Stealth Mode

Eddie has always been a little on the shy side. We never know which way it will go -- he will either randomly greet strangers with a "HI!" or a "POO!" or he will go into what we have dubbed "Stealth Mode."

When he was younger and strangers would talk to him, he would often burst into tears and make me hold him. Then one day, the three of us were at the fabric store. I was waiting in line to check out and Dave was following Eddie around the store. That's when he encountered "Overly Friendly Old Man." This old man didn't just talk to Eddie. He stooped down in front of him, talked to him, and even touched him. I would have intervened, but we knew that within moments, the screaming would start. We were surprised when Eddie didn't start crying or run to one of us to be held. Instead, Eddie went into Stealth Mode.

When Eddie goes into Stealth Mode, he holds perfectly still. He gets a very serious look on his face, as if he's concentrating on being invisible. He doesn't move or talk, but will just stand or sit there, head turned slightly to one side, staring at nothing. It cracks me up because he does this quite often now. I often find myself explaining to friendly strangers why he is suddenly silently frozen. Then he'll wait until we're walking away before shouting something like, "KNEE!"

Dramatization

Sick!

Yup... Eddie is sick again. This time, it's the stomach flu. Since he isn't keeping anything down, the doctor said that I need to give him sips of fluid every 15 minutes to help keep him hydrated. The problem is that Eddie is not a sipper. And since he is dehydrated, he wants to drink a lot. When I give him his cup, he starts chugging, so I have to make him stop. This makes him very angry and he cries until I give the cup back. He was so upset about his cup that he wouldn't let me take it away when he went down for his nap.

Kodak Moments

Eddie has been photographed a lot in his short life. It didn't take him very long to figure out how to smile for the camera. However, things have been different ever since Kristen turned the viewfinder around so he could see himself in it (as featured in the "Eddie Loves..." video).

Now, as soon as we pull the camera out, he immediately reaches for it, saying "Eddie, Eddie!" over and over. He wants to see himself, and he can't be bothered with staying put and smiling. After asking in vain for even the slightest grin, he usually ends up on one of our laps watching and pointing while we scan through all the images on the camera.

We can still capture a choice moment if we are quick. First, we have to be discreet about getting the camera out. Then, we can usually get one or two shots off before he demands to see Eddie. Here are a few recent favorites:

Getting himself wedged between the mattress and footboard of our bed.

Making a used car lot out of my chest.

Eloquent Ed

Eddie continues to learn new words every day. Some of the things he says crack us up. Some of the other things he says make us a little embarrassed. Here are a few of his newest words:

Edward


Thanks to one of Eddie's Christmas presents, the LeapFrog My Pal Scout, Eddie can now say his real name. The puppy can connect to the computer and you can upload songs and other things like the kid's name, favorite food, favorite color, and favorite animal. Then it will say "Hello Edward" when you turn it on and sings songs with his name in it. It is a little awkward sounding, but Eddie doesn't mind. And I love it when he said, "Ewrd."

Yep

For the longest time, Eddie's only answer to questions was "no." Now that he says "yep," I am never sure if I should believe him. I will say, "Eddie, are you stinky?" and he'll say "yep." Sometimes it's true and sometimes it isn't.

All Right

I must say this a lot more than I realize because Eddie says it all the time now, too. It is pretty cute, though, so I guess it's okay.

Quack

This one is also thanks to My Pal Scout. The problem with the word "quack" is that it sounds too much like, "crock pot," except that it is one syllable. Eddie replaces the "qu" with an "f" and the "a" with an "o," so it sounds pretty bad. We're still working on that.



Truck

Another dirty sounding word... Eddie is finally starting to distinguish between cars, vans, buses, and trucks. After I taught him this word, I regretted it and wish he would go back to calling them cars. It sounds much nicer.

Some

Eddie says "some?" whenever he wants some of something. When he was on his latest round of antibiotics, I would be getting it out for him and filling the syringe and he would say, "some?" Apparently he liked it because he always wanted some.

Like

I realized one day while we were all riding in the car that I use the word "like" a lot in the middle of my sentences. When I mentioned this to Dave, we started making fun of me and Eddie chimed in with a "so, um, like," from the back seat. He did this the whole way home and it cracked us up. Apparently I need to watch what I say so he doesn't grow up to be a valley girl.

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!