Dharma Doll

Wow, the past couple of months have really slipped away from me. It was just warm and beachy, then all of a sudden it was Halloween (he was Daruma), and now it's Thanksgiving. And he'll be two (TWO!) on Saturday. Time really does fly when you're having fun.

Zephyr is growing so fast, both cognitively and physically, and I can barely keep up. In the past two months he's gone from using maybe 20 or so words to 100 words, and is starting to form sentences. He's finally catching up. Our favorite latest development is his contraction of "yes, please" to just "yep." We still ask him to say please, but "yep" is pretty cute. I've listed the rest of his words at the bottom of this post for posterity and record-keeping.

He's finally entered the part of his speech development where he is copying and repeating words in addition to his normal attempts at talking. We try to model proper speech by repeating back to him what he's trying to say. For example, if he says "apeas! apeas!" while standing next to the horse, we say "I want up please!" Oh, by the way, any four-legged ungulate is 'moose.' Horse is moose. Elk is moose. Deer is moose. At home he has an Ikea rocking moose, so we blame the Swedes for this one.

Also, in a tragic case of "Who's on First," Zephyr is calling a lot of things "mine." He doesn't necessarily think they belong to him, it's just that when I hold my coffee and say "this coffee is mine. that water is yours," he thinks "oh, she said that cup of coffee is called 'mine'". He doesn't assign the ownership to the word 'mine', he just thinks it's a label. I guess all kids probably do this, but when this clicked for me it was kind of a revelation. It's always nice to know that our kids aren't totally narcissistic sociopaths.

Zephyr loves trying to jump. It's still really more of a stilted gallop, and his vert totally sucks, but it's adorable watching him try. He also loves doing barrel rolls on the carpet and walking up and down stairs and his little step-stool.

He's starting to mellow out a bit, but last month was challenging, with lots of mood swings. These photos were taken within 30 seconds, during which time he went from sheer ecstasy:

to rage:

I guess he didn't like the silly faces I was making at him after all.

Since the end of September, we've been members of Eastside Family Co-op; it's a part-time day care that is run entirely by parents. He goes three mornings a week, including one with me. It's been really nice for me to have two mornings a week to myself to get work done (or just catch my breath, increasingly), and he gets lots of solid playtime with other kids his age. It's just 1.5 months to 3.5 year olds, so he's right in the middle developmentally. He's really thriving there.

Zephyr's friendships at Co-op are starting to blossom. He loves to hug and kiss his little friends, which sends my cute overload meter soaring. He went through a bit of a hitting phase at around the time we started, but fortunately it was very short-lived.

He's starting to become aware of the potty, or at least the bathroom. He goes into the bathroom whenever the door is open, points at the toilet and says "pee. boop." I know it'll be coming soon, but I guess I just haven't felt like pushing it. I ask him if he wants to go potty and he's already out the door and onto something else.

All of these new tricks are amazing, but it's also becoming very apparent that Zephyr isn't a baby anymore. I actually have to learn how to parent him now, to help him become the best person he can be. It's really scary to know that I, alone, could fuck this kid up completely if I don't do this right. I'm reading every book out there, and have really found the Positive Discipline techniques valuable. I'll probably be taking at least one class to help retrain me. I get really worried about my ability to do this when my knee-jerk reaction is to yell, and I know he deserves better, so I'm just working as hard as I can. As one mom at Co-op likes to say, "it's a process."

Aybee Seedy

Long time, sorry. What's been going on: Zephyr has had a few visits with Holly, his speech therapist (though at this age, the "therapy" is really about repeatedly labeling objects and sounds in a way that's not too pushy or exhausting for him). I think it's going well, but I also am becoming more convicted in my thinking that he really is just a little late, and will actually be just fine.

His obsession with cars is, thankfully, starting to transfer to letters of the alphabet. He's fascinated with letters, and flashcards, and letter magnets. He can say a few of the letters: I (his favorite), O, E, A, Y, S, M and D; he holds up the B and says "zzzz." Because that's the sound a bee makes. The rest of the letters, he usually just says "E" because that's as close as he can get to making the sound.

I tend to forget that his receptive language skills are just fine because his expressive language is lagging, so just for fun I decided to test his knowledge. I hold up a book and starting with an easy one, ask him, "where's the I?" He points to it. "C?" I know he can't say that one, so I'm pleased when he points to it. And H, and J, and Q. He can read all of the letters. Little genius has been holding out on us.

He does have a few new words (mostly bullshit ones, but still):

• bye (bus; or bye, if waving)
• die (car)
• die-die (truck or airplane)
• dee (train)
• nana (banana)
• brr (anything that is marginally wet or cold)
• no (no)
• mo (more; also uses signs for more and please)
• moon (for moon or sun, or any picture of a celestial body)
• ow (owl)
• nummynummy (yummy)
• buhbuhbuhbuh (bubbles)
• Dada (Daddy)
• Mama (music to my ears)

He'll be starting co-op day care in a couple weeks, which will be great for us. It's family-run, for kids 18 months to three years old, and is really nice. I'll be there with him one morning a week, and he'll be there without me two mornings a week. I'll get a break to work, he'll get to be out of the house and around other kids his age (which will undoubtedly help his speech development), and everyone wins. We got our official welcome email today, and couldn't be happier.

Riding the train at Seaside was marginally less thrilling for him than the carousel ride.

And we had our first family trip to the beach last week! Grandma was in town and we rented a little house in Seaside called the Lobster House. It was wonderful to be in the salt air and sunshine, to revisit my favorite childhood haunts, and Zephyr had a blast on the coast (aka That Giant Sandbox). We even got our first family portrait since he was new.

I love how squirmy and funny he is in this photo. It perfectly sums up the little boy we have.

Travels and Travails

Wow, this month is really getting away from me.

Playing peek-a-boo with his Gramma at The Keg

We survived our first trip two weeks ago. Zephyr was smitten with his Grandma and great aunts and uncles, and likewise charmed them with his near-perfect behavior the entire trip. He was a mite fussy on the flight in, but that was because he'd only had a mini-nap and couldn't sleep on the plane. He caught another 20 minute catnap in the car on the way to the hotel, and was up two hours past his bedtime. This was pretty much the way things were the entire trip, yet he behaved admirably.

That is, until the last night in Gilbert (an ugly suburb of Phoenix, AZ), when dinner at Kona Grill caused a complete failure of composure. I have never experienced my son in this way - just completely miserable, crying and arching nonstop for about 45 minutes (while we waited for the hotel shuttle bus to return for us). The food was passable (but overpriced), the service was cloyingly chipper (and tragically misinformed), but the main problem was that it was a total meat market and not at all the friendly Hawaiian luau food that we expected. The dark, night-clubby lighting and loud DOUCHEDOUCHEDOUCHE music exacerbated the problem. I took Zephyr outside, bouncing, singing, desperate to calm him, but nothing worked. It was too warm, and the air in front of the mini-mall restaurant smelled of stale cigarettes. Phoenix is plastic like Los Angeles, but more rednecky.

We enjoyed the weather and scenery, though, and the zoo was fun.


The new stuff, I'm just gonna list because I think he's waking up from his nap and who has the time for paragraphs these days?

• Has three different dance moves, employs them often. Beatboxes "puhpuhpuh." Awesome.
  
• Points to everything and whispers "this." Dis. dis. dis. We try to figure out what he's talking about and name the object.
• Teeth #5 and 6 are breaking through. Yes, he is 15 months old and has only 6 teeth.
• Still no walking, even though we know he totally could if he weren't so damn lazy.
• Every time he sees a picture of a cat, he hugs it to his face. This is the cutest thing ever. EVER.
• Can use spoon and fork marginally well, but will usually just throw utensils to the floor and use fingers instead. We try not to react too much, but now I'm trying to actually use parenting techniques so I pick the utensil (or cup, or bowl of food) up, wipe it off and return it to his tray. Then I cheerfully say "the spoon goes on the tray!" instead of calling him an asshole.
• Has mastered the F.A.C. (fake-ass cry). He tries this one out often, but this has always been one of my pet peeves in kids and it has absolutely no effect on me. "Sorry, Bubbie! Mommy has a heart of stone!" I say in a chipper voice. It's best that Zephyr learn this as early as possible. It's still funny to see him screw his little face up into a frown and try to work up some tears to get me to drop whatever I'm doing and pick him up. (Oh, don't look at me like that. It's good for him to learn patience.)
• Can do that thing where he strums his finger on his lips to go "blblblblb" like in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons when something fell on Elmer's head and made him all concussed and brain damaged (wtf is that even called?).
• Leans over in the bath and blows bubbles in the bath water. This always cracks him up and he gasps in a little water and chokes a bit. Repeat ad nauseum.
  

He's a funny kid.

Laugh it Up

Next week we're going on our first trip out of town with Zephyr. We'll only be gone for three days, but we haven't even taken him on a day trip yet, so of course I'm worried about messing up his entire schedule and making him miserable. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I think he'll probably be just fine, though I am bracing myself for the airport hell - all the crap we'll have to bring is going to weigh a ton. I hope they don't hassle us too much.

I hope that our tight routine will translate well to the hotel - we'll bring his blankie, night light, Totoro plushy and iPod full of lullabies, and the baby monitor so we can slip over to Grandma's room for TV and a glass of wine without disturbing Booshie. I'm psyching myself up now for it to be okay. It'll be okay.

His next set of incisors is just about out. I think I see them right there sometimes, white at the gumline, but then they seem to retreat back for a day or so. His finger is always jammed in his mouth, but he still manages to open up once in awhile to say a few words. His new one this week is "debdeb" (Yo Gabba Gabba - not a useful phrase at all, but the name of the TV show we watch before naptime).

Last week he hit his 14 month mark, and he's getting ever-so-close to taking his first steps. He loves walking around the house holding onto my or Scott's fingers, and is doing a bit more standing unassisted. Honestly, at this point, I think he could walk if he wanted to, but is just being lazy. Why would he risk landing on his ass when it's so much easier to just crawl or get carried everywhere?



And since he's been such a sweet, huggy little guy lately, I don't feel like putting him down much either. He wraps his arms around my neck so tight and pats my shoulder. It's so cute. Last week he cracked me and Scott up when, at bedtime, he was finishing up nursing after we sang our bedtime songs, and he just started blowing raspberries for no reason. Scott though he was motorboating me (which he has done before). I pulled my face down close to his to whisper to him, and he bit my nose! He thought that was pretty funny. I guess I did, too.

Anyway - just a quick post. I just wanted to share these awesome photos. It might be getting close to time for his first haircut. I was hoping his widow's peak would have grown in by now, but I guess it's on the same trajectory as those teeth of his...