Sunday, September 26, 2010

Mama's new hat

Poor, Mama.

Try to take a Sunday afternoon nap, and this is what will happen to you. Biscuit will eat all the goldfish in his bowl and then set it on your head like a hat.

Poor, Mama.


Fun words

Here are a few funny things Biscuit's saying right now:

Hewi-caca: Helicopter

Go-go: Motorcycle

Shruck: Truck

Oc-puss: Octopus

Dah-in: Dolphin

Pap-pire: Pacifier

Max-Wuby: "Max and Ruby" (He says this when he wants to watch TV.)

Hunh?: He's figured out that when you speak to him, if he says "hunh," you'll repeat what you said. It has nothing to do with whether he hears you the first time or not.

Melk: Milk

Nake: Snake. Sssssssss.

Eh-uh: Elephant

Cah: He's not from Boston, but our boy "pahks his cah in Hahvahd yahd."

He gets his R's and W's mixed up, so he says "twain" instead of "train." And it "wains" instead of "rains." And he has some "fwogs" in his room. They say "wibbit." It's very cute.

I won't even discuss how he says "sit" and "fork." It wouldn't be polite!

But boy does he get mad and impatient when he's trying to tell you something and you can't understand him.

When he gets up in the morning, he has to name everything he sees in his room ... beah, twain, cah, fwog. Whatever he sees, he has to name it.

I think he's talking well for his age, and he talks a lot. I wonder where he got that from?!?

Everything hurts

I think I've created a monster.

Last week, Biscuit stubbed his toe on the coffee table, and to try to stop the crying, I told him to come over and let me kiss it and make it better.

Now, every time he even lightly taps a toe, finger, arm, whatever, he comes running over and says, "Kiss. Make better."

And even worse, he's decided that now, every time he doesn't like something, it hurts.

"Biscuit, eat your dinner," I said.

"Mouth huts, Mama," Biscuit said.

"Biscuit, help me stack up the books," I said.

"Ahm huts, Mama," Biscuit said.

"Let's go change your diaper, Biscuit," I said.

"Weg huts, Mama," Biscuit said.

So last night, I told him, "Biscuit, you need to quit crying wolf."

"Wuff," Biscuit said. "Dog. Wuff. Wuff."

They're all Josh

We went to a block party in our neighborhood, and I was a little worried because all the kids are a good bit older than Biscuit.

My worries were for naught. There were four boys between 8 and 13 who just couldn't get enough of Biscuit.

True, they did treat him at times more like a little pet than a little boy. They would pat him on the head and make a big fuss when they told him to sit down beside them and he did. But that's okay; they all seemed to have a good time.

All the boys had scooters. One of them lowered the handlebar as far as it would go, and let Biscuit play with it. Biscuit stood with his feet straddling the scooter platform and pushed it using the handlebars. I honestly think that Biscuit thought he was riding his scooter just like the bigger boys were.

I kept a close eye on Biscuit, not because I thought the boys wouldn't take care of him, but more because I think Biscuit thought he was just as big as them and could do everything they were doing, including tricks on the scooters.

I had to laugh, though, when one of the little boys came over to his mom and said, "Mom, he keeps calling me Josh."

I told the boy that he and Biscuit's cousin Josh were about the same size and had the same dark hair and haircut.

"But he's calling ALL of us, Josh," the boy said.

"Oh," I said. "Well, I guess that's better than him saying, 'Hey, you.'"

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Bless this food

I'm teaching Biscuit a blessing to say before we eat. It's very simple, something I think he can learn with no problem. It goes ...

"Bless this food, for our good. Amen."

It started with me saying each word, and Biscuit repeating the words after me.

Then, he started saying some of the words a split second after me and some even at the same time as me.

Next, he figured out that if he let me say the word "good" at the end, he could skip right from "our" to "Amen." He was quite proud of himself.

But tonight was the kicker. Jeff and I laughed so hard.

Biscuit was saying the blessing with me, and I said, "for," but Biscuit had lost his concentration. So I repeated it. "For," I said, then he said, "five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!!!"

Jeff and I started laughing, and Biscuit just stared at us like we were crazy.

Then we got to the end, and I said, "Amen," and Biscuit said, "Awww, MAN!"

Not quite the same, Mr. Biscuit. But hey, it's a work in progress.

There's a parrot in the kitchen

I was trying to fuss at Jeff this morning. I won't go into the details, but it was something I felt strongly about, so the tone of my voice was serious.

Biscuit was still eating his breakfast, so he was sitting at the kitchen table. Since he was watching and listening, I wanted to make my point to Jeff without raising my voice or saying anything that would upset Biscuit.

"That's how I feel about it. Period." I said to Jeff.

Suddenly this little voice said, "Pewiod, Dada."

We looked at Biscuit, and he had a big grin on his face. Then I went back to making my point.

"It makes me worry, worry, worry," I said to Jeff.

"Wuwwy, Dada," Biscuit said.

That was it. Jeff and I both started laughing. No more discussion.

I told Jeff that we could finish talking later when I could go back to being mad at him.

"Hey, the boy was on your side. He was helping drive home your point," Jeff said.

So I'm thinking that next time there's a topic that needs to be discussed, I'm making sure Biscuit is in the room.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I.P. Daily

We haven't started potty training yet, but we're starting to talk about it.

I've read a few articles online, and I've been talking to some other mamas about how they went about getting started.

One article that I read suggested to let the child to watch someone of the same sex use the bathroom. That way, they can see exactly what happens.

So I asked Jeff if he would mind taking Biscuit with him when he went. He said he was fine with that.

The next day, Jeff and Biscuit headed into the bathroom. Jeff explained that he was going to pee-pee, and Griffin repeated the word "pee-pee."

I was sitting at the kitchen table, which is right outside the half-bath, and of course, Jeff didn't bother to close the door.

I heard Jeff continuing to explain to Biscuit what was happening, then all of a sudden, I heard, "Don't touch it! Don't touch it!"

I lost it. I started laughing so hard I was almost falling out of my chair.

As Jeff and Biscuit walked back into the kitchen, Jeff asked, "What's wrong with you? What's so funny?"

"What was going on in there?" I asked. "I heard you say, 'Don't touch it! Don't touch it!'"

"What's funny about that?" Jeff asked. "Biscuit was reaching down to touch the water in the toilet, and I was telling him not to do it."

Needless to say, the water in the toilet bowl wasn't my first thought about what he was touching.

Bite, please?

Even though Biscuit is in the toddler room at daycare now, his teacher from the infant room still stops in to see him.

Earlier in the week, she went out to pick up lunch (a 10-piece chicken nugget meal) and went into the toddler room to eat it so she could see Biscuit and some of the others who used to be in her class. The toddlers had already had their lunch, so they shouldn't have been hungry.

And they weren't ... except for one. Guess who?

Biscuit walked up to his old teacher and said, "Bite, peas?" And being the sweetie that she is, she gave him one of her chicken nuggets. He said thank you and then just stood there holding his nugget. Then she realized, he was waiting to dip his nugget in her barbecue sauce.

He dipped the nugget and walked away.

But then he came back.

"Bite, peas?" asking for another nugget. And she gave him one!

He did a repeat performance of holding his second nugget until she let him dip it in the barbecue sauce. Then he walked away.

BUT THEN HE CAME BACK! "Bite, peas?" asking for another nugget! And she gave it to him!

When she told me about it that afternoon, I scolded her. "You did not have to give him a good portion of your lunch," I told her. She said she couldn't help it because she was being sweet and saying please and thank you.

I sure do hate the he has such a rough life at daycare!

Monday, September 20, 2010

The mushy-gushy stuff

I try not to get too mushy-gushy in my blog entries, but I tell you what, I just had a coughing fit after getting choked on a drink, and my sweet baby was concerned.

I looked over at Biscuit and with a furrowed, little brow, he asked, "Okay, Mama? Okay?"

"Yes, baby. I'm fine. Thank you for asking," I said to him.

Sometimes you just can't help getting mushy-gushy.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Picture perfect

I love to take pictures of Biscuit (as any of you who get our online photo albums can see).

My Mama likes studio pictures. And so does my mother-in-law. But I am convinced that a studio could never get Biscuit's real personality on film (digital file?) like I can when we're playing in the backyard like it's any other day. Plus, I don't have back-to-back appointments with antsy little kids sitting in the waiting area. I can take as much time as I need.

So I've started looking at professional photographer's websites and copying some of the poses and situations that I think would work for Biscuit.

Here's my latest effort:



Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Learn, baby, learn

I love how much Biscuit is talking right now.

Sometimes it surprises us how he puts sentences together or uses new words. It's been such a gradual change, that we almost didn't even notice.

Sometimes Biscuit will do something, and Jeff and I end up looking at each other, like, "When did he start doing that?!?"

The other morning when we got to day care, this little boy walked up to Biscuit and said hey. Biscuit said, "Hey, Da-wus." (I looked at the teacher and asked what was that little boy's name. She said he was Darius. I know that Biscuit knows names. He knows the names of our family members and several of our friends. So it shouldn't have surprised me when he called this little boy by name. I mean, he does spend several hours a day with him. It seems logical that he would learn what to call the little boy. But just to hear him greet one of his little friends was pretty cool.

He's also recently learned that Jeff and I have names other than Mama and Dada.

Biscuit doesn't understand how the baby monitor works, so he thinks when he wakes up in the morning that he has to yell to us to come get him. Jeff and I usually let him call us a few times before we go up to his room. Actually, we usually lie in bed for a few more minutes laughing at our boy!

So the other morning, we heard Biscuit moving around through the monitor. Then he decided to call us. He said, "Mama. Mama. MAMA! Dada. Dada. DADA! Kimmy. Kimmy. KIMMY! Jeff. Jeff. JEFF!"

It takes longer to walk up the stairs when you're laughing your head off.

We also love how Biscuit phrases things. He was sitting in one of our dining room chairs tonight, and he put his leg between the rungs on the back of the chair.

He said, "Mama?"

I said, "What, baby?"

"My leg fell down," he said.

He said his leg fell down. It was a very descriptive thing to say. His leg had fallen down in a way.

When he thinks he's lost something or somebody, he'll ask, "Where is ...?" and fill in whatever it is he can't find.

When he does find it, since he doesn't understand pronouns, instead of saying "there it is" or "there she is," he just says, "There is."

And to the people who say kids don't learn anything by watching TV, I say "horse manure!" Biscuit watches the Nick Jr. channel on TV in the mornings while Jeff and I are getting ready. Yesterday, as we were leaving day care, we were following a little girl down the hall. Biscuit pointed at her backpack and said, "Kai-lan." She's a little Chinese girl who has a show about her grandfather and her friends and all the adventures they have.

He also identified Dora on a shirt in Target. And sometimes, he requests a specific show, like "Max and Ruby" or "Jack's Big Music Show." He's picked up that much information, and he honestly doesn't watch very much TV. I can see how easily kids can become couch potatoes.

As I'm writing this, Biscuit just counted to 10. I think you have to walk a fine line between helping them learn new things and stay stimulated vs. hounding them into learning, learning, learning.

And hey, if he takes after his Mama, talking will come naturally anyway ... no hounding needed.

Dreaming of you

After spending so much time with his cousin, Josh, I guess he stayed on Biscuit's mind for a few days.

Two nights after we got home, I heard Biscuit over the baby monitor sort of moaning and groaning almost like he was talking. I started to get up and go upstairs to check on him, but then I realized what was going on - he was dreaming.

While he was talking, he said, "Josh. Josh. JOSH." like he was looking for Josh but couldn't find him.

I called Josh and told him about it. He thought it was pretty cool.

Time with family

Let me back up a little bit and talk about Labor Day. My side of the family rented a house in the mountains, and we all stayed together from Friday until Monday.

Usually, my brother's family stays in their camper, and Jeff and I and my parents rent a hotel room. But it was really nice to be together in the same house. We took our own food, so meals weren't stressful. We had a huge backyard, so there was plenty of play space for the kids. A river ran along the back of the backyard, and it was shallow enough for us to play in the water. It was just a really nice place.

Biscuit and his three cousins all got along well, and it was fun to watch them interact with each other.

Josh is 6, and Biscuit loves him. He foll
ows him around and tries to do everything Josh does. We had to explain to Josh to be careful because he had a little man who wanted to be just like him.

Alyssa is 8, and she LOVES Biscuit. She thinks Biscuit is a baby doll come to life. She wants to hold him and love him and hug him and squeeze him. She wants to help him do everything, but he has gotten really independent over the past few months, so he doesn't want her help at all. One of the most-uttered phrases over the weekend was Biscuit saying, "NO, SYSSA!" That's how he says her name ... Syssa.

Samantha is almost 12, and she is as tall as I am. She understands that Biscuit wants to do things on his own, so she plays with him and helps him when he asks her to. She gets to do things like teach him what a goat says (Meeeehhhhhh. And he made that noise at the goats at the fair.)

We built bonfires at night and roas
ted marshmallows. We hung out on the deck looking at the water and watching the donkeys on the farm across the river.

It was a good vacation, and I hope we can do it again soon.


Mama lessons

I hadn't really thought about this until last week, but I'm starting to understand the protective mother thing.

Of course, I want to take care of Biscuit. Feed him as well as I can. Dress him in weather-appropriate clothing. Give him lots of love. Help him learn new things. All the things that Mamas are supposed to do.

But there are some other things that have happened that I didn't expect.

Example No. 1? I killed a spider last week WITH MY BARE HAND!!!! because he was about to get on Biscuit. I'm not horribly afraid of spiders, but even so, I squished that sucker all over the palm of my hand to keep it from possibly hurting my boy.

But sometimes you don't get to squish the offending pest.

Last week as I was dropping Biscuit off at day care, this little red-headed kid named Luke came running over. I assumed he was coming to say hello, so I set Biscuit down in front of the little boy. Biscuit leaned over to pick up a ball, and as he stood back up, the little red-headed kid smacked the ball out of Biscuit's hands. HARD!

I was immediately taken aback, but I just stood there to see how Biscuit wanted to handle the situation. He said, "No. No. Ball." to the little boy and stooped over to pick the ball back up. Before Biscuit could stand upright, the little red-headed kid slammed a hard plastic car over Biscuit's head. I heard it pop, so I know it had to hurt.

I immediately snatched Biscuit up and held him close, telling him everything was okay. But I tell you what, I was ready to drop-kick that little red-headed kid through the wall. I was mad!

The teachers handled the situation very appropriately. I was completely satisfied as one of the teachers took the little boy out of the room and another teacher came over to dote on Biscuit.

I told the teacher that I probably shouldn't admit to it, but I was mad at that little kid. She said, "You have every right to be mad. He hit Biscuit for no reason whatsoever." And of course, that made me feel better for being mad at that little kid.

I think the hardest thing about being a Mama is that I won't always be able to take care of situations for my boy. I guess the best I can do is try to teach him right from wrong and hope he makes good decisions for himself.

The Fair - On Video

One of our friends got free passes and ride tickets to the local fair. All we had to pay for was food (corn dogs, sweet tea and funnel cakes to be more specific!). We all had a great time together. She also took some video with her fancy-dancy iPhone. Check it out:

Jeff took Biscuit on the big slide. They had to stand in line for a while, and I heard later that the stairs up the side of the thing were pretty rickety. You'll notice at the end that Biscuit takes off running? He was heading around the back to do it again. He doesn't understand the whole you-have-to-have-a-ticket and you-have-to-stand-in-line sort of stuff.



Did you know that there's a difference between a carousel and a merry-go-round? Carousels only have horses, but merry-go-rounds have all kinds of animals. It was news to me, too! Here's Biscuit and me on the carousel.



Beach music and french fries. What more could a kid want?!?



Biscuit gets excited ... REALLY excited about the goats.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

There's a kid in my car!

Last Friday morning, Jeff and I were running late for work. Neither of us remembered to set our alarm clocks. So I woke up with a start and hit the floor running. And of course, it seemed like everything we needed to do to get ready took twice as long as usual.

We all got clean, brushed our teeth and put on our clothes. Then we had the discussion about who had what going on that day, and I was voted in as the "take Biscuit to day care" person.

Jeff left for work, and I buckled Biscuit into his car seat. We drove out of the neighborhood, and as we got on the main road, my mind started racing with all the things I needed to get done that day ... work-wise, home-wise, mama-wise, etc.

I turned onto a four-lane highway and set the cruise control as I headed to work. Then I heard this little voice say, "Truck, Mama. Truck."

OH, CRAP! There's a kid in my car!!!

I was more than halfway to work when I realized that Biscuit was still in the back seat! That four-lane highway I mentioned? I was never even supposed to get on that road. Day care is in another direction.

So, I turned on a side street and backtracked my way to Biscuit's day care. I was all flustered when I dropped him off. I told the director what had happened, and because she has three kids of her own, she just laughed and laughed.

"Hey, at least you didn't leave him at home or in the parked car in your work parking lot," she said.

Some days I think this Mama job has completely erased my memory and common sense!

My little helper

Biscuit likes to help. It makes him very proud of himself when he does something that warrants a big "thank you" from me or his Dada.

When we're doing laundry, he likes to help transfer the wet clothes to the dryer. Then he likes to close the dryer door so I can turn it on. Sometimes his "help" isn't exactly helpful. When we take the clothes out of the dryer and start folding them into piles, sometimes he jumps on the piles and rolls around. I love it when I have to fold the laundry twice (did you feel the sarcasm oozing out of that sentence?!?).

Biscuit also likes the help with the mail. When we get out of the car in the evening, we walk to the end of the driveway to the mailbox. Biscuit knows he has to stop where the driveway ends. I step out into the street and take the mail out of the box. Then I have to hand at least one piece to Biscuit so he can carry it in the house.

Today I learned that Biscuit helps at daycare, too. For story time, the kids have to sit on a big piece of carpet in the story area. As you know, Biscuit loves him some books. So they say he gets pretty excited about story time. So today, the teacher walked over to the story time area and started calling the other kids. She said she looked down, and Biscuit was standing right beside her, waving his hand and saying, "Moan to carpet, read book" to the other kids. (He doesn't say "come on" ... just "moan.")

Biscuit is also doing his part to save the Earth. He knows that cans go in the recycling can instead of the trash can. So when Jeff and I finish canned drinks, he likes to take the cans to the recycling bin. The first time it happened, I wasn't sure where he was taking the can. So I sat on the couch and listened closely. I heard him drop it right into the bin. I made sure to make a big fuss when he got back to the living room. And he looked very proud of himself.

And we're proud of him, too.