1.  Took baby boy to an ‘open gym’ at Gymboree since we won’t be here this Saturday and I wanted to feel like I was still getting my money’s worth (ok, and because he loves it above all things, but still…)  This time, he fell asleep at 10:30 in the car.  Oi. But I WAS able to get him back down in his bed by about 11:15, so I’m counting the experiment as a win.  I would, though, dearly love it if he would hurry up and delay his naptime by just an hour!  Mornings are basically just a race against the clock–can I get him home in time for his nap? Stay tuned!

2.  Finished making hotel & car reservations for the Easter trip to see my folks.  So glad it’s done.  I don’t know why I stress so much about making them, everything is cancel-able, but I dither and fuss & compare more than–I swear!–I did when choosing which IVF clinic to go to!  Weird (and embarrassing) but true.  But it’s done, and so we’re (mostly) all set, and if I’m totally dreading the flights, I’m also totally looking forward to seeing my family.  (Oh damn, I just remembered I still have to find a kennel to dump poor Nellie at.  [Anyone want a 6-day paid housesitting/dogloving gig in lovely New Hampshire over Easter weekend?  Lovely grounds are sure to attract the Big Bunny!])

3.  Thomas’s English muffins are awesome, but their corn muffins? OMG. Why oh why do I have to be constantly watching my weight? Probably because if left unchecked, I’d likely eat a whole package of them at one sitting!

4.  At the store yesterday I decided to give in to the inevitable and buy some boxes of kleenex.  The Boy is a die hard hankie-user, and if I were a sniffly person, I would be too.  But I’m (usually) not, and neither is the baby, so we’ve had a box of Kleenex that was here when we moved in & that’s lasted us just fine until this head-cold-that-won’t-go-away.  So I bought some.  Great, right? Only the box is yellow cardboard, and from the time I put them in my cart until the moment we checked out & I could finally give one to Hen, he was saying rather insistently, “Crayon? Crayon? Crayon? Crayon? Crayon?”  until I was ready to stuff tissues in my ears to block it out.   No amount of explaining that these were hankies would do.  Hen knew damned well what comes in yellow cardboard boxes and he was determined to hold and open them right there and then.  And of course, if I’d put the yellow boxes back and picked up some non-crayola-looking boxes, he’d've believed I was taking the non-existent crayons away from him.  I should have known not to buy the yellow cardboard boxes…

5.  I made a truly wretched lamb curry last night–absolutely bland despite the recipe turning my pots yellow with turmeric stain.  The Boy would keep commenting on its utter blandness/boringness/why-bother-eating-this-ness until he finally figured out I was not amused.  See, I’m not great at taking criticism. Never have been.  And especially about things that I’m used to doing well.  Like cooking.  So telling me that my curry sucks–even though I couldn’t agree more!–is just not likely to put me in a good mood. In fact, I got rather bitchy.  And when I did, he stopped the running commentary.  Just ate his blah curry and changed the subject.  Which I did really appreciate.

And it’s probably going to be a long time before I work up the nerve to try another lamb curry.

1. It’s been a rough morning in the Sprogblogger household.  Baby boy coughed so hard in the middle of his nap that he vomited.  Got him soothed back down to sleep and took his (and my) soiled clothing downstairs to wash it.  Dropped the load of yuckiness in the washing machine and somehow the washing machine lid bounced off of the back of the washer and dropped onto the bridge of my nose.  Nice bridge-of-the-nose cut, and I can feel it swelling even under the ice pack I’m holding to it.

Can we please get over this cold-that-never-ends & all the resultant ick that’s gone with it? Thanks.  In the words of my very wise son when he’s finished with a meal or being awake or riding in the car after a too-many-errands kind of day: “Done!  Done done done!”

2.  At least it’s not a black eye.  I look more like I was in a car accident than a victim of domestic violence.

3.  The baby did get back to sleep.

4.  I finally got around to buying him another sleepsack.  Sadly, it was in the wash at the time due to this morning’s amazing blueberry poo.

5.  I have fish stew to look forward to for lunch–so at least that’s a good thing…

Ugh.  Go-ig do go ice by doze again. 

1.  (21312 is also pretty cool, but this week’s going to be boring if I keep making note of all these fun dates.  Suffice it to say, I’m having a blast writing the date through much of February & let’s leave it at that!)  What’s REALLY nice though, is that even though my voice is shot, I’m definitely getting better rather than getting worse.  This winter cold just kicked my ass.  Henry’s on the mend too–so much so that we went to Library Storytime so he could play in the vicinity of other kids (if not actually with them.)  He had a very good time, as evidenced by the tears when I told him it was time to come home and take a nap.  And he was ready  for that nap as evidenced by the fact that he fell asleep in my arms–something he almost never does anymore.

(And yes, I took a few extra minutes of cuddling with my big boy before I put him in his crib!)

2.  Stew last night tasted so good.  Salty and rich, it’s not a difficult stew to make, but sometimes when I make it, it just doesn’t turn out.  Last night’s stew turned out just fine! Yum.

3.  Decaf chai tea by Celestial Seasonings, with a bit of Vanilla almond milk in it?  Wowza.  I’ve been trying to cut back on the caffeine–aided by this week’s no-coffee-because-it-sounds-horrible illness–and so this box of decaf chai has been beckoning to me.  Only thing is, I like sweetened chai.  Sweetened, milky chai.  And sweet + milk is a combo I’m trying to avoid.  But with almond milk, I don’t feel too guilty, since the calorie count isn’t too high, and it tastes–well, it tastes divine. I think I’m hooked.

4.  I have a poinsettia that’s still going strong, leftover from about Thanksgiving.  Enjoying it very much!

5.  Clouds moving fast across the sky, framed by old maple branches so that the sky flashes between blue and gray and white.  It’s windy.  The black branches are moving slightly, but not anything like the clouds.  Here comes the sun again, and there it goes.  The sky overhead is bright blue, and now it looks like a storm.  I’m supposed to be writing fiction or cleaning the house or doing some other Very Productive Thing and instead I’m just sitting at my kitchen table, astonished by this incredible display of light and shadow.

I might not get much done today, but I’ll sure enjoy every minute of my not-getting-stuff-done.

1.  Still grooving on the 21212 number-happiness of the date.

2.  This sickness is kicking my ass.  Henry’s got the lurgi, too, and is NOT happy about it.  Fortunately, the Boy has escaped nearly unscathed again.  Part of me wants to whine about it being unfair, two illnesses in a row, I’m the only adult suffering, not fair! not fair! But then he brings me another glass of orange juice and I’m awfully grateful that we’re not both laid out on the sofa.

Also pretty happy that Henry’s just rolling with the horrible non-productive cough that is this stage of the yech.  He wakes up, whimpers, coughs, chokes, goes back to sleep.  I went to him once last night–and in retrospect, I should have left him alone, because all he wanted to do was play with my hair and talk to the humidifier.  But it’s a blessing that he’s not as miserable as he could be with this.  And his sleep hasn’t been much disturbed–in fact, I put him down for his nap early because he was just so cranky.  Which made for an exasperating morning, but also made me so very grateful that he’s normally so even-tempered and fun to be around.

3.  My mom’s Seven-Hour Stew for dinner tonight.  It was 14* out when I got up this morning, and it’s not supposed to get much higher than 25*.  A stew night if there ever was one.

4.  The little red squirrels who have invaded my car, and made it stink like a little red squirrel’s outhouse are, at least, awfully cute.  They’re mini-squirrels–about the size of chipmunks, but most definitely not chipmunks.  And they’re aggressive and drive all the hulking grey squirrels away from their place.  When one of the lumbering greys decides he’s had enough and stops running away and turns around to run after  his pursuer, the little reds hop up into the wheelwell of my car and from there, presumably, into its innards where they have set up a nice little restroom for themselves.  I picture them huddled around a mirror, putting on their red squirrel make-up–rather like the scene in any middleschool girls’ restroom in the country–and gossiping about the stupid grey squirrels which are both the bane and the delight of their mischievous lives–rather like girls gossiping about boys in any middleschool girls’ restroom in the country.  Awfully cute, but I do wish they’d flush every so often…

5.  Henry has eaten 2 cherry tomatoes at dinner each night for the last three nights.  Success in reintroducing his beloved Toh-tohs, and it’s nice to be able to give him a treat without it affecting how we all sleep for the rest of the night.

And this photo is just because it’s adorable when you realize that it’s the Roomba he’s pointing at.  Vacuuming a room has now become his most eagerly anticipated activity of the day.  He is allowed to push the big green button that turns it on which makes him feel so very powerful that he’d like to just continue pushing its big green button for hours and occasionally has to be held back from doing just that.  When I won’t let him press the button again, he will instead very solemnly take me by the hand and lead me to where the Roomba is doing its roomba-thing.  “Roomba,” he’ll inform me.  “Green buh-buh.”  Yeah, I know, kiddo.  It’s pretty entrancing.   And you can turn it on again tomorrow.

And my floors have never been cleaner.

1. Another nice, semi-synchronous date. I will miss February, this year.

2. If everyone in the household had to get this sick, I’m really glad we managed to time it so there was always a designated not-really-healthy-but-not-on-the-brink-of-keeling-over adult in charge. Baby germs suck. Just sayin’.

3. Some replacement Signing Time DVDs arrived yesterday. Just in time for what promises to be a Rachel marathon day.

4. My step-nephew (which sounds goofy. Can I just say nephew?) got engaged yesterday to the lovely woman he’s been with for a couple of years. I couldn’t be happier for both of them!

5. Hen sounds horrible- rough breathing and a bit of wheezing. Happily it doesn’t seem to be bothering him much at all. Only time he gets upset is when I try to clean his nose. Hate baby germs. Really.

1.  Am I the last person in the world to discover these wonderful seaweed snacks? They’re crispy and waffer-thin so they’re crunchy and wasabi-flavored and I want to LIVE on these things (which would probably take approximately a semi-load-full because, really, there’s nothing to them.  Henry’s older sister introduced him to them over Christmas, and Whole Foods had them on sale and, well, they’re so yummy I’m certainly never going to be able to buy them again, because baby isn’t getting ANY at this rate.

2.  Craigslist is great.  We’ve been trying to find someone to take the old LPs that the previous owner of this house left here when she moved. No one wants ‘em. Not the Salvation Army, not used bookstores, not nobody.  Except, actually I had 7 responses to our ‘please come take these away’ ad within a half-hour, so SOMEONE wants them, apparently!  Anyway. Craigslist-Yay.  Having 12 boxes of records out of my way in the library?  YAYYYYY!!!!!

3.  Yesterday, which started out fairly productive & ok, quickly disintegrated into me moaning on the couch until the boy sent me to bed.  Feverish, shaking with chills, what IS this hell I have fallen into, sick twice in one month.  I imagine this is how the next six years of my life will be, every time the baby meets another child his age, they’ll need to exchange germs, and I’ll get all the leftovers?  Whatever. Blech.  However, not to make too light of it, but as long as I’m sick, it’s rather nice that it’s helping, not hindering my diet.  I mean, I’d rather struggle with weight-loss than feel wretched, but as long as I’m feeling wretched, nice that that equals weight loss & not gain–because really, how much would it suck if being sick-as-a-dog translated into weight gain?  Also, another nice thing? When I hauled my shivering ass (and neck and elbows) into bed, the dog tried her damnedest to make me feel better by licking my face determinedly.  While this did not, actually, make me feel better (and in fact made me feel a bit like I was suffocating) it was a nice gesture on her part.  And, cuddling with a sick baby is better than almost anything except cuddling with a not-sick baby.

4.  We found the perfect rescue whippet.  Sadly, he’s in Georgia, and therefore a little bit too inconveniently placed for him to be ours.  The silver lining? The Boy has offered several times to drive down there, pick up the dog and drive back.  I wouldn’t let him do such a thing, of course. But the fact that he’s offered?  Repeatedly? It basically means I’m married to the most wonderful man in the world.  I am so very lucky.

5.  I think Henry’s finally starting to want to nap a bit later than 11am.  He’s still playing quietly up there and it’s already 11:45.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll let him wait til 11:30 before I bring him upstairs.  The logistics of planning our day-to-day lives will be a lot easier when his afternoon nap begins in, say, the afternoon.

1.  Loving the date. Because I’m a geek.

2.  Having a talking baby is a hoot.  He comes out with the weirdest words/combinations of sounds, and when I guess what he’s trying to say?  I get this beaming grin, just replete with happiness that he’s managing to communicate with mama.  Poinsettias = popopopo.  Daffodils = dadohdih.  So adorable.  Last night, I got cranky with the dog because she was grabbing brussels sprouts out of his free-ranging-baby hands during dinner.  Told her in no uncertain terms to ‘Back off!’  Went to get another bs on my fork and looked up to see him disappearing around the corner into the kitchen–walking backwards, of course!  When I caught his eye he dissolved into giggles, and the dog assumed all was forgiven and snuck back over to retrieve the sprout from the fork I was waving helplessly as I laughed.  Kid knows when he’s being adorable (and so does the dog.)

3.  Hen still needs a good bit of ‘warm up’ in order to be properly tickled.  Just tickling him doesn’t produce much besides a confused baby, but telling him, “I’m coming to TICKLE you!” can make him collapse with laughter–the tickly fingers are just icing on the cake.  Lately, he’s been wanting to be tickled a lot.  To the point that when he catches his breath after a round of tickling, he’ll demand “more!” “more!” “more!” which is funny, but it’s even funnier when I refuse to chase him, and instead demand that he needs to come to  me if he wants to be tickled. And all this for a kid who isn’t actually particularly ticklish. Awfully silly, though.

4.  My sourdough bread came out beautifully!  Made a loaf-pan loaf & a round loaf, and they both rose beautifully.  I think my next batch, I’ll proof one more time to try to eke a bit more sourness out of it, but it was delish even relatively sweet.  Perfect interior texture, and I think if I get a spray bottle for the water (instead of just brushing it on with a bristle brush) I’ll be able to perfect the crust as well.  SO PLEASED WITH MYSELF RIGHT NOW!  Now all I have to do is exercise enough restraint not to eat it all.  Which will be difficult.

5.  When my adorable boy tries to smack me as a punishment for being unwilling to read his new favorite book to him for the (literally) 18th time since breakfast, do I laugh or cry–given that the book in question is Hands are Not for Hitting?

1.  First off, thank you everyone who had book suggestions.  We’re heading to the library for baby time in a couple of hours & I’ll see what they have/what they can get for me.

2.  YAY! A couple of moms at the library invited us to their weekly playtime date on Wednesday!  Since it’s Henry’s favorite kids from library-day, I’m delighted!  Local Mom-Friends, woohoo!

3.  However, I’ve never seen Henry so tired as he was today.  He wanted to hold his library books. Even while I was taking off his coat and putting him in his sleeper-blanket–which obviously wasn’t working out for him.  Then he tried gulping his bottle, which choked him and made him cry. Then he wanted to hld the books, and Bunny and his bottle.  This also didn’t work.  He fell asleep mid-sob, without finishing his desperately clutched bottle, and I was able to slip the books out of his clutches and ease him into bed without so much as a whimper. Phew.

4.  Despite the warmer house last night, Henry woke up at about 2am.  I laid down with him, and while he didn’t fuss or fidget, it took him almost an hour to fall asleep again–he just lay there with his eyes open, not doing anything, (but also not sleeping.)  When he tried to engage me in conversation, I just told him it was sleepytime and he was ok with that. But no sleep.  What gives? The lying-down-with-him thing is ok, because I can doze, and I don’t get more tired, but I’d really like to get back to sleeping all night long in my own bed.  Also, when I came back to bed, I was initially irritated that the Boy had scooted all the way over from his side of the giant king sized bed to sleep on my side.  When I shoved him so I could get in bed, I realized I’d mistaken the dog for him.  She was the one lying on my side of the bed, under the covers, with her head on my pillow, happily snuggled up to my husband.  Jerk dog.  I need to train her to go keep the baby company…

5.  Watched True Grit last night to celebrate being able to stream video on our new TV (we’ve rented the DVD a few times and our old player kept getting hung up on something on the disc. Frustrating) and–to my surprise–loved the movie.  Was warned about the ultra-violence, (and yeah, there was that thing with the fingers that was pretty awful, and that poor horse!), but really, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  And I loved the main character.  Talk about a kick-ass heroine…

Sixteen months, and I feel like I should say something about “my, how the time has flown,” but honestly, it’s hard to really honestly remember a time when you were not the center of everything–if not you you, the at least the idea of you. I will say that I still can’t believe how lucky I am that you’re in my world. Every day that I wake up and you’re there–even if I’m waking up at 3am with your stomach flu!–is the best day ever, the best day yet.

Any worries we once had about your slowness to speak have been assuaged and then some. You talk. You love to talk. And between the words you can say, the words you can sign, and your delight when we ask you questions you can answer with a nod or a head shake, you’re communicating quite nicely these days given how few sounds you’re actually enunciating clearly.

Da-da; Mama; Bampa (grandpa); Ahnna (you’re trying SO hard to say Alie!); Ne-Ne; dog; car; duck; truck; van; tow truck; on; off; roller; arrow; knee; arm; elbow; eyes; hat; bun (bunny); book; burrrrrr (burrito); bean; blue; green; brown; black; bum; dada dada (which you’ve decided means popcorn. Papa-corn?); hot; tea; beh buh (belly button); pen; baaaa (bath); clock; more; done; down; up; bow; Hen; pea; crayon.

I’m sure there are more and I’m just not thinking of them. Obviously you’re still not really doing S,L,W, or any long vowels at all (ooooh, ohhhh, eeeeee, iiiiiii) I’m assuming that once you figure out which combination of breath and tongue movements create the sounds you want that you will be unstoppable. In the meantime I’m enjoying your creativity. Clacking your tongue means “helicopter”, apparently, and your animal sounds are getting impressively realistic and loud.

And your receptive language skills are downright impressive. You know your colors and shapes and body parts and animals, you can follow quite complicated instructions, and you’re clever about signing to clarify things you don’t quite understand. Watching you process the world is incredibly fascinating. There are days when it feels like I’m watching lightbulbs go off over your head all day long.

And you’re developing quite the sense of humor. Besides thinking that ‘pukey’ is the funniest word in the English language, you’ve also learned that it can be fun to play the clown. When you inadvertently sat down on the floor instead of the stairstep you were aiming for and I–just as accidentally–laughed at the look of surprise on your face, you repeated the action five or six times, just to make me laugh.

If you had your way I would do everything with you, be your constant companion and accomplice in petty, grape-stealing crime. And it’s tempting to do just that, even as I know that you have to learn to do some things on your own (like fall asleep! Dear lord, you have to learn to fall asleep on your own!) But this time right now is so sweet, so precious, especially since I know it won’t last forever no matter what I do.

So I let you take my hand and lead me away from my coffee and my unread paper. You show me the place our Christmas tree was. You remind me that you love grapes and Bunny and Daddy and me. You hug me as hard as you can around my legs, trapping me in your embrace, unable to walk away, to get on with the cleaning or the writing or the cooking that I thought I really needed to do. And I realize that, actually, there’s nothing in the world I’d rather be doing, nothing that’s more important than this.

I love you more than Christmas trees, little boy. More than grapes and hot wheel cars. More than clocks that light up. More than cardboard tubes for rolling marbles. I love you more than Bunny. I love you more than anything.

1.  Yesterday’s “meet-up” with MeKate & a couple of her friends was lovely. Had such a good time, enjoyed the company of other moms & toddlers so much–I really do need to make some local friends so that Henry can enjoy the company of kids as much as he enjoys the company of adults. (Plus there was pumpkin bread.  Yum!)

2.  Although waking up to a dead furnace was a bummer, having the gas company actually show up to fix it before noon was lovely. And the cold house was the needed impetus for me to go buy a couple of little electric heaters, since this is the second time this has happened this winter.  Old house + Oil heat = lots & lots of issues.

3.  Henry was so worn out from yesterday’s excitement that he fell asleep in the car on the way home (<10 minutes) from the grocery store.  He sleepily drank some warm milk (which I gave him as much to keep him warm in the cold house as to feed him) and then stayed mostly asleep while I put him to bed.  Yay for the magical powers of a warm car on a cold toddler!

4.  It’s a stroganoff night tonight.  Warm, hearty, noodly.  Yum.

5.  Very clear and crisp outside, today. The sky is very blue, and distinct somehow. Like an entity instead of just a backdrop for everything.  And although I was planning to wait until the first big snow to fill birdfeeders, the chickadees clinging to the windowsill this morning may have convinced me otherwise.  Happy winter, birdies!