Santa

It would seem that Joseph is figuring out the whole Santa thing. We were at a local(ish) Christmas store last weekend, so I took the opportunity to explain Santa Claus to him. I told him that Santa brings presents to boys and girls on Christmas and that he could ask Santa for a toy. He decided that he wanted to ask Santa for a truck, and that was it. He's been pointing out Santa's all over the place, and last night was absolutely precious.

We were watching The Polar Express on TV (it was right at the end), and he was totally enamored with Santa, the Christmas tree, and the train. He started talking about asking Santa for a truck again, "Ask Santa truck." Then the list grew, "Ask Santa car. Ask Santa airplane. Ask Santa train." Then he says to me, "See Santa." "We'll go and see Santa, sweetie." "See Santa. Ask Santa truck." "We will go and see Santa, but not right now." "Not now. See Santa." Then it got interesting. "Mama GET UP!" So, I get up. He walks into the dining room. "'Mon Mama." (like, c'mon, Mama). He's standing by the door. "See Santa." Apparently he felt a certain sense of urgency and needed to see Santa NOW. He brought it up again tonight with no prompting at all. "Ask Santa train." So, we're going to go see Santa this weekend. Hopefully he's not totally terrified by him when he sees him. We shall see, though.

The Hunt

Well, it's just me and my little boy this weekend. Matt has ventured to northern parts in hunt of the prevalent deer. He's got a license to shoot "anything that walks in front of me," says he. Apparently it's for bucks and black bear. I know that he's excited about this and I hope that he has a good time with my brother and my dad. I just hope that they all make it back safely and all that stuff.

And, Max and my dad came by this afternoon while they were waiting for Matt to get home from work. So, Joseph and I got to hang out with them for a bit. Joseph was so funny. He was showing off all of his tractors and trucks. Then he had to show Max how he runs up and down the hallway "boom"ing into things with his giant dump truck (which he just got back after repeatedly "push[ing] Staley dog"). It was just too cute. Hopefully we'll be able to see them a bit Sunday night when they get home from The Hunt. Otherwise, we'll wait until Christmas.

After everyone left, I learned that "Joseph ride Papa new truck Max Dada." Apparently he wanted to go with...maybe in ten years or so...

All done

So, I've apparently reached my limit. Or my sinuses just hate me. Either way, I kind of crashed and burned today. It was kind of fun, actually. The end result is me in my house all by myself for 7 whole hours!! That NEVER happens!! I've got a whole pile of things that I should be doing (big shocker there, I know), but I'm taking some time for myself to rest and recuperate a bit. And eat Cheez-Its Party Mix. And I don't feel too guilty, either. Maybe a little guilty, but not too much.

Every family has one, I guess...

The kid who won't eat. That's mine.

I hear about all of these kids of my friends who are like 14 months and 28 pounds or something like that. Joseph will be 2 in 2 weeks, is probably 33" (if we're lucky), and about 23 or 24 pounds. Food has never particularly been an interest for him. He was diagnosed with reflux at about 8 months old, but it had been bothering him since he was probably about 4 months old. So, he had a sour stomach while he was first experiencing lots of foods, and he didn't eat much because it hurt his stomach. We also figured out at that point that he had a dairy sensitivity, which apparently also made food a little less than appealing.

So, now I've got a kid who's almost 2 and doesn't eat much at all. Thankfully he takes his gummy vitamins, but it's a challenge to get food groups into him. He liked veggies when he was little--corn and peas were always hits. Now? Nope. He shoots them across the room. Beans? No. Tomatoes? No. Potatoes? No. Broccoli? No. You get the picture. It's kind of frustrating to hear that other people's kids will eat anything and everything, and mine would rather go hungry. I'm guessing that he'll grow out of it, and he does go hungry from time to time as we try to teach him to eat what's available.

So, I've learned how to sneak a bit of nutrition into him. V8 Fusion is a big favorite. He likes the Orange-Tangerine the best. It tastes like fruit juice, but actually has vegetables in it. We found these juice boxes called Fruitables made by Apple and Eve that are the same thing. Hopefully he'll learn to enjoy food...not that I want a rolly poly round kid, but it'd be okay if he tried new stuff.

*Sigh*

Big Boy Words

It's just been hitting me that my baby boy is rapidly turning into a little boy. As his second birthday is right around the corner, it's been so neat to watch him change. And, his language is in one of those "booms" that I'm sure happens with language development. He learns new words every day and does really well with applying words that he knows to describe things that he doesn't...hard to explain, but neat to see.

Anyway, with this multitude of words has come better pronunciation of some old favorites. For example, we're up to "tra-tur" from "tur-tur" for tractor. "Tray" is up from "tee" for train. And, we don't have "wee-woo tuck"s anymore, we have "fie enn"s for fire engines. Can you tell that we talk about a lot of transportation? A particular favorite of mine is "hay-tra-tur" for helicopter. It kind of sounds like heli-tractor, which I find terribly amusing.

I know that we'll work our way through this baby talk, but it's kind of bittersweet to realize that he's growing out of it already. Obviously, I don't want him to be 10 and talking about heli-tractors, but some of his words are really cute. And, he's figured out how to say his name. I know that this might be a little late for that, but I think that the "J" sound is kind of difficult to put together. He used to just refer to himself as "baby," but we're up to "Do-suf", which I think is pretty good.

I'm able to understand almost all of what he says, and he's really good at showing you what he's talking about if you don't understand it. I realize that, to an outside adult, he probably sounds rather incoherent, but we're getting there. A couple of words that he's never seemed to have an issue with are "no" and "mine." Go figure. I hope to record him babbling away one of these days so that I can play it for him when he's 15 and embarrass the hell out of him. Heh heh heh. ;)

Losing

I have a student who has had a rough semester. His aunt died in late August. She was 43 and it was a suspected drug overdose. His step-grandmother died about a month ago. And, he found his 73 year old grandfather dead on his floor last week. He's a sweet kid who's having kind of a hard time coping. It seems like he looks at all of the people around him with a kind of clock over their head that's counting down to the time that he loses them. It also seems like he might not have the greatest support system in his life. But, he's made good use of our guidance services at school and seems to be hanging in there.

We were chatting this afternoon about our respective experiences of finding our deceased grandparents; I think that he felt better knowing that someone else had experienced and survived a similar encounter. And, we were talking about the suddenness of death, sometimes. And, we were talking about the things that so often go unsaid to the ones that we lose. And, since it's my 'Grandma' time of year, I was feeling perhaps more chatty than usual. I think that it helped him a little to just talk and share. Maybe. I know that I'm not qualified to be a real assistance, but I'd like to think that his afternoon might have been a little bit less stressful. Maybe.

Daily blogging = failure

You know, we do the best that we can...so...there.

I think that I've decided that both Matt and Joseph had H1N1. Joseph had a fever between 100 and 103.5 for five days...up and down, but never gone. He had a gross cough that complicated itself into croup. And, all he wanted to do was lay around and snuggle. Matt had a fever for four days, gross cough, chills, and body aches. So, I'm kind of hoping that's what it was since we can't manage to get in to Joseph's pediatrician for a flu shot. Hopefully I won't have to worry too much about it now.

And, I'm officially half way through my first master's class. I don't know what I was expecting, but this is a lot of work. I'm making it, and I think that I'm doing all right with it, it's just particularly stressful to try to keep up with all of my other responsibilities, and add student duties to the mix. Our house is just disgusting, and Matt is perpetually ticked off at me for being stressed out. So, I'm not sure if this was the best decision, but I'm going to persevere. I'm not getting any younger, and this is the only way that I'll earn more money as a teacher. I guess that we'll all just saddle up for another 2-3 years of this. Oh boy.

And here's another picture from this summer for your viewing enjoyment. We were at THE Yankee Candle and Joseph was coloring the flowers.