Exhausting Day

My son won't stop getting up at 5:30 a.m. What in the world can possibly wake a kid up at 5:30 a.m.? This is Saturday kiddo, let Mommy and Daddy sleep! But no, it is time to get up. Mommy takes first shift and Daddy takes over at 6. Funnily enough, yesterday I wrote a review on my other blog about one of his toys, the Busy Ball Popper. and guess what Daddy was playing with this morning? That's right, the Busy Ball Popper. You can Read The Review Here.

I caught a bit of a nap this morning when he asked to watch Darth, otherwise known as Star Wars. He made it through Empire while I was sleeping, and mostly through A New Hope. This kid is vying for my record of most times watched. I think he has a long road ahead though. :)

Finally he want down for a nap, and peace was restored to our household. The peace was short lived though, as his nap was over quickly. I bought my wife some time by wrestling with him for bit. He is getting stronger each day I think. He definitely can hold his own for a toddler.

We went to a new park today. New to us that is. This one was not designed for parental supervision the way the other ones have been. This meant that Daddy had to contort his body in weird ways to make it into some of the slides. I am not a small man, and this took some doing. We had a lot of fun at the park. The slides were slicker than the ones we are used to, so even I got some speed going down them.

After the park was what is turning into a nightly walk around the neighborhood. He peddles his tricycle while I push it, and my wife just walks along. The weather has been great for walking lately.

After an early dinner and a bath, it sounds like my son is winding down for the day. He will fight bed time again I am sure, but my wife has been getting better at putting him down for the night. I did it for a long time, as only my singing would work for him. Now it seems the playing field is a little more level. She has put him to bed more than me for the last several weeks.

It has been a long day, but bed time is still far away. Blogging, commenting where I can, and doing my Entrecard drops takes a lot of time lately. Hopefully I can get some unsolicited traffic soon. :)

My Son - Loads of Fun

My son had quite the day today. He finally slept in past 5:30 am for the first time since Wednesday. He still woke up before I left the house, so he got ready with Daddy. This involved putting deodorant on, "shaving", and putting gel in his hair for spiking. Daddy is in sore need of a haircut, and hasn't used the gel for a few weeks. This is still the routine though, according to my son, so he got gel.

While I was at work he pulled all the Star Wars DVDs off the bookshelf where we keep our movie collection. He was searching for the box with Darth Vader. He had a 4 in 6 chance of finding one, so sure enough he did. He made my wife put on The Empire Strikes Back for the 5th time this week. He loves that movie, but Mommy is growing weary of it. Too bad he is too spent to watch it by the time I get home.

He is very interested in all things Darth Vader. Varying between "Star Wars" and "Darth", he repeats these words over and over, much to my wife's dismay. Daddy thinks it is great. :)

Tonight after dinner Daddy and son got to wrestle a bit. He is getting interested in rough-housing, so Daddy has volunteered for the job. We both love every minute of it. My son can take quite the wrestling match. Some other kids I know would be crying on the first contact. I won't mention names here, but there are quite a few of them. ;). I am hopefully training my son to be tough when he needs to be, and yet be tender when he needs to be as well. He is too young for me to really teach these lessons, but I am toning things down so he can understand what I am teaching. As he gets older, the wrestling will get more fun. :)

Daddy had something to do tonight, and Mommy was tired, so Daddy made a deal when it was time to come inside. Daddy promised if he was good and came inside nicely, then when Daddy was ready we could go outside again and he could ride his trike. While Daddy was occupied, Mommy, not knowing the deal was made, tried to put him into his pajamas. He firmly told her "Daddy said play!" I am taking her word for it here, but she swears he said it really clearly. He was right. Daddy had made a promise, and my wife waited until I could take him outside.

The weather was really nice outside, so I asked my wife to join us on our walk. My son has a nifty tricycle that was designed for pre-tricycle-ready kids. This means it has a long handle that Daddy can use to push and steer while the boy learns how to peddle. We took a nice long walk around the block, and my son actually went inside without a fight. I was pretty happy about that, since he tends to throw fits when it is time to go inside.

All in all, my son was very well behaved today. He listened fairly well, wrestled, watched Star Wars, rode his tricycle, went to the park with Mommy, and went to bed relatively on time. Tomorrow should be even busier with Daddy home all day. I am looking forward to it.

Newest Star Wars Geek

My son has officially joined the ranks of Star Wars geeks out there. No doubt his daddy is to blame. :) The other day he started singing the first few lines of the Imperial March, also known as Vader's theme music. This kid has not put two notes together his whole life, and comes out singing the Imperial March. Daddy was proud.

He can identify Star Wars merchandise on sight now. All my books and toys fascinate him. "Star, Star..." is a constant sentence in this house. Sometimes he goes all the way and says "Star Wars". Other times he says, "Darth". He LOVES Darth Vader. Maybe it has something to do with Daddy telling him, "I am your Father. Search your feelings. You know it to be true" while he was in the womb.

Either way, a Star Wars nerd he is becoming. Daddy is pretty stoked. How bad would it be if one of my kids didn't like Star Wars. That would be a shame. lol. Of course in reality it wouldn't affect my love for him if he didn't like it, but I am happy for the bond we are forming.

Tonight as my wife was putting him to bed he began singing the Imperial March again. Music to Daddy's ears. Now if only I can get him to sit through an entire movie. Two year old kids aren't exactly known for their attention span. The time is coming though. He has been making it further and further into Return of the Jedi.

When R2-D2 launches Luke's lightsaber into the air while Luke does a flip off of the plank he is walking, there is always a cheer of joy. He loves that scene. Any scene with Vader, Chewbacca, or R2-D2 is bound to catch his attention. He is picking out his favorites.

I am looking forward to my future lightsaber battles with him. Only then will he be truly initiated. For now, Darth Tater (Mr. Potato Head) and the Spud Trooper are his pals. Chewbacca and various other Vader toys are rapidly climbing his favorite toy list too. Daddy couldn't be more proud. :)

Today's Ultrasound - 22 Weeks

We went to get an ultrasound done for boy #2 today. Let me tell you that real insurance is better than being on Medi-Cal any day. I wish that all doctors and nurses treated all patients the same, but having been on the losing end of that political game, it is nice being on the other side this time around.

We confirmed that it is indeed a boy. I wanted to be sure that the battle of the names is worthwhile, since we already know what we would name a daughter. We would be happy with either a boy or girl, but we are pretty stoked that he's a boy.

Not much else to say about this, other than the tech thought he looked good. He seems to be developing right on schedule, so we are happy about that.

Parks and Big Doggies

My two year old son is fearless. Nothing seems to phase him. This is the park we went to tonight. He is a pro at the kiddie park, so this is the upgrade. Sometimes he slides alone, sometimes with Daddy, but he always has a blast.

Mommy needed a break tonight, since he was being so clingy with her all day. Daddy took him to the park to give Mommy that break. While we were there a man walked up with a fluffy white Standard Poodle. He turned out to be pretty cool. He stopped to let my son play with the dog, and we started talking.

The guy was older, but not too old. His son is only 10 years older than I am, or 8 years older than my wife. ;) We talked about politics, society, Ventura/Oxnard in general, and more. He was pretty interesting and we agreed on quite a bit. He was impressed that someone as young as I was (he assumed I am younger than I am) was just as annoyed at the downgrading of society as he was.

While the man and I talked, my son had a lot of fun with the dog. Standard Poodles are pretty rowdy when they want to be, so she enjoyed being chased by my son. For those of you who don't know, Standard Poodles are full-sized dogs. They are almost waist high, which makes them barely qualify as a man's dog. This man admitted as much, but she turned out to be a pretty good dog. I told him as long as the dog was big it was all good.

It turned out that this would be one of the smaller dogs we saw tonight. There were a couple of big ones, one looked like a Chow/Husky mix, but I am not sure. He enjoyed them all, though the Poodle is the only one he really played with.

It started getting dark, so I told my son it was time to go home. He didn't gripe as much as normal. It seems that I tired him out just enough. I had a lot of fun. Hopefully I will see that man and his dog the next time we go to the park. My son would sure enjoy it.

En Garde

When I got home tonight I had a huge headache. I took a nap right after dinner to see if it would help. I woke up a short time later and saw my son, wearing his pirate hat and wielding his sword, approaching me. He proceeded to hack at me with the sword. I had no means of defense but my hands. Fortunately he didn't hurt me. What a thing to wake up to though. :)

A little later I was able to acquire a sword of my own, and the game was on. He is getting better with his sword. I actually have to block most of his shots now. I think tonight's sword fight was inspired by Return of the Jedi,as he watched Vader and Luke battle it out.

Whether from Pirates of the Caribbean or Return of the Jedi,this kid loves a good sword fight. I think we will have plenty of fun once he is old enough for a Force FX Lightsaber.

Pez Run - Round Two

A while back I wrote a post called "Go Get Me Some Pez" about a Pez candy run my son managed to send me on using as few words as possible. I made another Pez run last night.

My son dragged me by the hand, wanting me to follow him up the stairs. He went to his room and started digging through his toys. He recruited me for the effort, though I didn't know what I was looking for. He kept trying to tell me, but I couldn't understand what he wanted me to find. Remembering the Pez run from the above post, I asked him if he was looking for his Pez dispenser. He said no, so we kept looking.

I kept digging and eventually found his General Grievous dispenser. I asked him again if he was looking for Pez, and he nodded excitedly. I knew we didn't have any Pez refills in the house, so I figured I was in for another candy run.

We had just seen some Batman and Joker Pez dispensers at a grocery store, which I thought was Ralphs. I was wrong. Ralphs only had characters from that Golden Compass movie. I kept trying to find the refills, pacing back and forth through the checkout aisles, and finally ended up back at the Golden Compass stand. I figured out that a couple of the boxes looked different, and sure enough I found 3 refill packs. I bought all three, knowing that the next Pez run is just around the corner.

I am a pretty big fan of Pez, but he takes it to a whole new level. This is one of the things only Daddy shares with him. Mommy just doesn't get the whole Pez thing. I am going to take him to Universal City Walk sometime soon so he can see a whole store full of Pez. I think he will love it.

Daddy Time

Tonight my wife had to go to a chiropractic appointment, so I picked my son up from the chiropractor's office. I was going to take him home after a quick errand, but he changed my mind. We drove past a park and he said, "Slide, Slide." This is his word for park. He LOVES slides. He had been pretty good on my errand, so I took him to the park closer to home.

I didn't know how long my wife would be, so we stayed for almost an hour. My son always goes to the park with my wife, but I rarely get a chance to take him alone. I figured it would be really fun for him to spend some time doing what he loves. I was right.

As soon as we got there he started up the stairs, then turned and grabbed my hand. He wanted me to go with him. This was his evening, so I followed him up the stairs. After going a few times while Daddy was chasing him, he wanted to go down the slide with Daddy. We went down the slide a few times, and then he was back to his solo routine.

I had to bribe him with Pez candy to get him away from the park without a fit when we were done. Once he is at the park it is really hard to get him to leave. :) I had a lot of fun tonight. I think he did too.

I Try

One of my son's newest phrases is, "I Try!" This is repeated over and over again until we either let him try, or we deny his request and he starts a tantrum. Sometimes we have no choice but to endure the tantrum because he wants to try everything, including driving.

He has figured out that DVDs are held in place by the nub in the center of the case. He knows that he can press the nub to loosen it up enough to get the disc out. Sometimes he has better luck than others.

I was taking a nap on the couch this afternoon and I woke up with my hand being lifted in the air. I tried to wake up enough to see what was going on. My son had a CD case open and was pressing my thumb into the center nub, admitting that he couldn't get the disc out. I thought that was pretty funny. This case different than my son was expecting, so I had to take it out the old fashioned way. I was glad for a chance to actually do something for him without the "I Try" syndrome. :)

Tonight, as we were letting him listen to the baby with the heart monitor, he busted out the "I Try" again. He wanted to push the button that triggers the amplification. We let him listen to our hearts as well as the baby tonight. He got a kick out of listening to his own heart again.

Sometimes the "I Try" phrase is really cute. Other times it is annoying. I think either way it ultimately works out on the side of cute. After all, these are among his first words. :)

My Son Has Spidey-Sense

Forgive the Comic Book reference in the title, but I am interested in geeky things, as many of you already know. My son seems to have a sixth sense sometimes when it comes to locating Starbucks stores. My wife worked for Starbucks while we lived in the Inland Empire, so my son was pretty familiar with the stores from a young age. He was equally familiar with a certain vanilla milk that they sell.

This kid has radar for the milk. He can walk into a Starbucks he has never seen before and go straight to his milk. I'll admit that this is not a huge feat, since it is always in the refrigerated section near the cash registers. It is still impressive that someone so young has that kind of memory. He has been doing this for over a year now.

Today my wife and I were running errands all over town. The last stop on our list was the Ralphs grocery store. It was a little crowded, so we parked a little further from the enterance than usual. As I was parking, my son starts requesting milk. "Milk. Milk. Milk." Mommy asks him, "Do you want milk?" He nods his head vigorously. He doesn't say the word "yes" yet. (he is quite the master of "NO!" however). As he nods his head he points the opposite direction of the grocery store. I didn't see him point, so I figure he knows we are at Ralphs and he wants milk. I was wrong.

When we got him out of the car he became more persistent. This time I saw the direction he was pointing. I had completely forgotten there is a Starbucks in the same parking lot as Ralphs. The trees in the parking lot completely obscure most indication that the Starbucks is there. Somehow my son either saw the sign or knew what parking lot we were in. Either one is possible. Whichever it was, it earned him a vanilla milk. He was pretty pleased.

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Farting For Fun

There were so many titles that this could have gone under, so I tried to choose a relatively tasteful one. My son has decided that farts are funny. He decided this a while back, but yesterday he decided again with gusto.

We were on the way to Disneyland after work yesterday, and I hear him call from the back seat, "Mamma, Mamma." There was a great sense of urgency in his voice. The second she turned around he let one go. He had been saving it just to make sure Mommy noticed. This was followed by a fit of laughter, and then he did it again.

This continued for several minutes. He kept clenching, trying to do it again. He succeeded several times, laughing all the while. I think I laughed harder than my wife on this one, thus we all fit our gender roles on the issue. For better or worse, farts sound funny to boys. I think this is definitely an indicator of what is to come. Aren't little boys great? I can't wait to see how long it takes boy #1 to teach boy #2 how to achieve this bit of humor.

Big Brother - The Competition Begins

My son typically is very good with children. He loves being around other kids. As you can see in my post "Big Brother In Training", he was once pretty excited about his new little brother. Lately something has changed in him. It seems he put two and two together, and now thinks that his new little brother is competition for mommy's affection.

"Mommy can't pick you up right now, she is carrying your little brother" may have been the sentence that started the trouble. Daddy made this mistake at Disneyland last week. There was a time that when we asked, "Where is Mommy's baby?", he would smile and point to my wife's stomach. Now he ignores the question altogether. He snubbed some kids at Disneyland, something he usually does not do.

We came up with a way to get him excited about the baby, and it seems to be working so far. We have an electronic heart monitor that we used when my son was in the womb. It is a simple battery-powered amplifier with headphones that enables us to listen to the baby's heart. We know he loves electronics, so my wife came up with the idea that he would want to listen to the baby's heart beat.

I think she did it once without me, but last night we did it again. We had him listen to the baby's heart, then Mommy's and Daddy's and his own. He got quite a kick out of it. We added it to his bedtime routine, though only the baby's heart was featured tonight.

Hopefully we can continue exciting him about the baby. I think everything will be fine.He is a very loving boy. Our job is to make sure he doesn't feel neglected when the new baby arrives. I think Daddy is about to rise to the top of his favorite people list. :)

Bedtime Mayhem

My son will do anything to stay up past his bed time. He is not averse to being incredibly defiant, nor is he unaware of how cute he can be. Tonight he tried a combination of tactics.

Mommy put him to bed and read him a book. He asked for Daddy to come upstairs. Before I could come up to sing to him, he got out of bed in an attempt to trick Mommy into letting him stay up. He thought if he was cute enough she wouldn't send him back to bed. He was wrong. He tried to run away from her, laughing all the way. He stopped laughing when she caught up to him and carried him back to his room. The laugh quickly changed to a tantrum.

Enter Daddy for the singing. Mommy is gone, so baby thinks he has a clean slate to work with. He snuggles into Daddy and wants a story. The book he chose was a simple book on colors and objects, so it wasn't so much reading as it was naming things for him and asking him to point out the various items. He recognized just about all of them, which was pretty good I thought. I told him to lay on his pillow if he wanted Daddy to sing to him. He laid down and I thought he was finally ready to sleep. I was wrong.

While I was singing to him he kept trying to grab books, sit up, play, and anything else he could do to stay awake. I told him to lay down again if he wanted more songs, so he did. We are trying to sleep train him, since I tend to fall asleep lying down with him. We read him stories and sing to him, and attempt to walk out without too big a tantrum. I told him I was on my last song, and he cleverly snaked his body around my arm, making it impossible for me to get up without removing him. He got a laugh out of Daddy for that one. He also got a few more songs.

I left him in bed with firm instructions not to get up and came downstairs. My wife took over the enforcement duty. Sure enough, the moment I sat down to blog he was coming to see us. He again tried the cute tactic, but it still didn't work. He keeps getting up, so hopefully he will go to sleep soon. We really need him to be fully sleep-trained before his brother is born. For those inclined to pray, we could use a prayer or two on his behalf. :)

Ultrasound Results

Coinciding with my post Baby Number 2 - 19th Week, I put up a poll to see what everybody thought the new baby's gender would be. 5 votes later we had 3 for girl and 2 for boy. I didn't expect a huge turnout for the poll, given the short notice, but at least there was a small sample represented. We went to the doctor today for the ultrasound, and now we know.

Before I reveal the result, I want to talk about the experience. For our first baby, my company's health plan was insufficient to support my wife's maternity visits. We had a number of bad experiences throughout the pregnancy. Medi-Cal is a stigma, no matter how much doctors and hospitals deny it. This time my new company has a much better plan, and the difference in service is like night and day. I think the way we are being treated now should have been the way the other doctors and nurses treated us then. I think that hospitals have a lot of explaining to do regarding the inequities of service depending on who insures their patients.

Today we encountered a slightly different experience than we had expected. Apparently it was a gender only ultrasound. The tech was not supposed to take measurements or do any of the other tasks they normally accomplish while they are showing you the gender. We brought a DVD to record the whole thing, but he told us this was a quick in and out thing and he wouldn't be taping it.

My mom will have 11 grandkids by the time my baby is born. She has only seen the ultrasound for my son, so we thought she would like to see this one too. She drove all the way out here from the Inland Empire just to watch. It was almost a wasted trip, as the baby was not cooperating.

The baby was there, relaxing, both legs bent at the knee and legs crossed at the ankle. There was no view of the gender identifier or lack thereof. It seemed like the technician was anxious to get going, as we were the last appointment for the day. He seemed surprised that the baby was being modest, and it seemed he would give up hope and send us home. We convinced him to try again, considering the distance my mom drove, and finally he found the answer we were looking for. In the mean time, we saw some brief images of the face and hands, but again the tech was in a hurry and didn't show us, let alone capture any images. He finally took a picture once we determined the gender, but it was an image that did not show us much more than the baby's hip. I was a little frustrated because I intended to include the image with this post. Hopefully next time the tech won't be in such a hurry. He is still far better than the tech at the Redlands Community Hospital in Redlands. Even in a hurry he was far more courteous to us, and let 2 adults and a toddler watch the ultrasound.

Now that we know what we are having, it makes the name search much easier. We will be going through our lists of the names we like and making a decision, just like we did for the first one. We still have plenty of time to pick a name, so we are not too concerned yet.

And by the way, we are having a boy.

Baby Number 2 - 19th Week

19 Weeks Pregnant

According to 3dpregnancy.com, our baby looks something like this now. We are in our 19th week. My wife made the appointment today for the ultrasound, so we are pretty excited. We finally get to see what sex the baby is on Wednesday. Let the naming battles begin!

I decided to have some fun, so if you look to the right column you will see a poll asking for your opinion. Do you think it will be a boy or girl? Let's see who is right. It is a short poll, so be sure to vote soon.

I am trying to spend as much time with my two year old as he will allow. I know his world is about to turn upside down again, so I want to help him build confidence in where his place is in the family. He has been so clingy to my wife lately, that he is either going through severe separation anxiety, or he can sense something is up. A few weeks ago, in a post called "Daddy Finally Matters", I blogged about how I was finally getting some attention. Most of that went away until a couple days ago.

The other night he had crawled into bed with Mommy while I was doing my Entrecard clicks. When I came to bed he looked so cute that I didn't kick him out. As soon as I got in bed he put his arm around me and grinned. He was mostly asleep, but the gesture meant so much to me that I laid in an uncomfortable position until he moved his arm. The last couple of days he has run up to me quite frequently, wanting Daddy to pick him up. Sometimes I am second choice, but I don't mind. I love the attention he gives me, since it used to be so rare.

I am hoping that he is excited about being a big brother. We ask him where Mommy's baby is and he points to her stomach, so we think he knows there is something different about Mommy. I doubt he has grasped the concept of a person being in there, but hey, this kid is pretty dang smart.

Wednesday is going to be a great day. We are pretty excited to see our little baby, whether a boy or girl.

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Update: I was informed that my 19th week post was inaccurate. We are in the 21st week now though. (June 18, 2008)
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More Cute Things My Son Says

This morning after breakfast my son did something different. My wife took the tray off of his high chair and instead of instantly reaching for her, he looked at his lap, waved his hand for emphasis, and said, "What a Mess!" He was referring to the food that inevitably ended up in his lap. "Mess" is a new word for him. Neither of us heard it before today.

My son has always tried to steal the seat of whomever gets him out of his high chair. We are usually eating, so this is usually inconvenient. Recently my son began adding a twist to the routine, returning it to cute status, rather than annoying. He sat in my chair, got set to eat my food, looked at my wife and said, "I Daddy." He was trying to pretend we was me. He has done this a few times, and it is cute every time.

This doesn't qualify as cute so much, but it was still impressive to me. My father in law bought my son a few puzzles while he was in California on business recently. One of these puzzles is of the alphabet, complete with electronics that know which letter you have put in place, as well as the alphabet song on command. He and I were putting the pieces in, thankfully without the sound this time, and I was singing the alphabet song for him after each letter. I was naming each letter as we went too. He picked up the "C", so I told him "A, B, C, D", prompting him to look in the appropriate section for the letter. This had worked on a few other letters, so I expected it to work this time. He looked at me, looked at the letter, and as he was reaching to put it in, he pointed at the slot and said, "C". That's right. My two year old can recognize the letter "C". Daddy was pretty proud of this, if you haven't guessed by now. :)

Taming The Lion

My wife and I took our son to the Santa Barbara Zoo today. He loves animals, so my wife likes to take him to the zoo. I haven't been able to go with them until today. Let me just say, if you go to a zoo, prepare for the stench of a lifetime. That place had some serious stench coming from the pens. :)

The Santa Barbara Zoo is tucked away in the midst of the city, between the Cemetery and the beach. This allows for a steady breeze, even on a warm day. I definitely needed that breeze today.

We walked around the zoo, looking at the various animals. Some were harder to find, others were definitely looking for attention. Apparently the last time the Gorillas were right up against the glass. Today was not the Gorilla's day though. as you can see in the above pic, the Lions were out today. How often can one get this close to a lion without being dinner? I thought it was pretty cool. My general rule on cats is this: house cats are best served to dogs, while a cat that can eat you is cool. This is why I am a fan of lions and tigers.

We had a lot of fun at the park. It turns out that the zoo is a Pepsi park, so I was pretty stoked. Too bad some bad apples have thrown lids at animals in the past, because the zoo, like other parks, doesn't serve Pepsi with a lid or a straw. When there are birds flying around, I like having a lid on my cup. Don't you?

One of the things that stood out at the zoo was the play are for the kids. There was a huge hill of astro-turf or something. It looked a lot like grass from a distance. Kids were sliding down this hill and having lots of fun, so I took my son up a few times. That hill turned out to be quite the workout. We would run up the hill and slide back down. The hill was pretty fun, and I only got rug burn on a couple parts of my back. I think the next time we go, the hill will definitely be on the agenda.

I think the highlight of the day was on our way out of the zoo. My wife was, in my opinion, foolishly running her hand along the railing of the path we were on, disregarding the white splotches all around us from Seagulls and all sorts of other avian visitors. She finally got a big handful of guano on her hand. This was no small glob here. This pile was pretty big. She was pretty disgusted, as was I, and we hurried to the nearest bathroom, with myself laughing all the way. She didn't think it was so funny.

This zoo is pretty cool, especially for how small it is. It was nice being able to get as close as we did to the animals. My son loved it, my wife and I had a good time, and I got a great laugh in the end. I am looking forward to the next visit.

Push....Push

My son came to me the other day, looking for help fixing his toy golf club. He has a habit of knocking the heads out and using the rest of the club for other purposes. On this occasion he added a twist. As I was trying to shove the head back in, he got behind me and started shoving my elbow. He was saying "push, push".

Needless to say, this was a bit of a surprise. How did my son know that by pushing my arm from behind he would assist me in applying force to the head of the club? How does a two year old kid understand basic physics? This is a question I would like to research. No, I am not saying he can sit down and solve mathematical formulas. He can, however, use mechanical means to achieve his ends. This is pretty cool I think.

He has begun to understand the use of tools already, and dutifully carries his wooden toolbox around to help Daddy with basic repairs/upgrades. He obviously understands that by pushing my arm forward, he can contribute to the amount of force applied to an object. He can throw or bounce a ball, and has had lots of fun making bouncy balls ricochet all over the house. Is this all normal childhood development, or is it a sign he is going to be a science wiz? Hopefully it is the latter.

I have always been interested in science, and my dad can fix just about anything. My father in law is into computer engineering. I think it is possible that my son got a bit of a genetic boost in the science/mechanics department. I am interested in seeing where this goes.

Our House - Tighter than Fort Knox?

When my son went down for his nap today, he thought he ruled the roost. When he woke up, he found the place a little less accessible. Mommy and Daddy had toddler-proofed the house.

It is not that we had not baby-proofed before, because we had. He is just so mechanically-minded that he can get past many of our baby-blocking devices. We had to up the ante, and it seems to have worked, at least mostly.

First up was a doorknob cover for the front door and downstairs bathroom. My son has a habit of opening the front door and running outside. We have a front gate that further blocks escape, but we don't want him opening the door at all. He knows how to unlock both the knob and the deadbolt, so we had no choice but to add the cover.

Next up were the stove knobs. He started messing with the gas stove knobs this week, so we put a stop to that with some covers. The last thing we need is a running stove when we light the fireplace. So, we have now achieved gas safety.

The next item we had to address is the wall outlets that we use. The unused ones have the standard plastic inserts, but we use one particular outlet for our laptop power supplies. He has a habit of yanking the cords from the wall, and attempting to put them back in. We are always on top of this, but it is so frequent we needed some peace of mind. I found a box that you attach to the wall which allows for some cord space, and completely blocks the outlet from tiny fingers. Good luck getting the cord out this time, kiddo. :)

My son has a habit of opening the fridge and peering inside for something good to eat. The other day he brought me the milk and a sippy cup. Yesterday he got into the eggs and broke all but two of them. My wife tried to install the fridge blocker, and gave up, telling me it was a worthless tool that doesn't work. I looked at it and got it to work as planned. By this time my son had woken up from his nap. My wife decided to try out the device and boasted to our son that he couldn't open the fridge. He yanked at it a few times, and then looked at the device. Within seconds he calculated what needed to be done and yanked the latch off of the fridge. It was only attached with an adhesive strip, apparently a fact known by the two year old. Score one for the baby.

The baby gate we currently use is fine when we are downstairs and want to keep him downstairs. It has a flaw, but a less than dangerous one if we are downstairs. It mostly keeps him penned in, but when he decides he wants past it, he charges it and manages to knock it down most of the way, clearing the path to climb over it. Again, while downstairs, this is not so bad. The problem is that sometimes we want to keep him upstairs. I worry that he will try his charging routine, and then slide down the stairs on top of the gate. We wanted to install a permanent unit on the top of the stairs to protect us all from the above scenario. It turned out we picked the wrong one, though, having not allowed for the railing interference. We have to get a new one tomorrow.

So, all that being said, we have now protected the front door, the stove, the wall outlet, and the fridge (sort of). We still have the one stair gate, and will be replacing the upstairs one tomorrow. We are pretty satisfied with the security now, but we are always looking to improve.

Bye...See You, and Other Cute Phrases

My son has picked up a number of interesting phrases lately. Some of them are pretty cute. Others are pretty frustrating. I am writing about some cute ones tonight. Apparently he gets the following one from his mom, who just admitted this to me last night. Any time by son is leaving the room, he will wave at us and say, "Bye. See You." Without fail, it is those two words, back to back. With his tone of voice, and the obvious sincerity, it is hard not to laugh.

He has picked up the concept of "I don't know" recently as well. He hasn't quite grasped the word "don't", but he tries to use the sentence often. Mommy/Daddy: "Where are your shoes?" Son: "I know" (know having two syllables, and accompanied with hand motions). He will then repeat the phrase until we find what it is we are looking for.

When my son was first learning to talk, instead of saying T.V. he would say "'mote", as in "remote." It was always fun to ask him if he wanted to watch something. Mommy/Daddy: "You want to watch Mickey?" Son: "Mote! Mote!"

These are just a few of the ways my son makes me smile on a daily basis. I enjoy every minute I have with him. I have been greatly blessed.