Spell it out

We have reached a new point of our parenting lives. On a fairly regular basis, I don't say juice, goldfish, or any number of other words that might arouse the attention of my little toddler monster. Instead, it is like I am in an unending spelling bee here. I should have a number pinned to me and be in front of a microphone. Before dinner tonight, I told Aaron something about the "G-O-L-D-F-I-S-H" bag that was on the counter. During dinner, Aaron told me he thought Zeke might want some "A-P-P-L-E."

My boys

At Grant Park playground on Sunday. The weather was great -- wasn't there more snow on the ground last Sunday? Zeke is sporting his new super short little boy haircut.

When a flower is not a flower

Sometimes a flower is not a flower.

Every time Zeke sees a picture of a flower, he says something like "fie." Sprout Mama thinks, "Aww, he said 'flower'." Then I slowly start looking at the bigger picture. When he says "fie," he signs "butterfly." Ah, fie = butterFLY. Zeke thinks flowers are butterflies.

Someone cue Bambi.

Some favorites

Zeke truly has the taste of a toddler. One minute he cannot get enough of something and then after 100 times of demanding to watch x, listen to x, play with x, eat x, he is done with it and completely offended if you foolishly offer x ever again. "Mercurial" does not begin to cover his taste. Some things last, though, and some things come back in style. Here are some of Zeke's favorites right now. (Yes, this is another one of those posts.)

Favorite Music: "World Playground", a collection of international music, is the favorite of the day. He loves the first song, a Senegalese song "Fatou Yo". He generally loves all of the collections from this company Putumayo and in a short time (thanks to coupons to Borders and a few gifts), we have collected "Reggae Playground", "French Playground", "New Orleans Playground", "Brazilian Playground", "Caribbean Playground", "Dreamland", and "African Playground". If you are trying to count that up, we want to acknowledge that it is completely excessive for our toddler to have such an extensive music collection, but it becomes necessary when Zeke just wants to dance and sing with music all day. My sanity truly gets stretched by his need for music all day. I have purchased more music for Zeke than I have for myself in the past four years just to keep a decent variety in play. True to what you would expect, the younger generation does not much care for the parent's music and Zeke has not taken an interest in anything I usually listen to. And, if you are wondering: Laurie who?

Favorite TV: Again, Laurie who? Zeke now likes to watch at least a few minutes of Sesame Street. Last week when he was sick, he just snuggled with me on the couch and was glad to watch unlimited amount of kid-friendly TV and movies for those two days, especially Tivo'ed Sesame Street. He also really likes this video of dogs that his Grandma Trish found for him on YouTube -- he knows the YouTube logo and is excited when he sees it on the AppleTV menu.



Favorite Friends: The usual suspects. Zeke loves Maggie. Zeke loves lying on Maggie's dog bed. Zeke loves nothing better than when he gets a snack than to call Maggie ("Ah-may!") and try and share it. Zeke likes "throwing" the frisbee for her. Zeke is also Aaron's little buddy ("ah-bay") and increasingly he will get upset if Aaron does not come with us somewhere. Alternately, Aaron can often convince Zeke to do things that I could not, like put on his mittens.

Favorite Toy: About a year ago I bought a toy laptop for Zeke. As with many of my parenting decisions, it was a decision of desperation. I bought him the toy in the hopes that I could transfer his disastrous interest in my laptop and in the mouse on Aaron's computer. The Vtech Tote & Go Laptop is geared for older children (3+, I think), but I wasn't buying it for the games, but for its mouse and keyboard. Initially, Zeke just liked to change the volume, listen to its music, and turn it off and on, but he has really started getting some of the games, especially the letter recognition games. I can't say it has entirely distracted him from our computers, but he does love his. He literally has spent hours playing with it. I bring it with us wherever I think I might need a toy to entertain him, and I have brought it to my business meetings that Zeke attends and to countless meals out. It is certainly one of the things he reaches for most consistently from the toybox. It is quite a picture of modern toddler play to see him playing on the laptop and then get a call from one of his toy phones -- I think he even gets a phone voice when he is multitasking. The reason why I leaned so heavy to Christmas toys that don't have buttons is just to balance out his interest in his laptop. (Psst -- they are on clearance at Target now.)

Favorite Food: Lots of food favorites come and go. This week, kiwi. Next week, no kiwi. This week, peanut butter crackers. Next week, no. But one snack that never gets old is cheese crackers, especially Goldfish. How did parents in previous generations raise children without Goldfish? Goldfish practically represent a food group around here. I often get the whole grain or try organic brands (bunny shaped) or even a vegan brand (electric car and wind turbine shaped -- no, really), as he will eat anything vaguely like a Goldfish cracker. Three bowls of it, if I let him. While he can say "cracker," he often signs "fish."

Favorite Things to Do: I keep a reasonably busy schedule for Zeke and have something planned that we can attend almost every day. Monday: Music Class. Tuesday and Thursday: preschool. Wednesday and Friday: various social groups (don't always make it). We also occasionally try and make it to story times and when it was warm we were going to the zoo and park frequently. Zeke's favorites, though, are Music Class and preschool. At Music Class, he is outgoing (and loud) and is always willing to give the teacher a hug. And, at school, he has the routine down perfectly and sometimes remembers to give me a kiss as he takes off to play. Today when I picked him up, I found him rolling on the floor and tickling his teacher. He obviously loves the teachers and loves his time there.

Winter wonderland

Saturday was a beautiful day. It was a little difficult to feel housebound after a few days of Zeke being a little under the weather, but it turned out to be such a wonderful day. The snow was lovely as it fell and lasted much longer than any other snow flurry we have had this winter or in the past few years. No serious harm from the cold and the three of us had a good day at home. I felt very lucky at the end of the day, so happy for the life we have together.

We stayed inside for most of the day and I spent some time in my new favorite room -- the laundry room. (We recently gave it an update with a new laundry sink, tankless water heater and lots of new racks and shelves and cubbies and drying space.) It can be surprisingly relaxing to get loads of laundry done and hang it to dry. We also did some cleaning and baking, as you can see below. We did take some time to play, though, and even headed outside to let the snow fall on us. Zeke was so cute in his coat, mitten and cords -- I could have eaten him up! I was amazed that Aaron was able to get Zeke to put on AND keep on mittens: Zeke did it after seeing Aaron put on his gloves.

Here are some of the photos. You can see: Zeke trying to figure out what to make of the snow, Maggie eating snow, taking a walk, Zeke clearing off Daddy's car, Zeke shoveling snow, our house in the snow, and a shy Zeke snuggling up to me when a neighbor said hello. And, finally, at the end, our reward for braving the "harsh" weather: hot cocoa (not from mix!) for us, soy milk cocoa for Zeke, and my first attempt at baking bread in years.

Atlanta Snowmen

It snowed this past Saturday. As of Tuesday, we still had some patches of snow around the yard, which got cleared away with today's dreary winter rain. Snow in Atlanta, as you can imagine, is an event of note. People take it very seriously. We stayed home all day, heeding forecasts for snow, black ice and bad drivers. The snow didn't keep us inside all day, though, and we went to visit some new neighbors.

Ricky and Selena and their muddy snowman. Bless their hearts, Ricky and Selena had no gloves and made this snowman barehanded.

Egypt made a snowman as tall as she was!

Zeke and I made a quick mini snowman. Tiny, but killer smile and quick to make before ducking inside for cocoa!

Bath time bubbles

Bath time seems like a good time to blow some bubbles. Zeke agreed.

Play date with Parker

Zeke got to have a play date with Parker last week. I have got to give to Parker. He is such a super cutie. He looks like a baby model. In the first two photos, he is reacting to the request to smile for the camera. Then in the last photo he spontaneously hugged Zeke. (Start chorus of "awwww's" here.)

What time is it?

Time goes by so quickly -- a whole week past without a post. (We have good reasons, though, like the two day case of the vomits that the beloved child had last week. Also, thanks for those who have sent good wishes for my mother who some of you know had emergency heart surgery last week. As an update, they moved her from critical care yesterday and then sent her home today! Zeke and I will likely make a trek back to the old homestead soon to check on his grandma.)

It makes the passage of time gets a little easier when your baby can tell time it is, though. Last week, Zeke kept repeating "five" and then "two". I didn't know what he was trying to tell me but then he said "ten" and pointed to the clock. Don't you know -- it was 10:25! This is not quite the same thing as telling time, I know, but he was reading the clock.

Zeke cannot count or recite his numbers in order, but he can recognize and say numbers one to ten. He frequently points to numbers and tells us what the number is. He can also recognize and say a few letters in the alphabet. He loves playing with his toy laptop which has a lot of letter recognition games and he gets a surprising number of questions right.

This may be perfectly normal for children at 22 months to be developing early literacy and numeracy like this -- I don't know -- but it just perfectly knocks me over every time he "reads." Just a few weeks ago I was worried about the fact he wasn't talking at all and now he is saying and identifying numbers and letters. Simply astounding to me how things go.

Another one of those posts: Sleeping

(Yes, more stuff for the baby book that will surely not entertain or amuse you. The photo was from this summer.)

In almost two years, I have written almost nothing about Zeke's sleep habits. Frankly, for the first year, his sleeping (or lack of) always felt like my Achilles heel as a parent. I am reminded of the joke McCain made a year ago about how he felt after losing the South Carolina primary in 2000. He said he slept like a baby after he lost: he slept for a few hours, woke up crying, slept for a few hours and then woke up crying. Zeke slept like McCain.

At about the nine month mark (wow, that was a long time ago), that all changed. Zeke started sleeping full time in his crib in his own room, he slept through the night mostly, went to bed earlier, and night weaned. Some of it was our doing and tightening the night routine, but I honestly think the biggest reason for the change was that his teeth finally came through. The first night after they came through, he slept nine hours in a row!

This is the routine: after dinner, we go upstairs for a bath. He sits on his potty and flips through a book (usually to no productive end). Zeke likes to splash about in the tub for a very long time. He does not like to sit in the water anymore and sits on a little Ikea stool -- no idea why. After the bath, he is very good about brushing his teeth and -- new this month -- flossing. He is not as good about getting on a diaper after the bath and likes to try and run around naked. After much wrestling, he gets into his pajamas. We might play for a little bit while listening to music or videoconference with Trish. Then it is a couple of books -- Dr. Seuss or books that can be sung are very popular. Zeke then is prompted to say night - night (which he can say now!) to Daddy. He often gets past Aaron though to make sure he says bye bye to Maggie. After a hug to Aaron, Zeke points to the door, closes it and runs where I am. I sing "Slip Sliding Away" by Paul Simon and "Goodnight" by Laurie Berkner while Zeke nurses. He stops nursing at the end of the second song, babbles something, gives me a hug and a kiss and touches his forehead to mine. He then settles into the crib. In his crib, he has a blanket, pillow, baby and (now) Elmo. We still play ocean sounds as a white noise on a CD player through the night. He might not need it anymore, but I'm too chicken to try it without and always travel with a CD player. I usually stay until he falls asleep and sit by the door and read (the only time I read during the day), though sometimes will leave a little sooner.

He wakes up around 6:30 or 7, one of us will go up (almost always Aaron), change him and bring him downstairs where he nurses or sleeps with us until we (or he) feel like the day should be started, usually by 8. He jumps out of the bed, pets Maggie and then goes off into the living room to demand music.

More boring posts to follow!

One of those posts: Eating

(This is one of the posts that I was threatening: a post more for the baby book than for entertainment.)

As his measurements might reflect, Zeke has been doing a lot of growing. I can generally tell how much he is growing by how much he seems interested in his food. Zeke is a pretty good eater. He will eat any fruit, usually with great gusto, but not as many vegetables. He will eat orange vegetables (sweet potatoes, butternut squash, cooked carrots, baby carrots) and only sometimes eat peas, broccoli, green beans, lima beans or sugar snap peas. However, he will eat tons of cooked spinach, so I probably give that to him every other day, if not more. He loves starches, including cous cous, pasta and the Spanish rice that Aaron makes. I do allow some dairy these days, but still do not give milk and yogurt. He does get some cheese sparingly. Until very recently, I was still giving him some baby food purees -- he likes the purees more than the actual vegetables and they are so convenient. Zeke also gets a lot more treats that I wouldn't have considered giving him a year ago, including a nibble of cake like at a party yesterday.

He is pretty fair at feeding himself with a spoon or fork, but in the interest of keeping things tidy, I will often help. He still uses "sippy" cups, though also has some passing skill at using regular cups. He still agrees to wearing a bib and sometimes will wipe his hands and mouth with a napkin. He is, however, a real wiz at washing his hands. He loves it and I have even found him going to wash his hands (and flicking the light in the powder room off and on) without being prompted.

Typical breakfast: a scrambled egg, a waffle or piece of toast, a cup of watered orange juice, maybe a banana or maybe a piece of veggie bacon.

Typical lunch: At home, usually leftovers with some sort of veggie and a protein and water. For school, I have a tendency to get elaborate because his lunch box has four compartments. One section is fruit, one is a snack of a sweet sort (mini-muffin, ginger popcorn), one is a snack or veggie (often dried veggies or peanut butter crackers) and the last section is some sort of main like Trader Joe mini ravioli, veggie chicken nuggets, mini pizzas or other fun foods.

Typical snacks: crackers or fruit

Typical dinner: I try as much as possible to make it some version of what we eat, though he always gets at least one fruit, one veggie and some non-dairy "milk." (He likes soy milk, though I like hazelnut milk.) However, I often feel compelled to make sure he eats healthier than we do, so I might make an extra veggie for him. Tonight he ate pasta, broccoli, spit out the cucumber from my salad but ate the croutons, kiwi and vanilla soy milk. He seems to like "taco night" when I give him rice, refried beans and chips.

I often feel that I am running out of ideas for what to try and feed him, as he doesn't always seem to be interested in some of the things we eat like sandwiches, salads or soups. Poor Aaron, I try a lot of dinner recipes that I know he will probably not be terribly interested in, just because I think they might be something we can all eat that isn't fried, too spicy, or too starchy. For example, last week I made a curry with spinach, sweet potatoes, and chick peas that I knew Aaron probably wouldn't like. Disappointingly, Zeke would not eat any of it unless I separated the ingredients on his dish and even then he wasn't terribly interested. I'm still eating the leftovers. I have high hopes for this week: stuffed peppers, lasagne, salmon, a veggie hash. The upside of this is that it does force me to plan menus and to all get us eating healthier!

I told you so.

There. I am saying it for those of you might be tempted to say this to me.

As my friend Lesley wrote not too long ago on her blog: once you write something about your child on your blog, it will invariably change. And so it has with Zeke's language.

The day after my last post, when I picked Zeke up from school, Ms. Teacher said, "So, Zeke is Mr. Talkative these days, eh?" She said that during school he had repeated numbers and other words like "snack" and "lunch". This week, he has been a chatty little parrot and will generally repeat any words when asked. He does appear to have had the language explosion that parents often talk about.

* He does often speak in a sort of pig Latin where words will sometimes start with an "ah" sound, the middle sounds are ellided, and end with an "ay" sound. Thus, "Daddy" becomes "ah-day," "buddy" (a nickname) is something like "ah-bay" and "Maggie" is "ah-may." He gets so excited to call her by name. It is disarmingly charming. He will also do this with other words he knows like "mama." I hear is it is a phase that some children go through. Most of his pronunciation does need some work, but he clearly has the words and is working on them.

* He can name body parts: arm, leg, feet, toes, nose, ears, eyes, mouth, teeth and more (including "back").

* He can repeat numbers, "one" through "ten." It remains to be seen whether he can count, but he can read the numbers. We will point to numbers or one of his toys will light up a number, and he will say what it is. We are so surprised!

* He has started using words that we have not heard in a long time like "cracker" and "cookie."

* He has this funny reaction to our asking him to repeat words. He will give it one or two tries, but if he is still having a hard time and doesn't quite get it, he will just shriek with laughter.

Doing What Your Mama Tells You

I wrote about a month ago about my occasional and admittedly irrational anxiety about Zeke's speech. What I learned after posting that is that a few friends were late talkers like me. I was also reminded gently that the human race is not a competition, and a friend told me this weekend to quit analyzing my son. (And, as the mother of three young sons, she is an expert at these things, even if she is forgets about my true nature.)

To explain myself a little bit: 1) I was a late talker with a few late talking relatives and I spent a few years in speech therapy as a result, and 2) I have little learning in early childhood education. So, on one hand, I know from personal and (ahem) professional experience that late talking is not a terrible thing. Speech therapy was even fun and involved a decent amount of Starburst candies if I got my "ch" sounds right. However, on the other hand, I know how important it is children to build both receptive and expressive vocabulary prior to school entry for school success. I read books with titles like At a Loss for Words. I am going to admit that I usually get a giggle when I confide that I remember riding the short bus to speech camp. I hope that this very briefly explains my dual perspectives. Also, remember I am a creature of worry.

To continue to ward off Mommy Craziest, I set a limit. I told Aaron that if we did not hear Zeke say a certain number of words before his upcoming second birthday I would set up an evaluation. Typically, you can find these evaluations for free and children can receive speech therapy for free if there is a need. The younger you start with some therapies, the more positive an outcome and less stigma. And, it can involve candy.

So, I think Zeke overheard this and took it as a charge.

The next day, Zeke spontaneously said or repeated: apple, tall, milk, juice. He has also added words that mean egg, "I'm ready", "alright" and Maggie (sounds like "Amy"). He can also say: arm, toe, and (of course) Elmo. There may be some other words that I'm forgetting or not interpreting right.

That's pretty close to the number of words that I wanted him to get. We have also found that he seems to be able to identify colors on more than a couple of opportunities. We also wonder whether he is trying to say some foreign words he hears in his music collection. It is great to hear his voice forming words and it is great to believe he is listening to my requests! Plus, it couldn't come at a better time as he seems to be in the midst of this terribly grumpy phase and I think more words might help him get through it.

What do you think I should tell him to do next?

Maybe He Could Wear This

While I might not put I might let Zeke wear political gear, I might consider some apolitical gear (from The Onion and Wry Baby respectively).

A Little Behind the Times

When did the Simpsons movie come out? Was it this past summer? It is really easy to get behind the times here in Sprout Central. As long as Zeke is now participating more fully in consumer culture (I kid, I kid), I finally "Simpsonized" him. Fairly decent likeness!

In the next couple of days, I'm going to write at least a few posts that are of the baby book variety -- you know, things that I won't remember in the future and that detail day to day toddler stuff. I'm sure you will all be riveted.

Thinking of readers, I want to draw your attention to my visitor counter at the bottom of the page, currently at 627. This just completely overwhelms me as it is not counting page views, but unique visitors. Now, it doesn't account for whether aboutsprout readers are checking the blog at multiple locations, but let's say every reader visits from at least three locations like home, office and wifi at the coffee shop while on Christmas vacation. That is still a lot of readers! Hmm...maybe I should do some more tracking to see where you all are reading from. It feels good to know that friends and family are near (at least online) as we start 2008.

We had a wonderful holiday season. I was proud of myself for getting all Christmas shopping and shipping done well before Christmas and I even got in a little bit of baking. Other highlights include: finally finding a gift that my husband likes and wouldn't have bought himself; getting the laundry sink and stand mixer of my dreams as gifts; writing thank you notes before New Year's Day; making my goal of writing more posts in 2007 than in 2006 (by two!); and going out on a date with my husband on New Year's Eve. Zeke also did a great job surprising us and sleeping peacefully through all the fireworks nearby, even those just yards away from his nursery window. It is with some chagrin, though, to note that I did not get any of my traditional cleaning done before the New Year (you should start the new year right!) and that I might still have some Halloween pumpkins lingering around the front porch. I did manage to get some electronic (and therefore green) New Year's greetings out, though. I'll try to figure out how to post it here soon.

Happy New Year to all our friends, family, neighbors and readers! We look forward to spending 2008 with you.

My Mama's for Obama

I think I was probably most aligned with the positions of Chris Dodd, but with Senator Dodd out of the race, I think I will sign up to be another "Mama for Obama" -- Aaron has an "I told you so" look on his face as I write this as he has been an Obama supporter for some time. I was moved by Obama's victory speech after Iowa and am eager to see how things go this week in NH. (Don't worry, though. I won't be dressing Zeke in any political gear this year; the photo is just illustrative of the election gear available for tots. I might have considered doing it and I do have an "ACLU Member" pin on Zeke's memo board. However, a few months ago I saw a baby in a onesie that said something like, "My mom chose life" and some other anti-abortion slogan. Needless to say, I decided then that I didn't think kids' bellies should be billboards for their parents' political beliefs, regardless of whether or not I disagree with the beliefs.)

In September, we took Zeke to his first political rally -- an Obama rally. We went with my politically savvy (and very tall) friend Kiebzak. While I hadn't decided who I supported then, I did want to hear Obama speak and I had been disappointed to miss a rally earlier in the year. While I did get to hear Usher introduce Obama, I did not actually get to hear Obama speak much: Zeke was a thousand times more interested in running through the crowd and going up and down the spiral staircases, escalators and elevators at the Georgia World Congress Center. What I did hear did not help me decide anything. I will say, though, that the Obama rally staffers were super nice. I went to the back of the room behind a column to nurse Zeke, and a staffer came by to offer me a chair and some water -- thoughtful!

Because I didn't hear the actual speech, I can mostly imagine what he said: "I'm asking you to believe....that this is the cutest child in America today."

Rhymes with "Oh No"

Guess what Zeke's new word of the day was?

This just after Sprout Daddy suggested we (meaning me, really) let the kiddie watch more TV than he should. After all, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two watch no TV, and as you know we already bend that guideline by letting Zeke watch the half hour Laurie Berkner DVD almost every day. After Zeke started school, I started turning on Sesame Street to busy him while I got breakfast ready and lunch packed. That is how we got started watching it a few times a week. He likes it, and I have a fondness for it from my childhood and a deep appreciation for its methods and goals. This week, I gave Zeke the TMX Elmo that Grandma Kathy gave him for his birthday. When he saw it, he said "Awww!" He already recognizes some Sesame Street characters because they are all over so much stuff including the disposable diapers we use and some of the food we give him.

I do think that Sesame Street -- for all its good -- is a gateway consumer experience and I wouldn't mind keeping him away from that for a little while longer. (I know it trains him to be a consumer because he says, "Ooooo" when he sees the asthma medicine and shoe "sponsorships" at the beginning of the show.) He has a whole American lifetime of "stuff" and the "need" to buy ahead of him. So far we have also been able to keep his branded belongings to a minimum and most of them are hand me downs or gifts. I don't inherently see anything wrong with some branded stuff but it is just so ubiquitous. We see today as the opening for this situation to start changing. To compound our certainty on this, Zeke also asked for Elmo to get tucked in with him tonight. So, two firsts for the price of one: first mention of a licensed character and first request for a toy to sleep with. And so it begins....

(As an aside, we were in a toy store the other day -- yes yes I know he has enough toys after Christmas -- and he cooed over some Sesame Street finger puppets. He wanted to hold the Bert and Ernie ones especially and when we let him, he immediately had them kiss. He did hear the Avenue Q soundtrack before, but it seems that he drew his own conclusion on this one, dear readers.)