Category Archives: Toddler Age

A Busy Holiday Weekend + Thoughts on America

We had a busy holiday weekend, although it was very nice.

I was going to write thoughtful post about what it means to me to have freedom and to be in this country, but it didn’t happen with all that was going on. So here are my more abbreviated thoughts.

This was the first forth of July that we’ve been in the USA in three years. I didn’t think I missed it, but in some respects I did. Not for the fireworks — I don’t care about those — but because it’s nice to reflect on past years: where I was, what I doing, and who I was with.

This year, I also spent some time reading an annotated version of the U.S. Constitution, which really got me in to a patriotic mood. I felt so strongly as I read that this constitution was inspired: not because it creates the only “perfect” or “free” country, but simply because it is so appropriate. The constitution and the government grows and changes with the years. It provides opportunity in the future, not just today. It’s a miraculous document.

On Thursday, we drove down to Naperville early in the afternoon and spent the afternoon with family, visiting with my parents and my grandma. Then we went to the band shell for a very patriotic concert. There was a lot of talking, but they finally got to the 1812 overture, with cannons and all. Paul was very tired by the time the cannons came and they scared him a bit, but he still had fun.

On Friday, we got a very late start. We hadn’t gotten home until midnight the night before, so we were exhausted. But Ryan had the day off from work; he spent the day mowing the lawn and then barbecuing a rack of ribs. Huge. I cleaned the house and got ready for our first holiday barbecue. Some friends from the ward came over and we had a busy afternoon and evening with them and their five children.

Saturday morning, we met Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Frank and Elizabeth’s family at the Illinois Railway Museum for a day of looking at the trains. This is a place for serious train buffs. But Paul loved it and so did Grandma, since she recognized trains from her childhood days in downtown Chicago. Unfortunately, it was raining, so we didn’t stay long, and especially not for the parade of trains. (I suspect that was a bit too much for us anyway.) The museum is nice and close and Ryan looks forward to returning on a day when there isn’t a train parade and it’s not raining so he can get pictures of more trains. Paul loves trains, so I imagine he’d love to return to see them again. I haven’t actually gone through my pictures yet, so I may have something to show from that at a later time.

Then Mom and Dad and Grandma came to our home. We reheated the barbecue and ate and ate again. Then we played cards for a while. When Frank and Elizabeth got there, we had another round of barbecue. The rain had stopped so we ate outside, at least until the mosquitoes got us. The kids played and we visited until we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore!

In all, it was a long, busy weekend! Sunday we took it easy, thank goodness. It was fun, but maybe three big events in one weekend is a bit much.

As I said, I haven’t gone through all the pictures, but here’s one winner: Paul with his great-grandmother.

Start ’em Young

1 Reply

Yesterday, Paul got his very first credit card offer in the mail. Now, that’s starting ’em young!

I have pictures and stories for you. Sorry I’ve been bad at getting them up this month!

Paul’s Bedroom

2 Replies

It may have taken three months to get to it, but I have finally put some pictures on the wall of Paul’s bedroom!

I have Greg Olsen’s O Jerusalem and a picture of the Cochabamba Bolivia Temple, and Aunt Jenny sent Paul some wall hangings last Christmas: an airplane, a car, a train, and a name plaque. I also bought a document frame from Michael’s and I’m going to rotate pictures from the Gospel Art Picture Kit. This month it is a picture of Christ being baptized, in honor of cousin Daniel’s upcoming baptism. I’ve been telling Paul about baptism all month. Next month I’ll put a different picture up and we’ll talk about the story all month. Hopefully by the time he’s older, he’ll actually learn something from that, right?

I think everything looks pretty nice and having something on his wall makes the room so much more cozy. The pictures are a bit small, so I may get something big for the largest wall at some point. For now, it’s very nice.

Here’s Paul giving a guided tour for you.

A Few of His Favorite Things

1 Reply

Birds and Doggies

Signing Time does wonders. We got the “Leah’s Farm” episode from the library, and Paul just loved watching the animals in the video. Our yard has plenty of birds to watch, and every single one of our neighbors has at least one dog. Those are, by far, his favorite animals, and he loves to sign the words too.

“Birdie” looks like he’s eating his hand in this video. He also says “outside”, “cold”, and”dog” in this video. He signs “birdie”, “dog”, “frog”, and “cold.”

Other Things

Paul loves shoes. He goes around the house picking up shoes and carrying them into the laundry room (where I put them when I tidy the room). He likes to tidy the house, including “helping” me sweep and vacuum. I hope he keeps these habits when he’s older! Shoes are his favorite item of clothing.

He also loves music and he loves to dance.

Sometimes, he goes around the house saying “Jesus” and pointing to our pictures of Jesus.

He likes babies and signs “baby” when ever we see one in the store or church. I bought him a baby doll at a garage sale, and he likes pointing to her eyes, ears, nose, toes, and mouth. She doesn’t have any hair, so that always confuses him when I tell him to point to her hair! I think Paul likes his belly button the best and likes to look for his at random times of the day. If I ask him where his ears are, he’ll come find my ears.

In this video, he’s dancing, saying “shoes,” and pointing to our family picture (looking at either daddy or the baby, which is, of course, himself).

Paul loves to say “hi” and “bye-bye” to everyone we meet. Most people ignore him, but often people come up and tell him how adorable he is, patting him on the head in the process. (That is something Ryan says he hated when he was a kid. Oh well: like father, like son!)

Paul also loves to eat, as he always has. His favorite foods are bread, milk, bananas, and tomatoes. He also likes peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, and apple sauce. Here he is saying and signing a few more words for you while he eats a snack. Isn’t he cute?

Paul’s favorite toys are trains (there is a train table at the library and he has two engines) and cars, which he likes to make vroom all over the furniture. But his other favorite toys include an empty oatmeal container and a plastic tupperware container. He puts his matchbox cars and other small toys inside them and mixes it together with a plastic spoon from the kitchen. I think he is making soup.

Paul at Eighteen Months

Leave a reply

These pictures were taken in May, when Paul was 18 or 19 months old. We’ve finally gotten to them! I took the pictures; Ryan did the processing. I wasn’t completely happy before the processing, but Ryan showed me that a little tweaking makes photos look pretty good. I think they turned out very nicely! Note: Post has been post-dated to reflect date photos were taken. Originally posted July 2009.

Paul’s 19-Month Checkup

Leave a reply

Vital Stats

height: 33 1/2 inches tall (75th percentile)
weight: 26 lbs 13 oz (50th percentile)

Paul is an incredibly happy boy, and apparently he is completely up-to-date developmentally. The doctor kept saying “Oh he’s so good” when he did things like open his mouth when she asked him too. I think he was just observing and taking it all in because it was all new to him (relatively; he doesn’t remember the last visit three months ago).

When the doctor left, we had to wait for the nurse. He was ready to be done though. He kept walking to the door saying “go? Go? GO!” When the nurse finally came, he got two shots. He wasn’t sure what was going on with the first one, and since we were clapping and saying “yeay!”, he started clapping too. For the second shot, he was a little more wary and tried to pull away. It brought tears, but when he saw the bandaids, he was fascinated with that too, and even the tears stopped.

Overall, I love my boy. This week’s special words are “Hi! Hi!” and “Bye! Bye!” to strangers both coming and going, “shoes” as he wanders the house looking for them (anyone’s is fine), and “go!” for everything and everywhere. He still signs “thank you” with a little kiss.

Read with Kids Challenge

4 Replies

As a part of the Read with Kids Challenge, I’ve been tracking the time I read with Paul (who is 19 months old).

I love to read (as one can tell from my reading blog), so I like to read him chapter books (usually children’s). Even though he’s too young to care or follow a plot, I want to read those books, so I might as well get them read while I’m reading to a child. But each morning, I usually read him a chapter from something (10-20 minutes) while he plays with his toys or eats his breakfast. We also read picture books a lot, any time of day.

The Read with Kids Challenge encourages parents (or teachers or librarians) to read with kids from April 1 til June 30, 2009. There are awards and such too. I don’t expect to win anything — I just thought it would be fun to see how much I read with Paul and try to raise that amount of time each day so that reading is a habit for him and for us.

From April 15 (when I started keeping track) until today, we read 390 minutes, or an average of 26 minutes a day. I had made a 75-day goal of 2500 minutes, which is an average of 33 minutes a day. Considering reading in the morning and bedtime stories, that sounded do-able, but then I forgot about the days when I forget or don’t do much reading at all (like weekends!). I realize now that that will be nearly impossible. In the past two weeks, I’ve been really pushing myself to read whenever I could and every day. But I still came up short of what I expected would be “easy.” Maybe averaging 20 minutes a day is plenty practical. My new goal is 1600 minutes by the end of June, including, of course, the 390 we did in the later half of April.

I also wonder which times I should count as reading; maybe I am “cheating.” My son doesn’t actually read, so all my time is actually “reading to a kid.” Which times would you count as “reading with kids” out of these?

I read a chapter book to him while he plays with his toys or eats his breakfast or takes his bath.
I read a chapter book to him while he falls asleep in my arms (he was not feeling well).
I read him a picture book bedtime story.
I read him two pages of a bedtime story, and then he points at the pictures and babbles as he turns the other pages.
When I say it’s time for a bedtime story, he runs to the closet and grabs a picture book. Then he sits on the floor, turns the pages, and babbles, pushing me away if I come near. After about 30 seconds, he gets up and exchanges it for a different book. Repeat five to ten times.

I count them all, because each in its own way helps him to love reading. That is, I think, the purpose of this challenge. I’m comforted in the fact that my son loves books. But what do you think? Does reading with kids need to be interactive?

An example of success: I read Paul Robinson Crusoe aloud over the course of two months. Now, whenever he sees that particular book on my bookshelf, he brings it to me, babbling something incomprehensible. I’m hoping he is actually saying something about his good memories of me reading to him (like maybe that day I held him when he was not feeling well, and he fell asleep as I read to him).

Another example: Yesterday morning, after I got him up and dressed, I was going to go into the other room. But Paul found the copy of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle we’re reading and handed it to me, very excited.

“Do you want me to read some of it to you?” I asked.

He nodded emphatically and then headed back to his toys, turning to look back at me to see that I was starting to read. Aww, how could I not?

Paul Updates

Leave a reply

Paul finally has enough hair that I had to buy him a brush this week. When it is wet, it is matted and long. When it dries, it curls in the back to produce an adorable head of curls. Ryan is quite traumatized by this: every time someone comes up and says “What adorable curls! What lovely hair!” he has memories of his own childhood. He, apparently, hated having curly red hair because everyone wanted to touch it. Alas: like father, like son.

Paul is signing at least 30 words now — surprising me every day with new ones. I shouldn’t be too surprized since Signing Time is his only show these days.

Paul is saying at least 15 words. Sometimes his talking sounds like babbling and other times it actually is words.

Paul has become fascinated with dogs and birds. He also loves the train table at the library. He also loves the slide and the swing at the park: I need to fix up our play set in our yard because right now it’s not useful for a baby Paul’s age.

Paul has a runny nose again this week. It will never stop, I’ve decided.

Paul’s naps are still sporadic. I never know if he’ll go down or when he’ll be ready for it. (Saturday he was ready at 10 a.m. and he slept for three hours. Today it was one hour. And that’s it.)

Paul likes his binkie. He can only have it when he’s in his bed, so sometimes he begs to go in his crib, just to have his binkie. Ten minutes later, he’s ready to go on with his day again.

Paul is a smart kid. There are so many stories I meant to share. I’m going to have to write them down as soon as they happen because now I’ve forgotten!

Wordless Wednesday: In My Steps

Leave a reply

Our Easter Weekend

Leave a reply

I mentioned the other day that we had a wonderful weekend.

First, on Friday, I volunteered at the library in the morning, sans baby. I love my son, and I love being a stay-at-home Mom. But there is something so nice about leaving home and knowing that his needs are being taken care of and I’m not the one doing it! For just one morning a week, I’m a working woman, useful for my brain. (Or rather, for my alphabetizing; do you need much brain to sing the alphabet song?) Of course, Paul has entered a new stage of clingy-ness and cried when I said good-bye — even though he was going to spend the morning with Daddy.

While Ryan worked Friday afternoon, Paul and I drove down to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I decorated Easter eggs with Daniel and Jessica and Grandma. Then we all went swimming. Paul had a blast splashing and kicking in the water.

Paul and I ate dinner with the family and then we came home. Paul feel asleep in the car so Ryan and I had the rest of the evening. We watched a chic flick. (My choice of movie…)

Saturday morning, we decided to go bowling. Frank and Elizabeth were talking about how much fun their family had — even 2-year-old Jessica — and Ryan has been wanting to go bowling for months. So we took off at about 11:30 and went bowling! Paul was a bit scared/cranky at first. Maybe it was too noisy, maybe he was just tired. Eventually he gave up his turns and rested; we ordered food so that distracted him. Ryan and I had fun, although I won’t admit how low our scores were.

Then we went on a drive to pick up the grill we had ordered. We could only get it at a distant Lowe’s, and so we enjoyed the scenic rural drive and Paul had a nice little nap. What a beautiful world we live in! Some day we’ll take pictures and I’ll show you how pretty Illinois really is, corn fields and all.

While Ryan put his new grill together, I cleaned the house, top to bottom. It felt so wonderful. I love my house! Every time I mop the floor, every time I clean the counters and tiddy the messes, I just love my new home. I am so glad I get to stay here for the next 30 years, and that by the end of that time I’ll own it fair and square.

Sigh. There is something so satisfying about a clean home.

Sunday morning we had stake conference. It was wonderful how the speakers (including Elder Oaks and President Monson) testified of Christ in the Easter spirit. In the afternoon, Mom and Dad and Daniel and then Frank, Elizabeth, and Jessica came up. Ryan (and I helped a little) had cut most of the vegetables and made a marinade before church, so after church all we had to do was put the food on the grill. (We had steak and chicken fajitas. I know that is not a traditional Easter dinner, but I’ve been craving fajitas for weeks and yum! It was so good!)

Daniel was the Easter bunny and Paul and Jessica had a fun time searching for the eggs. I was impressed that Paul actually figured it out. He’s getting so old so fast!