kunder

Karston's new concept this week is under. Monday while I was eating my lunch, Karston crawled under the wicker couch in the sunroom and fell asleep. I moved the couch so I could pick him up for the poopy diaper change he needed. Tuesday and Wednesday he played under my mother's bed. My mother replaced her tablecloth with a large bedsheet, so today Karston played under her dining room table. They played many rousing games of Where's Karston?, but every time she stuck her head under the sheet, Karston pushed her out of his fort.

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#1!

Daddy gave Karston a bath this evening while I did a fast cleanup around the house. I joined the after-bath fun of chasing a naked toddler on the bed with a towel. (Karston loves that game!) He was really fighting the diaper, so we decided to put him on the potty. We have a toiler seat reducer so that he can sit on a regular toilet without falling in. He was perfectly happy with that idea! When we first introduced sitting on the toilet a few months ago, he would sit, kick his legs, look down, poke himself, but that was it. Tonight, he looked down and ... yes! he used the toilet! He got praise and kisses from both of us! He loved that, and after his big smile, he got this look of fierce concentration, and he did it again! More kisses and praise!

So he knows how and where. I guess he just has to work on knowing in advance of the need, and telling us that. We'll see how it goes, but he's pretty good at communication. It's a small victory, but we're off to a good start! We've had the first #1 in the toilet now ... now to make it a habit!

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Jealous

This evening, our neighbor came over with her two daughters Dale and Dinah. Dale is almost three years old while Dinah is eight-and-a-half months old, so Karston is sandwiched between them in age. Since Karston loves to play with Dale and he had napped long enough, I woke him up gently while Daddy started some shrimp for dinner. Karston still wasn't happy about being up, and he asked for ta-ta (neighborly laughter), so I sat down on the kitchen floor and let him nurse. Dinah made eye contact with me, and made a loud noise! Her mom said she had made a happy sound, and I asked if she were interested in what we were doing. -Oh no, she ate before we left the house. Daddy refilled my water, and then offered Karston a peeled shrimp. (Karston likes shrimp. And crab, and tropical fruit. Good Carribean taste!). Next thing I know, Dinah crawled all the way over to her mother and asked for ... well, she did get some ideas from Karston, even if she had just eaten. Daddy knows nursing mothers get thirsty, so he brought her some water as well. For a little while, it was a three-ring circus, between thirsty women wanting water and Karston wanting more shrimp! Two of us were on the floor with our respective children, and Daddy was running to keep the circus afloat!

I really think Karston's nursing made the visiting baby jealous. Hey, if he gets some, I want some too!

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Best! Playdate! Ever!!!

I think Karston just had the most fun he's ever had in one day! His friend Will who's only seven weeks older came over for a playdate. (Yes, that really means my friend's son Will came to play over with my son. Now isn't it simpler just to say Karston's friend Will?) Will's toys have been packed for a while, so his family can move to Italy. Will and Karston played together pretty well, which is impressive for not-quite-two! I think Will really enjoyed playing with toys in a child-proofed house without adults chasing him due to the lack of child-proofing. Karston, on the other hand, was absolutely on fire! He ran. He ran in place, in circles around the couch, around the kitchen island. He laughed, he smiled, he babbled. He showed off his toys to Will. Will went over to the train and played with Legos sitting inside the tracks, sometimes putting Legos inside the caboose. Karston came over, and said Look at this! in baby, and turned the train on so it went around the tracks. Will stumbled to stand up in surprise, and wouldn't take his eyes off the train for four revolutions! Of course the adults fell around laughing at Will's surprise! Then Will's itty bitty baby brother Chris woke up while their mommy was in the bathroom (of course), so I picked him up for cuddling. Karston was very serious that he wanted to carry Chris; I wasn't going for it since (just over two months old) Chris needs to have his neck supported and Karston's a bit young for that concept. So then Karston said he wanted to hold and hug Chris, so I let him do that in my lap. Even after Karston went back to playing, he still came over to rub Chris on the back gently when he fussed. I know Karston's very loving to us, but he's our child; this is the first time I've seen him being so loving to a smaller child. Absolutely adorable. At lunch, Karston and Will discovered the fort under the table and tablecloth. More having a blast. They babbled at each other, and seemed to understand the language, what my mom called fluent Tibetan, just like twins. Then moms and two-year-old boys went in the hot tub, and that was another delight! Splash! Ball! Swim/jump between moms!

So that was five to six hours of non-stop delight today. It's really hard to describe in retrospect, but I don't think Karston's been that excitedly happy for that long before. He's a happy child except when he's not, of course, but that much high-energy happiness for that long ... well, that's something special. He's played before with others, but usually with the three-year-old girls whose moms I know. He enjoys playing with the girls, but Will ... that Will is something else! Just ask Karston!

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Word of the Day: Noodle

Karston's new word today is noo-noo. I boiled ziti for dinner (yummy! but this asiago-spinach chicken sausage has made everything yummy, and I used half the meat and pasta of the recipe), and Karston liked it. We told him those ziti were noodles, and he said noo-noo back.

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Sad Face

The Sad Face: or, Why Karston Hasn't Had a Nap Yet Today

Today Karston perfected his sad face. I asked him if he were tired after my mother came over for lunch (50 mph wind gusts, she has no power), and he said Nigh-nigh, so I set him down in bed. His lower lip went in, and the corners of his mouth went down. I reminded him of night-night, but he just reached for me with that sad face. No, I couldn't refuse, so I picked him up. A short while later, my mother went to show me how putting the kid down for a nap was done. As soon as she set him on his bed, he made his sad face again, and this time his lower lip trembled. Yeah, she picked him up again.

I'm sure he's tired, but if he's going to look that unhappy about it, it's going to be tough to put him to bed. I thought I had an easy shot when he was stretched out on the floor, not playing, just lying on his back. But once I picked him up, he came back to life. It's hard to put a lively toddler to bed; much easier with the sleepy kid.

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Kicked Out of Bed

We've been working on Karston's sleeping habits lately. When Karston was fussy one afternoon last week, Daddy set him down for a nap and walked away quickly (my naptime technique). And it worked, he stopped fussing in a short time, and fell asleep! We've also been putting him to sleep in his own bed. Karston's been a little fussier today, so I think tooth #17 is coming in but it's very dangerous to check (my finger gets chomped). He's also woken up very sad the past couple nights perhaps from the teething, so we've brought him into our bed for cuddling.

For the first two weeks of putting Karston to sleep in his own bed by himself (without one of us sleeping there with him for most or all of the night), Daddy cuddled him to sleep before sneaking away. Well, for the past three nights in a row, Karston has kicked Daddy repeatedly when they lie down in bed together, and he says the same babble syllables each time. The first night we were baffled. Last night we were pretty sure that Karston was kicking Daddy out of bed. And tonight, Karston did it again. This time, he even punched Daddy too. He still wants to delay bedtime as long as he can, but now (in less than a month!) he wants to go to bed by himself. Karston kicked Daddy out of bed! Our toddler is growing up!

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Misbehaving and Tired

Karston played quietly with his TinkerToys this morning for about two hours. Then he wanted to sit in my lap, and continue to play with TinkerToys for another hour. (We all love TinkerToys.) A little before 11:30 AM, I caught an evil whiff, and changed a poopy diaper. In the hall, he started talking about do-do, so I let him feed himself several doughnut holes. (He's learning the advantages of speaking our language, and we like to reward using the correct word instead of his usual fluent baby tibetan.) Then he chugged the water in his sippy without a valve (faster chugging), and asked for mo'. So I gave him more water in that bottle (he was ignoring the blue sippy with valve and water, and his juice sippy), but not much, just in case. Then I heard an odd sound, and just in case was happening. He was holding his water upside down, dribbling it on the chair. I told him NO very firmly and rushed over. He gave me the "what?" look but kept pouring, so as soon as I got over there, I took the water away. That made him cry. I set him on the floor so I could clean up, but he was hopping back into trouble as fast and loud as he could, so I picked him up, and almost took him to his room. But we're doing so well on him sleeping by himself in his room that I didn't want him to have any bad associations with that room. Instead, I flipped him on his back on our bed and told him to think about what he did. I heard some crying (for less than a minute) because he hates to be left alone on his back. I went back to the kitchen, sponged up the water, ran the wet-dry vac, and generally cleaned up that mess. After I was done, guess what? Karston was sound asleep! So somewhere between 11:40 AM (setting him down) and 11:50 AM (checking on him again), he fell asleep. I just wanted him in a time-out while I cleaned up, but naptime is fine too. He woke up about 2:00 PM, glad to see me, and generally happy; a complete change from when I set him down! I know I've said it before, but his bad behavior and tired go together.

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That Odd Warm Feeling

Karston got his fingers pinched in the CD tray this afternoon (it doesn't pinch hard, but it scared him), so I sat on the couch to let him nurse as the fastest way to cheer him up. Suddenly I had this uncomfortable warm feeling seeping on my legs. It turns out that we were on the third diaper leak of the day (so four new outfits for him today, and two for me), but there's that uncomfortable moment when you try to figure out what happened to explain the warmth. Luckily I was off the hook on this one! (My water broke early, and I just made it to the bathroom in time. So at least once, the warm leak was me, and apparently my subconscious still remembers because "Karston did it" was my second thought.)

Hopefully no one else knows this feeling! *grin*

Happy Easter, y'all!

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Naptime

I think I just won the "putting the toddler down" contest we didn't know we were having. I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch, and Daddy was playing with Karston ... who turned fussy. Much resistance to the nigh-nigh suggestion. I called out my suggestion to set him down on his bed, but got some questions about those simple directions. So I walked out of the kitchen (Karston was headed my way), scooped up my toddler, and headed to his room. He stopped crying while I was walking there patting his back. I set him on his back on his bed, said Nigh-nigh, and walked out. He stopped crying about 20 seconds after I left his room. Daddy waited two minutes, said he was surprised, and headed in for a peek when I called him back. The way this routine works is that you must wait at least ten minutes before checking on the child! How do I know it's ten minutes? (Actually, nine works too.) When Karston was very small, I learned that after 8 to 10 minutes of nursing while asleep, I could set Karston down and he wouldn't wake up. Daddy thought he saw toddler eyes before he made the U-turn, so I'm glad he didn't peek any more. What makes it works is the non-negotiable aspect. I set Karston down, I tell him to go to sleep, and I leave. There's no coddling, no cuddling, and no mercy (within the first ten minutes). And he falls asleep quickly! I think Daddy was being too nice; but he is a really nice guy and a great daddy, so that's no surprise.

We're finishing the second week of putting Karston to sleep at night in his own bedroom. Initially, Daddy wasn't sleeping well because he was so used to cuddling Karston to sleep! And I admit, it felt weird to be able to pull covers up over myself. Daddy has to have covers, and Karston freaks out under covers. Even on a king-sized bed, the covers aren't wide enough to cover one person, drop down to leave someone in the middle uncovered, and then come up to cover me. So I wear more clothes to bed.

But this setting him down when it's clearly naptime, and he only makes noise for twenty seconds ... I could get used to this! It's worked for the past month, so I think we're really making progress on sleeping (for all of us). But you know, it might be my naptime too ... *yawn*

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20 - 20

Karston looks so skinny, and his head looks so large for his body (his head size, unlike his weight and height, is thoroughly above the 5th percentile line on the CDC charts). I'd love to feed him french fries right now just to fatten him up, but I only have yucca fries in the house; yucca is like sweet potato but less sweet. I mean, he's over 20 months old, and he's still under 20 pounds!

I think my > 20 - < 20 frustration is because I think twenty pounds is a milestone for sleeping in many toddlers. Karston naps fine! In fact, I just woke him up from his nap so that he would sleep decently well tonight (I hope). I just wish he would sleep as well at night (with fewer books, less cuddling, putting himself to sleep, sleeping well by himself). So I've been rooting for him to cross twenty pounds for a long while, for his parents' sake as well as for his own.

Plus you're usually older than Karston when your age in months is greater than your weight in pounds, you know?

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Karston didn't eat well today, and we're still hoping he weighs more than 20 pounds when he goes to college, so I looked at various recipes through Google Cookin'. I had a lot of ground flax seed in the frig, and I found this Fabulous Fiber Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe on Recipezaar. I used 50% less fat margarine, and I'd use only 75% of what the recipe calls for next time since the batter seemed more moist than necessary (which makes them dry out and get very crunchy when they cool, so don't over-cook them). I also like more oats than that in my chocolate chip cookies, so I would at least double the oats, maybe quadruple. And then I would need to reduce the dry ingredients, so I'd probably subtract half the volume of the additional oats from the volume amount of the flax seed meal. And now you're starting to understand just how hopeless I am about recipes. Just can't follow one! I doubled the chocolate chips just in this test batch when I was trying to follow the recipe! Karston ate maybe 1/3 of one cookie, and seemed to like it. Unfortunately, the cookies tasted pretty good (a bit grainy from the coarsely ground flax seed, but what do you expect?), so his parents each had two. Oh well. I find super calorie cookies (161 calories per large cookie) that aren't too unhealthy, and we're eating them instead of Karston. Oh well, here's to a kid who some day will weigh more than twenty pounds! At least he really likes chocolate chip cookies.

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Mo' Grapefruit!

I'm so proud of Karston's grapefruit eating! He eats straight grapefruit, with no sugar added, like I've seen some kids do. It's not really eating grapefruit when you add a cup of sugar to a grapefruit; particularly the routine I saw that left a lot of grapefruit but no sugar in the bowl. So I am opposed to sugar on grapefruit for my kid. Karston has been demanding to join us when we split a Florida grapefruit for breakfast. When we started, Daddy and Mommy each got to eat half of a grapefruit because Karston only ate a few sections. Then more. And more. He worked up to eating a quarter of a grapefruit by himself, and he really enjoys squeezing out the juice and drinking from the peel just like his Daddy.

Well, this morning Karston out-did himself on grapefruit! He ate half a grapefruit by himself! We thought he was done, but then he said Mo'!, and started in on Daddy's half! Daddy had plenty left, but Karston was on a grapefruit-eating roll! He really does like fruit, particularly tropical fruit. His very first non-standard-baby-food was freshly squeezed orange juice, and he loved it. He also loves dairy products (cheese, yogurt, and cottage cheese), and saltine crackers. Some days that's all he eats, but when he's eating fruit with us, it doesn't seem like he had bad eating habits.

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Emma

When we took our dog for a run around the yard and lake this evening, Karston pointed at her several different times and said EMMA. That's her name! So Linus the cat is kitty (actually, Karston's stop sounds aren't as crisp as they used to be, so Linus is diddy now), but Emma the dog is now Emma.

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The Knack

If you search for "knack dilbert" at YouTube, you can watch the Dilbert video clip that explains The Knack. My favorite version of the clip is/was this one, but Sony pulled it (no big surprise, as they still don't get it about Blu-Ray that also doesn't have the picture quality, and they don't get it about DRM or rootkits either). The jist is that Dilbert has The Knack as a child, so he is fated to become an engineer.

Well, looks like Karston has The Knack. This morning, he had to show us that he has mastered his hop frog (a toy that jumps if you press the lever on its back). He made sure we were watching, set down the hop frog, and made it jump. Our house came with two units for an FM intercom system. He can turn the intercom on, and put the two speakers together for feedback. In fact, all this week we kept finding the intercoms on when we knew we'd turned them off recently. Last night, Karston followed Daddy into the bathroom, then went back to the living room for his step stool. He put his step stool next to the vanity, climbed on, and started re-arranging everything next to the sink. This morning, he pulled my hand mixer out of the kitchen cabinet (very common so far), but then he dragged it into the living room to plug the mixer into an outlet he could reach (child-proofed of course, but he tries to get around that too). He knows the mixer is more fun when it's plugged in ... argh! The Knack means we have to watch him very closely.

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Chocly

Karston's new word this evening is chocly. In my mother's kitchen, he reached as far as he could for the out-of-reach jar of chocolate chips, and said Chocly! with that intense you-know-what-I-mean stare. He didn't get this from either of his parents, but Karston sure does love chocolate! (He's not allowed to have any chocolate after dinner / before bed.)

Last week, Karston helped my mother make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. By helping, I mean that he gobbled chocolate chips while she mixed cookie batter. He gave her a terrible look when she dumped all of his chocolate chips into the cookie dough, and then refused to eat any of the polluted chocolate chips that she pulled out of the dough for him. Of course, this week he's happily eating those same cookies, so I guess he got over it.

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You Need New Shock Absorbers When ...

You know you need new rear shock absorbers when ... after a short trip on a country road, your toddler is gripping the sides of his car seat with that crazy grin he gets on wild rides.

This just goes to prove that Karston makes life funnier. I went to let him out of his car seat when I got to my mother's house, and there he was, grabbing the sides of the car seat, leaning forward, and grinning like mad; he was ready to do it again. I already knew I needed the shock absorbers, but Karston really clinched it there. And he made me laugh, too.

Toddler, Funny

What a Week

Wow, what a great week it's been! And it's not quite Friday yet.

Monday, Karston and I played outside because it was a gorgeous 75 degrees. (Yeah, in January!) We looked at the silly daffodils growing. Mostly Karston played with his sidewalk chalk. He now knows that he can use chalk to leave marks on the cement driveway; last month, he didn't know what we were doing.

Tuesday morning, you guessed it, a few daffodils in bloom! I have never seen my daffodils bloom in January before! Not only that, I've never seen my daffodils bloom before my crocuses and my forsythia.

Wednesday I teach an evening class, so I didn't get enough time with Karston. I didn't eat dinner either; Wednesdays are just that kind of day between working and teaching. Daddy reported that Karston taught himself tinker toys Wednesday evening, and that he spent 45 minutes quietly figuring them out. Karston was fascinated that the middle hole on the rounds is big enough for the spokes to pass easily, but that the spokes seat well in the other holes. Given that the tinker toys say For Ages 3 and Above, I thought those tinker toys were yet another item (sigh) to try to cram in our minuscule attic to get out of the way until he's 3. (For a large house, there's remarkably little storage space, especially of the out-of-the-way variety.) However, he learned about precise alignment with Legos, so I guess tinker toys aren't that far beyond Legos for assembly.

This morning, I looked out the window, we had an inch of snow on the ground, and it was really coming down! This is the first snow that stuck to the ground in Karston's life! (He wasn't impressed.) The traffic cameras convinced me, and many of my co-workers, to stay home in the morning. (I spent the afternoon on an easy car repair. Cold weather doesn't bring out the best in cars, especially diesels that haven't had any maintenance in a while.) So of course that means I had the classic scene of daffodils in snow in my front yard! Pretty, but between the snow/sleet/rain and the wind, I came back inside. The thermometer kissed 32 degrees around lunchtime, and dropped again. However, the ground was still warm from Monday and the warm days leading up to it, so most of the snow melted before dark. The other item of note this afternoon was that tooth #15, the upper left canine, peeked out. This tooth doesn't seem to bother Karston. I'm not even sure that the drool output is higher.

So we've had warmth and flowers this week, but also cold and snow. Karston developed some skills with chalk and tinker toys that we enjoyed watching, and he popped a new tooth so uneventfully that it didn't bother his playing and learning.

I wonder what new fun we'll see tomorrow?

Toddler

See My Legos?

This evening, Karston went into the sunroom to bring some of his Legos into the living room so he could show us that he knows how to put them together now. He had trouble with the exact rectilinear alignment before, but he wanted to show us that he's so much more co-ordinated than that now. You know, less than a month later. I'm really starting to understand why so many labels say "for people age 2 and older" because Karston is rapidly leaving behind the baby stage where he needed our help with everything to the person stage where he learns for himself. He feeds himself (not well, and it's quite messy), he runs everywhere, and he learns toys like Legos. He's growing up!

Toddler

Pediatrician: Eighteen Months

We went to the pediatrician this morning, and Karston is 30" tall, 18.25" head circumference, and 18 pounds 11.8 ounces. (He didn't eat much this weekend! He's usually in the 19 pound range. We're embarrassed. But I'm sure he'll crack 20 pounds before he goes to college.) His height is hovering around 5th percentile, head just above 10th percentile, and his weight just isn't anywhere close to the lines. Or, to put it another way, his weight is average for an 8-month-old, his head is average for a 12-month-old, and his height is average for a 13-month-old. He's not tall, but he's still slender for his height.

My friend Jeni told us to prepare for the question, How many words does he say, so we were ready with a whole list. The doctor was impressed with All Done!, which is pretty useful. After the physical exam, the doctor told Karston that he was all done, and Karston gleefully shouted it back at him a couple times, showing off his best two-word phrase just after we were quizzed on it. The next question was, Does he understand more words than he says? That's for sure, but we had to give examples, so we explained that he runs to the bathroom when he hears "Oh, towel boy" from Daddy. I thought the pediatrician might hurt himself laughing, saying "I've got to write that one down." I think that was a story that he believed only because you can't make up stories that kind of strange.

Daddy asked what we could do to help Karston gain weight, but the answer was, "Honestly, he'd need different parents for that; all I care is that he's healthy at this weight, and his weight curve follows the chart." So his weight's not on the chart, but has a passing resemblance, so that's fine. But hey, he's only had two fevers so he's very healthy, and he has a megawatt smile!

Toddler