Xboy with Legos

About three months ago (maybe more), I bought a box of Kellog's Cinnamon Swirlz cereal for myself. I opened it at breakfast, started pouring (yawn!), and the first thing to plop into the milk was a toy sealed in plastic (for sleepy folks like me who pour cereal blindly). When I read the cereal box, it said FREE XBOX GAME INSIDE! Like I need an XBOX. So I turned it on, poked the Mystic Castle a few times, and gave it to Karston. He loves the electronic boop sound it makes, and he still plays with it. He played with it this afternoon as a matter of fact! So Karston was just over a year old when he got his first XBOX, and he likes it. Hmm. I don't know about this trend.

However, he spent this evening getting frustrated but learning how to put QUATRO LEGO blocks together. He knows that the bottom of one block snaps onto the top of another block, and he knows that the blocks go together in parallel or perpendicular formations, but he was sometimes frustrated by the exact alignment. However, he kept trying, and I think LEGOs have clicked for him now; he understands that he can build shapes out of LEGOs. Cool!

Toddler

Fourteen

Well, he hit the 70% mark on baby teeth: tooth #14, the lower right canine, just started poking through today. I wonder if that's why Karston slept so poorly last night? Actually, I'm pretty sure his poor sleep was due to Christmas. We started with a quiet round of opening presents at home. Karston opened presents that weren't for him while we were wrapping presents Christmas Eve, so we thought he would enjoy opening his presents Christmas Day. (No. Too boring. He wanted to sit on lap and cuddle.) However, Daddy opened a present of mint chocolate grahams with Karston on his lap, and before anyone noticed anything, Karston punched through the plastic wrap, and had a large cookie in each hand! By the time we got the cookies away from him, he had eaten one-and-a-half cookies and had taken one bite each from four more. I don't know how he did that much cookie destruction that quickly, but for a little guy, he sure can move fast! Following up chocolate cookies with a large dose of family (everyone playing with him) kept him buzzing all Christmas. He had a 30-minute nap in the car, that was it. And he still stayed up late and caused baby commotion.

Toddler

Shoes

Karston got several pairs of shoes for Christmas because his first pair is just about worn out. Bad news on that front. He may be 25th percentile for head circumference, and 5th percentile for height, and below the chart for weight, but all of his new size 12-24 month shoes were too small for him. Rats! I never would have expected that given that he's not been large on any measurement before. I may end up making the Tacky Living pattern for soft-soled shoes (scaled up as needed) for him.

Still, we put a pair of lighted sneakers on him without socks figuring that he would enjoy the lights on his feet. He's never worn shoes with solid soles before, and he couldn't figure out how to walk! He would pull himself up on furniture, try a tentative step, then give us a pained look. And not move at all. I think this is the only thing I've ever seen to cause him to stand perfectly still for long periods of time! Of course he was pretty unhappy so I wouldn't want to do it, but it's interesting to note that he can stand still. I wonder how the adjustment to regular shoes will go later?

Toddler

Animated

We went to a sports bar this evening with friends to watch Carolina basketball. Karston got to play with Jeni's son Will who is seven weeks older, and he had a blast. Karston worked the room flirting with women, he clapped wildly when everyone cheered for Carolina, and he played with Will. Will (who seems to be perfectly sweet and normal, not that I know what that is) got tired once it was late. Despite Will's dropped head, Karston kept running up to him, crouching down to look up into Will's face, and then laughing like crazy. You could just feel the Play with me! vibe, and tired was no excuse. Jeni finally asked me, "Is he always this animated around so many people?" I thought about it for a second, trying to grasp what she meant about animated, and realizing that Karston wasn't acting out of the ordinary for any number of people. So I said simply, "He's always this animated." I think that explains Karston in a nutshell. He's always go-go-go, and no wonder he doesn't sleep well. There's too much to do! too many reasons to laugh and shriek! too many new things in the world! No time for sleep! Whew. Wears me out just thinking about it. To spare Will, I started Karston calisthenics, which involves slinging him upside down and around while he laughs; it's quite a workout and thank goodness Karston is still a lightweight who hasn't cracked 20 pounds.

Toddler

Towel Boy

For the past month or more, when Daddy gets out of the shower, Karston picks up his towel and hands it to him. Last week, while Karston was playing in the living room, Daddy called Oh towel boy! and Karston came running down the hall to give Daddy his towel. Well, this morning I had my first turn! Daddy suggested to Karston that he hand me my towel. Karston thought about it (playing with Daddy is so fun), then he went to the towels, selected my green towel hiding behind Daddy's burgundy towel, handed it to me, and ran back to Daddy for praise and more playing. But I had my first Towel Boy service! He even knew that I use a different towel!

Toddler

The Terrible Twos

I think we just had a whole weekend preview of The Terrible Twos! Gack! A little sooner than expected, but it was bound to happen. Karston was racing around, trying to get into everything. He had a shorter attention span than usual, but he just had to get inside whatever was in front of him within his attention span without any help, or he would scream in frustration. If we helped him, he screamed because he wanted to do it himself. If we took him away from something dangerous, he screamed because he wanted to figure it out. Run, shred, scream, repeat. Very tiring.

Now what's interesting is that he mellowed out to the kid his parents recognize after ... drum roll please ... a really good night's sleep. So he was a royal terror when he was overtired. Hmm!

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KarstonBuff StrongPants

Karston quit doing this just as soon as I touched the camcorder, so this will not be recorded for posterity. He came walking down the hall to me, shoulders arched, elbows slightly flexed, hands in fists, looking like a strong man poster. That was pretty funny, and then he started to growl while still posing! Grr ... rrr ... grr ... with a huge grin. Karston's very funny!

Yes, he's feeling better. He has a very minor rash, but he's playing.

Funny, Toddler

Rosy Ola

Aha! The promised rash of roseola is just starting to appear. Karston has rosy pink splotches around the edge of his face and on his chest. So that's the start of the rash, and should be the end of the fever (or else we're going back to the doctor). He didn't have this rash when we got home from work, and he does now. At least the fever stage is done because Karston didn't feel well with the fever. The rash isn't supposed to itch (I'm not sure anything called a rash can be anything but itchy, but we'll see), so if he has no itchiness and no fever I'm hoping he'll feel fine and start eating food again.

Seeing his rash made me feel itchy on my forehead and my back; hopefully that's just psychosomatic so that it goes away quickly, and Karston and I don't have something else.

Toddler

Roseola

Oh my, that was a scare! But this morning the doctor said Karston probably just has roseola. Karston didn't quite make it to 17 months old before his first sickness.

Karston was lethargic on Friday, then had a fever starting on Saturday sometimes up to 100 degrees (ear, oral adjusted), and was fussy. It didn't help that we were under a "boil water" alert all this weekend that thankfully turned out to be a false alarm, right as we ran out of bottled water. Tylenol didn't do anything for his fussing (it's been very effective for new teeth), but Motrin really did the trick. He would stop fussing about half an hour later, and would usually be playing an hour after Motrin! Last night, Karston was burning up (Motrin first!) and the ear thermometer went beep-crazy, so we brought out the rectal thermometer for the first time. It said 103.5 °F, and we called the pediatrician's Nurse Line right away! We got directions on what to do at different temperatures, and he didn't have any other danger signs like troubled breathing, so we pushed through the night on Motrin before going to see the pediatrician this morning. As a side note, he weighed 19 pounds 3.4 ounces! And that's after a weekend of eating only (at best) about half his normal amounts.

Anyway, we have a diagnosis of he'll be fine, and guidelines, and we're ready to take a nap with him.

Toddler