Tag Archives: 16 months

Weekend Report

What happened this weekend:

1. The Hatchling got a vicious cold. Much mucous ensued.

2. Mr. Squab got the Hatchling’s vicious cold. Even more mucous, and much sneezing.

3. Said colds notwithstanding, we hosted a dinner party. I swear to god, until I graduated from college, my vision of adult life consisted largely of throwing dinner parties. I dunno if my parents threw an unusual number of them when I was little, but they definitely loom large in my memory – falling asleep to the pleasant sound of adults socializing outside my bedroom door, or crashing on the guest bed of one of my parents’ friends, and being sleepily carried to the car when it was time to go home. My generation doesn’t tend to throw dinner parties so much. We’re more of a backyard barbecue, happy hour, game night or movie night kind of crowd – more casual, bigger groups. But sometimes it’s nice to socialize with just a few couples at a time, I tell you what. The meal could have been better (yet another skill that suffers from toddlerus interruptus), but the wine was yummy, the dessert was sinful, and the conversation was just dandy.

4. I got the Hatchling these shoes on summer clearance. Aren’t they just the CUTEST?

Baby Crocs

Can we go every day?

So our ECFE class? Is AWESOME. First, it’s in this beautiful school which is in a beautiful area of town – the school was built about 5 years ago but you walk in and it feels like it’s been built to last: stone walls, high ceilings, spacious classrooms and lots of windows. The ECFE classroom was like the Hatchling’s dream come true. Soooooo many toys and things to climb on and things to push around and cubby holes and water tables and – the Hatchling’s favorite of all – an old plastic bottle with wooden clothespins in it. Oh, joy! There were about 10 other kids there, most with moms but a few with moms and dads, which is cool. The Hatchling was TOTALLY in her element. Interacting with loads of other kids? Check. Charming the pants off the other parents and teachers? Check. Freaking out the other parents with her off-the-charts height and crazy number of teeth? Check. (“How many teeth does she have?” several parents asked. “All except her 2-year molars,” I replied. “Wowwwww,” they breathed.) When it came time to sit in a circle with the other parents and kids and sing songs together, little miss always-on-the-go actually sat in my lap and grinned her little head off the whole time. When it was time for the parents to sit together while the kids played under the supervision of the aides, the teacher warned us that most of the kids would probably want to stay closer by for the first couple of sessions. Before the warning was even out of her mouth, the Hatchling was over on the other side of the room, showing one of the aides her mad skillz-of-an-artist on the magnetic drawing board. She played catch with one of the dads, stole surreptitious teddy grahams from several of the kids, and said huge enthusiastic “HI’s” to everyone she encountered. In short, she had a blast. And since all the parents seem like nice, interesting people, I had a pretty good time, too. It will be really great to meet with this group once a week, if for no other reason than to allay my COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL AND INSANE anxieties about the Hatchling’s developmental milestones. Because, look! It’s a whole room of kids her age or thereabouts, and hey – they all throw tantrums! And none of them are really talking yet! And most of them don’t sleep as well as she does! And none of them are as cute!

Yep: reaffirming my child’s inherent awesomeness. THAT’S what it’s all about. (Where’s my eye-rolling emoticon?)

Friday Video Blogging

It was a lovelygorgeousbeautiful day today, so the Hatchling and I decided to go to our favorite park and look at the flowers and play in the fountains. Er … with the fountains. At the fountains? Anyway, Mr. Squab joined us after work, which totally blew the Hatchling’s mind – Daddy! In the park! Whoa! She showed her pleasure at his company by generously feeding him bits of fresh grass. Enjoy:

Not dead; merely resting

Sorry for the lack of postage this week. Just haven’t had the gumption to put anything in blogular form. Instead, how ’bout some bullets?

– Took the Hatchling for her very first visit to Urgent Care on Labor Day. Considering she’s almost 17 months old, I’d say that’s not too bad. The cause: we suspected that she dislocated her elbow while Mr. Squab was swinging her a bit too enthusiastically by the arms. In the course of diagnosing the problem over the phone with the doctor, they told us to extend her arm and turn her palm upright to see if that hurt. It did, all right, but it apparently ALSO fixed the problem, because by the time we had her signed in at the Urgent Care clinic she was running around the waiting room entertaining all the kids who were actually ailing by smiling, saying “HI!” in her usual enthusiastic manner, twisting, going down on all fours, balancing on her head and lifting one leg in the air, etc. Of course, we still had the doctor take a look at her, but she was totally fine, the little bugger.

– The insomnia seems to be getting better, slowly. I’ve gone to sleep no later than 1 am for the last three nights in a row, which is a damn sight better than the 3:30, 4:30, and 5:30 am times I was doing last week. Thank you, Atavan and Tylenol PM.

– It’s supposed to be in the 60s and 70s this weekend. WOOOT!

– I can’t believe I only got 80% on this. On the other hand, can you beat me?
80%The Movie Quiz

FilmCritic.com – Movie Reviews

Pros and Cons

Bad things about going to the State Fair:
1. All the park-and-ride lots full. WTF?
2. Bastard fellow-humans refuse to help friend get her stroller off the shuttle.
3. Freaky Canadian geese in parking lot blocking off available spaces.
4. Cranky one-year-old means no time to look for cheese curds. Bugger.
5. Cranky one-year-old refuses to stay in stroller or in arms, apparently preferring to wander blithely among the probable rapist- kidnapper- and murderer-ridden fair crowds. Or am I projecting?
6. Attention-span of said cranky one-year-old does not extend to taking in more than 1/4 of one exhibit.

Good things about going to the State Fair:
1. The weather. Was GORGEOUS. 75 degrees and sunny, absolutely perfect for being outside.
2. Friend having the tits to snark “Thanks for helping!” to brain-dead nimrods who refused to help with stroller. I never have that kind of presence of mind.
3. Baby Ducks!

Duckies!!

4. Finding a quiet green space where the cranky one-year-old could walk around and work off some of her cranks. Primarily by stuffing leaves and sticks into an orange safety cone. I know. Weird.
5. Sharing Pronto Pups with a friend.

Sharing is nice

Random Tidbits + Friday Videos

1. The Hatchling loves her crib so much it’s not even funny. During the day, when she wakes up from her naps, her favorite thing to do is stay in her crib after I’ve turned on the lights and writhe around with her blanket and a few board books while I watch her and talk to her from the rocking chair. I can’t really argue with her. It’s a soft, cushy, safe space; she can bounce and wriggle and flop to her heart’s content all with a captive (doting) audience. Who WOULDN’T like that?

2. IKEA is teh awesome. I know this isn’t exactly breaking news, but I just thought I’d reiterate. The Hatchling’s hand-me-down highchair gasped its final gasp this week, so we made an IKEA run for a cheapo replacement. We parked in the family-friendly parking space (close to the doors!), ate at the family-friendly cafeteria (cheap kids meals! free bibs! a kids’ play area!), and then went to pick up our $25-yet-still-kind-of-cool-looking high chair. Then we came home and the Hatchling “helped” me put the chair together by carrying the legs to different secret locations all over the first floor of the house. Good times.

3. For much of the summer, the Hatchling has been sleeping until 8:30-9 in the morning, a welcome change from her previous 7:00 am waking time. But this morning she really outdid herself. We put her to bed early last night, around 7:00 pm, and I woke from a bad dream at 10:23 this morning and she was STILL ASLEEP. TEN TWENTY-THREE! And she would’ve slept longer, but I was freaked out that she was dead and so I went in and woke her up. She seemed fine; her usual cheerful, busy self. But Jesus – that’s 15 1/2 hours of solid sleep! Plus, I just put her down for a nap! I can’t decide if I should worry that she’s got some bizarre form of narcolepsy or just shut my yap and thank my lucky stars for having such a good sleeper. Thoughts?

4. Here’s the video recommendation of the week. Blow, baby, blow!