Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Dave already posted photos of our Christmas festivities on our blog. The thing he failed to mention was our recent encounter with strep. Yes, Eddie had strep over Thanksgiving weekend, but lucky him, he got to have it again just in time for Christmas. It started with me, then Dave got it, and finally Eddie got it. Since I was deathly ill the Saturday before Christmas, we had to miss a Christmas party with my extended family on my mom's side. I felt really bad about missing it because we rarely travel down to Price and/or Huntington any more and it has been months and months since my Grandma has seen Eddie. But, we thought it best not to infect the entire family, so we stayed home.

My brother brought back gifts, including this amazing quilt that my Grandma made for Eddie. It is an "I Spy" quilt and he loves it. His favorite part is the square featuring two dogs. It has been lying on our living room floor ever since we got it, strategically folded so that the dogs are up, so every once in a while, he will walk over, bend down, and say "hi puppy!"


My Grandma also got him a fabric book that has numbers, letters, and all sorts of animals in it. Eddie likes to open it to the counting page and say, "von, two, shree."


We are very grateful for all the gifts that we have received and for all the wonderful people who have helped make our holidays special.

3 Minutes With Eddie

As promised, we have captured Eddie saying a whole bunch of his words on video. The finished 3 minute product took probably an hour or so of combined filming on two different days, then another few hours to sort through the rough footage and dig out the coherent words. Hopefully it was worth it.

Let It Snow

After the last time it snowed, I decided that I had better buy Eddie snow gear while I could. We bought him a coat, snow pants, boots, and (after some struggle) found some snow-worthy gloves that fit him. So this week when it snowed, we were prepared!

Tuesday afternoon, I decided it was time to suit up and head outside. It took a while. First I had to convince him to let me put the snow pants on him. I managed to persuade him by saying the word "outside" a lot. I think he is finally starting to understand that we can't just go outside whenever the thought occurs to us, but it requires a little preparation. So I got his snow pants on, then his boots. Then I put his "coke" on him. Last came the hat and gloves. Let me just say this: gloves are hard to put on a squirmy toddler who doesn't know how to put his thumb in the thumb slot. Then I grabbed my coat and camera and we went out.

Eddie didn't get in the snow much.

He walked around the block on the sidewalks, but eventually ventured onto the snowy lawn.

He tried bending over to pick up some snow, but once he was over, he couldn't get back up.

100 Posts of Ed

When Kristen first suggested we give Eddie his own blog, I was a little hesitant. I wondered if our regular blog readers were all that interested in following every step of his development. But as time has gone by, I have come to really appreciate what we have compiled here. Are others interested in following? Who cares! I'm just happy we have this great record to look back on. Hopefully Eddie feels the same way when he gets a little older. Here are some of our favorite posts from the first 100:

Adventures
• Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 1.01.09
• Don't Toy With Me 3.15.09
• Happy Birthday 5.03.09
• Farmer Ed 6.04.09

Misadventures
• The Airing of Grievances (Eddie-Style) 9.17.08
• Whiz Kid 11.19.08
• Butter Ball 7.11.09
• Life's a Beach 8.28.09

Video
• Eddie's Laughter Guide 12.23.08
• Eddie's Therapy: Session 4 4.21.09
• Just a Little Off the Top 8.26.09
• Eddie Loves... 12.06.09

Our boy is growing up.

Eddie Loves...

On Saturday afternoon we broke out the video camera to capture Eddie saying some of his words (coming soon). After we finished with that, Kristen sat down on the floor next to Eddie and turned the viewfinder toward him. Once she started recording, his reactions to seeing himself on the screen were priceless. The footage I have cut together irrefutably answers the question: who does Eddie love the most? (Make sure your sound is on.)

Quiet Book

As many of you have already heard, Eddie is a menace when it comes to sitting through sacrament meeting. I am sure most kids his age are, but from my observation, he is worse than most of the kids in our ward. For months, I have been considering making a Eddie a quiet book for church as a way to keep him entertained without having anything to chuck at the people sitting behind us. I have done a lot of research on different kinds of quiet books. I found one that we could purchase, but thought that many of the pages were too advanced for Eddie. So after church a few weeks ago when we took Eddie out of sacrament meeting a record 6 times, I decided it was time to do something. That is when I found this amazing idea: A Pot Holder Quiet Book.

The next day, Eddie and I made a stop at the dollar store and bought some fabulous holiday pot holders and some felt. I got right to work. I wanted to make pages that Eddie could have fun with at his current stage of development. So I did some more research and made a list of potential page ideas.

Eddie likes numbers (especially twos and nines), so I decided to start with counting.

First, I cut numbers 1-9 out of black felt and stitched each number onto a square of red felt. I sewed a second red square to the back of the first to hide my stitches.




Next, I sewed all sorts of little doo-dads onto squares of black felt. Each section corresponds to the number that will cover it -- two lady bugs under the 2, five baseballs under the 5, etc. Then I sewed the black felt onto a piece of blue cotton fabric that was large enough to cover my potholder.


Next, I sewed the blue fabric with attached doo-dads onto the potholder. The fabric covers the lame design on the front of the potholder, so it really doesn't matter how ugly the pot holders are. You only end up seeing the trim and the back. Since I was using white thread, I didn't use the sewing machine because I didn't want the stitches to show on the back side. If you have the right color of thread, you won't have this problem. Just turn the edges under and stitch all the way around.

Last, I sewed the number flaps on top of the corresponding doo-dads. Voila! The counting page is complete.





The next page I decided to do is shape matching.

First, I cut shapes out of green and white felt. Then, I pinned the shapes to my red fabric and stitched with white around the outside of the shapes to create an outline of each shape on the red fabric.




Next, I cut out the shapes again so I could create a double-layer. I sewed a small piece of velcro onto the back, then sewed the layers together so the stitches are hidden between layers. Last, I sewed velcro into the center of each shape outline on the red fabric.

Now all I need to do is sew my red fabric onto my pot holder and this page will be done.

Care, who writes the Obsessively Stitching blog deserves all the credit for this idea. She has tons of cute crafty ideas, so be sure to check it out. I plan to make more pages in the quiet book as I come up with ideas. The book will be bound with some sort of ring through the loops on the pot holder, so I will be able to expand it as Eddie learns to do new things. If you have any ideas for future pages that a kid like Eddie might enjoy, please leave a comment!

Strep

I am thinking of starting up a regular feature on Eddie's blog about all of his diseases. At the rate he gets them, it could be a weekly post! In this week's edition: Strep Throat.

I feel pretty bad about this illness because not only is Eddie sick, but we also exposed almost everyone we know over the Thanksgiving holiday. In our defense, we didn't know he had strep until Friday or we could've avoided exposing the entire Barton family and the friends we had dinner with on Wednesday night.

Wednesday night, Ed started getting congested and developed a little cough. Thursday he had no appetite (he had crackers, toast, more crackers, and pie for Thanksgiving). Friday, he awoke from his nap in a pile of vomit and threw up 5 times in the next two hours -- including twice while we waited for the doctor to see us in the exam room at the Instacare. Due to Eddie's history, I thought these symptoms meant another ear infection. The doctor looked into his ears and didn't see any problems. Then she tortured him by sticking a tongue depressor in his mouth to get a look at his throat. She swabbed it and did the test and it came back positive for strep. So apparently, Eddie throws up whenever he has any sort of infection. Who would've thunk?

Since she made him so mad, the doctor offered to bring him an Otter Pop. I wasn't having that until she gave him some anti-nausea meds (because the last thing I needed was more throw-up in brighter colors). So they brought the anti-nausea medicine in and we force-fed that to him. Then he got his Otter Pop and was happy. Luckily, he got on antibiotics at the right time so that 24 hours later, he stopped being contagious -- before he could expose Dax & Riley at dinner on Saturday.

He's doing much better now that he is not contagious and there is nobody new to expose. So, if you get strep this week, you can blame us... and I apologize in advance for it.

Here are some silly photos from last week. We emptied our trash can in our office and Eddie found a new toy. He climbed in:

And then this happened:

To answer your question, no, I didn't catch him in time.

Did Someone Call for a Hero?

One of Eddie's favorite places to hang out these days is in our bedroom. This is mostly because of the ceiling fan, but also partly because of the big bed. He comes up next to it and says, "seat!" so that we will lift him up. Then he stands on the bed to look at the fan. He gets excited because can see himself (and the fan) in the mirror on the other side of the room. Since he loves it so much, most nights after his bath, we'll put him in his jammies and let him run loose in our room for a while before he goes to bed. Here are a couple of photos from the other night in his new Buzz Lightyear jammies:

He was running all over like a crazy person and wouldn't hold still long enough for a photo.

The one shot where I got him to stand still for 2 seconds and sort of smile. Luckily he happened to catch his reflection on the front of the camera, so he paused to take a look.

Ed-Word

Eddie's vocabulary seems to be growing by the minute. Since my last post about his words, he has learned several more. Here are the words that we hear most frequently these days:

Fan

I should be careful what I wish for. In my last post about Eddie's words, I said that I wanted him to learn the words "fan" and "light." Now those are the words we hear most often and some days, it really drives me crazy. Plus, anything that a similar shape is also a fan, such as stars, the letter "X," and even the new Walmart logo.

Candle

Eddie loves to look at our candles when they're lit and he finally started to say "candle." It sounds more like, "tan-doo," but every once in a while he gets the "c" right.

Juice

Up until very recently, Eddie didn't drink much juice, mostly because I never gave him any. But he has learned to love juice and will ask for it by name. At first, he would call it "joo," but now he can say it quite clearly.

Pizza

Eddie has a favorite food. It is pizza. I'll open up the fridge to figure out what to make for his lunch or dinner and he stands there, looking in, and says, "pizza?" Or I'll ask what he wants, and he always says "pizza!" He doesn't really understand when I tell him that we don't have any pizza... so we've started improvizing with whatever ingredients we have on hand.

Come On

Eddie likes to repeat things we say sometimes. Just this weekend while Dave was playing the PS2, something upsetting would happen and Dave would say "Come on!" So Eddie started saying, "Mon!"

Good

This one cracks me up. Every day when Dave gets home from work, I'll say, "how was your day?" And Eddie will immediately respond, "good." He never uses it in any other context, though, so I'm fairly sure he has no idea what he's talking about.

Wait

I tell Eddie to wait a lot. I tell him to wait when he tries to escape mid-diaper-change. I tell him to wait when he demands more fishy crackers while we're driving on the freeway. He has started to say "wait" when he knows that it is what I am about to say. Just the other day, I told him to wait for fishies in the car since we were almost at our destination and he exclaimed, "NO WAIT!" I think that qualifies as his first full sentence (unless you count "Wazzat?"), plus it sums up his personal philosophy.

"Dirty" Words

Clock

Eddie likes to point out clocks almost as much as he likes to point out fans. However, he hasn't yet learned the "cl" combination, so he always leaves out the L. Dave and I can't help but feel a little embarrassed when he shouts this word out in the middle of sacrament meeting.

Sit

Here's another word that frequently has embarrassing results. He hasn't quite figured out how to do just the "s" without adding an "h" in there. He can do it when he says "seat," but not when he says "sit."

How many of Ed's words can you spot in this photo?

A Nerd in the Making

In general, Eddie is not terribly interested in watching movies or TV. I am glad about this - to a point. While I am bummed that I don't have one of those children who can be plopped in front of a cartoon for 30 minutes and stay entertained while I do my own thing, I am glad that he does not yet know Elmo, Dora, Builder Bob, etc. The one character he does know (besides Batman) is R2D2.

On Saturday, while I organized our linen closet, Dave and Eddie started watching Star Wars: Episode IV. Dave chose that particular movie because of R2's prominence. This thrilled Ed. I could hear him all the way upstairs saying, "D2, D2, D2."

When I came downstairs, this is what I found:


Just a kid, enjoying his favorite movie with his daddy (a kid who will probably hate me in about 13 years for posting this photo of him).

18 Months Old

Today, Eddie is officially 18 months old. To celebrate, he got to go to the doctor. Yay.

Eddie has been to the doctor a lot in the past month. First, he fell down and had his seizure, so we took him in then. Then he went in to get his flu shot. Then he had a dentist appointment. Then he got his H1N1 shot. Then he got croup and went in just last Thursday. Now he seems to expect the worst when we walk into the exam room. Today, we arrived at the doctor's office pretty early, so we took the stairs to avoid the terrifying elevator. That was my work-out for the day (4 flights carrying a 22 lb. kid and a fully loaded diaper bag). They got us right in and took us to the exam room so I could strip Ed down for his weigh-in. That is when Eddie lost it.

Despite the writhing and screams of terror, we did manage to weigh and measure him. He now weighs 22.16 lbs., which puts him in the 8th percentile. He is 31.5 inches long, which is the 27th percentile. So he's skinny... but we already knew that. Once they were done measuring him, I was able to calm him down a bit for the pediatrician. She checked him out and said he seems to be doing great. Since he is sick, he got lucky and I convinced the doctor to postpone his shots until we go in again. I was hoping that one shot-free visit would help ease his fears. Of course, the next time we go in, he has to get two shots.

His next well-child check-up is at 24 months. Of course, with Ed's track record, we will be back in the office at least 6 times between now and then. But here's hoping we aren't.

Here is Eddie last week before the croup hit

Nursery Newbie

Today was Eddie's first trip to nursery. After splitting time with Kristen and I out in the foyer during the second half of sacrament meeting, we were skeptical about how well Eddie would handle this transition. Since Kristen was once again substituting in Primary, the task of taking him fell to me.

When we first arrived in the nursery room, Eddie was hesitant to let go of my sweater vest. For the first few minutes, he sat on my lap and watched the other kids play. But then, his eye caught hold of a shiny blue toy tambourine. I took him over to it and set him down. He quickly picked it up and began shaking it to his heart's content. I returned to my seat and observed for a few more minutes. He was soon comfortable interacting with the other kids. I told one of the nursery leaders where to find me in case there was trouble and quietly slipped out the door without him noticing.

Much to my surprise, no one had to come and retrieve me during the duration of Sunday School and Elders Quorum. When I went to pick him up at the end of the meetings, I found Eddie completely comfortable with his surroundings, standing in the middle of the nursery room joyfully thrusting his pelvis to and fro, a move he usually reserves for when music is playing. He even initially resisted when I tried to pick him up and take him. As we were leaving, one of the leaders handed me the page he had "colored." I think you will agree—the kid has a gift. The red arrows indicate Eddie's subtle artistic touch.

Time Out

Today, Eddie experienced another first—his first time out. Dave and I have been discussing the whole "time out" thing for a while, trying to decide how and when it should be implemented. We've had a hard time deciding. Lucky for us, Eddie is making our decision easier every day.

Eddie has started throwing temper tantrums. I have heard from both of Eddie's healthcare professionals (his pediatrician and his physical therapist), that it will only get worse before it gets better. In light of this horrifying knowledge, Dave and I have been trying to think of ways to manage Eddie's rage issues. In the past couple of weeks, Eddie has developed a new tactic during these moments of insane anger—if you're holding him, he arches his back and throws his legs and arms back, making it virtually impossible to hold him. If you try to set him down, he remains arched, which puts him into a nice back bend, using his knees and head for support. Generally when he is in one of these fits, he won't let you hold him and he won't let you set him down. The only solution we had found thus far is to scramble around trying to figure out what he wants and give it to him.

I realize that this is only rewarding the terrible behavior, so today Eddie drove me to trying a new tactic. He started his temper tantrum and, when I couldn't get him to settle down, I put him in his crib and left the room to let him calm himself down. I decided that I would stay out until he stopped screaming or for 5 minutes, whichever came first. After 3 minutes, he was quiet, so time out was over.

This left Dave and I wondering again about the best way to handle these situations. So, loyal readers, we turn to you for help. Do you put your kids in time out? If not, how do you control your kids? If so, how early did you start? What exactly do you do and how long does the punishment last? Unfortunately, we have not been able to find an Anger Management course for toddlers, so we need your help! We await your comments...

The Things We Do For Suckers

This afternoon, Eddie and I had a scary experience. We went to the neighborhood park to play on the slide. The jungle gym in this park is set up so that the slides are on one side, then on the back side, there is an open ledge. Usually, Eddie will climb up the stairs and go straight for the slide. If I let him go down the slide unassisted, he shoots off the end, so I usually wait by the slide and slow him down as he slides. Today, he climbed up onto the platform and started coming for the slide, where I was waiting. Then he said, "no!" and started backing up the other way - towards the open ledge. I yelled "stop!" which generally makes him stop what he is doing. Unfortunately, I was too slow. By the time I ran around to the other side, he had fallen about 4 feet to the ground and landed flat on his back.

His eyes were open and he let out one little cry, so I scooped him up. Then he stopped breathing like he was preparing for an extra loud scream... except he was silent for longer than ever before. I started saying, "breathe, Eddie, breathe!" Then he arched his back and gasped, then started shaking like he was having a seizure.

Obviously by this point, I was freaking out. I hurried home to find my phone to call the pediatrician, all the while trying to get Eddie to look at me or to respond in any way. I couldn't find my phone (I learned later that Eddie had hidden it inside his shape sorter), so I had to run to the neighbor's house to call Dave. By the time I found my phone to call the doctor, Eddie was acting perfectly normal. The pediatrician told me to bring him right over, so as soon as Dave got home, we went to the doctor.

The doctor checked out his reflexes and his pupils and asked me all sorts of questions. She toyed with the idea of sending us to Primary Children's to get a CT scan, but luckily let us decide what we wanted to do. She was fairly confident that if something were seriously wrong, Eddie would have more symptoms occurring within a couple of hours. So with that assurance, we decided to keep an eye on him and then if anything more happened, then to take him to the E.R.

The doctor told us that she suspected he had a "breath-holding spell," which happens a lot with toddlers. I guess a kid can get really mad or hurt and will involuntarily hold their breath long enough that it makes them pass out, or in some cases, have a seizure. She told us that if that is what it was, it will probably happen again, but if it starts happening too often, we'll have to have him tested for anemia (which can cause seizures, too, I guess).

Now, it is two hours later and Eddie seems to be doing perfectly fine. He didn't have much fun at the doctor's office, but he came out of the ordeal with a sucker which, apparently, he likes so much that he doesn't want to ruin. He just likes to hold it.

Zat?

As mentioned in an earlier post, Eddie can now ask, "What's that?" He does this constantly. No matter where we are or what is going on, Eddie always has to know, "Zat?" He will point at different things and ask. I try to be good about answering him so that he can learn what things are. However, he will also point at nothing and ask. Or, he will point in one direction, look in another direction and say, "Zat?"

He is especially fascinated by lamps, lights, light fixtures, and ceiling fans. Every room we walk through, he points at every source of light -- whether illuminated or not -- and asks, "Zat?" Needless to say, it is getting a tiny bit old. It seems to me that it would be easier for him to learn to say "light" or "fan" so that he could stop the endless questions.

Despite this, he is learning new words. Of course, they are not the most useful words. Here are the two we discovered earlier this week:

Dee-Too

Thanks to Dave's love of Star Wars, Eddie is quickly becoming indoctrinated. Dave found a box of his old Star Wars toys for Eddie to play with, so now Eddie has an R2D2 toy. Also, whenever we enter our office, he sees the Return of the Jedi poster and asks (you guessed it), "zat?" I will hold him up to it to see who he is pointing at and it is almost always R2D2. And so, he can say "dee-too."

Pointing at the fan, asking "zat?" while holding R2D2

Purple

Of all the colors to learn, I thought purple would be amongst the last, right up there with orange and chartreuse. However, as I tried to convince Eddie to color with our new markers instead of sucking on them, I used the word "purple" and Eddie instantly picked it up.

Like I said, not the most useful words, but I suppose they're better than nothing!

In other news, Eddie suddenly got three teeth this week, so he has been a complete lunatic. And he got his second haircut last Friday in preparation for Barton family photos. His hair is so short now that it doesn't matter if we comb it or not. Of course, it is also so short that you can see his crusty cradle cap right through it. Quite the trade-off.

Eddie's response when I asked him to show his new teeth.

And So It Begins...

Many of you may remember that we spent the majority of last winter dealing with colds and croup and ear infections. Once the weather warmed up, Eddie's health improved a lot and we haven't had to deal with very many illnesses over the summer. I was hoping that all of last winter's diseases would have built up his immune system until it was impenetrable. Clearly, I was wrong.

It is now fall and Eddie is now sick. I thought he was just teething, but as more and more symptoms emerge, I think it's time to stop being in denial about it. Dave and I are preparing ourselves for the next six months to be just as bad or worse than last winter.

Wish us luck!

Unleash the Beast

Before I became a parent, I always thought that parents who put leashes on their kids were being ridiculous. Now that Eddie is walking, I have come to terms with the necessity of having a baby-leash. Lucky for us, my friend Mary gave us a cute puppy leash for Eddie.

Today while I was contemplating a solo trip to the library, I decided it might be time to get the leash out of the closet so that Eddie could get used to it. More and more, Eddie insists on walking instead of riding in the stroller. So I can either let him out of the stroller and chase him everywhere, or I can leave him in the stroller and listen to his screams of agony. I am hoping the leash will provide a mutually agreeable solution.


Here is Eddie trying on his new puppy "backpack." The only problem I see with it so far is that he wants to hug and kiss the puppy, which is difficult when it is riding on his back.

New Words

Eddie has been learning a lot of new words lately. I think he is almost to the point where he will repeat everything we say... almost. So here are some of the newest or most frequently used words in Ed's vocabulary:

No

By far the most well-used word that Eddie knows.

Moon

I am surprised to see how many children's books feature the moon. Eddie learned this word because of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has a giant moon on the first page. Now, he points out the moon or anything that looks like the moon in every book we read. The problem here is that he is now confused and thinks that cows say, "moon." He is always very careful to pronounce the n.

Spoon

Like every other kid, Ed loves playing with the kitchen utensils. That is how he came to learn this word. The only problem is, it sounds just like, "moon," so we have to interpret based on context.

Fishy

In the past few weeks, Eddie has become more interested in our annoyingly boring fish, Tad. He will walk over to check Tad out several times a day. He also loves to eat goldfish crackers, so it was inevitable that he would learn this word. He's not so good with multiple syllables yet, so it sounds like he's saying, "she."

Buh-Bye

Months after first learning to wave goodbye to people, Eddie finally learned to say the words. This one came from hearing me say it so much. Every time Eddie walks away from me, I say, "bye bye Eddie." Now he finally started saying it back.

Papa

My niece and nephew (Riley and Dax) call their grandpas "Papa," so that is what my dad is known as in our family. Now that Eddie loves looking through our photo albums, I try to name people and point people out to him. He always manages to find "papa" and point him out. This past weekend when my parents were in town, this was all Eddie said all weekend. "Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa." Needless to say, it made Papa happy.

What's That?

Eddie's first two-word phrase! Of course, he combines the words into one that sounds like, "zat!" The only problem with him knowing this one is that he points at everything and everyone and says, "zat?"

Eddie's Therapy: The End

As of today, Eddie is officially done with physical therapy! Julie came by for the last time today to conduct a huge test and Eddie passed with flying colors. His feet are doing a lot better, so we are just going to keep using the sample insert that Julie let us borrow for another month and if he doesn't get any worse, he will be able to be done with that, too.

The test was a little ridiculous, but they have to test him in all the developmental areas before he can be done with therapy. The test itself took over an hour. It might not have taken so long, but Eddie was woken up from his nap by the ridiculously loud rain storm we had from 1:44 to 2:00 today, so his nap was cut short, and he was a wreck. Julie tested Eddie's cognition, perception, communication (both receptive and expressive), and fine and gross motor skills.

Julie started with what we knew he could do already and then worked her way up until we found what he couldn't do yet. It was gross motor skills that put him in therapy in the first place, but now he is in the 63rd percentile! He blew us away with some of his fine motor skills. Julie brought out some big beads and a piece of string and showed him how to thread the bead on the string. She said, "This is hard. He probably can't do this." Then we watched in amazement as he concentrated really hard and got the string in the hole. I also learned that he knows how to put lids on bottles. Where he learned that, I have no idea.

The area he scored lowest on was "self care," which includes things like feeding himself with a spoon, removing his shoes without help, etc. Mostly he scored low on that category because these are things I haven't really given him the opportunity to do. So I guess we'll work on those things.

The only other thing we need to work on now is curbing Eddie's blossoming temper. Dave and I are at a loss as to where all of Eddie's rage comes from, but it has been getting worse and worse over the past weeks. I have suspected that the anger stems from his desire, but inability, to communicate his needs and wants to us. Julie confirmed my suspicions. She recommended that we try to always offer him a choice between two things that we think he might want. That way, he knows that we understand that he wants something and then we don't give him the opportunity to say "no." We'll see how that works out.

Overall, Eddie is doing great. So now we'll be focusing on communication and anger management.

Eddie likes wearing this "hat."

Just Monkeying Around

With our Tracy Aviary membership, Eddie and I can get into the zoo for free the first Thursday of every month. We avoided the last couple of months because of the heat. Lately, Eddie has been showing a lot more interest in animals (mostly in puppies), so I was interested to see his reaction to the zoo. We went along with Christie, Josh, Neil, and Kyle.

Eddie and I got there about 5 minutes before the others, so we went inside the front gate to wait. I let Eddie out of the stroller so that he could have some time to walk around and explore. He walked around in a big circle and eventually I was able to contain him by saying, "Eddie, look! A ball!" He was mesmerized by the ball-shaped water feature, so that is where we spent the rest of our time until the others arrived. He especially liked that he could see his reflection in the side of it.


Once Christie and kids arrived, we attempted to set off to see the animals. I tried putting Eddie back in the stroller, but he refused. I thought he might be okay walking down the hill to the elephants, but two steps into it, he fell flat on his face, banging his forehead on the ground and making his nose bleed. So I carried him to see the monkeys.


Luckily for us, Eddie loves monkeys, so they helped calm him down after his incident. I was surprised that Eddie recognized that all the different kinds of monkeys were, in fact, monkeys. He just kept pointing at them, saying "ah-ah." Besides monkeys, Eddie also liked the bears and the tigers.


The tigers were my favorite part this time around. There are three tiger cubs that were born in June and they've only been out on display for a couple of weeks. We got to see them up close since their mommy was feeding and bathing them right by the fence. They were ridiculously cute. Eddie showed his approval with a point and a "pup!"

Eddie's Desert Island Books

I have heard that it is perfectly normal for toddlers to want the same books read over and over again. Lucky for us, Eddie has picked some pretty good books to want repeated. I have most of these memorized and have contemplated trying to multi-task while "reading" to Ed. We've read them so many times that sometimes he will even tell me what is coming up on the next page.

Where the Wild Things Are // Maurice Sendak

Eddie loves all the "pups" in this book. He thinks that Max is a pup because he's dressed in his wolf suit. He thinks the wild things are all pups, too. Plus, this book has an added bonus: the moon. We're not sure why (perhaps because of the moon in The Very Hungry Caterpillar), but Eddie loves the moon and always has to point it out when it shows up in his stories.

"Oh please don't go - we'll eat you up - we love you so!"

Oh, The Thinks You Can Think // Dr. Seuss

My mom and I discovered this book the first time we went to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure and visited the bookstore dedicated entirely to Dr. Seuss in Seuss Landing. I absolutely love this book because it is all about encouraging imagination and thinking of ridiculous things.

"And what would you do if you met a Jibboo?"

Puppies

This is an Usborne touchy-feely book. Eddie loves puppies, so naturally he loves this book, which is filled with all sorts of hairy, fluffy puppies.

"Most puppies like to sniff, but not this one."

Sheep in a Jeep // Nancy Shaw

This book was a baby shower gift from my cousin, who told me that she let her sons pick out the book. It is a fun rhyming book about a bunch of sheep driving a jeep rather recklessly. Thanks to this book, Eddie can say "beep beep."

"Oh dear! The driver sheep forgets to steer!"

Hippos Go Berzerk // Sandra Boynton

A gift from Eddie's aunt Cheryl, this book was a hit from the start. It is a counting book about a bunch of hippos that get together for a party and... you guessed it... go berzerk. Eddie likes this book so much that he attempted to eat it the other day in the car. Luckily I caught him before he ate through any of the words.

"All through the hippo night, hippos play with great delight."

Good Night Gorilla // Peggy Rathmann

This book is all about the pictures. Eddie loves it because it prominently features a gorilla (aka monkey, which Eddie calls "ah-ah") and a lion, which Eddie always thinks is a "pup." I even taught Eddie to gasp at the right moment -- when the zookeeper's wife realizes that all the animals are in their bedroom.

"Good night armadillo."

Life's a Beach

Since Dave currently has the "luxury" of not working on Fridays, we like to go out and about on Fridays when most other people are at work. Today was just such a day. We spent this afternoon at the Oquirrh Lake beach with Dave's sisters, Cheryl & Christie, and their kids. There are two beaches at Oquirrh Lake -- one with an adjacent playground and one without. We had originally planned to meet at the beach by the playground so that Eddie could enjoy his daily swing, but upon arriving, we found a bazillion people already there and no parking to be found. So, we decided that Eddie could go one day without swinging and went to the other beach instead, where we almost had the whole beach to ourselves.

I slathered Eddie's exposed areas with sunscreen, making sure to get his face and ears, arms and legs. Then we set him loose in the sand. He had a blast, digging and splashing with his cousins, while I enjoyed sitting on the grass talking to my sisters-in-law. After a while, I started to feel like I was getting sunburned, so I applied more sunscreen. Then I took the sunscreen to re-slather Eddie. He didn't look pink at all, so I just put a little on his face and let him get back to business.

After a little over two hours of digging, splashing, lake water drinking, duck chasing, sand throwing, bee stinging fun, we decided to call it a day and packed up and went home. We did our best to de-sand Eddie's crevices and got him dressed. After a little while, we noticed that one of his cheeks was red. I said to Dave, "maybe he got a little sunburned." A little while later, the other cheek started turning red. Then we noticed that one side of his head was burned as well. Clearly, I didn't do as good a job with the sunscreen as I thought. What do you think?


He already looked like he's been in a fight due to the bathtub fall bruises on his forehead and the front porch fall scab on his nose. Now he looks like a red raccoon! At least he's still in good spirits, but maybe it's only because he hasn't looked in the mirror.

Just a Little Off the Top

Like all future first time parents, when Kristen was pregnant with Eddie we discussed all sorts of plans for our new baby. One thing we agreed on was that we wanted to let his hair grow and grow, even if other people mistook him for a girl.

Well, Eddie's hair has turned out to be super thin and wispy (one of the few really obvious traits he inherited from his momma). Recently his head has just been a giant ball of fuzz, so we decided it was high time to give him his first haircut. This experience played out in three distinct acts, which I have captured in the following video (and lightly accented with the film music of Bernard Herrmann).

What I Love About Being a Mom

As a mom, it is easy sometimes to let oneself feel unappreciated and overlooked. The past few days I have been feeling this as Eddie has taken a liking to looking through our photo albums. He will point out "Dada" on every page and will even point out "Papa," which is his Grandpa Andrews. I keep trying to get him to point me out. I'll say, "Where is Mama?" or "Who is this?" and he will either point at someone else or ignore my questions altogether. So I was feeling a little bummed out, thinking that Eddie takes me for granted. Then yesterday evening, he flipped open an album to a photo of me, pointed, and said, "Mama." It helped me realize how grateful I am to be a mom... even if Eddie doesn't yet know how to show his full appreciation. I really love being a mom and here are my top 10 reasons why:

10. Having a very good reason for not working full-time.

9. Having my patience tried every single day, but knowing I wouldn't want it any other way.

8. Feeling a sense of accomplishment when Eddie learns something new.

7. Having no choice but to agree when people tell me I have an extremely cute son.

6. Holding conversations with Eddie in jabber language.

5. Reading stories with Eddie and seeing how smart he is.

4. Making Eddie laugh so hard that he gets the hiccups, but still doesn't want to stop laughing.

3. Seeing Eddie do things that remind me so much of myself that I just have to laugh.

2. Snuggling in the rocking chair and singing songs when Eddie will allow it.

1. Hearing Eddie say, "mama" and knowing that he appreciates me in his own little way.

Eddie's Therapy

Eddie had another therapy session this afternoon. In just the past two weeks, Eddie has gone from a boy who could stumble 5 steps to a boy who can walk back and forth across the room. Walking is his new favorite thing. If I ever want him to stop whining, I take his hands and say, "let's walk" and he takes off across the room chanting "dada, dada."

We are supposed to be putting his shoes on him every day, but I am bad at being consistent. However, I have found that he is much more stable when he wears his shoes. Because of Eddie's foot situation, we have discussed getting shoe inserts for him. We have hesitated to get them before now because they are $25 per foot and we have been hoping Eddie's ankles would strengthen as he learned to walk. They have improved, but aren't quite normal yet -- with his left foot being substantially worse than his right.

While Julie was here today, she pulled out the sample insert that she carries with her to show parents what they are. It just happened to be a left foot insert that is very close to the right size for Eddie's foot. So she let us borrow it for the next month. That means I have to be diligent about putting Eddie's shoes on him.

Since he is quickly outgrowing his current shoes, Eddie and I went shoe shopping after Julie left. Eddie is now the proud owner of some stylish new Converse All-Stars.

(Not Eddie's actual shoe)

We are hoping that by the end of September, Eddie's feet will have improved enough that he will be able to test out of physical therapy. Once they determine that he is caught up in all five developmental areas, then he won't have to have therapy any more. We aren't too concerned about the other areas besides gross motor skills. He is good enough with his fine motor skills to catch the tiny black ants invading our house. He is becoming quite the jabber-box lately as well. More details on that will come in a future post.

Cousin's Day

The Barton mommies do their best to gather all the cousins together occasionally for "Cousin's Day." Yesterday was one such occasion. We gathered at Cheryl's to tie-dye shirts for the upcoming Bear Lake trip. Then we had a pizza lunch and headed to Old Farm Park in Riverton, which is a splash park.

I had heard about these splash parks (there is a similar one in Herriman), but had never been to one before. It turned out to be a lot of fun and I was a little sad that I didn't wear my swimming suit, so I didn't get the full experience. The great thing about the splash park is that there is no standing water more than an inch deep. The ground is perforated, so all the water showering down from above drains away. Since I didn't have to worry about Eddie wandering to the deep end and drowning himself, I felt more comfortable letting him roam. Of course, Eddie didn't feel too comfortable roaming alone, so I ended up following him around. At first, he didn't like it at all. For some reason, he doesn't like it when water comes at him from above. But soon, he got used to the cold water and figured out that he could get close to things without getting showered.

This was one of his favorite features. He sat down a couple of feet from it and slowly inched his way over. Eventually he ended up right underneath it, trying to get the water in his mouth.

Here is a photo of the whole group, minus Christie and Grandma Barton, who were both trying to get a photo with everyone in it and everyone looking. As you can see, they weren't entirely successful. If you zoom in, you can see that Eddie is turning blue. The water was really cold and Eddie wanted nothing to do with it after about 20 minutes because he was too busy shivering.

You Don't Win Friends With Salad

Every parent quickly comes to the realization that feeding a toddler is hit and miss. While that can be taken quite literally, I mean it in the figurative sense. Ever since Eddie stopped nursing and got teeth, we've been trying to expand his diet to include, well, everything. Every parent also quickly comes to the realization that cooperation is not a toddler's strong suit. Perhaps it is due to my lack of creativity in thinking up meal ideas for Eddie, but it seems that he eats the same three things over and over again: macaroni and cheese, quesadillas, and peanut butter sandwiches. These items are, of course, supplemented with yogurt, grapes, pureed vegetables, pickles, the occasional nibble of corn on the cob, and lots of crackers.

Despite our best efforts, Eddie seems to have been born a vegetarian. The only "meat" that I have successfully gotten him to eat willingly is the Gerber 2nd Food Apples and Chicken puree. As you may imagine, the stuff is disgusting. It is brown and runny and does not resemble chicken in the slightest. Eddie loved it. We have tried giving him hot dogs, chicken nuggets, grilled chicken, steak, deli meat, pork roast, bacon, etc, etc. Sometimes he will eat one piece before carefully moving all the other pieces from his tray to the floor. Sometimes he will put one piece in his mouth, taste it, then extract it and place it on the floor. Most of the time, he won't even try it. We try to trick him by hiding meat pieces in other things that he likes. He is too smart for us and rarely falls for it. If he does accidentally get a piece in his mouth, it is quickly ejected.

As life-long carnivores, Dave and I are not really sure how to handle this. Do we need to be worried about stunting Eddie's growth because he's not getting any protein? Do we need to make him eat tofu and beans? Do we need to puree all sorts of meats and add them to his yogurt and macaroni? Perhaps we just need to explain the food chain to him and then he'll get it.

15 Months Old

It's official: Eddie is growing up too fast. I took him in for his 15 month check-up today and felt like a veteran mom -- no questions, no concerns. I know the drill. Eddie, however, seems to have forgotten the drill. He was angry when I laid him down to remove his pants. He was angrier when I laid him back down so they could measure his height. He was absolutely livid when I laid him down to get his shots. But, between all these bursts of rage, he was incredibly happy to be there. He explored every inch of the filthy floor and opened all the drawers and found the best toy ever -- the doctor's stool. There he stood, spinning it for a good two minutes straight before the doctor came in to check him out. Then I had to remove him so that she could sit down.

Apparently he is healthy, which is a good thing. He's only grown one inch since his last visit, which surprised me. I thought he was getting tall. He must just be getting more spry and that is why he can suddenly climb on top of the coffee table where he was too short to before. He also hasn't gained much weight and is only in the 12th percentile! I had to ask her to repeat that (mostly because Eddie was busy yelling at the cupboards, but partly because I couldn't believe it).

In other news, Eddie had physical therapy again on Tuesday. Julie was very excited that Eddie has decided to take some steps on his own. We don't even have any new exercises to work on; we just have to practice walking. I am glad about that. It makes me feel like maybe we're almost done with physical therapy. We will be done once Eddie is walking well and we see what happens with his feet/ankles.

All in all, Eddie is doing great!

Eddie enjoying the garbage cans at Cove Fort last week