Living the Good Life

[First, quick excuses: Work, work, work. But I want to blog consistently again, so here's a fresh start! To catch up on SOME things you've missed, check out my mom's blog! There are beach pictures!]

Recently Murray and I were talking about the fact that what we do doesn't require us to be anywhere specific geographically, as long as we can get a good internet connection. So that considered, why didn't we move somewhere more exotic for a couple years while we could! The trouble is: 1) I'm not adventurous like that, 2) I like to be near family, and 3) I'm not adventurous like that.

This Monday, Murray and I drove the Alpine Loop on a whim. Fall is by far my favorite season. I find it energizing! And I didn't want to miss the opportunity to get outside and see the beautiful fall leaves. So we packed up our little family, packed a picnic lunch, and headed out. The views and the colors were amazing, and it felt SO GOOD to be outside and doing something together as a family. We stopped at Cascade Springs to eat (no food down at the springs, so it was a parking lot picnic) and enjoyed the little hike to the springs. Again, it was beautiful, and everything felt incredibly fresh.

Gulliver loved being out on the trails and enjoyed looking for the grasshoppers. He brought two dinosaurs with him, so when we saw the grasshoppers, we had to stop and pretend that the dinosaurs were going to eat them, and that would make them jump. Great fun! All week, he's been talking about grasshoppers, dinosaurs, and the sleeping grasshopper (hint: it wasn't sleeping).

Junabun enjoyed the fresh air and the stroller ride, and I think she PARTICULARLY liked being taken OUT of the stroller to get some more personal attention.

After our jaunt at Cascade Springs, we started talking about all the wonderful things that surround us here in Utah, and decided that maybe it's wisest instead of moving away to seek a fun experience for a couple years, we should make a list of things to do here and actually do them! (This isn't the first time we had this idea... we thought about this a couple of years ago, but didn't do anything about it officially.)

So this week, I've had that in mind. Yesterday morning, Murray was working at home, and Junabun was napping. We haven't used our bikes all year. Or all last year. Or really more than once since we got married, if we're being totally honest. In fact, we had decided recently that we should probably just sell them. Well, instead I went out, pumped up the tires of Gulliver's Boot Scoot bike and pumped up the tires of my bike. We tried Gulliver's bike---which he loved---but his legs still are not quite long enough. So I put him on the high bar of my bike and we started riding around. What started out as a little ride around the parking lot turned into a ride of over an hour, and several miles! Gulliver enjoyed ringing the bike bell half the time, and we both enjoyed talking to one another. It was sweet to have him so close (he said, "I love you, Mumma" a dozen times) and to have a little date with him.

Today, we continued the trend of taking advantage of what we have here in Utah. We planned a fun trip to see Murray's sister's family in Moroni. It was so much fun! We prepared a healthy delicious lunch of Navajo tacos that was almost all carried away by flies (they were out in full force!). They allowed me to drive the Ranger (a cross between a four wheeler and a Jeep) up Maple Canyon with Murray and Gulliver. Gulliver loved it and kept pointing forward and yelling, "Gooooo!" He did NOT want to stop and look at the cows, he wanted to goooooo! (Murray, ever the protective father, urged me to not take the gradual turns at my reckless speed of 15 mph.)

After our little family spin, we went back to the cabin and loaded up everyone onto various vehicles and headed out again! This time even Junabun joined us (Murray, ever the protective father, made sure that both she and I were belted in). Murray, a little out of character for his artist personality, got his very own four-wheeler. After we were on the road, Gulliver looked back and gasped in admiration, "Daddy!" This time I was NOT driving, and we rode up very bumpy terrain. I think that both Gulliver and Junabun were thrilled!

During our ride, we went to an apple orchard where we were able to pick our own apples. Gulliver was at first interested in the ones on the ground (easy pickings!) until we told him those were yucky. After that, he'd just look at them and say, "Gross. Yucky." Sister M helped him to pick an apple from a tree and wipe it clean, and then he bit into his delicious treat! An apple just perfectly sized for him! I think that he ended up eating at least four! He decided he was a big big fan of the orchard.

But as good as the orchard was, nothing could prepare him for what was next. Murray's sister's family are turkey farmers, and they got a new batch of baby turkeys last week. So we took Gulliver to the turkey shed to see what he thought. I mostly expected him to be afraid, since he's going through a scaredy-cat phase lately where EVERYTHING is scary. Instead, he was SMITTEN with the baby turkeys and did not hesitate to want to touch one. At first he was very gentle and cautious, but he eventually became fairly confident... so we got him out of there before he could get TOO confident. He did NOT want to say goodbye to the baby turkeys (he saw a "sleeping" baby turkey, too... oh, when do we teach him about life and death??). But that's okay, because next on our whirlwind tour was seeing the BIG TURKEYS. We went to the big turkey shed, and unfortunately Gulliver seemed just as confident with these as he was with the babies... so needless to say, I didn't even let him NEAR them!

After saying goodbye to ALL the turkeys, it was time to head back to the cabin and order some pizza. What a good day! After pizza, we even enjoyed a bon fire and some star gazing (Gulliver, who LOVES to sing Happy Birthday, performed several rounds of the song and vigorously tried to blow out the fire).

What a perfect day! We are very grateful for our Moroni family for having us over and showing us a good time all day! I look forward to hearing what Gulliver has to say about everything tomorrow. Tonight, he was so tuckered out, that he only lasted about 3 minutes in the car. (After 2 minutes, he suddenly exclaimed, "Hat!!" and put his hands to his hatless head. I reassured him that we had his favorite hat, and pulled it out for him. He put it on and was asleep within about a minute.)

Gulliver Loves

I thought I'd do a quick post about Gulliver. Murray and I probably talk about ten times a day about how much we are in love with him. He can pretty much do no wrong in our eyes. Except for all the mischief he can get into, but even in those moments, our annoyance doesn't last very long.

Lately Gulliver loves his hat. He wants to wear his hat all of the time---even to bed if possible. The other night, Murray put him to sleep and took off the hat. For a few minutes there wasn't a peep. And then Gulliver started crying, "Hat!... Hat..." as he fell back to sleep.

This morning he looked to me like he was standing in a bread line. I was making breakfast, and he came to me wearing his hat, begging for food. He got a measuring cup out of the drawer and brought it over so that I could put some cottage cheese in it. So I let him keep it for breakfast, and he ate out of his little measuring cup this morning.

Gulliver loves toothbrushes still. This would be great if it weren't for the irrational hatred of ME brushing MY teeth. For some reason, I brush, and he STILL gets very upset, sometimes to the point of throwing a full-on fit. If this continues a little longer, he might even be able to verbalize to me WHAT is going through his head that he is SO upset that I'm brushing my teeth. (He wants the toothbrush, and it doesn't matter how many other toothbrushes I give him, if I'm brushing my teeth, he wants MY toothbrush.)

Gulliver loves books. The ones we read the most to him lately are Duck on a Bike (he asks, "Guck! Guck!"), Green Eggs and Ham (he asks, "Ham?"), and Drumheller Dinosaurs.

Gulliver still doesn't love elephants. Please don't ask me why. Murray imitates an elephant for him all the time that makes him laugh. And Gulliver has no problem making elephant noises himself. But if he ever SEES an elephant in a book, on TV, or on the iPhone or iPad, he gets very very very concerned.

Gulliver loves Mickey Mouse cartoons. Even more than his dad. It's been Murray's DREAM to collect every single Disney cartoon, and we have the complete collection of shorts on our Apple TV (I should write an entire post dedicated to Murray's Apple TV...). He constantly asks for Mee Moush? Mee Moush?(Because we are good parents, we don't constantly LET him watch Mee Moush. But hey... when you need a little down time, a little Mickey doesn't hurt.)

Gulliver loves to talk. He says a lot of things lately. He is good at saying prayers. This is a sample prayer:

Ha Far,
Good day,
Mumma
Dadda
Food
(more gibberish.... sometimes a LOT more gibberish... and he's generally good at mentioning others around the table, too)
Amen!

Gulliver also repeats a lot of questions that we ask him. So when he does something funny and we are all laughing, he'll ask, "Is it funny?" When he's eating something he likes, he'll ask, "Is it good?" On a regular basis, he asks, "Is it cute?" He also will say "I sorry" randomly.

Gulliver loves kids. He gets excited when he thinks we're about to go play with kids, and he'll say, "Kids? Kids?" He loves going to nursery at church now and we tend not to have any problems while he's there. Two weeks ago, a nursery leader brought him to me because he kept telling her he was "dirty." She couldn't smell anything, but he was insisting that he was, so she thought she'd bring him to me just in case. I thought that was funny because Gulliver usually just says "Poop!" But then I realized that I'd sent him to nursery with his favorite toy, Ghostie, who he calls "Dotie." I realized he kept trying to tell her about "Dotie." And sure enough, he wasn't dirty when I changed his diaper.

Gulliver loves Grandma and Grandpa, who have been pitching in BIG TIME lately to take care of him. He was able to stay at their house the whole time I was in the hospital. Grandma helped us to figure out how to fix his eating problem---we've had a hard time getting him to eat. But Grandma cut way back on his milk, and suddenly the boy can eat! Not perfectly all of the time, but most of the time, he's able to get in a good meal now. Big improvement! The foods he loves the most are grapes, bananas, canned peaches, yogurt, cottage cheese, and peanut butter from the spoon. He is getting better at eating some messier foods on his own, like yogurt, but he seems genuinely bugged when he spills on himself. And he says "Ow!" when he does.

Gulliver does have weird food temperature issues, where anything warm is too hot to eat. Most foods get one chance, so I try to make sure it's cool enough before he tries it, because if it's hot once, it's hot forever.

Gulliver loves riding on his rocking moose. Whenever he does, we sing Bulls-Eye's theme song from Toy Story II (just saying "da da da da da da"the whole time). So now he'll get on and start rocking, and start singing "da da da da da" himself... although sometimes he even sings "ma ma ma ma ma ma."

Right now, as I'm typing this up, Gulliver is walking around with Murray's shirt over his head so that he can't see where he is going. This is a great game. I wonder how long it's going to take before he hits his head on a sharp corner...

Gulliver loves pulling all of the shoes out of the shoe shelves. I do not love this.

Gulliver is affectionate and still loves giving kisses. Whenever it's time to leave Grandma's and Grandpa's, we ask if he can say good bye, and he goes to everyone and gives a kiss. He also continues to give kisses (sometimes VERY INTENSE kisses) to mumma and dadda.

I think that's about good for now! Gulliver loves a lot of things and we love Gulliver!

My Sudden Vacation

Hello all! I'm writing you from the priciest vacation resort I have ever stayed in, also known as the Hospital! And now is when you start scrolling down, looking for pictures of my second born. Don't bother---she's not born yet. She is still safely kicking me, even as I type.

No, I came to the hospital for another, less exciting reason. The short version is that I had a gallbladder attack that made my pancreas very angry, and so I've been here for the past three days and nights, enjoying the most expensive vacation of my life (which, thanks to Aflac, which we had in place for the baby, will be significantly less expensive than it could have been).

Here are some interesting tid bits and thoughts that I would like to share with you about my stay.

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First of all, after my first gallbladder attack and ER visit on Wednesday, I was not prepared for the two subsequent gall bladder attacks I would have in the three days following. And had I been properly prepared for these attacks, I would have been told to tough it out, and it really sucks, but there's nothing they can do until the baby comes. This is what I was told when we came back to the ER on Saturday, when the pain was unbearable and I was convinced that something was definitely very wrong.

Until they got the test results about four hours later and said, "Oh wait! Nope! Just kidding. This IS serious and we're admitting you to the hospital."

My take-home lesson of course, is listen to my body, use good sense, and if I'm 36 weeks pregnant and in the worst pain of my life, there is no need to let pride keep me from calling Uncle and heading into the ER, even if I'll be told for the next several hours that I was just supposed to tough it out.

******

During this whole gallbladder ordeal, I have reflected many times on my aunt's gallbladder removal when I was 8 years old (I am the proud FOURTH generation of women on my dad's side of the family to need a gallbladder removal---thankfully it still won't need to happen before the baby comes). There is one main reason that I remember visiting her in the hospital post-surgery, and one main reason that my memory has been the topic of much conversation over the past week. You see, when I was a sweet young 8-yr-old girl, my not-so-sweet, young, 10-yr-old brother told me an inappropriate joke. That we both thought was extremely funny at the time. So funny in fact, that I felt I should share it with my aunt in the hospital in the presence of her guests (none of us can remember who the guests were though). And the joke caused her to laugh till she was crying, and she kept saying, "Cicada! Stop! Stop telling this joke!" which I thought meant that she was REALLY enjoying it, so I made sure to tell it through to completion. Well, I'm sorry to say that the joke is entirely too inappropriate to share on the blog, so you'll never know what it was. But I HAVE repeated it to most of my family members this week as I've shared this memory with them all, and it has brought most of us to tears. Less because of the joke itself, and more because of the image of an 8-yr-old sharing the joke with her poor aunt in mixed company.

******

So let's talk insurance! The GOOD news is that I got lazy this year and did not change our insurance coverage, even though it would have meant a reduction in monthly premiums. It would also have meant that we would spend less during the year in overall medical expenses (baby excluded) IF we had a year like we had last year (well baby visits, a trip to the ER for stitches, and a few miscellaneous doctor's visits for me). It would have meant spending MORE in case of serious medical issues or accidents. Well, call it laziness, call it intuition, call it inspiration, I didn't change my policy. So while we still have to meet a hefty hefty deductible (rhymes with sore mouth and collars), that deductible is 1) for me and both children AND 2) for the whole year AND 3) means that everything else (baby delivery excluded) is covered at 100 percent! So now's the time to start making a medical wish-list of things that can be done this year. And if Gulliver needs stitches again, bring 'em on!

The OTHER good insurance news, as I mentioned above, is that we have an Aflac policy for me that was meant to help offset costs for the baby! We certainly didn't anticipate using it for anything else (besides baby #1, I have never needed to stay in the hospital!) but half way through this process, we realized, oh my goodness, there is a pay-out for this, too! So we can basically cut that [sore mouth and collar] deductible in half! Major bonus.

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About the food. You know that people complain about hospital food. But do you know what is way worse than hospital food? No food! Because the pancreas is responsible for the enzymes needed in digestion, and because my pancreas was terribly insulted, we needed to give my pancreas a rest. For over 12 hours, that meant absolutely nothing. Not even ice chips. And then, over 24 hours after I'd last eaten anything, I was finally granted ice chips and 1/2 a popsicle every 8 hours. Wahooo! The next day, I was upgraded to clear liquids and THEN to full liquids. Bring it ON. I have never enjoyed Jell-O or chicken broth or PUDDING so much in my LIFE.

You would think that with all these restrictions, and with a baby eating away my body's stores, that I would have lost a little weight. But the bed (which has been secretly weighing me without my knowledge or consent this whole time!) reveals that I have gained three pounds. Who knew! Win for the baby, I guess!

******

As you're in the hospital for a few days, you get pretty bored pretty quickly. That is why the realization Sunday afternoon that it was OSCARS NIGHT was a huge and fantastic realization! Murray and I had a two-person Oscars party together, complete with 1/2 a popsicle and ice chips! In fine Murray tradition, he tried to fudge his numbers a little, claiming that he got more predictions right than he actually did, but don't worry. I kept him honest and reminded him of the ones he definitely got wrong. We were both excited that our prediction (and the favored film) won best picture. We loved The King's Speech. We are less excited that the decision has been made to censor it for American audiences by muting 2 of the 5 f-words to make it PG-13. I mean, I'm all about making it PG-13, but I really felt that in context, the language should not have made it R in the first place.

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Murray's family has been wonderful to take care of Gulliver during this time. They live pretty close to the hospital, which is also very convenient. Gulliver has come to visit a couple of times. He cut his ear on his first day with Grandpa, which made me feel more sorry for Grandpa than it did for Gulliver. When Gulliver came to see me, I asked about his owie. Completely oblivious to his ear, he immediately pointed to the IV tubes in my arm, VERY concerned. We think it's funny that he knows this is an owie, because how does he know they're going into my body instead of just taped on top? Anyway, as a very concerned 2-yr-old, he made sure to give them a couple good tugs to see if he could take care of it himself. Much appreciated, Gulliver. Now I've got some good bruising there to show off as a trophy when I get out of this joint.

******

Speaking of getting out of this joint! I should get out of here today!! My blood work came back this morning and everything is back to normal. Yippeeeeeeee! Now it's simply a matter of maintaining a low-fat diet (and hopefully avoiding any further attacks) until the baby comes, and until I have the gallbladder surgery 2 weeks later! (So long Mini Eggs! Hello Marshmallow Peeps!)

(That is SO NOT EVEN CLOSE to an acceptable substitution, for the record, but NOTHING is worth the pain, not even my beloved of all candies, Mini Eggs.)

So that I think about wraps up my thoughts and feelings so far on my stay here! The staff have been excellent and overall, I've been well taken care of here! Now I just have to get ready to COME BACK here possibly some time this month! And I'll even share some pictures of that hospital stay with you. I think it's okay not to share any pictures of THIS hospital stay.

Gulliver Loves...

Gulliver is growing up so fast that it's hard to keep up with the things he's interested in on this blog! But here are some things to keep you up to date:

Gulliver Loves...

Ghostie. It is a little nightlight from IKEA that charges during the day and that Gulliver can take in the crib with him at night. He pronounces it GOH-tie. When you tell him it's time for bed, he usually runs and hides, but when you catch him, he asks for Ghostie. Sometimes he talks about Ghostie during the day.

Peanut butter. When you open up the pantry, he comes running over, asking for "burr! burr!" (butter). This may or may not be because Murray feeds him peanut butter on a spoon. And I may or may not have also succumbed to this habit.

Songs. Gulliver loves it when we sing him songs, and he's starting to sing more and more with us. I've been singing the song, "It's in every one of us" almost every night for the past year at least, and he can now do almost all the words with me. Of course, "One of us" is "Wuh wuh wuss." He also loves Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and if he's around toys or dolls that are close to his size, he's been known to sing the song to them and demonstrate on them.

When I put Gulliver to bed, I sing him a song. As soon as I'm done, he whispers "Song." And then I sing another. I absolutely cannot resist him asking for more songs.

Birds. He takes after his mother! And I'm going to be a really good mother and teach him what every bird is. So when he points and says "Bird!" I say, "Yes! That bird is a killdeer!"

Angry Birds. Gulliver finally has learned how to play Angry Birds. He's been intrigued by it for a while, but he could never quite figure out how to sent the birds the right way. Now he does, and he's better than his dad.

Goodnight, Moon. This is his favorite book. We read it to him every night. He is now to the point that he is starting to recite it along with us. (Half the words are good, and half the words are only intelligible because you know what he's trying to say.)

"Baby." When it's time to cuddle, I pick Gulliver up and I rock him back and forth and say, "Baaaaaaa-by. Baaaaaaaaa-by. Baaaaaaaaaa-by." He loves this, and even says "baby" along with me. Sometimes, he'll reach up for me and ask, "baaaaa-by, baaaaa-by," letting me know what he wants me to do.

Snow. He says, "Nowss" which is really funny.

Hiding. Gulliver loves to hide when you announce any of the following: diaper change, bed time, nap time, getting dressed, getting in the car (particularly when he wants to walk to the park instead).

Colors! Gulliver is great at his primary and secondary colors! Although sometimes he will get them a little mixed up.

Well, that's what I can think of right now! More to come, I'm sure. He's just growing up so fast!!

Where's Gulliver?

Can you find the toddler in this picture?

This is where Gulliver decided to hide instead of getting in the car with Murray today. Ohhhhh, Gulliver. He loves to play games!

Bad Worm, Bad Dad!

Last night, Murray and I took Gulliver over to the pool for some swimming. We haven't taken him swimming since this summer, and when we walked into the pool area, his face was just like [what I hope] Christmas morning [will be]. Of course as soon as we got there and he saw the other family playing, I realized our error in totally forgetting to bring any sort of toy over. Like a ball.

Previous to last night, Gulliver was fearless when it came to swimming. What he loves most is getting out of the pool and jumping back in, into your arms. And just to mix things up a little and make them more interesting, he was always really good at running around the edge of the pool, faster than you could swim, keeping you guessing about exactly where and when he was going to jump into the pool.

Well, last night, Gulliver for some reason was being a little more cautious. He would go to Murray and then very cautiously jump into the pool. Then when it was my turn, he'd come to me, grab my hands, sit down on the side of the pool, and very carefully slide in. What happened to my jumping baby (who this summer jumped right onto my head when I looked somewhere else for 1 second)?

Of course, this gave rise to no end of gloating on Murray's part. Almost each time we tested, Gulliver would jump into Murray's arms, but for me, almost every time, he'd sit down on the side of the pool and then slip cautiously in. Murray read into it in all sorts of ways. He's the protector. He's the physical one. He is the man. He also wanted to make sure I blogged about this (am I doing a good job, honey?).

At one point, it was time to bust out another trick from this summer. This summer, when Gulliver was outside the pool and I was inside, I liked to go over to the filter vents, stick my arm in, and stick my finger up and out of one of the holes in the cover at the side of the pool. This made a little worm that Gulliver LOVED. He would laugh and laugh and try to catch it, and try to stomp on it (once or twice successfully---ouch!). Great, wonderful fun!!

Last night, I stuck my finger through the vent, and the look on Gulliver's face immediately told me that he was maybe a little bit afraid of that worm. Because I'm the tender love-giver, the sweet and sensitive mother, the nurturer, then I didn't push this game on him and gave up on the worm idea.

A little later, Murray tried the worm game. Again, Gulliver's face showed he was a little afraid. Instead of running over and playing with the worm, Gulliver immediately tried to get back into the pool as quickly as possible. Murray told me to get Gulliver out of the water again and try to get him to play with the worm. So together, Gulliver and I got out of the water and went over to the worm. He was terrified. He stop, dropped, and almost rolled right into the water. Then, he clung to me tightly. Scary, scary worm!!

Well, what do you know, for the rest of the evening, he wouldn't let Murray hold him. He certainly wouldn't jump to Murray. In fact, Gulliver was no longer interested in getting out of the pool at all (the worms might pop up if he is out there!!).

And so he clung to me. ME. His mother. His nurturer. His best friend in the whole wide world.

Gulliver's First Professional Haircut

We have been very busy lately! Thanksgiving was wonderful and the food we ate left absolutely nothing to be desired (except that I dropped the ball by forgetting to bring Disgusting Turkey, but I'll redeem myself for Christmas... and it looks like I may have to blog about Disgusting Turkey in the meantime, because I figured I'd link to the post where I've explained it before, and it looks like I never have on my blog!!).

Friday, The Boy, Murray, Gulliver and I drove down to St. George to attend my Grandpa's funeral (on my mom's side). When a loved one passes away at an expected time, then funerals can be quite enjoyable, and this was no exception! I had a wonderful time with my siblings, my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, Gulliver, and Murray. I plan on writing a little more about that later!

BUT after spending the weekend with my family, there were enough comments about Gulliver's mullet or Gulliver's long hair that I figured something needed to be done. When we got in last night, we threw Gulliver in the bath and when he was out, sat him down for a hair cut, in which I cut off his mullet (which wasn't actually a mullet---it just hung over his jacket whenever he was wearing a jacket) and was afraid to do anything else. Murray criticized my work because it was so blunt, and the hair needed blending. So he got out his trimmers and we both tried to figure out how to cut the hair of a squirmy, wet, naked 2 year old. The result was not pretty. Eventually, I called it quits, once Murray had shaved an almost-bald spot on the left side of Gulliver's head. I told Murray that we'd be taking Gulliver to a professional in the morning. Murray insisted that he be given the chance to at least try to clean it up a little, but I figured that we may as well leave as much as possible there for the professional to work with. Murray and I were NOT professionals!!

So here is a video of Gulliver's first professional hair cut. I have an "after" picture (he went in looking like a baby and came out looking like a little boy!) but it was hard to get him to sit still, so it's not the greatest. But you'll see more of it in the next few weeks, I'm sure!!

B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-I-E-S

Gulliver loves butterflies. He says "Fa-fly!"

Moths must be a November thing because they seem to be all over the place right now. And they wait by our door and fly into our house when we go home. And every time Gulliver sees them, he points and says, "Fa-fly!"

So last night we were sitting around and Murray spotted a moth on our ceiling. He grabbed the fly swatter, went over to the moth, and THWAP! killed it.

Gulliver saw the whole thing and upon the deathly blow he said, "Ohhhhh!"

To which I replied, "Ohhhhhh! THAT's what we do to B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-I-E-S!"

We're at least TRYING to preserve his innocence.

Lip Trauma 2010

Some of you may remember Lip Trauma 2009 when Gulliver was crawling under our kitchen table, slipped, and bit into his upper lip. It was traumatic, but we all survived.

Well, now I bring you the sequel, Lip Trauma 2010, which is MUCH more traumatic.

Two nights ago, Gulliver was in the bath. Murray and I were both home. I drained the bath all the way and then I went into Gulliver's room to fetch his towel while Murray stepped into our bedroom for a moment. What could possibly go wrong? I heard a thump and then a scream and knew that Gulliver had hurt himself more than normal.

I went into the bathroom and saw that there was some blood on his finger. "Oh no," I thought. He slipped and bit into his finger and now there's a long little cut on his finger!"

Then I realized it wasn't his finger at all. Gulliver had actually bitten THROUGH his bottom lip, in a horizontal line, about an inch long. He was bleeding on the outside and on the inside.

At the moment of this realization, I became a little bit upset. Some (Murray) might say hysterical. As Murray was holding our naked bleeding baby boy, I kept repeating, "He bit through his lip! He bit all the way through his lip! Oh no! Oh no!" We managed to get a diaper on him and two sleeves of his pajamas and then set out to find medical assistance. As any hysterical mother would do, instead of buckling my distressed baby boy into his car seat properly, I just held him in my lap to drive to the Instacare a few blocks away. (Although I was hysterical, it did cross my mind that things would be a lot WORSE if we got into an accident and he was killed just because I didn't want to put him in his car seat.)

The moment we started driving, Gulliver stopped crying. I couldn't believe it. My baby with a gaping hole through his lip stopped crying. The thrill of sitting on Mom's lap in the front seat of the car was much better than any physical pain he might be feeling. I didn't stop crying, however. I cried most of the way to the Instacare. Which was closed. So at THAT point, then yes, I strapped my baby boy into his car seat, and miraculously, he still wasn't crying. I stayed in the back seat with him, and let him play with Murray's iPhone and he played happily---really, actually happily---for the whole ride to the hospital, 15 minutes away. I, then, also managed to stop crying for most of the ride to the hospital.

At the hospital, we got all checked in. Calmly. Because still, Gulliver wasn't crying. When we were in triage, they asked if any of his teeth were broken, which kindof made me want to start crying again because it didn't even occur to me that in addition to biting through his lip, he may have broken his teeth. But his teeth all were okay, although the gums around the front teeth were also bleeding and bruised. Poor, poor Gulliver!

We were taken to a bed in the emergency area, and funny enough, Gulliver seemed to really be excited about his bed! He lay on his back with his head on the pillow, got comfy, and continued to happily play with Murray's iPhone. Any time he was poked or prodded, he took it all with a good attitude.

The doctor came and we discussed stitches vs. glue. He said he'd do glue if it were his child. And after we considered it all for a little bit, we decided that we would go with the doctor's recommendation. Only then he looked again and changed his mind. He said that on second thought, it was worse than what he had first noticed, and that he would recommend stitches.

So THAT was when Gulliver started crying. And I started crying again, too. A nurse put his arms in a pillow case and put the pillow case behind his back so that the case held his arms to the sides. Another nurse held Gulliver's head while Murray held his legs. I didn't have to do any restraining and just was able to touch him and be there for him. He was shot up with the numbing needle a few times, and screamed and cried then. And then of course he cried during the whole stitching process. During this time, he called out many many things, among which were, "Mamma! Dadda! Cracker [Milk]! No way! No! Hug [he says that whenever he wants to be picked up] Baby!" To which the doctor replied, "Baby?" Yeah, that one was a surprise, to me, too.

All in all, it was an emotionally harrowing experience. When he was all done, they gave him some apple juice, which stopped the crying.

Back in the car, Gulliver DID cry this time when I put him in the car seat, and although I was still back there with him, this time he cried all the way home, repeatedly asking, "Hug! Hug! Hug!" So sad.

Once we got home and I was able to take him out of the car, he stopped crying again and since it was much later than he is ever usually out, there were lots more stars in the sky than he has ever seen. Gulliver LOVES stars. So I took him out to where he could see the most stars and he said, "Wow!" I asked him he if could count them, and he started pointing and counting, "One, Two, Three," pointing to a new star each time. It was pretty adorable and a good way to end the traumatic evening.

The next day, you would hardly even know that anything had happened. Because the stitches are almost right in the crease of his chin, they're kindof hidden so you don't even see the stitches right away when you look at him. And the wound, to look at it now, is hardly anything you would think could cause so much drama. In fact, I asked him where his owie was and he thought about it a little bit and then pointed to his wrist. Nope. So if he doesn't even know where his own owie is, then I shouldn't have to worry too much.

(Although I still get sick to my stomach when I relive the moment of hearing him scream and seeing the wound for the first time.)

Batty Bat!

If you're familiar with old time Sesame Street, there is a bit with the Count, doing the Batty Bat. Anyway, that's been going through my head a lot these days.

On Saturday, Gulliver will make a Halloween appearance in his awesome costume. Today I was a good mother not because I cleaned the house (I didn't), not because I fed my son three square meals with nutritious snacks in between (I didn't), and not because I put away the loads of clean laundry we have (I didn't). Today I was a good mom because I made my boy a Halloween costume. To me, Halloween costumes are supposed to be made. I don't think that I ever wore an out-of-the-box Halloween costume, and I'm fairly certain that I did wear a Halloween costume made out of a box. At least once. Anyway, before Gulliver can be old enough to beg for and request any of the prepackaged Halloween costumes out there, I needed to at least knock ONE out of the park. And I'm SOOOOO proud of what I did today. I don't have great photos, but there will be more to come after Saturday!

Gulliver is a bat this year (I still will keep a secret what our coordinating costume will be). I bought him girl leggings (an excellent suggestion from Jenny) and a black turtle neck (unfortunately, my idea that Gulliver could be Steve Jobs for Halloween only occurred to me today...).

Today I bought some black felt and some black glitter felt. I made up a bat-wing shape, and I cut it out of both felts. Then I put that iron-on glue interfacing between the two felts and iron-glued them together. That way, I made a pretty stiff wing! Then I sewed on snaps to the wings and to Gulliver's black turtleneck. I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out, and I promise some better pictures, but this is just a teaser.

Tomorrow I'll buy a black toque (stocking cap) and I will sew huge bat ears onto it. And Saturday, Gulliver will be the most awesome bat you've ever seen. All home made!

My Tough Boy

Here's one more post about Gulliver, but I didn't want it to get lost in the last post. Today, he made me very very proud. We took him to the doctor for his flu shot today. Because I was there for another appointment, when they called Gulliver, Murray went with him alone. I reminded Murray to please ask if they had suckers because Gulliver is old enough to be mollified with sugar now.

Then I waited in the waiting room and listened. I didn't hear a peep and all of a sudden, Murray came back into the room carrying Gulliver, and Gulliver was completely dry-eyed. And carrying a candy.

Apparently, Gulliver got his flu shot and did not even cry. Let the record show that Gulliver is 21 months. (At this point, you don't need to chime in with comments about your children not crying when they received shots at 21 months because I am completely happy ignorantly believing that he is the strongest boy in the world!)

Murray, our eye witness, did say that he whimpered a little. But that was it.

Heck, even during MY appointment, I whimpered a little bit, and when they apologized for hurting me, I explained that I just had to be tough because my 21-month-old just got his flu shot without crying. And then they celebrated with me and told me that he must be REALLY tough.

I really am proud of how tough Gulliver is. I think I always heard that if you give kids too much attention when they hurt themselves then they'll learn that hurting yourself gets you love and attention and then they are wimps. So I have gone to the other extreme and I have actually cheered most times that Gulliver has fallen pretty much his entire life. And either as a result of my superior parenting, or a result of super-tough genetics, when Gulliver falls, 49 times out of 50, he picks himself up and dusts himself off and goes on playing as if nothing happened. (Because let's face it. Nothing happened. He just tripped and didn't actually hurt himself.) When Gulliver DOES hurt himself, he lets me know because he cries. And then I can pick him up and love him. Most of the time, if he hurts himself only a little, he'll come to me holding out the injured part to let me kiss it. But even then, he doesn't cry.

So there you go. I love my tough boy and I'm proud of him.

(And my mom and I have talked about instead of watching out for bullies, I'm going to have to watch out and make sure that Gulliver doesn't BECOME the bully!)

Gulliver Loves

Here is a post all about Gulliver, who Murray and I continue to be in love with.

Gulliver loves the swings at the park more than any other piece of equipment. Today I even let him go on the big boy swing and he held on the whole time.

Gulliver loves the moon and the stars. Every time it's a little dark out (and sometimes when it's completely light out) as soon as we step outside, Gulliver starts saying, "Moon! Moon!" It's hard for me to get his exact pronunciation here. It's very exaggerated, with an extra little syllable at the end, like MOON-uh. When we're driving at night, it's pretty much a steady stream of babble about the moon. And then he also loves stars and will point them out, too. He calls them "Tar."

Gulliver loves some of his shirts! But usually if there's something on it that we can point out. Like his shirt in the above picture, which is one of his favorites because not only does it have a moon and stars, it also has LETTERS, which we're coming to. Whenever he wears a shirt with something on it, I ask, "Where's your monster?" Or "Where's your star?" Or "Where's your plane?" and then he stops, looks at his shirt, and points it out.

Gulliver loves planes. This started at my parents' house last month where on the deck, my parents started pointing out the planes overhead. Now whenever he hears a plane, he stops and looks for it in the sky. He LOVES planes. He pronounces it PEEN! or PEENuh!

Gulliver loves letters and numbers and he's SO GOOD! Wherever we are, whenever he sees a number or a letter, he reads it to us. I am considering decorating his room with some numbers and letters since he loves them so much. So far, he can do the whole alphabet other than L, Q, T (he pronounces this too, and I think it's a combination of both T and U, so we're not counting it), U, and W. Although lately, it seems like when we get to W, he just tries to put a few random syllables together, thinking that that must make a W. As far as numbers go, he still doesn't do 1 (although sometimes I feel like he's making a monosyllabic try at it) and he doesn't do 7. Other than that he can count to ten, and this weekend even counted 10 pumpkins in a pumpkin patch. I think this is the first time that he properly counted ten objects. Gulliver also loves 13. He waits for us to do 11 and 12, though. And then he just does variations on 13 (random syllable + teen) until we get to 20.

Gulliver loves his baby cousin Frosty, and other babies too. Recently Frosty, who is 4 months old, was put down on the ground in a Bumbo, and for the first time was accessible to Gulliver at his level. Gulliver immediately went over and gave her a hug. And then another hug. And then another and another and another hug. He basically kept hugging her until we dragged him out of the house. And Frosty loved all the adoration.

Gulliver loves baths. When I ask him about the bath, he says "Bathoom!" Recently, as soon as I mentioned it, he went to the bottom of the stairs, turned on the stair lights, and headed upstairs into the bathroom himself to get ready. He doesn't know how to take his own clothes off yet though.

Gulliver is starting to learn about bodily functions. We're prepping him for potty training and even bought a potty yesterday. My mom said that we were all trained before we were 2, and I didn't even realize that was an option!! I'd like to give a HECK YES to the idea of getting him out of diapers before we have the next one! So we are trying to at least make him more aware of his bodily functions because we need to have names for things if we're going to do this right. He doens't really respond to "Pee" but if you call it "Pee pee" he does. And then instead of saying "Poo" or "Poop," he says "Poot!" Which we think is really really funny.

So there is your update on Gulliver's development! Basically we believe that our child is the smartest, strongest, handsomest, most adorable boy on earth.

Gulliver Is on Shrooms

That was Murray's suggested title for this post. I would have chosen something more lovely like, "Gulliver in the Enchanted Forest." Either way, cute picture of a cute boy.

We're out in Maryland visiting my parents and today we took Gulliver to a petting zoo that we took him to last time we were here. There are cheesy, over-the-top, tacky elements to this place, called the Enchanted Forest, but that I think made things even more fun. Last time (in April) Gulliver wasn't old enough to "get" the Enchanted Forest part. He mostly liked the animals, to varying degrees. This time, he did like some of the Enchanted Forest stuff (like the mushrooms) and he also enjoyed the animals a little more.

2 B Y

So this post is all about how brilliant Gulliver is. If you don't want to read it because he is the most brilliant baby in the world, I'll understand. But as a mother, I choose to fully exercise my boasting rights.


EVIDENCE NUMBER ONE

So the first story is a little personal to my family. Gulliver loves numbers and letters and we're practicing them all the time. Lately, he's been saying "2.... B.... Y....." And I've thought, "Huh. It's funny that he's mixing them up like that, but who am I to judge?"

Wrong.

The other night, Gulliver was a little more alert than usual as I was getting him ready for bed. Our ritual these days consists of Gulliver almost passing out in my arms as I carry him upstairs to his dark room. Then he cuddles me like that for a while as I rock him and sing to him. So a few nights ago, like I said he wasn't all the way passed out, and I was singing to him our nightly song, which is a Muppets Christmas song that is a family classic, "It's in Every One of Us." The second line of "It's in Every One of Us" is "to be wise." So I sang "tooooooo beeeeeeeee wiiiiiiiiise" and Gulliver sang "tooooooooo beeeeeeeee whyyyyyyyyy." And THEN I realized why Gulliver was putting that number and those letters together! He was singing his bedtime song!


EVIDENCE NUMBER TWO

Speaking of numbers and letters, here's a tally of the numbers and letters that Gulliver says lately:
two (two)
three (tee)
six (seesh)
nine (nine)
thirteen (teetee)
A (aye)
B (bee)
C (occasionally - see)
H (occasionally - aich)
I (aye!)
O (oh)
R (aaaayh)
Y (why)

When we're in the car, I'll often recite the alphabet and wait for him to chime in the letters that he knows. Lately, when I get to X I pause and hear nothing. Then I turn around to make eye contact with him, and he gives me the darlingest smile and says all slyly, "Whyyyyyyyyy." He's a charmer.


EVIDENCE NUMBER 3

A couple weeks ago we were in Home Depot. I heard Gulliver saying, "Oh. Oh. Oh." I looked down, and he was pointing to the O in HOME DEPOT that was written across the handles of the shopping cart. GENIUS!

Later that night, we were shopping at Walmart and I handed him some dish rags that I was going to buy, and I heard him saying, "Nine. Nine. Nine." I looked down and he was pointing at an upside down 6 on the packaging. GENIUS! I flipped the packaging right-side up, and then he also identified the As on the packaging.


EVIDENCE NUMBER 4

Another thing that we say to Gulliver on a regular basis lately is "Where ARE we?" We usually say this when we're almost to Grandma and Grandpa's house, but we also say it when we pull into our house, or if we pull into another exciting destination. Gulliver excitedly repeats, "We wah weee!" Sometimes with extra syllables, like, "Weee wa wa wa wa WAH we?" Well, a few blocks away from G & G's the other day, I asked, "Where are we GOING?" Gulliver thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "Bu pa!!" That's right. We were going to Bu pa's house. (Grandpa is maybe Gulliver's favorite person in the world. Never try to rip him from the arms of Bupa.)

And how is Gulliver going to use his smarts? To become an astronaut.

(Yesterday, Labor Day, Gulliver was DELIGHTED to go outside and discover this flag planted in our front yard. Best. Surprise. Ever.)

Gulliver Loves... DINOSAURS!

Lately Gulliver has been enjoying dinosaurs. This started, I think, when Murray got Gulliver a dinosaur toy with the tickets he won at the Nicklecade last month.

Although I don't think you should be able to "win" tickets if you're playing Skeeball like this:

Gulliver learns young that cheating gets you ahead.

Yesterday I headed off to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point on a whim to meet with girlfriends, but alas, we didn't know it was two-dollar-Tuesday, which meant that the entire place was SWAMPED with moms and strollers. Since school has started, you really only got the too-young-for-school crowd, which made for a real mad house. Which is why we ended up going to the petting zoo instead. And I was the only one who stuck around for the 50 minute wait for the pony ride.

Anyway, Murray was happy that the dinosaur thing didn't work out because he realized he'd really like to come along. So today after Gulliver's nap, we took a family trip to the natural history museum (perk #1 of being self employed---the ability to go off and have spontaneous fun).

It was a little pricier than I was expecting ($10 for adults... I thought maybe $5.50) but I still agree with our choice to avoid the crowds. We practically had the place to ourselves (but Boobs McGee also showed up, and she was showing enough cleavage to count for at least five other women).

Ironically, the best dinosaur reaction we got of the day was to the huge T-Rex on the outside of the building, that we didn't have to pay anything to see. Still, I feel like the $20 we spent was money put towards Gulliver's education. He is now much more informed about dinosaurs.

I don't really think that Gulliver got the whole skeleton thing, except at the end of the exhibit when he bumped into this mammoth:

Of course, maybe he was just impressed with the drama of the gruesome scene before him...



Here are some more highlights from the trip:

Riding on the back of the "parents please do not allow children to climb on dinosaur" dinosaur.

Budding paleontologist, stepping on skull of discovery.

These dinosaurs are within 3 seconds of kissing each other. Gulliver's theory on the extinction of the dinosaurs is that they all just loved each other so much and got along so well that there was nothing more for them to learn in this earthly life and they all went to heaven where they belong.

So that concludes the summary of Gulliver's excursion to the dinosaur museum. Oh, and by the way, if you ask him, a dinosaur says "Rooooooooooooar!"

The Baby Snatcher

Today I was lying down for a leisurely nap while Gulliver was napping. I'd been talking on the phone with my mom, and was just about to settle down to sleep when I heard Gulliver cry and whimper a little. I kept listening, but he didn't make any more noise, which meant that he woke up briefly and then went back to sleep.

Then I heard the front door open and realized that Murray was home. So I got out of bed and crept downstairs to let Murray know not to make a peep, since Gulliver was just barely falling back to sleep.

Except Murray wasn't downstairs.

No one was downstairs.

And the front door was unlocked. I NEVER leave the front door unlocked. So naturally I assumed that I HAD left the front door unlocked. I peeked outside and didn't see anyone. I shut and locked the door, assuming that a small neighborhood child had mistakenly come to our door instead of his own house and was probably stopped immediately by his parent.

And then I had the sickening thought that maybe when I'd heard Gulliver whimpering and crying, there was, in fact, someone ALREADY in the house which I had foolishly left unlocked, and that Gulliver was no longer THERE because a BABY SNATCHER came and stole him.

So nap-be-damned, I rushed up the stairs and swung Gulliver's bedroom door open to find...

...a very sleepy Gulliver waking up and looking at me.

As any mother would in this case, I scooped up my precious baby boy into my arms and rocked him back to sleep in the rocking chair.

Only then it occurred to me.

What if someone was STILL IN THE HOUSE?

So as I rocked and thought about this, I heard the door unlock and open again.

To my GREAT RELIEF because I'm not so paranoid as to believe that someone other than us has the capability to unlock our door besides us.

When Murray came upstairs, I scolded him (softly because Gulliver was napping in my arms) for all the anguish he put me through. Apparently he had come home from work, opened the door, and realized that he hadn't gotten the mail. So he closed the door, got the mail, and then was pretty confused to find the door locked again when he came back.

The end. No baby snatcher after all, and also, I DON'T leave the door unlocked when I'm at home. Murray used his keys to open it both times.

(As an aside, it drives me nuts that whenever I leave the house, Murray bolts the door. I think that during the day, the lock on the door handle is enough. So I recently asked Murray why he always bolts the door and he said, "I always bolt the door when I am [indisposed] because I'm always afraid that if I don't, someone will break in and steal Gulliver while I'm [indisposed]!")

One More Thing...

There are certain things about Gulliver that I know I will never understand. Like the scary elephant. I can just say to him "scary elephant" now and he whimpers and looks at me with sad eyes. (I'm not a mean mom. Usually the context is, "Don't choose that one! That's the one with the scary elephant you don't like!" Cue sad eyes.)

The other thing I don't think I'll ever really get an answer for is the whole toothbrush thing. Gulliver loves my toothbrush. He loves it so much that every time I brush my teeth, he throws an absolute fit because I have the toothbrush and he doesn't. What would you do if you were in my situation? Oh, right, you'd give him his own toothbrush, right? So one day I took another adult toothbrush out of its packaging and gave that to Gulliver. His very own toothbrush. And he loved it.

But.

He still wanted mine.

So one toothbrush was no longer enough. He needed two.

So I went out and I bought him a real kiddie toothbrush, with a lion and a suction cup on the bottom and everything.

And he loved it.

But.

He still wanted mine.

I do not understand this at all. He starts crying the moment I start brushing my teeth, and the crying doesn't stop unless I eventually give him the toothbrush. At times, I try to just distract him with something new, but this is something that he allows himself to get so worked up over that distraction doesn't work. He just cries and cries like I've betrayed him in the worst way.

So I've just given in. Letting Gulliver chew my toothbrush after I'm done with it is now just a part of my toothbrushing routine. And the routine begins with searching the whole house for where Gulliver last dropped my toothbrush.

By the way, check out Murray's blog for some awesome photos. And rest assured that we do actually clothe our baby. Sometimes.

Let's Pretend I've Been a Good Blogger

I know, I suck. And I can give you all the excuses. But mostly, the biggest excuse is that I'm busy at work and when I'm not working, I am not on the computer. But I will try to be better!

So here is the update on Gulliver who is getting bigger and bigger and is the most adorable baby (not for much longer) in the whole wide world.

Gulliver Loves...

... the backyard with its kiddie pool. He plays naked in it several times a week.

... the fountain at Lagoon. We went to Lagoon twice in the last week. Gulliver was very good on the rides, although he did have the classic kid-ride reaction that we failed to get on camera. Basically, we loaded him up into a helicopter with Vee and Bean and everything was normal until the ride started and it took off in the air, and THEN you should have seen Gulliver's face---his eyes and mouth got as wide as they can possibly go for the first two rounds. And then he just started clapping. Classic. At the end of our first trip to Lagoon, we let the kiddies play in the fountain, which is the type of fountain where the ground is dry and all the water shoots up around you, coordinated to music. I think that Gulliver just about died and went to heaven. I could tell by people in the audience laughing that I wasn't the only one getting a kick out of him. On our second trip to Lagoon, I budgeted more time for the fountain (since the first time I had to drag him away, soaking, and kicking, and screaming) and someone commented to Captain Fabuloso (who was watching him for a while) that his best entertainment of the day was watching Gulliver play in the fountain, since every time the water hit him, the shock and delight was exactly the same.

... Cookie Monster, Grover, Ernie, and Sesame Street in general. We have the 40th anniversary DVD and we are always watching the first one. I'm just struck at how clever and legitimately funny it is---the influence of Jim Henson is very obvious in the early days of Sesame Street. We love watching it with Gulliver and hearing him laugh at all the different things.

... counting. Gulliver loves numbers. He's been a pro at two and three for a little while now, but today he added a few more to his repertoire: five (aye), eight (aie), and nine (niiiiiiine). He is so smart. He likes to count his toys.

... the iPad. No screen time before 2? Well, we certainly suck at that. Gulliver loves the iPad and I've got it fully stocked with the best kids' apps. Gulliver is, however, terrified of a certain elephant in a certain app. I'm working at getting him used to it, but it is going to take a little more work. We have NO IDEA why he is so afraid of the elephant.

... bananas. Still.

... trucks and big vehicles. When he sees a big truck go by, he says, "Wow!" Not drawn out. It's quite staccato, actually. Wow. It's a pronouncement.

... kisses. And I love kisses, too. He took a little kissing hiatus, but now his kisses are back in full force. They're extra adorable since he usually says "Mwa!" when he kisses you. He has lots of different kisses, like the sloppy kiss (not my favorite), the head-butt kiss (also not my favorite), the succession kiss (mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa), and the Godfather kiss where the grabs both sides of your face and lays one on you ("You broke my heart!"). He also likes to sneak in a zerburt (sp?) kiss every now and then, which legitimately makes the both of us laugh. I find that Gulliver makes me laugh all the time.

... going into closets, closing the door, and coming out again (no jokes, please). This is a big delight to him. Except that he can't actually open the door to let himself out, so sometimes to make the game more interesting, I leave him in there for a while.

... going up and down stairs like a big boy. Sometimes Gulliver likes to be carried up and down the stairs. But sometimes he likes to hold my hand and walk up and down like a big boy. What he loves the MOST though is to find a step that's just his size and go up and down and up and down and up and down to his heart's content!


Gulliver says...

..."bye!" Finally! It's the cutest most sing-song "bye" you've ever heard. And he waves occasionally. Sometimes with one hand. Sometimes with both.

... car, which he pronounces, "cah?" or occasionally "cahy?" It's always a question. And we ask him, "Do you want to go in the car?" And he'll say "Go go! Cahy?"

... no for nose, tee for teeth, eye for eye(s)

... cackle! for tickle! He is a pro at giving tickles. We tell him whose feet to go and tickle and he goes and tickles that person's feet, saying, "Cackle! Cackle!"

... it's Ootsie! Since I want to foster as much of a relationship as possible with Gulliver and my parents who live in Maryland, every time my mom calls or I call her (almost every day) I announce excitedly, "It's Ootsie! It's Ootsie!" Gulliver has started saying this now, too. He says "itsitsy."

... cool! This is new as of a couple days ago. But Gulliver is clearly saying "Cool!" now when he sees something cool.


OTHER MILESTONES

In July Gulliver has his first night of throwing up. We were at a hotel and he was having trouble sleeping so I had him in bed with me and at a certain point, he threw up in the bed. So I cleaned him all up, took off all the linens from the bed, threw them in the hall and called the front desk, requested more linens and towels, and tried to rock him to sleep again. And then he threw up again all over me. So we washed up again, I changed my clothes, we put more soiled linens in the hall, and got him settled in on the other bed. And then he threw up again. So we stripped the bed, got him all cleaned up, got a bunch of towels from the front desk again (by this time, Murray was on a first name basis with the front desk lady) and the fourth (and final) time Gulliver threw up, at least it was completely contained by towels. Lesson learned: Just get a bunch of towels in the first place and if at all possible, try to have your child get sick at a hotel with an endless supply of clean linens, who also have to do your laundry for you.

Gulliver is now in nursery at church. So far it's going okay, but he's not the champ I thought he'd be. I thought that he'd be in there playing oblivious to our absence the whole time, but apparently sometimes he gets sad :(

Gulliver had his first "owie." And it was all my fault. He got a pretty bad sunburn on his arm and a small part of it had blisters. So for a while I had a band aid on it. When asked, "Where's your owie?" Gulliver would make a sad, sad face and point to his band aid. And then he'd want a kiss for it. Now if I ask him where his owie is, he searches desperately on both arms for it, but can't find it anymore! He still wants a kiss.

Which reminds me, maybe this isn't a milestone, but today, Gullie showed us fake crying. It all started with this foam fan that his grandpa got him---it's a toy where if you hold down the button, the foam blades of an airplane spin and the middle lights up. It's pretty fancy to be sure, but I was watching Gulliver playing with it, and any time he put his hands in the way of the blades, he'd make a sad face and say "ow." So I tried it out, and of course it doesn't hurt at all. I guess it just looks to Gulliver like it SHOULD hurt. So being the good mom that I am, helping my baby son to man-up, I chased him around with it, trying to touch the spinning blade to any part of him I could catch, like his hands, his arms, his legs, his belly, etc. Every time I'd catch him, he'd make the sad face and say "Ow." I'd keep reminding him that it didn't actually hurt, and he thought the game was fun anyway. Well, a little later I was reading a book to him that is all about building vocabulary so there are lots of pictures with one or two words underneath. All of a sudden, Gulliver was fake crying, and I looked and he was pointing to a picture of a baby crying. He is so smart. Now he knows how to fake it. (But because I'm mom, I know when he's faking.)

And speaking of "Mom," you'll notice that Mom, Mommy, and Mumma are all missing from the list of things that Gulliver says. Because he STILL doesn't call me anything.

But Gulliver is a pro at certain animal noises (lion, cow, monkey, snake, horse, elephant, and train...which I realize isn't an animal). The other day it was raining and I said to Gulliver, "It's RAINING!!" And he said, "Choo choooooo!" And yesterday Murray was in the car with Gulliver listening to Led Zeppelin's "Move On Down the Line", and Gulliver said, "ROOOOOAR!!"

Needless to say, we are both utterly in love with Gulliver, who entertains us endlessly.

Kids These Days

Today I present you with a photo story about kids and technology. I'm a favorite auntie these days because whenever I visit, I have my iPad, which is fully loaded with kids' games. Usually Gulliver is happily playing with Vee and Bean's toys while they play with the iPad, but this time, all three kids were trying to share, and Vee and Bean quickly discovered that Gulliver is quite good at pressing the home button whenever a game he doesn't want is selected....

More on Sleeping

Murray and I have worked out a work schedule where I go to our studio MWF and he goes TTh. That way, we both get to have full days with Gulliver and we both get to work. It's really great, and I think it also helps you to make the most of your days as a full-time parent, too.

Today Gulliver and I had a great day. There really wasn't anything out of the ordinary or super special about today, but it was just a really great day. I love spending time with Gulliver. He is such a sweet boy. (He does have a temper, by the way, which my mother pointed out, not that I wasn't aware of it... but his tantrums are very short-lived.) He is very affectionate. He gives kisses and hugs and is basically the best boy in the whole world.

Tonight I let Gulliver stay up a little extra late. (Which might actually mean he gets up earlier in the morning... I hate that.) And then the craziest thing happened. Before I tell you, I'll at least let you know that the going to bed has been consistently good. Most nights he doesn't cry more than two syllables. We warm up a bottle for him, take him upstairs, change him, rock him, give him the bottle, tell him stories, let him hold Grover, and generally get him very very sleepy. And then we can put him in the crib sitting up, and he's usually okay.

Tonight was a new breakthrough. I warmed up his bottle and he clearly understood what was going on, and immediately turned away from the kitchen and headed towards the stairs. (This in stark contrast to a week or so ago when Murray was trying to grab him for bedtime, and he kept running away and hiding behind me, clutching my legs, with his wee nose between my bum cheeks---also clearly aware of exactly what was going on.) Gulliver went up the stairs and I followed. He went to his bedroom. I changed his diaper with no complaint from him, I got him into his pajamas, and then I rocked with him and talked with him. I told him all about our day today and all the fun things we did, and when I said that we went to the studio to see Dada, he repeated Dada several times, and he talked to me about as much as I was talking to him, all in the sweetest baby whisper voice you have ever heard. Ever.

And then I put him in his crib with Grover and his other friends, and there was absolutely NO complaint from Gulliver.

So. That's the breakthrough. Gulliver basically initiated his own bedtime routine instead of trying to run away from it. This is a big deal for me!