Communication ROCKS!

Posted by on August 14, 2009 19 Comments

I know I don’t do this a lot. I don’t really brag about my kid’s super awesome accomplishments much on here. I don’t really come on here and just tell you how much I am in awe of how much he is learning and how crazy cool it is. But, people, this is something I am just so proud of. And, considering this is like his interwebz baby book that is supposed to take the place of the real one that sits 90% blank in my office collecting dust, I had to come here and blog about it.

Okay, so Kendall started catching on to the baby signs thing around 13 months old, even though I had been signing with him since he was 6 months. Honestly, I had given up hope around 10 months and sort of slacked off for a while. Now, though, now it’s this glorious means of communication! It’s so crazy. He will actually sign full sentences sometimes, like “milk, more, please” (“please” still being one of his very favorite signs that he signs with passion and vigor). Oh! And I finally taught him “thank you”! Manners are ridiculously adorable and will get him almost anything he wants…for now.

But that’s not even the thing I came to brag about. Sometimes when I’m changing Kendall’s diaper I will recite Brown Bear, Brown Bear because I know that damn book by heart and it takes just long enough to keep him still while I remove, wipe and replace the diaper (other times I will sing the “be still or I will accidentally get shit on your face” song adapted from the bubbles and clowns songs). So tonight I’m getting him in his jammies and diaper for bedtime and he starts signing what looks like maybe “please”, and I’m confused. “Please what?” I ask. Then he’s confused and he signs it again, but this time I realize he’s signing “bear”, which in our baby signing world looks a little like “please”. Then he signs “more, bear, more, PLEASE”.

“You little Einstien! You want me to say Brown Bear, Brown Bear?!”

He smiles big, nods and signs “please” again.

^^^GENIUS. My spawn is a genius.

Kendall is 15 months, 1 week and 4 days old

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , , |19 Comments

Yes, I thought it was ridiculous at first, too.

Posted by on July 13, 2009 15 Comments

To say I suck in the kitchen and pretty much hate cooking is an understatement. It’s not for lack of trying. I watch the freaking Food Network all the time, hoping it will seep into my brain and inspire to me julienne and saute exotic ingredients and fresh produce I happily fill my cart with every time we are at Central Market.  I have no problem buying the stuff I need to produce delicious meals, I just have a problem actually making them, and a HUGE problem cleaning them up. Fact is, it’s a lot easier to clean up after a one pot frozen Stouffers meal than a made from scratch casserole.  In addition, I’m clueless around the kitchen. I will look into a pot of bland rice and chicken and have no idea what spices or herbs would make it taste better.  I’m pretty sure I just buy spices based on how pretty they look in the jar…where they will stay. Forever. I have about 4 recipes that are *mine*, mostly stolen from cookbooks that pride themselves on quick and easy dishes, and none of them have more than 7 or 8 ingredients. 

I will say, though, that I have never felt like more of a rock-star-domestic-goddess in the kitchen then I did when I made Kendall’s baby purees.  I was AWESOME at steaming and mashing and freezing fruits and veggies.  He LOVED my food, so I loved making it.  I enjoyed the 3 hours it would take every two to three weeks to prep and freeze new batches, and I was at such a loss once he transitioned to table food. Table food, believe it or not, is not nearly as fun/easy to make as baby purees.  Table food is just like tedious grown up food in smaller pieces.

I’ve made the occasional batch of baked sweet potato fries and mini-banana pancakes, but, I have to admit, the majority of Kendall’s meals now come directly from the freezer by way of a bag of frozen veggies or frozen chicken nuggets, or by way of the pantry in the form of a can of Annie’s Organic Bernie O’s. Yes, the fact that it’s organic makes me feel a little better about it coming from a can.  It’s not so bad when Scott is home since there’s almost always some acceptable leftovers hanging around, but the weeks that he travels, well, it’s pretty pitiful. 

I saw the idea for Muffin Tin Mondays posted on TheBump.com last week, and, I’m not going to lie, I initially thought it looked like a giant PITA.  But, the more I read about it, thought about it, looked at the pictures, the more I figured it could be kind of fun to participate in. It would give me an excuse to think outside the box, bag and can for at least one of Kendall’s meals, but didn’t look like I had to be to terribly talented and didn’t look too messy. It was worth a shot.

According to the author of Her Cup Overfloweth, the purpose of Muffin Tin Meals is this:

Serving a meal in a muffin tin to kids have many benefits including: breaking up the lunchtime routine, serving foods in smaller more manageable portions for little mouths and introducing them to new foods in a fun and interesting way!

From what I gather, you just put different food in each muffin spot of the muffin tin and have fun with it. The blogger also hosts a blog carnival of sorts every Monday where people post links to their own MTMs based on predetermined themes, but I’m not quite there yet.  I just figured I’d make one on my own for fun out of what we have laying around already.

I present to you my very first Muffin Tin Meal, inspired by Kendall’s book du jour, Brown Bear, Brown Bear:

 


I decided to fill each spot with a different color represented by one of the animals in the book. Starting in the upper left corner, we have a brown “bear” shaped PB&J sammich, watermelon to represent the red bird, banana to represent the yellow duck, blue sippy of milk to represent the blue horse, avocado to represent the green frog, shredded mozz to represent the white dog and goldfish crackers to represent, well, the goldfish. I skipped the purple cat and black sheep since I didn’t really have anything those colors for Kendall to eat, and I didn’t have the room.

I have to say, it was pretty fun to put it together! It really didn’t take that much time or preparation, and it definitely got Kendall’s attention. I read the book to him as I pointed out the colors of each food, then he devoured his selections, but made sure to carefully place pieces he didn’t want back in their correct spots. Beginning of tiny OCD? Perhaps he’s at least inherited that from his father.

I’m a little inspired now. I think this will help with my feeding the child funk.

Kendall is 14 and a half months old

Oh! And just an FYI, there is no Memos From Mommy this week.  Sorry! Hopefully it will be back next week.

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , , , |15 Comments

If Motherhood were like Girl Scouts…

Posted by on July 10, 2009 13 Comments

So yesterday I accidentally locked Kendall in the house. It was one of those things I always feared would happen, and I even said to myself out loud as I headed to the door with the bag of trash as Kendall quietly played with his toys in the front room, “don’t lock yourself out, don’t lock yourself out”. I unlocked the deadbolt, unlocked the door handle, closed the door behind me, dumped the trash, went to open the door only to discover that I had actually LOCKED the already unlocked door handle. FUCK! There’s Kendall, his chubby cheeks smooshed to the front window, laughing. Hahahaha! It’s so funny to see mommy freaking out on the other side of this window!

Of course, my brain was exploding with curse words and thoughts and what ifs. I managed to reach back into a corner of my brain and recall a conversation with my husband about a week ago that went something like this.

Me -”You know, I”m always worried that I’m going to accidentally lock myself out of the house one of these days. We really need to hide a key somewhere, like, maybe under a pile of dog poop or something.”
Scott- “No. Then a burglar will find it . They know EVERYWHERE people hide keys. They will find it. You know there is a window unlocked, right?”
Me- “Uhhh..no. Why? If you are convinced someone would find the key and break in, why wouldn’t they find the open window and break in?”

He told me it had something to do with the alarm going off if they opened the window and then told me what window it was. As I was remembering this I was praying he didn’t decide to lock it after that conversation. I would have called the dog sitters who have keys except I didn’t know their numbers and didn’t have a phone since all of that was in the house along with MY CHILD. I ran to the window and discovered the screen would not come off without the use of tools, which were also in the house with MY CHILD.

I darted across the street and pounded on the neighbor’s door, thankful I had managed to brush my teeth that morning. Luckily, they were able to remove the screen and bust in in a matter of minutes.  Poor Kendall had gone from laughing at me to freaking a little when he saw me run across the street.  Then he freaked a little more when a strange man crawled through the window and the dogs went bizerk.  

The whole ordeal was probably 20 minutes from start to finish and Kendall was in my sight the whole time, standing by the window, but it still made me feel like an asshole mom.

We headed out to Gymboree class later in the day where I recounted the asshole tale to a few other moms and then to some moms I ran into at the mall playground after class.  Each one of them responded with, “Oh yeah…that’s nothing.  One time I/my husband/my dog/my son locked (insert baby’s name) in (insert car/house/bathroom).” And as we all sat there and relived the insanity and hilarity that ensued, laughing only because in each case all ended well, it occurred to me that this must be another one of those Motherhood badges.

Yes, if motherhood were like Girl Scouts, my sash would be getting pretty full of badges. I would have the We Survived Colic, My Kid Cried It Out, Molars are AWESOME, Finally Getting Some Sleep Around Here!, Bugs as Snacks, and Crafty and Creative Diaper Blow Out Cleanup badge, among many, many others. Now, I can add the Dimwit Mother Moment In Which I Locked My Child in the House badge to it.

I think it will go nicely next to my other new badge I earned this week, the I Know Brown Bear, Brown Bear By Heart And If You Ask Me to Read It One More Time I Might Set It On Fire badge. In the last week Kendall has taken an extreme level of interest in this book and can not get enough of it. Scott, my sister, my brother, my mom and I all read it to him countless times last weekend and throughout the week. It was adorable the first 200 times. Now, I admit, I’m hiding the book… just for a little while, I swear.

Kendall is 14 months and a week old

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Filed Under: Headed to Toddlerhood |Tagged With: , , , |13 Comments