Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Weirdness

So it's pretty windy out here today. It's also garbage day and they are late picking up the garbage for some reason. I guess a bag of garabage blew from my neighbour's across the street pile and landed in the pile of my next door neighbour. They never have more than a bag or two of garbage, and there is a 4 bag limit here, so it's no big deal. Plus they aren't particularly strict about the bag limit here anyway, not like there were when we lived in bigger cities. Yet, I just watched her go outside, pick up said bag of garabage, and return it to the pile across the street.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

These Boots Are Made For Walking...

Little Man took his first real steps today!!! He's taken a few steps before here and there, but only when he's been caught off guard, or if he's playing and hadn't noticed he was doing it. Until now, anytime you tried to get him to walk he just laughed and sat down or dived toward you. He wouldn't even really stand on his own if he realized you'd let go of him, although he stands lots while he's playing and doesn't notice.

Anyway, this morning Big Man's cousin was here babysitting while I worked. I came in and sat down on the floor with Little Man (*** holy cow - while I was typing this I just looked over and he was walking across the floor like it was nothing - probably walked about 12 steps in total there!!). He was using me to pull himself up, but then letting go, which he's never done before. So I started trying to get him to walk, and at first he was doing his usually thing - giggling and sitting down or falling toward me. Then it was just like all of a sudden he decided "OK, I'm 1 now, enough is enough, I better start walking"... and started trying over and over again. At first he'd only get about 1/2 step as he fell towards me, but as soon as he fell he'd grab my hands, stand back up, let go, and try again. (*** Double Holy Cow! - he just stood himself up without holding onto anything and walked 24 steps!!). So before too long he was cosistently doing 2-3 steps. Then we got a video of him and by the end of that he was doing 4 steps. After the video he did 5 or 6 steps. And then I was getting his lunch ready and had his highchair out, and he pulled himself up on his highchair, got himself turned around and balanced, and walked 7 or 8 steps! And then as you can see in my live comments above, he's walking like crazy now! I thought he'd get going quickly once he got started because he seemed capable of walking for a while now, he just wouldn't try... but I didn't think it would be *this* quickly!! I'm so proud of him, and he's so proud of himself haha.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Last Year At This Time....

I was probably starting on pitocin.... which did eff all but torture me, but that's for the rest of the story, which I may or may not post later.

Toys, Toys, and More Toys

Well, we had Little Man's birthday party on Friday. It went really well - he got a little nervous a couple of times with all the people around, but overall he had a great time. He was also such a good boy all day, I was so proud of him! He didn't touch his cake, but loved the mini ice-cream cone we gave him.

One of the things I was a little nervous about was the presents he would get. Unlike some other people I know, I haven't been able to stick with all wood toys - it's really difficult to find them in our small city, we've gotten way too many gifts that aren't wooden, and they're so expensive. I have, however, made a really attempt to stick with more "classic" toys - even if they are plastic - and continually purge all the noisy, button-pushing type stuff we get (although luckily not much so far). Right now his toybox basically consists of: a rubber ball, stacking cups, shape-sorter blocks, stacking rings, a few stuffed animals (including the In the Night Garden ones, which he loves to make kiss one another), some little cars and trucks, a big mega-blocks dump truck (which I expect might become an outdoor toy in the future - dumping rocks and dirt, etc.), a tonka fire truck (no buttons or noises!), a bead thingy from Ikea, a pop-up toy, some wodden puzzles, a wooden race car, a keyboard/xylophone, and a real ukelele. The only newer style noisy toys he has is a guitar (and at least a guitar is supposed to make noise!), the car wash fridge magnet set, Elmo Live (which he loves to hug and kiss lol) and his mater ride-on. When my mother-in-law bought the mater ride-on I was kind of upset - I wanted him to have a more traditional, non-noisy one... but really, he loves it. He still rides it like crazy and pushes it everywhere, but he loves to push the buttons too. Interestingly, he doesn't push the ones that make car noises or talk that much - he just like the ones that play music, and he likes to dance to them, either on the floor or while he's riding. So seeing how much he loved that, and how I'm still OK with how he likes to play with it, I'm trying not to be *too* strict about the toy issue, but trying to keep a bit of a handle on things. Really, looking over the above list, I think I've done a pretty good job so far. My sister's list for my niece at this age would have included a lot more small plastic junk, a few big noisy pieces, a ball tent... her house was basically overrun. All of Little Man's stuff fits in a rubbermaid bin with a couple of the bigger toys sitting on the floor next to it - all in one little corner.

Anyway, I think we ended up fairing out OK at his birthday. He really got mostly outdoor toys. My mom got him the classic Cozy Coupe (which we have the floorboard in to use as a kind of stroller for now), and we asked my father-in-law to get him a sand/water table. My aunt got him a pool and my uncle got him a bubble lawn mower. He got some books and clothes and we got him a wooden peg-pounder (which he loves!) and a growth chart for his room. We're also ordering him a nightstand and a few other things for his room (recently renovated) from Ikea. My brother got him a remote-control school bus designed for toddlers, which he also gets a big kick out of. The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was the Little Leaps video game system my sister got him - but luckily, it needs a DVD player to work, and we don't have one - we use Big Man's Playstation 3 to play DVDs, and Little Leaps doesn't work with it. So it will stay at my Mom's house for Little Man and my niece to use there.

We also did OK for Easter. We got him a new small bulldozer truck, baby crayons and a big pad of paper, some new books, and a few summer clothing items. He got some other summer clothes from various family members, a great trucks book from my father-in-law, and some outdoor beach toys (buckets, shovels, sand molds, etc,). My mother got him the Little People plane and my brother got him a small Little People car - and he loves them both ... I think most toddlers love the Little People stuff. And that's it.

So between his birthday and Easter, the only new additions to our indoor toys were the wooden peg pounder, remote control bus, a little truck, and the Little People plane and car. I'd already done quite a bit of purging in the last few weeks, so it worked out pretty well.

I was already thinking of posting about this when I came across this post at simplemom about classic toys. It really got me excited about things to get for him as he gets older. I've got a list now of things I want to think about getting him. Luckily, our family is pretty good at asking what we want/need for him, so I should be able to get their help in getting some of this stuff eventually. Most of this stuff we wouldn't get for a few years, but it's nice to have stuff in mind so we can plan out what to get for different occasions and what to save up for. So here's my list:
- beanbags - these I want to get soon, he loves throwing things and playing catch so I think he'll really like them
- wooden blocks (like the Melissa and Doug ones she links to)
- wooden train set and a train table
- car mat (I'm pretty sure we'll have lots of hot wheels-type cars when he gets older)
- kitchen, wooden food, cash register, apron, chef's hat (he already likes to play with my niece's kitchen, so I think this will be something he'll like when he's older)
- dress-up stuff (I want to start now collecting things for this - capes, old costumes, swords, etc.) and would love to get this cool mirror from Ikea to put near it
- craft stuff - hopefully eventually I'll have a shelf in a cabinet in our front room (once all the 2x4's and gyroc are out of there) with some bins for craft stuff - popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, etc. - and eventually would like to get him an easel or craft table.... I also like the idea of adding real "office" stuff as he gets older (stationary, postage stamps, date stamp, name stamp, etc.)
- mailbox/mail set - my brother got a post office set when he was younger, and we all played with it, it was a great toy
- bongo type hand drums
- bug catching stuff for outside
- and of course Legos

For those of you who have kids, how are you dealing with the toy issue? Are you getting overrun? Any other ideas of great classic toys?

Friday, April 3, 2009

Update + Free Croc Giveaway

I am alive - just bogged down with a work deadline. Will post the details once it's done, but the gist is I offered to work 1-2 days a week from home for an organization I've worked for before - got stuck working on this project for which they had completely unrealistic expectaions regarding the timeline... but once it's done this weekend I should have enough money to get through until I start getting paid for the summer course I'm teaching, so next week I can get down to business on my own stuff. I want to post more soon on my work/school situation and goals (need to make myself accountable!!) and also planning a post about regret that lived spaces got me thinking about.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a link to a great new blog I discovered - simplemom. I have a bit of an organizational fetish (seriously... I get a little flushed looking at ikea catalogues), so this blog is right up my ally. I can't wait to try her plan for mealplanning for a month this weekend - I'll keep you updated on how it works out! I get totally overwhelmed when I try to mealplan, so I think the idea of theme days is going to work well for me! So right now simplemom is having a contest to give away free Crocs, and I totally want some! When we moved to the house we're in now at the beginning of December, I started wearing my slippers a lot again because it's an older house and the floors are always really cold. That worked well for a while, until I had to put them in the wash and they died. Whey did I have to put them in the wash? For those of you who have boys,  you know how when you find out that's what you're having people always make comments about getting peed on? Well that almost never happens to us... I honeslty could probably count on my hands the number of times Little Man has peed with his diaper off, and most of those we managed to catch with either the old diaper still under him or the new one going on... and a couple of times he peed standing up in the tub. The other few times it was when we were changing him in the crib and it just went on his sheets. Except one time not long ago (probably January?) when my Mom was changing him on our couch... he's bad for squirming and crawling away now when you're changing him... and she let him take off with no diaper on because god forbid he cry for a couple of seconds while you're wrangling him into a new diaper. I came and sat down to try to get him laying back down to put a diaper on him, and he promptly peed all over the couch - it dripped down between the cushions and poured out the front of the couch all over one of my slippers. I'm sure it was the hugest pee he's ever had! So anyway, I need a pair of Crocs to wear around the house to replace my slippers!