Jacob crawls

Apologies for being so behind; dude's been crawling for three weeks now. Here is a sample of his increasingly speedy and agile mobility, including his new trick, that of following us in and out of rooms. To get to where he is, he crawled all the way down the hall towards the sound of Big Brother's voice.

The rootin'est, tootin'est toddler in the wild wild West

I realize it's hard to pick out Isaac amidst all the clutter in his room, but perhaps, if you look hard, you can see him sporting his new Halloween costume.






(I was quite certain the bonk at the end there was Jacob plastering his face against some hard surface in Isaac's room YET AGAIN. It wasn't. Just a huge board book that he decided belonged on the floor instead of the table.)

Anyway, Isaac likes the costume. A lot. There was much screaming when it was time to remove it, but we all know that Sheriff Woody simply doesn't sleep in his hat and boots when he takes a nap.

Isaac's first rainbow

Playing outside with my boys always makes me feel better when I'm in a bad mood. Starbucks does the same, but "outside" is free. So after Starbucks tonight (bah-dump CHISH!), Dada said he might like to work a bit, and I suggested that we could head to campus -- he could get things done more quickly at his office than at home, and I could walk around with the fellas. Isaac never tires of visiting the water fountain. He calls it the "water mountain", and no amount of repetitive "fffffffountain!"ing in his direction will convince him otherwise.

It had rained off and on all afternoon, so we were totally pressing our luck. But being outside right at dusk, where the boys and I could watch the sunset together and take in the new crispness that early fall evenings bring, was worth a shot. Even if somebody had to blast a dookie right in the middle of campus.

(But Mommy gets her revenge! I caught the episode in pictures to gross out future prom dates! I'm so sorry if you think this is gross, or exploitative, but it also neatly illustrates our problem with potty-training right now -- he is so aware of when he has to go #2, but is completely unwilling to make that experience into the spectacle necessary for getting him on the potty.)

Here he is, beginning his poopoo routine, making a huge scene of suddenly not wanting to be around anyone. "I go over here!" he exclaims. "Mommy, you stay right there!"


And then he goes and hides behind a bench to get the job done.


Because I have all the right equipment and no shame whatsoever, I changed his poopoo dipe right there on the bricks next to the fountain. Nobody was there to scope out my little boy's parts or anything, and I used Jakey's (washable) sling as a changing pad. We totally fly by the seats of our pants at the O'Neal household.

Isaac enjoyed running himself around and around the water mountain...


...while I let Crawly McCrawlerton explore the area around water mountain in his own way.




We ran around the green a little before it started raining again. As we headed back, the heavens greeted my little toddler with his first rainbow.


Outside does a special double-duty, too. It's late late late all that running around is helping everyone to sleep well. Well, everyone except the momma and her inexplicable insomnia.

Piling it on

A combination of recent events has conspired to make be go bat-poo insane, so much so as to drown myself in TV and a wee sip of beer each night and prevent me from blogging. Each of these individually? Not life-wrecking. But imagine with me, if you will, the bat-poo synergy of these evil forces working together.

---

1) Our cell phone plan was up about six months ago, but, being lazy, we didn't do anything about it. But here we were, in Delaware a year now, still with Seattle phone numbers. Finally we decided we should do something about it and get new phones. I called and cancelled; our Seattle phone numbers died on the 16th, may they rest in peace, and may the people who continue to call some ho named Monica at all hours of the night get an automated message and not an angry Claire. We comparison-shopped for new phones and found the best deals, by far, on Amazon.com. Did you even know they sold phone plans? I didn't. And we were both getting those sultry new Motorola PEBLs for less than free! Score!

I ordered our new phones and plan on September 9th. My delivery date has been revised twice. This time they're telling me the phones should have shipped today (on Sunday???) for delivery Wednesday. Have they shipped? No. Can I cancel my order? NO. Are we suffering from serious cell phone withdrawal? Youbetcha.

2) Our promo with Comcast for our cable modem/digital cable was up on September 11th. We vowed that we would cancel our cable modem and get DSL. Now we have had DSL for 10 days, but it sits in a box. Dada thought about installing it today, but then he learned that I signed us up for the super-slowsky kind and revolted. We decided now that we should try the cable modem/digital cable/digital voice package for $99 from Comcast and ditch our phone line altogether, especially since our landline, with no long distance plan (since we do all our long-distance calling on our cell phones!), costs $37/mo with taxes. You can imagine all the unsavory time I will be spending on the phone tomorrow when the babysitter is here, instead of doing things I really need to do, like bake more cookies.

3) I signed on to write another children's book with my publisher. This one is longer, but should (in theory) be more fun and a little easier. However, it does require me, as the other one did, to go to the library and do some research. When is this supposed to happen? When did I have time to do the other one? I don't remember anymore.

4) Our house is a filthy sty, in one part because of Jacob's love of flinging his food and Cheerios every which way, in one part because Isaac still enjoys emptying toy boxes just for fun, and in part because I never get around to vacuuming. The worst part is our spider infestation. When we turned the air conditioning on at the beginning of summer, we thought it would be energy-wise of us to close the storm windows. Over the course of the summer, they have slowly slid open on the top, creating a tidy little house for every spider in the neighborhood to come and display themselves to us in all their creepy bug-catching and egg-laying glory. We have put off their eradication because as long as the inside windows stay shut, they can't get in. Now that it's fall and it's becoming entirely appropriate to fling those windows wide open and enjoy the crisp breeze, our spider problem requires action.

Now, don't worry. All these spiders are perfectly friendly and non-poisionous -- mostly wolf spiders grown freakishly huge and scary-looking from their summer of feasting in their perfect window-boxy habitat. But who on earth would look forward to opening up the windows for the sole purpose of playing Whack-a-Spider, with the potential of letting one or five in?

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Dada and I are dyed-in-the-wool procrastinators. Perhaps you note a theme here, that of our procrastination yielding a stiff bite in the patoot. Usually I can deal with that. But let's also tack on to the pile the fact that my stay-at-home-mommy skills, like an out-of-warranty computer, require resetting every two months, accomplished by a visit from somebody, anybody to shake up our routine and help me watch the babies for at least a couple consecutive days. We anticipated visitors coming this past week, but plans fell through. I notice myself getting worn out more quickly and not being as patient with Isaac, and I can work with that. We can bring the sitter over twice a week instead of the zero times a week we've been doing. But that would only be treating the symptoms. The problem remains.

Send grandparents now!

International House of Pumpkins

Today was a stellar fall day -- the perfect temperatures, with just a hint of crispness in the air. After a hard day of work trying to keep one screaming boy from accidentally killing his screaming baby brother, we needed something, preferably free, to amuse ourselves this evening with no Dada around. Isaac suggested "the farm". Hey, we've only been there once already this week, said I. Let's totally do it.

They both climbed on the truck today. Jacob was wriggling in his stroller, so I thought I'd let him chase Big Brother through the play structures. It had, after all, been more than an hour since Isaac had committed some sort of aggression towards him.




We went pretty late in the evening, getting there shortly before 6. They close up shop at 7, so there was no one there except the owner/farmer, the employees, and the farmer's daughter. She was about 8, and took an instant liking to Isaac. She had some very child-friendly farm dogs, Buster and Weenie, and she helped Isaac "walk" Weenie around the farm yard. She asked if we wanted to try out their corn maze, that she would give us a guided tour through. Isaac (and the puppies) were totally down and had a blast running the trail through and getting super muddy. I tried my best to get a great picture of these Children of the Corn, but they were moving too fast. This is all you get.



It was so cute to see Isaac interacting with this girl. She really listened to him and could understand what he was saying. I think he would have jumped off a cliff if she asked him to.

She used to be Lifeguard Barbie

Isaac's babysitter, Meghan, came over this morning. Lately with him it's kind of a mixed bag when she comes over. I am trying to remember to have her over once a week so he (and Jacob) can get used to the absence of Mommy for two hours at a time. When she comes over regularly, he's all "Bye, Mommy, we go play in the sandbox now!" When she doesn't, it's hard for him to stay out of whatever room I am in.

(Because yes, I am a loser, and I very rarely leave the house when the sitter is here. Mostly I use that time to clean without anklebiters trying to eat the cat food.)

Today was an excellent day for he and Meghan. Jacob was uber-fussy, so I took him the whole time (when he wasn't sleeping, anyway). It was painfully obvious how excited Isaac was to have an adult's attentions all to himself. When she left, he kept asking where she was going. "She has to go to school, buddy," I told him. He didn't seem too upset about it.

30 minutes after she left, he came up to me doing his thespian cry.

"Boo-hoo-hoo," he said. "I crying."
"Why are you crying, buddy?" said I.
"I can't find my Meghan-toy. She's LOST! Boo-hoo-hoo!"

A love/hate relationship with food

Feeding Jacob solids is going extremely well. Looking at my fat baby, you are probably not surprised to know that he greets all foods with great pleasure and an equal diligence to consume them as quickly as possible. We started out fruity -- bananas, applesauce, peaches, prunes, mixed berries -- and tried out some carrots along the way. The past week we discovered that he is just as happy to suck down some vegetables, including peas. He loves squash perhaps more than anything. Especially warmed.

In the baby books and all over the internet, you can learn lots about how to feed your baby. They even suggest that it might take a long time, and that it might be messy. But (much like parenting itself) you never realize just how extreme in those adjectives things can go until you are, literally, in the thick of it.

I give you... "messy".

{prunes)


(peas)

I'm only showing you what's above the tray, not what's buried in his clothes, under his butt, or on the floor. I'm also not showing you the terrible food aftermath, what it does to his skin. The prunes gave him a face rash. They were too caked-on and sticky to get off right away, and they mischievously sat and irritated his cheek chub. With any pureed food, he requires almost instantaneous wiping-off or he explodes in contact rashes. Nothing serious, mind you, not that it ever even bothers him (and his poor brother, who was fed a bunch at day care, endured cheek rashes until he was feeding himself), but it makes his cheeks very slightly less pinchable. If that's possible.

It usually takes Jacob about 30 minutes to reach critical fuss while strapped in his high chair; this is how I gather he's done. He takes so long because he mostly insists on feeding himself. While he does enjoy shoveling his baby food in his mouth with his hands (as well as painting his tray with it), usually his smooshy foods are supplemented by appropriate finger foods, like Cheerios or those Gerber puffs, but he also wants what's on your plate, like noodles from big brother's soup, or bits of cooked green bean or carrot. Some of these go in his mouth. Most of them are scooped up in his ample grubby fists, held far over the side of his chair, and then observed with calculation and intensity as they are purposefully dropped towards the floor.


While 30 minutes does not sound like forever, and, with just one to feed, really would not be bad at all, I must remind you of the dragging of time brought about by relativity when there is another young person thrown in the mix. During this eternity, which I must spend planted in a seat in front of Jacob's to either keep it coming or keep him from choking, poor Isaac is collapsed in a heap from the sheer injustice of being ignored for so many minutes at one stretch. This week has been hard on him, because now we are feeding Jacob twice a day. At dinner it is pretty easy -- we all eat at the table together, and Isaac has that Daddy-figure all to himself. But breakfast is something else. Mostly I ask the Heroes to babysit for me while I feed Jacob. Sometimes we eat together at the kitchen table, or I coerce Isaac into snacking or coloring to pass the time. But sometimes he cries from in his room as Jake and I are mid-jar, "Mommy, come play with Isaac? Please please please?" And just who is supposed to feed Jacob when his Mommy is being stabbed through the heart?

In short, the big-people food? Jacob loves it. I hate it.

Of course it wouldn't be simple

Apparently with our internet move have come some hitches. Our pictures don't seem to be loading properly, and for some reason, you can't access the archives either (even though they're right...there...?!?!?!?!?!?!).

I was using the program hello to post my pictures, which is nice because it works seamlessly with Picasa and also enables people to view larger blowups of the pictures on the blog. But it appears this is not working when the blog isn't hosted at the blogspot address. The most straightforward, guaranteed-to-work solution is to replace all pictures with universally accessible URLs from, say, shutterfly. I'll be trying to do this today, because why on earth would you visit my blog if it had no pictures? But I'd really prefer to keep my situation with hello because it's what I know and love. Suggestions?

Let's not even start on the archive situation. I have no idea how to fix that. Does anyone else blog with Blogger and have any advice to offer?

**update: Archives work now. That was pretty simple. As for the pictures, it looks like I have to wade back through them and turn them all into something not associated with hello or blogger. As Jacob would say, "PFLLFLBBBBLT". Thank you for your patience.

**update 2: Because I'm slow, I just figured out I can blog my pictures from Flickr. I tried this out with the latest post (above). I know some folks back home like to print out the pix from the blog; if you click on the pictures, it will take you to them on Flickr and you can print them out really, really huge.

Down on the farm, Periwinkle-style

Remember back in the day when we met the Baltimorian bloggers in real life? That was fun. So we did it again, but this time on our turf -- the orchard, baby, yeah! The Periwinkle family joined us for a morning of fun in the sun. This time, the Baby Human and his mom were "too tired" and stayed away. Maybe we smell? I thought it was just the goats, but I could be wrong. I totally showered yesterday.

Isaac had a fantabulous time showing Ryan around the farm. They did everything there was to do. Like adorable little deer flies, they were, flitting from this attraction to that, so fast that we didn't get *too* many pictures. They played in the pumpkin house, on the wooden airplane and train, on the huge statue of a cow, in Johnny Appleseed's school house (and got a lecture from Mr. A himself on integrated pest management! Thrilling!), with the barnyard critters, and especially in the sandbox. It was a gorgeous day to be outside, and a great place to be a toddler. Here are the highlights.

Ryan and Isaac making a lame attempt to stand together for a posed picture near some hay (as in, Look! Hay! We must be at the farm!)



At the helm of the wooden choo-choo (with an interloper named Dalton, yes, as in atomic-weight-style Dalton):



But the biggest hit, by far, was the sandbox. Luckily there were matching dump trucks.





Ryan, literally, got outside the box with his. A forward thinker, that young man. Isaac soon followed suit, and repeatedly insisted that his dump truck belonged near the apple trees and not in or around the sand box.



Even the babies were into the sandbox action. Lily got in the thick of it for a second or two:



Knowing from experience that putting Jacob in the sandbox would quickly equal fistfuls of sand in his mouth, I sat him on the nearby grass to watch the elder boys. Because fistfuls of grass are marginally acceptable. Better for the colon.





We had a wonderful time with the exceedingly lovely Periwinkle children and their mommy. Thanks for driving all that way to hang with us, guys! We hope to return the favor sometime soon.

The internet equivalent of ADT

At long last, I've gotten off my tushy and password-protected our little family blog. To do that, however, we're making a little move. Please follow our continued adventures at thoseonealboys.com.

Evidence...

...that Jacob really does have teeth. Two perfect, little, bottom ones.



...that he really can pull himself up to standing (and thus get all up in Big Brother's grill), as demonstrated on his favorite prop for the task, the bathtub.

Feeding cues

As a new parent, you expect that you and your baby might be able to communicate a little without words. That you could, with time, get to know your baby enough to understand that a certain kind of cry means "I'm hungry". That, when you hold your young nursling and he dives for your chest, you come to realize that he may require some boobie juice.

Last night as I prepped for big-people dinner, Jacob was getting a little fussy as Big Brother and he played in the kitchen. Suddenly, he stopped his whining and made a slow, steady, crawling beeline for the open door of the pantry. Jacob oh-so-politely let me know he was hungry by climbing up on the wholesale club box of Cheerios, shaking it violently, and letting out his best baby-lion roars in my direction.

He's not subtle, that fat boy of mine.

Jacob's "6 month" appointment

About a week from his seventh month-day, the J-monster had a check-up. First, the tale of the tape: our resident bruiser weighed in at 21 lbs 5 oz, and stretches out to 28-1/4 inches long. Both measurements are in the 95th percentile. We snigger a little hearing these numbers. One of Jacob's best buddies, 19-month-old Ella, had her 18-month check-up at the same time as he. Guess who weighs more? (Hint! It's not Ella!)

This time I actually asked my pediatrician if there was a concern with Jacob being such a big man, with his constant dwelling in that "uncharted" 95th percentile area. She said that concern would arise if he was not growing according to the all-controlling Curve, if he was shooting off into the growth stratosphere or if he was flatlining. As he is following The Curve like a champ, she has no worries at all.

She was impressed to know that he had been crawling, like real crawling, no more of this army-nonsense, for a couple of days. In fact, while we were waiting for her in the examination room, the two brothers and I enjoyed a rousing game of Let's Crawl Like We're Kitties to pass the time. His crawling is the main reason for my lack of blogging lately. After a whole day of chasing Sir Crawlyfoot from room to room, and keeping his little pudge-hands out of the cat food dish, I am just beat and want nothing more than my own soothing teat of Project Runway reruns. Like all parenting challenges, this new existence wherein one juggles not one but two mobile children will take a bit of getting used to.

After a discussion of Jacob's eating habits (summed up in three words, "a lot" and "Cheerios"), Dr. M then launched into a minor tsk-ing of me that I am not trying to sleep-train Jacob yet. He should be sleeping through the night, she said. He doesn't need to eat in the night, she said. Because I am a weenie, all I said to her is, Okay, lady. BUT he is just like his brother. AND we tried ev-er-y-thing to get his brother to sleep through the night, and nothing worked.

What I really meant was: You want me to let him scream, this baby whose room's door is 4 feet from his perfectly-slumbering older brother? This baby whose insomniac father awakens when Jacob screams, even if they are on different floors of the house? It's all fine and lovely that you could sleep train your two children, Dr. M, in your palatial doctor-style mansion. We will not be doing that here at the O'Neal Trailer of Love.

But she does bring to mind that he is almost seven months old and is nursing to sleep almost every night. We could at least try to help him fall asleep without the boobie. But please, first let me work on mastering these new skills thrust upon me, that of feeding Jacob twice a day, and the whole chasing-the-crawling-baby thing. Then we will talk about the sleep issues.

Heads up when you're driving next to George the Green Car

Mommy, Daddy, Isaac, and Jakey are in the car driving around town. Mommy and Daddy are chatting. Isaac interrupts.

Isaac: Mommy, get my ball.

Mommy: We say 'please' when we ask people to do things.

Isaac: Mommy, please have my ball?

Mommy: (turning around to view the wide selection of balls lying around in the back seat) Which ball? This red one?

Isaac: Yes. Red one. Please please please?

Mommy: Here you go, buddy. (hands Isaac a red soccer ball)

Isaac: THANK you.

(pause)

Isaac: Mommy, open my window? Please please please?

Because "Sun"? That's just too Egyptian.

Isaac requires that everything have a name. Not just people, every THING, too. He'll pester you without relent until you come up with a person-style name for every creature or object he comes across. Here is the typical dialog.

Isaac: What's this?
Mommy: (playing dumb) I don't know. What do you think it is?
Isaac: That's a cow. Know his name?
Mommy: Uh...uh...Clarence the Cow.
Isaac: (with complete certainty) Clarence the Cow. You right, mommy.

That crab? He's Carl the Crab. The squishy toy frog? Freddie the Frog. Our car? George. George the Green Car. Sometimes I'll mix it up and go with descriptors instead of "names", such as Spot the Dog, Stripey the Fish, or Fluffy the Kitty Cat. This appeases him also. I know I'm not the brightest apple to fall from the tree, but you would be surprised the mental effort it takes to name every single thing in sight something different, and also something different from characters we know from TV and real life.

Yesterday we were driving home after picking Daddy up from work, and the sun shone its pain-rays down on Isaac in his car seat.

Isaac: Daddy, the sun's burning my eyes.
Daddy: Oh? Are you okay, buddy?
Isaac: Yes, I okay. (pause) Know his name?
Daddy: Whose name?
Isaac: Sun. Know his name?
Daddy: Buddy, the sun's name is just "Sun."
Isaac: Know his name?
Daddy: Sun. "Sun" is the sun's name.
Isaac: Know his name?
(Mommy and Daddy ignore endless-loop Isaac for a second to chat together)
Isaac: Barry. Barry the Sun. Right!

Killing time

How Mommy cleans the house now that Jacob can crawl well enough to sneak a taste of the cat food (or the new fave, Big Brother's Shoes!) before I can stop him.




Bless you, Fisher-Price Aquarium. Bless you.

Where to find all the cute boys

After working a bit, Dada flatly insisted we spend late afternoon on Labor Day at a park. First we stopped at Wawa to get the grownups some coffee, and then we hit our favorite playground. I treated Seen-yor Blue Eyes to his very first ride in the baby swings. He dug it.





Goodness me, if he isn't getting so blonde. Where did all that brown hair go, hrm?

Dada helped Isaac navigate the more rough-and-tumble of the playground equipment.




That was before he showed Dada his new park obsession -- sitting on the benches. And I mean trying them all out with his little tush. "Let's go sit on DIS bench, Mommy!" "Don't you want to go play on the ladder, Isaac?" "No, I sit here." Those quirky toddler types.

If Big Brother stands up, why can't I?

Jacob, in a big dern hurry to do whatever Big Brother is doing, pulled himself up to a standing position today. He'd been working on this new task for a few days now, usually on Big Brother's homemade train table (pictured here). While sitting, he'd plop his chunky little arms on the table's surface and then sloooooooowly drag himself to where he was "standing" on his knees. He couldn't quite figure out how to get those floppy little feet where they were supposed to be, and attempts to stand on them while they were tilted at various ugly angles only resulted in horrible little purple streak-bruises where he'd bonk his head on the table's edge.

This evening he figured it all out while we were, of all places, in the bathtub. Now, before you ring up CPS, I must describe to you our "new" bathtub routine. About 6 weeks ago, Sir Fatty Fatness outgrew the much-loved ducky tub and thusly graduated to baths in the Big Boy Tub. He could not yet sit up, and we are too lazy to buy any of these fancy bath-chairs or whathaveyou, so I climbed in there with him. He sat between my legs and got all scrubbed up with no concern about him sloshing this way and that. At first, he seriously disliked this new bathtub thing, so to make him more at ease, we reverted to our old tactics of bathing everyone at the same time. Though a little more crowded, this was less complicated than before, because with all three of us in the tub I really can bathe everyone at once. Jakey is constantly entertained by Isaac and his tub toy productions, and Isaac, well, he entertains himself, and usually doesn't make threatening advances towards Baby Brother. And so far there have been no dookies. Everybody wins!

Tonight, we lingered in the tub a bit playing with Isaac's new Toy Story bath toys, bought in a moment of weakness when we hit "The Mickey Store" during our mall-walk today. Jacob noticed the edge of the tub and started climbing it, hoisting his girth slowly up the wall, with my hands constantly at the ready in case he should slip. He didn't. His little wayward feet finally figured out what to do and found their way flat to the floor of the tub. Soon he was standing straight up, looking to and fro as if he'd been doing it all along.

Next stop? The coffee table!

Happy baby? Or crazed, escaped circus monkey?

Here's Jacob doing his favorite "Dude, I'm totally so excited" dance. And he doesn't calm down for the brother-brother interaction at the end.

Sgt. Jakey's new trick

You would think lugging around all that mass would have taken him longer to figure out. He's been doing this for the last week, and doing it well for the last couple of days.




He surprised me two days ago by traversing the entire diagonal length of the kitchen to get at the cat food. He's also begun eyeballing the stairs that lead from the kitchen to the laundry room/basement stairs. Let the serious babyproofing begin!