There's A Lion In My Shoe

You might think that's some kind of secret code and that the response should go something like, "The dog barks at the blue moon at midnight.".

You'd be wrong.

I was letting the dogs in when I noticed something stuffed way up in my shoe. Apparently, The Boy felt the need to stuff the "Little People" lion in my shoe. It's things like that sure make me wish I could know what he is thinking.

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Happy Place

The Boy goes bonkers happy when I get home from work. Sometimes he crawls over to me as fast as he can, screaming "DA. DA. DA. DA.". Sometimes he crawls to me until I start towards him, then he turns and crawls away, laughing as I chase him. It sure does help melt my stress to come home to that.

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Choo-Chooooooo

I was sitting in the living room tonight with The Boy and The Wife and I noticed he was making a new sound. I'll leave it at that because I can't do it justice in words and I don't have the time to attach a sound-bite. So I noticed this new sound, and thought it was kind of interesting because it wasn't like any other sound I'd heard him make before. A few seconds later, I realized he had just been playing with this toy train that makes a "Choo-Chooooooooo" train noise and then it occurred to me that he is mimicking the toy train! Sure enough, about that time, he grabs the train, presses the button to make the noise, and then makes it himself. Holy Shit! This is so cool. Of all the neat, new things he's doing, this one really strikes me as awesome. And makes me think I need to start watching my mouth.

He's starting to take steps around the room if you hold his hands and walk with him. He's just crazy about banana, he shoves it in with both hands as fast as possible. He seems to be able to say it. He mostly calls it na-na, but sometimes throws a ba- in there. Of course, he seems to be calling all food he likes na-na. Oh, and there is the fact that he seems to like all food. In fact last night he ate off our cheeseburgers and tonight he ate off our soft tacos. He's really starting to be against baby food and wants to feed himself by hand, or with spoon, or wants whatever is on our plate. He screams a lot at meal time if he doesn't have what he wants. That's pretty annoying and I'm not sure how to deal with it at this age. Reason doesn't quite seem to work yet.

He has this really funny thing where he likes to go around the room and pull all the pillows off the couches and then flop down in the pile of pillows, roll around, and laugh, laugh, laugh. It's pretty entertaining.

We had fun at The Lake last weekend. He sure seems to love boat rides & swimming. He jumps in rhythm with the boat going over the waves and just babbles away. Sometimes he gets annoyed by the life jacket, but that's understandable.

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Update

The Boy can take a few wobbly steps across the room while holding onto his "walker" toy.

At times, it seems like he knows what "hello" means because he'll start opening and closing his hand when you tell him hello. Other times he just does it randomly like he has no idea what's going on. He gets so excited when I come home from work. He "waves" at me and then crawls to me as fast as he can.

One morning, he had been playing quietly in his crib for a while and The Wife decided to go get him up and start the day. She found him flipping through his plush "Pat The Bunny" book as if he was just reading all by himself. He sure seems to like books.

He still flips back and forth between favoring his right and left hand. Currently he seems to use his left a lot for eating finger foods. There was a little chunk of time when he was feeding himself from a spoon with considerable success, but lately not so much.

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Charge!

The Boy attacked me the other day. Crawling on me and grabbing me and slobbering on me. Giggling the whole time. It was so much fun. I'll never forget those times. Thanks, buddy.

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Is That A Plush Toy?

I have a picture of The Boy on my work computer. He's wearing a shirt that says, "My Dad's a Geek". It's a few months old, and he does look a bit chubby in it. It really kind of emphasizes his square head with rounded corners and rounder cheeks. His arms are stuck straight out and look a little padded. And the shirt is filled out quite well by his belly. It was "take your child to work day", today. The Boy didn't go for various reasons. One of my co-workers brought her 5 year old son by and he came in my cube and read The Boy's shirt out loud and laughed. Then he leaned in, looked real hard, and said, "Is that a plush doll?". Oh my gosh, it was just so funny.

He's crawling up on hands and knees pretty regularly now. Except he has his own little twist to it. He frequently has his left knee down, but puts his right foot down to push off. It looks pretty funny and awkward.

He pulls up on everything to stand and even makes his way back and forth across whatever he's leaning on.

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There I Go, Turn The Page

Welcome, Seger fans. ;-)

The Boy loves the board books. Recently, he's started helping turn the pages. He turns them in the right direction and everything. Sometimes he decides he wants to go back and re-read a page or two, but for the most part, he just likes plowing through the book. The only thing I really have to help him with is turning one page at a time.

He intermittently is able to hold and tip the sippy cup all by himself to get a drink. We've also started on some big people food. Lunch meat, potatoes, green beans, etc.

As always, there's more to report, I just can't remember what I wanted to write about. Q: How many ADD kids does it take to change a light bulb? A: I dunno, wanna go ride bikes?

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These [amps] go to eleven.

That was the other thing I forgot yesterday. The Boy is experimenting with volume. He has this elephant that honks? (what the hell do elephants do? trumpet? whatever, that noise elephants make - it makes it 3 times in a row) So we were playing with it the other day and he was trying to mimic it. Didn't sound at all like an elephant, but he was purposely adjusting his volume. It was interesting.

He also likes raising one or both arms, sometimes it's at the perfect moment and is really funny. Like tonight he had his jammies in his hands and he was raising and lowering his arms like he was playing peek-a-boo.

He's also been blowing raspberries on things like his plastic cups, and other odd objects.

Fun stuff.

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If You're Happy And You Know It

We went on a mini-vacation the past few days. We really just went to my dad's. He lives on a lake so there's lots of fun summer activities. And my half-brother met us there with his family, so that was fun. But vacations sure are a lot different when you have a baby. Overall, he was good, but he does have trouble adjusting to being in a different place. He had a lot of fun in the water and on the boat. We got him a little blow up raft complete with a shade to keep him out of the sun.

He's started clapping his hands together in the past few days, that's cool. And he's started sitting up in his crib.

I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting, and I could go into more detail, but I'm tired.

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Guilt

I feel like such an asshole when I leave the house for work and The Boy is crying/screaming/having a fit.

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Pull Up A Couch

The Family was watching Italy and Germany go at it today. The Boy and I were sitting on the floor and The Wife was on the couch. The Wife and I got fixated on the TV, when we suddenly realized the boy was standing up, using the couch to keep his balance. He apparently pulled up into a standing position all by himself! Wow.

The Boy discovered his penis quite some time ago, but tonight in the bathtub, he was pulling on his scrotum like he was stretching out a balloon in preparation to be blown up. It looked like it should hurt, but he wasn't screaming, so what the heck.

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Two Binkys. One Hand. No Problem.

Today, The Boy had one binky in each hand, and one in his mouth. He dropped the one in his mouth, looked at it, and let it be for a few seconds, and then calmly picked it up (and he was already holding a binky with that hand) without dropping the one he was already holding. Yes, I realize how silly it is to post about this, I just was impressed with his dexterity.

We're having a lot of trouble with the 2nd nap of the day. He just doesn't sleep very long, and it's pretty obvious he needs to sleep longer. Today it's worse and we're having trouble getting him to even fall asleep for the 2nd nap. We don't know if it's related to the cold, ear infection, teeth, or what, but hopefully it's just a short phase we're passing through.

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Chuck

The Boy visited Chuck E Cheese's for the first time tonight. We attended a birthday party there. It was actually fun, and despite not napping enough this afternoon, he enjoyed himself. He rode a couple little rides, a bulldozer and a Clifford dog, and I got some good pics & video. And, The Mommy took one for the team by putting aside her fear of mascots and actually took The Boy to see Chuck E up close and personal.

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2 Hands. 2 Binkys. 1 Mouth. No Problem.

The other morning, The Boy had 2 binkys in his mouth at the same time. It was quite amusing and made for some great pictures.

He can crawl up stairs now. Closely monitored, of course.

He likes to chase and be chased, and he just laughs & laughs when he pops his head around the corner and finds me.

Work and life have been busy, so I haven't posted much recently.

I got a new phone (with Sprint) and I love it.

There are at least a dozen other things I've wanted to post about recently, but I can't think of them now.

EDIT: He's learning new sounds. He's got the "D" down and he's getting "M", too. It's fun to pretend like he's saying da-da and ma-ma.

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And The Nominees Are

Well, It's been a busy weekend and a busy few days since my last post. But I just now discovered my blog was nominated for a Mix Pix Father's Day Blogger contest. Here is the review. Thanks, Margie! I'm honored.

The Boy got to go on his first boat ride this weekend. Which was quite a treat for me since I'm such a lake rat. Just like his dad as a baby, the boat lulled him to sleep and he napped up in the cabin while we enjoyed the boat ride. Babies always look so uncomfortable in those life jackets, and he was no exception. However, he didn't protest too much. We also swam in the lake which was a blast.

I got a great photo album/scrap book for father's day. It's really cool and I proudly display it at work. I've had several people look at it and it gets a lot of compliments. I also sort of got a grill. Our old grill shot craps a few weeks back and since I grill so much, we bought a new one and called it a father's day / birthday gift.

Oh, those teeth are really busting through! He has two little incisors on the bottom. They're cute, but sharp! I have a feeling the first time he accidentally uses those on the boob, his breastfeeding days will be over! The Wife told me that she gave him a little piece of frozen bagel the other day and that there were little teeth marks in it.

Separation/stranger anxiety seems to be kicking in. I hear this is just a phase, but I'm wondering how to best deal with it to make sure it's a short term thing.

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Dinner Conversation

I really love that The Boy enjoys exploring his voice. His ba-ba-ba's, la-la's, raspberries, etc. are all very fun. But I really could do without the screaming in-between bites at dinner time. Especially in a restaurant. But, I won't complain too much, it could be something worse.

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Tooth Fairy

Apparently, The Boy has sprouted the tiniest little bit of tooth on the bottom left. The Wife discovered this tonight during bathtime (we "brush" his teeth every night). I was not present for the discovery, so I'll have to check it out in the morning.

Good job, Buddy!

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Stubborn Bastage

I'm sitting next to my dad at Missouri Baptist. We'll be headed back to Barnes West soon (Hospitals).

He's had recurring pancreatitis (sp?) for a long time now. His doctor recently noticed something and had him go in for a CAT scan. They noticed some issues and sent him in to have some endoscopic procedures done. There are more details, but that's not the point of this post.

He drinks 8-10 drinks per week, that's a conservative guess. It's actually probably quite a bit more than that. He smokes 2 packs per day. He says he wants to quit, but it's not really true. If he really wanted to, he'd at least try. I know these are both addictions/diseases (depending on your point of view) and are very difficult to quit. My mom died from drinking at 52, and went through several "clinics". So I've seen these things destroy people. But he doesn't even try, so he doesn't really want to quit.

Case in point. He's got a couple stints in his heart because of the blockages due to smoking. His pancreatitis is from all the drinking and the pancreatitis caused diabetes. So now he's in the hospital to figure out the latest deal with his pancreas. The first chance he got to get up and walk around - yup, he went out to smoke. Had 3 or 4 yesterday. And I guaran-damn-tee he's going to have a drink or two first chance he gets.

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Rotten

It seems like there's a pretty strong potential for The Boy to be a bit spoiled and/or shy with The Wife being a SAHM. Anyone got any advice and/or read any good books on this?

On a different note, I've seen hockey series turn around in the flash of an eye. But if the Oilers don't get their shit together, they are done. In their favor, they do go back home for the next two games. Of course, if Cam Ward keeps playing so strong in goal, I don't know how anyone will get a puck past him.

FILE UNDER: PARENTHOOD, SPORTS

You Over-Estimate My Sneakiness

The Boy let out a little fuss around 5:50 am this morning. Earlier than I'd like, but it could have been worse. I let him fuss until about 6:10 or 6:15 when it was clear he was not going back to bed. I got up, turned off the monitor so The Wife could sleep in a little longer, went to the bathroom and then went downstairs. When I got to his door, it was quiet, so I stood there for a few seconds. I knew if I went back up to bed and laid down, he would immediately start fussing. So I decided to crawl into his room and lay on the floor until he started fussing again. I got to the spot where I planned to lay down and I heard him babble. I glanced over and he was on his stomach, with the crib pad pulled down so he could see over it, and he was looking at me as if to say, "Hi Dad! Whatchya doin' down there on the floor?". I just laughed out loud. Outwitted by a 7 month old!

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