) and then he sat down on the sidewalk at each intersection as well.

We have had a wonderful weekend together.