No Nap! No N-Zzz

Cale started to fuss this afternoon, so I picked him up. As soon as he got on my lap, he folded up and promptly fell asleep. So I promptly put him in his crib where he started to cry. He'd much rather cuddle when he sleeps. However, his crying wasn't as loud as usual, so I decided to leave him to cry for a bit. He was quiet three minutes later, although usually that just means he's playing with his blanket. Not this time! He fell asleep in his "let me out of jail" complaining position! Notice his hands on the rails, his head arched back in protest, his blanket kicked off, his legs out of his nest ... sound asleep. So Cale cried out "No nap! No nap!" until he fell asleep in record time.

Snow

It snowed last night, and Karston was very excited to go outside to play in the snow. (By play, I mean that Daddy pulls Karston around on the sled.) Karston could barely stand to wait through breakfast, although he ate unusually well for him. So Daddy and Karston went outside right away, while Cale and I bundled up. Overall, Cale was not a fan of the snow.



This is Cale's first snow, and he did have snowflakes fall on him. (I took him outside for his first rain too, a few weeks after he was born. It was a warm spring rain, falling lightly, and we went back inside as soon as I explained to him what was happening.)

Ten Months with Mobility

Cale is ten months old today! We've already figured out that he will need much more child-proofing than Karston! A month or two ago, he broke a child-proof (ha ha ha) latch on a cabinet door. Luckily he was only wandering around our kitchen in his walker, and he can't open doors from his walker (the walker itself is in the way), but we had to fix it right away. Monday he was clawing at child-proof outlet covers. He will require more safety awareness! Cale is now pulling up, but there's more! Yesterday, Cale started crawling! He improved so much just during the course of the day, too. He likes independent mobility!



Cale would also like me to let everyone know he is now an accomplished tongue clicker! After months of being fascinated when someone else would click at him, now he can do it for himself. Sometimes he clicks to amuse himself, sometimes he clicks to get your attention, and he's always proud of himself when he does it.

Pull Ups

I just set Cale down in his playpen (with bassinet insert, so he's higher) so I could brush my teeth. Cale enjoyed watching, and he reached out to bat my toothbrush several times. Still in sight, I went to the bathroom sink for my post-brushing clean-up. Cale rather quickly pulled himself up into a standing position using the playpen rail so he had a better view of me. That's his first pull-up, at least that I've seen! Cruising won't be too long after, after he's discovered what he can do once he's standing!

On-Off

Karston had a toy dog about 8 inches long that he usually calls Doggie; when turned on, Doggie will walk forward a few steps then bark while moving his head. While we were in Key West, Karston asked for the matching kitty (walks a few steps then sits and meows), so he got Kitty for Christmas. Well, for stocking stuffers, Karston also got a small dog and cat, not quite 3 inches long, that play music, walk in a circle, and then bark or meow.

Like all good children's electronic toys, these critters have OFF switches. Very important feature! Karston has heard me say as much.

So the larger one is Doggie, and Karston was asked what he called the smaller walking, barking dog. Karston quickly replied, My doggie's name is On-Off. Ah, yes, he knows what's important to adults!

Cale Loves Celery

Daddy cut two stalks of celery to eat with his dinner tonight. When he wasn't looking, Cale leaned over and stole one. Best Aquisition Ever! Cale cried if we took away any of his celery (what choking hazard?), he waved it around wildly, and he practised using his eight teeth to take bites. Needless to say, since celery doesn't dissolve like rice chex, I had to do a few finger sweeps and clean up little celery bits. Part waving-around toy, part forbidden (choking) vegetable, part biting practice ... what's not to love?

Pediatrician: Cale at Nine Months

Cale turned nine months old yesterday, and had his pediatrician visit for his well-child checkup this afternoon. Stripped down, Cale is 19 pounds 14.9 ounces (so close to 20 pounds!), 28.5" tall, and 18.5" head circumference. For his appointment, he flirted with his nurse and his doctor, and he nursed. He's up to date on his immunizations, so no shots this time. (With his egg allergy, he can't get the regular flu shot.) So until next time ...

After The Trip

It's much colder here, but it's nice to be home again too. I'm trying to think about what was new for this trip. Karston now associates candy with parade floats, and he especially likes lollipops (blue is good!) and small tootsie rolls. Karston ran circles for his letter O dance several times. Cale really does look a lot like Karston when he was this size, but we were still surprised when someone asked us if the boys were twins. Hmm, only one boy is walking and talking... Cale has gotten quite good at leaning for toys, and scooching, and rolling. You have to be really careful where you set him now; no edges and no dangerous items within a two or three foot radius! He ends up on his tummy, holding himself up with his arms, but he's not sure what to do next (crawl!) so he gets bored (his hands aren't free to grab) and quickly cries to be picked up. I think Cale is ready to start crawling soon!

White String Cheese

Last night, in his sleep, Karston said, "No, white string cheese!" At home, he quit eating white string cheese (mozzarella) in favor of yellow (cheddar) a while back. Luckily he decided to go back to white on this trip, because that's the only color I've seen in the various stores. Apparently he's so serious about this switch, he's talking about it in his sleep!

Back Hurting

All afternoon, Karston said his back was hurting. We listened with an adult filter, and assumed that his back was sore from sleeping on a strange bed, as is so often the case for traveling adults. Ha! We went to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park this morning, and Karston got a sunburn on his back just above his diaper. We noticed the sunburn when changing his clothes for bed this evening, and Karston pointed to it as the area where his back hurt. Then he wanted to see the red color in the mirror so he could know what sunburn looks like.

We need to work sunscreen under the diaper's edge too, but it's such a struggle to get any sunscreen on Karston that doing it right is probably wishful thinking if we want to have any hearing left. Like an annoying parent, whenever he said his back hurt this evening, I told him that's why we wear sunscreen! Maybe that will help a little with sunscreen application next time ... nah, that implies toddler logic!

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park has some of the nicest laid-back park rangers. I assume they know they have it made! I wish FZT could keep those nice shade pines: Cale took a nap in the shade while I read a book next to him; Karston and Daddy played with another family in the surf. We learned as we were leaving that the FZT snack bar now serves beer with their lunches (wow!), and even has a water toy exchange! We didn't bring any water toys on the airplane. What a park!

Travel with Children

One of the lessons for travel with children is not to over-plan your trip. In fact, you'll be lucky to get one accomplishment per day, and you need some unscheduled days in between to recover. Today was one of those recovery days. Karston kept wanting something back at the treehouse, so we kept turning back. We went back three times before lunch, and updated our morning plan to be to get somewhere for lunch.

Letter "O" Dance

Karston says he's doing the letter "O" dance; to the uninitiated, this looks like he is running around in tight circles. I assume the dance name is homage to Sesame Street. Since he hasn't had a nap yet this trip, we're happy to let him run off energy in the hopes that he will sleep well tonight so that we can sleep well.

Birthday Tooth

For my birthday, I wanted to get lots of sleep, and to get over this lingering nasal drip. Well, so much for sleep: Cale just cut Tooth #8 today. I felt around for it yesterday and it hadn't poked through; today it has. Now I can say my baby is eight months old and has eight teeth, for whatever that's worth. Cale's more interested in chewing on everything in sight than he is in fussing; he's fussing a little bit but is overall much happier than most teething babies. I wonder if he's getting used to teeth popping through?

A Christmas Parade

When we arrived in Key West, I wanted to start off with my usual fish sandwich. Guess what? Iguana Cafe is back! I missed their fish sandwich last time in Key West (when it was a hurricane-toppled-large-tree-left-huge-hole hole in the ground), so I was glad to see it again! Yummy. Karston and Cale ate french fries. This time last year, I could count the number of times Karston had had french fries on the fingers of one hand; now we know they are a good way to get calories in him! We decided to let Cale try french fries since he enjoyed boiled potatoes at Thanksgiving so much. A hit with both kids! Karston was so much older than Cale is now before he had fries ... all those lost calorie opportunities!

The cabbie who picked us up at the airport told us we should take the kids to the Christmas parade tonight. Wow. I had no idea what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect a parade that lasted almost two hours and had almost 80 floats! We also didn't expect that the floats would be tossing candy to the kids. Karston perfected the starving little waif expression, with his hand held out. Couple of candies, sure, whatever, toss 'em in my pocket. By the time both pockets in my shorts (yes! shorts at night in December! guess why I'm glad to be here?) were full, I realized that we were in for much more candy than I anticipated. I guess that's why we have a stroller with a basket below.

The Wi-Fi signal at our treehouse is weak, but who needs solid Internet access when you're on vacation?

Before The Trip

Since we're about to spend a week in Key West, I'll watch to see what new things the boys do. This week they already started doing new things!

Karston has started to ask WHY? all the time. By all the time, I mean he asks why again and again, without noticing that he's hit reductio ad absurdum. I went to school for a long time, and I can adroitly break questions down to smaller and smaller parts, but a toddler doesn't know the wall of elemental reduction (or the wall of "I'm not going to go any farther") so it's why why why. He's been doing this for a week ... maybe two.

Cale still isn't walking, but he loves propelling himself around in his walker. This week he changed that repertoire, though: he would walk away from people in order to explore. Cale is a very social baby, very likely to follow people for attention, so heading away from everyone seems significant.

Back to packing ... clothes for all, enough food and diapers for the boys until we can buy more, and small toys for the boys to amuse them on the plane. We could pack so lightly for just us, but we're packing toys, boo-boo fixin's, a double stroller, and a baby backpack!

... and a Yummy Thanksgiving Was Had by All

This morning, we loaded the car with food and folks, and headed to Opa and Grammy's house for Thanksgiving. When we explained this Thanksgiving plan to Karston, his first question was Opa and Grammy come here? (no, we're going to see them, and Mimi will come with us). When we started to explain that the rest of the immediate family would be there too, Karston jumped in, and Evan too? He really likes his cousin Evan now that he can run. When Karston was less sure on his feet, he preferred to play with Hayley, but now that he's older, he loves that Evan will jump on the trampoline for hours. Sure enough, Karston ran around after Evan all afternoon (who now accepts that his young cousin Karston is just plain going to follow him around), and they jumped on the trampoline.

A bonus to the typical Thanksgiving feast is that I didn't feel deprived by what I couldn't eat due to Cale's allergies to milk, soy, egg, and barley. I knew in advance that I couldn't eat any of the desserts, so I made a small batch of six cookies for myself. I had turkey (plain), stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans made plain especially by Grammy for me (*smile*), plain baked potato, and salad. My mother remembered that I couldn't have commercial salad dressing, so she brought some for me, so I didn't have to eat my salad plain. I have to admit, I didn't miss the creamed corn, marinated veggies, bread, or pies with everything that I could eat. (As long as there's salad, I'm probably happy anyway.) Grammy made a side of plain boiled new red potatoes for me (although the baked potatoes were safe for Cale's allergies too), but I didn't know that until I'd finished my baked potato. However, Cale was interested in potatoes from Mommy and Daddy, so we gave him some from our baked potatoes. He wanted to keep going, so we quickly peeled the red potatoes for him. What a hit! Cale like small potato quarters that he can hold and cram into his mouth! I don't think he's had potatoes before, but he sure likes them! (And they're not likely to be allergenic. I actually planned not to introduce new foods on the holiday weekend just to be sure we wouldn't need to go to the doctor.)

After we were all full, we adjourned to the comfy chairs of the living room for Hayley's birthday and general relaxation. Daddy handed Cale to Uncle Chip for what he expected would be a minute of knee bouncing. Cale fell in love with the DJ voice, and would look up adoringly at Chip when he spoke. Cale was having such a nice time on his uncle's knee that no one else wanted to hold him: those adoring gazes were priceless! So snuggly Cale fell asleep on Chip.

We thought we would get a nap for everyone when we got home, but it didn't happen. On the other hand, they both went to bed easily. And so should I! Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Technorati Tags: Baby, Toddler

Pleased to meet you, 007

After a long session using my drawstring as floss, Cale brought out chopper #7. Yes, another tooth, this one lower left. I thought he was acting like teething, but it took this tooth a long time to appear. So far his teeth have appeared in pairs, so although it doesn't feel close, I wouldn't be surprised to see #8 within a week. Then maybe we can return to his earlier and better sleeping habits!

Technorati Tags: Baby

Silence of the Chocolate

Our kitchen was quite, quite loud this evening, with both boys making commotions. I guessed that Cale was trying to tell us he wanted to feed himself again (he says it beats baby food, and he's done with baby bottles now that he's almost eight months old). I thought he might want a change from Rice Chex, so I opened a box of Cocoa Puffs. Karston stopped and said, Cocoa Puffs??!?! Let me tell you what's really nice about Cocoa Puffs: our kitchen got quiet. Both Karston and Cale think that Cocoa Puffs are good to put in your own mouth. Ah, blessed silence!

Technorati Tags: Baby, Toddler

Chocolate Cookie

Cale has reached "the cheerio stage" where he can grasp a moderately small item and put it in his mouth. A month ago, he didn't know what to do with them. Karston never had a cheerio stage because his tummy always hurts; his next pediatrician appointment to discuss this is Thursday. Cale's actually eating Rice Chex instead of cheerios because we don't know if he has an allergy to oatmeal but we do know he doesn't react well to barley, another gluten grain. House brand rice chex and corn chex contain barley, so Cale gets allergy-friendly Rice Chex. Several months ago, Mimi let Cale try a few crumbs of chocolate cake: he loved it! So this evening, I let him take a few bites of her chocolate cookies. Cale took a baby bite, yum. He tried to take a much larger bite, but settled out for another baby bite. Then that little hand came around and took my cookie! He crammed in as much cookie as he could over the next 20 minutes until I decided it was time to clean the crumbs from the disaster area. He likes self-feeding, a refreshing change, and just like Karston he likes chocolate! I'm looking forward to experiencing this cheerio (and Cookie Monster) stage of baby development for the first time.

Baby Banana

Cale stayed with his grandmother Mimi today while Karston watched the big equipment crane at Opa and Grammy's house after preschool. (Cale refused a bottle of milk, probably because it wasn't the perfect warm temperature he likes, and he only had a mediocre showing for baby food. He was definitely ready to nurse warm milk! when I showed up.) Mimi wanted to eat a banana when she was very hungry, but Cale informed her that she was required to share with him. I think this is the first time that he's eaten food that did not arrive in his mouth on a spoon! He took about half a dozen baby bites from her banana. He seemed to think it wasn't as tasty as mashed banana baby food, but he ate it and came back for more. Karston was much older before he ate bananas himself!