Our Baby Size Life! » toddler

High Flying Lad, Low Lying Dad

John — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:57:29 +0000

Sam in his flight suit! Geckos!!!

Hey folks, it’s been a while, but I just got so busy with certain projects that were time sensitive that the blog took a hit. Aunt Ingrid is a big reason for this, and I’ll be posting more on that for sure, but the other time bandit that’s been infecting our little lives is, well Season 4 of Bones on DVD. Good characters and good writing a TV show make! Can’t get enough, which is what makes it so dangerous to own on DVD: you watch ’till you drop! Oh well, things are looking to lighten up however, and I think we should be back on track! Big news this week: Sam can fly!!!

Initial estimates say he was actually air-born for 1.367 seconds. Well, technically, he fell through the air, which might be considered flying even if it was gravity doing all the work! Now I am making light of this issues, so suffice to say he is uninjured and suffered a bigger scare than anything else. Which is not to say Melissa and I didn’t crap our pants when the event I am about to convey to you happened, because we did… Figuratively, of course… ahem! So! On to the story of Sam’s solo manned flight.

Sam is twenty months old, meaning he runs, jumps, crawls and climbs. He is an active toddler and he loves playing and having fun. It also means he’s getting to that age were he doesn’t want to sleep alone, and he wakes up crying at odd intervals throughout the night, inconsolable unless we sit by his crib, or bring him into our bed with us. We tried everything here folks: giving him water, warm milk, playing music, back rubs, night lights (in different positions around his room), different child separation techniques for sleep time, etc. We’ve run the gamut and the crying sessions were sometimes going on for two hours at a time… and this is at three in the morning people! So one night this week, I was locked in the midst of another epic battle of father’s patience vs son’s insistence, when I decided to try the old “leave the room for 15 minutes, let him cry and come back in and tuck him in”.

Now, let’s be clear: We do not like hearing him cry and we do not like this supposed technique that’s in some books. We’ve very rarely used it because it just didn’t seem fair and it felt wrong to us and our instincts. As a parent, we trust our instinct as a rule.

But I was frustrated, burnt out and exhausted, sick with the flu and had gotten hardly any sleep that week, so I decided to give it a shot. I tucked him in, gave him his turtle doll and his blanky, rubbed his back a few times, popped on the soft music, raised his crib wall and walked away to my own bed. Well, the crying started before I’d left his room and he was on his feet before I had gotten under my own covers. Melissa, the ever watchful and insightful mother that she is, was keeping an eye on Sam from our bed as he danced around in his crib, his cries bordering on screams. I was just leaning over Melissa’s shoulder to look at Sam myself, to reassure him we were close by when Melissa said:

“Oh no! He’s going!”

She hops out of bed faster than I’ve ever seen her move, which is saying something as I’ve seen her shopping at boxing day sales, and starts running for Sam’s room. She gets five feet from our bed and I hear a loud SLAP! Then crying…Sam had gone over the railing…

Now I’ve mentioned before what a great person Melissa is, and I’ve praised her for being an excellent mother to Sam. Higher up in this post I qualified her as “ever watchful and insightful”, which is a good thing, because she had previously placed a mattress at the foot of Sam’s crib after noticing he’d been starting to climb the bars. What more can I say?

Sam spun a complete flip over the raised crib bar and landed, flat on his back, on the mattress. Melissa was there in a flash to cradle him up in her arms, as I arrived a few seconds later, ashamed at my actions and feelings. I was on the one hand frightened that he had hurt himself, but I was also angry that he had actually made it over the bars… as if he’d done it on purpose, which is, of course, complete and utter non-sense! Just me being a frustrated-tired-moron. But that anger was short lived and it faded as soon as I saw his scared, little eyes. Poor kid, my heart broke… We settled in for a family hug and Sam immediately pointed to our bedroom, to our bed. Little bugger was OK, and he was still trying to get his way!

So, then and there, we pulled his mattress out of his crib and put it on the floor next to the one Melissa had previously placed there. I grabbed a pillow and a blanket and slept there, on the floor with my son for his first night out of his crib. He was grateful for that, I can tell. For as we lay face to face, he kept reaching over with his little warm hand around my neck, pulling my head closer and closer until our foreheads touched…then with a deep sigh, he fell asleep.

That’s when I sighed…

When, Melissa woke us up at 6 in the morning to get ready for work and daycare, Sam had somehow taken my pillow and was sleeping comfortably in a little, warm ball half upon it… And I was lying flat faced on this dinky, little, kiddie mattress with a kink in my neck…

Way to go kid, you got one back on Dad

Sammy’s Cheese Chair

John — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:18:08 +0000

The chair...

During the week, our routine is pretty standard: get home from work, get in the house, get some food in our bellies, get Sam in a bath and get him into bed. It’s not always that straight forward, we do throw in some good old on-the-floor playin’ around time, but that’s the gist of it. And while we go through this daily grind, Sam has pretty much been nice enough to play on his own and let us prepare supper undisturbed… unless we forget to give him his cheese! This kids loves the mozzarella and he knows when it’s time for it. We have barely all shuffled through the front door and Sammy-pants B lines right for the kitchen to stand at the counter where we cut his cheese. He also has a little plastic bowl that he goes and fishes out of his toy pile and gives it to the cheese-cutter. Then an impatient finger points into the bowl expecting his snack. Naturally, to keep the peace with his grumbling belly, we comply and drop in about a dozen little cubes for him to munch on. Sam likes a quiet meal, so he used to look around for someplace to sit while eating, usually in front of the sink or fridge, because he has to see what we are doing in the kitchen. But sitting in front of the sink or fridge is a recipe for toddler trouble. So, the we bought him the chair.

Sam likes his chair.

We place it near us in the kitchen and when he gets his dairy payment to leave us alone for a bit, he grabs his bowl and heads for the chair. At first,

Just sittin', eatin' cheese...

we needed to pick him up and sit him down on it. But Sam wasn’t going to take this pampering any longer; he wanted to do it himself! Now I don’t have a video of this yet, but when I do I’ll throw it up here. It’s the funniest thing to see. He walks up to the chair, stops about two feet away, turns around so his back is to the chair and slowly walks backwards until his heels hit the chair. Now, his reversing isn’t very good yet because he doesn’t look back at where his going; he looks up at you with a smile like he’s saying “Hey, check me out! I’m backing up man!” When his heels hit a part of the chair, his butt drops… And so does the bowl of cheese cubes! He’s missed the chair and cheese goes flying! We still find these little, hard and dried up cheese cubes under sofas and furniture across the house! He does manage to wedge his cheeks on the chair properly after a couple of tries. He then sits down with a smile and a new bowlful of cheese to watch us get his supper ready.

Hey! Get off my Dads grass!!!

On some evenings, maybe it’s the food were preparing or the pre-dinner conversation that bores him, he picks up his chair and puts it at the front door of the house! Our front door has a big glass window inset, so he just loves looking out onto the world while scarfing his mozza. He’s our very own little old man, guard person. He yelps when he sees a dog or cat, and talks out loud when people walk by. He’s even knocked on the glass to get people’s attention, and when he does, they usually wave to him which is all he needs to flash back his cute little smile. It’s pretty neat as a parent to see your child grow up and be so aware of his surroundings. While Sam can only speak about five words, he understands a whole lot more! And yet, when he does something an adult would do, we are surprised. Not through doubt that he’d never do the things he does, just astonishment at the fact that this little guy, only a year before, couldn’t even roll over. Now he’s yelling at people to get off my grass! Clearly, he’s letting us get to know him a little more every day, quirks and all, which is great! He makes us laugh cause not only does he do funny things like this, but he knows they are funny and laughs with us. My kind of guy!

Don’t forget to laugh folks! Have a great weekend… cause Sam may be watching YOU!

Checkin' out the neighborhood.

Sam is Walking!

John — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:46:53 +0000

Yes folks, it’s true. Sammy has now upgraded his means of travel from the fast crawl to the slow walk! It was a gradual process, starting out with a couple hesitant steps and quite a few more falls on his pampered bum. But persistence pays off, as Melissa and I are now required to up our security measures as well! And since those initial few steps, Sam has kicked it into high gear, getting to speeds of almost 4 feet per second!

Lightning!

We had security gates and door locks already installed, but now we just have to watch him because he’s a tornado of exploratory destruction! He’s constantly attracted to anything he hasn’t touched in the last 10 minutes… Think about that folks. Melissa and I now refer to it as extreme babysitting. The constant hits, smacks, obstacle course-like dodging of toys on the floor and the ducking of flying sheep, has made us into rugged, fit and tone-bodied parents. Richard Simmons would be pleased. But all that crazy parental survival has taken it’s toll… We now go to bed before 10 pm on most nights! Which sounds bad, but it sure does help with those 6 am wake-ups! Yep, every day of the week. That’s fine for the work week, but on the freakin’ weekend?! Come on!

Note to self: teach Sam the meaning of weekends.

Check out this little montage of Sammy’s walking evolution, and now that while it may be cute, it’s caused us a world of pain!

Seeing Sam walk is a surreal experience. It’s as thought he grew up in one fell swoop. Kind of makes him look like a little man. No longer a baby. Actually, he looks like a little old man when he shuffles around the floor, shoulders hunched to keep his balance. Especially when he uses his little “walker”. That green thing with wheel in the video. It’s another big step (pun! I hate puns) in his growing up, which is great to see, but brings with it fond memories of seeing him crawl for the first time.

Sam has been walking for a while now eventhough I am only posting about it know. But iur Sammy-boy has been doing the one-two shuffle since he was a few days over a year old… Way back in early March! Yeah, yeah I know… I’m behind in sharing the news.

Take care and keep putting one foot in front of the other!