The Amazing Adventures of Baby G

roast belly with a side of spicy chicken wings?

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:43:00 +0000

I solo parented this past weekend and at one point yesterday afternoon as I was getting ready to head out to a birthday party, Eli, who'd been playing in his room while I wrapped the gift, got really quiet.

Sometimes you think you're going to get a cute video of your kid doing something hilarious and it flops (they don't always perform on demand, unfortunately). Then there are times when you luck out and capture something even kookier than you planned! I especially love how he's cracking himself up toward the end, inspired by this book that we have on loan from the library at the moment. What a ham (mmm, that would go well with spicy chicken wings...).

added to the pregnancy #2 bucket list: run a...marathon (?!)

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 01:19:00 +0000

You read that right, folks. Not only do I want to lose a few pounds, apparently I want to get in the best shape ever and complete the Oakland Marathon next March! Duly added to the pregnancy #2 bucket list. Along the way, how 'bout I raise a minimum of $1800 as well? No problem! I've signed on with Team in Training for a second time (I "ran" the Big Sur Marathon in 2001 with the help of TNT...and raised over $2K) and you can help! One thing that's changed in the 10+ years since I did this the first time is that each team member now has an online fundraising site, which makes it a lot easier to donate. Check it out, won't you? And to encourage you to donate a little by November 30th, the first fundraising incentive, by which time I'd like to raise at least $500 (as of today I'm halfway there!), I have a spa gift set to raffle off to anyone who donates by then! Generously donated by fellow Bay Area Etsian AngelMade, this eco spa gift set includes a Spiced Lavender Foot Scrub Set, a Chai Spice-infused Coconut Oil and a Chai Spice Lip Balm (a $30 value!).

Doesn't that sound nice? Or, if you're not into self-care so much, wouldn't this make a great hostess gift for all those holiday parties you'll be going to next month? At any rate, you'll get 1 raffle entry for every $25 you donate! The winner will be announced on my other blog on December 1st.

I'm so behind on updating this blog with actual news of the 3 year old variety, but in the spirit of running around and stuff, how about a short video from preschool soccer last month?

More on that and what we did on summer vacation very soon, I promise!

Let the Halloween shenanigans begin!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:13:00 +0000

What is it about Halloween and my inability to celebrate in moderation and thus not completely burn myself out by Monday, October 31st?! We've already been to one pumpkin patch (his first preschool field trip! pics to follow) and we're off to another this weekend. And we've been reading our two different versions of Five Little Pumpkins back to back just about every night since the month began. Elias knows it by heart:

He embellishes here and there ("the first one says, 'let's run and run and...poop?'") and I can only assume he's picked up the hand gestures from preschool. When people say this is a fun age, this is what they're talking about. I mean, really, we should all begin our days like this, regardless of how old we are. Don't you think?

cat in the hat birthday shenanigans follow-up

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:04:00 +0000

Only because I've been getting a lot of traffic from searches on Cat in the Hat themed birthday parties (and because the one interview I got from the thirty job applications I've submitted in the last two years did not result in a job offer - mama's got to bring home the bacon bits, after all) I'm doing a little cross-posting today to add the invitation and some faux swirl lollipops I added to my two Etsy shops this week. First up, the invite:

Next up, the pretend lollipops I made earlier this week, one of several projects intended for the party that had to be edited out in the end.

If you'd rather make these - or something similar - yourself, hop on over to my other blog for a little tutorial!

this is your toddler on preschool

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:23:00 +0000

I thought I'd have you all caught up on our summer travels and visits with family by now but preschool, which started for Elias just two days after we returned from our third and final trip/visit, has taken us for a bit of a loop. What a surprise!

Here he is on day one, excited to go but camera-shy, which is a trend that started right before our trip to Escondido, conveniently right before our first shot at professional family photos. I've yet to see how those turned out! But despite not wanting to photographically document this big day, Eli did really well...at preschool. Other than not napping (again, no surprise there), his teachers all told us how well he was doing on days two, three, four, etc. No drop-off drama, no disciplinary issues, no fighting or any weird aggressive behavior. But when we got him home it was - and continues to be - an entirely different story. He stalled when we came to pick him up, started tantruming like never before, and just generally made the precious few hours between the end of his day at school and bedtime, well, extra challenging, to put it mildly. The couple of weekends since he started have been pretty good and all his daycare buddies (three others transitioned to preschool at the same time, and to different schools, I might add) have experienced some form of their own rough transition so hopefully we can feel somewhat confident that this is all preschool's fault (and not that the "terrible twos" have been replaced by the "tantrum threes"...no, no, I'm sure it's not that).

Most have had a hard time at drop-off, in addition to being more difficult at night, so at least we don't have to deal with both (knock on wood). All of them seem to be letting loose and pushing all sorts of extra buttons at home.

On top of all this, Eli's sleep totally fell apart, waking up three or four times some nights, waking up early to go #2, a couple of times waking up because his pull-up had experienced a little leakage and he essentially wet the bed. In case you've never experienced it, let me tell you, changing the sheets (especially on the kind of bed he has) at 4 a.m. is no fun. I'm pretty sure he is in a vicious fighting fatigue kind of cycle - getting thoroughly exhausted at school with no napping whatsoever, yet getting to bed a little late because of all of the evening button-pushing, etc.

Did you know Dr. Seuss wrote a book called the Sleep Book? Do you think there's any chance it'll help our situation? Doubtful. But in an effort to encourage napping at school, we've started a sticker chart. We're so bad at these things (sticker chart, 1-2-3 magic, you name it, it never works) as we've already given in to what was supposed to be the punishment/reward (a nap one day meant he could watch his morning show the next...turns out that affects us just as much as it affects him, nor did it seem to work anyway), and have yet to figure out what the stickers will get him, if anything. When I asked him what kind of reward he might want for getting so many stickers by the end of the week, he replied, "stickers." Hmm. Either he's really easy to please or neither of us gets how this sticker chart idea works!

On a positive note, again, Elias has been doing really well at preschool during the day, so no complaints there. And so far, I love the school. I love the four teachers and how different and yet complimentary they all are to one another. I love that Elias gets to play outside for several hours a day in a truly beautiful setting, with a play structure, and a huge sandbox and a bike trail. I love that after just two weeks of practicing on the trikes at school, he can now peddle his own tricycle, something he'd struggled with since receiving it as a gift for his 2nd birthday (hence, to some degree, his balance bike for year 3). I love the little snippets of songs I don't know that I hear him singing, certain he's picking them up from circle time. I love the other kids and how ridiculously adorable the 3 to 5 set is.

Not surprisingly, Elias is drawn both to older kids and girls, generally speaking, which is a little frustrating to watch because the older kids don't seem to be as excited to play with the new, younger kids and the girl cliques apparently start around age 4 (yikes). But just this morning when I dropped him off a couple of kids yelled out, "there's Eli!" and one other little boy (the other kid who continues to not nap) named Matthew said, "Good morning, Eli." Eli played shy but it really warmed my heart to see that he is making new buddies, especially being suddenly separated from his daycare friends that he'd grown so close to over the last year or so. Which leads me to my final, and perhaps most obvious point: preschool has been a pretty rough transition for me, as well. And I'm not just talking about the tantrums and the night-waking and the 4 a.m. potty calls. I was excited for the change and I still am but I underestimated how hard it would be to watch him enter such a new social world, with so many more kids to become new friends (or not), and older kids who, at 4, are so different than the three-year-olds. Since his best friend from daycare is a girl, I didn't anticipate that the girls and boys seem to play separately already, at least when I'm there. I didn't realize I'd worry so much about how he was getting along, whether or not he'd participate in the mostly optional (especially at this less structured program) art projects in the morning or forever play by himself, and whether or not we'd made the right choice sending him to a school where he has so much freedom to choose how to spend his time. And I guess this is just the beginning of all that, isn't it?

Anyway, as with any transition, at the end of the day sometimes you just have to weather the storm. And cherish the positive (and downright nutty) moments in between. Here's a video of Elias that Neal captured last night, after a rough night, a busy day, no nap, and a late dinner:

How can I be frustrated with such a goofball, right?

potty train your toddler in one year!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:46:00 +0000

We spent this past weekend reinforcing in three days what we've been gradually working on for almost a year: Elias now pees in the potty. We're still working on #2 - despite the fact that he's done it on the pot a handful of times, he seems to have little interest suddenly, saving that duty up for naptime or bedtime diapers. But as of Friday morning he's only worn a diaper to sleep (which, of course, meant no daytime diapers all weekend since he no longer naps at home and we rarely even enforce the in-bedroom quiet time these days). Even though our process has been gradual and in the end we didn't stick to this too closely (wearing underwear instead of running around naked, for example, and making it out of the house 1 to 2 times each day), I did look up information on the numerous variations of the three-day program, which goes a little something like this:

Day one: stay home all day, run around bottom-less, put portable potties in as many rooms as possible, feed your toddler lots of salty snacks and juice boxes you'd normally limit, repeat.

(Here he is enjoying some post-dinner outside time with Daddy at the end of day one. First potty training, now chores??)

Day two: follow the program for day one, adding in a short outing very close to home, i.e. a walk around the block, etc., preferably with bottoms so as not to freak out your neighbors.

Day three: follow the program for days one and two, adding in a longer outing, let's say an hour in duration, even one necessitating a short drive from home.

And voila, you have yourself a toilet-trained toddler. Or, you can do what we did, which is begin the process very gradually as soon as your toddler (and I say toddler because I'm skeptical babies [and by babies I mean 0 to 18 months] can express this interest, but that's just my completely unscientific opinion) shows an interest. For Elias, interest in all things potty related started pretty early, I think primarily because there were three bigger kids at his daycare using the potty from the time he started there at 19 months. Two of the three continued on to preschool this time last year and that's when his interest disappeared almost completely, seemingly overnight, and conveniently right after we spent forty bucks on a training potty that sat in our bathroom collecting dust for the next several months. His best buddy from daycare, Hazel, four days his junior, sealed the potty-training deal over winter break last year so I was hopeful he'd regain an interest in the process after the New Year when everyone was back at daycare, with the minor change of Hazel now trotting up to the bathroom instead of having her diaper changed.

Not so much.

But several months ago, Elias once again showed an interest, not so much in him actually doing the deed, but accompanying Neal and I to the bathroom, picking out underwear, and adding an on-the-pot Dora the Explorer potty training seat to our potty training paraphernalia. So since about his birthday, maybe a bit before, we've been encouraging him to wear underwear on the weekends and on daycare days when there are fewer kids and babies, to try going on the potty, of course, all the while using preschool as our impetus for the timing and sudden urgency. When my brother and his family visited earlier this month, we dropped the program altogether and sure enough, after they left, he had very little interest in getting back to it, explaining to us that he'd wear underwear at preschool. Um, not exactly how it works, there, kid. Every day at daycare I'd ask Eryn if he wore underwear. Occasionally he'd don a pair after nap, because by then surely he'd done most of the day's business in his diapers, especially during his Eryn's-only 2-hour siestas. Then, at the beginning of last week, even knowing Thursday was his final day in diapers, he flat out refused, telling Eryn, "No thank you. I have until the weekend." But on Wednesday and Thursday he seemed to be mostly on board and the weekend went pretty smoothly. Again, he's getting out #2 before his nighttime diaper is changed in the morning and/or after he's in a new one getting ready for bed, but other than starting to go once in his underwear, we had no accidents and, as I mentioned above, even ventured out quite a bit.

We did offer "treats" along the way - fruit snacks, for example, and on Friday we shared a popsicle from the ice cream guy who cruises our neighborhood a couple times a day. We reminded him about his big reward at the end of the weekend, which could be either a trip to Fenton's or a new toy, book, etc. In the end he opted for a set of three new "vroomy toys" from Ikea (and one of our outings yesterday included a pit stop at Dairy Queen, so he really got both, in the end). Here he is somewhat reluctantly explaining his sweet, sweet reward for peeing in the potty all weekend:

We still have some tweaking to do. Elias doesn't want to sit on the potty but hasn't totally mastered the standing part. Instead, what he does is a sort of half-stand, half-squat, essentially straddling the potty while facing it. If he puts a step stool in front of either of our regular toilets, he can go there, saving us from the dumping/flushing/rinsing step. But of course he doesn't want to do that. In an effort to explain to him how he could, you know, sort of aim the stream as it came out without being directly over the toilet, I think I might have compared his penis to a fire hose. I have a feeling that one's going to come back to haunt me one day. What can I say, we'd just watched the Mighty Machines episode about fire trucks.

He also insists on completely undressing from the waist down but has a hard time getting his clothes back on. All details we'll work on this week and next before he heads to his first day of preschool after the Labor Day weekend.

So we're not 100% there, but it's a solid start. It only took us a year to get here.

my pregnancy #2 bucket list

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:44:00 +0000

No, I'm not pregnant nor do we have any immediate, firm plans to get pregnant. I'm not even taking folic acid yet, for crying out loud. But, despite all my "one and done" musings via Twitter, I have been thinking about a possible addition to our family quite a bit lately (as if to balance those only-child musings, I posted links to this article and this one over the past couple of days). Elias turned three a couple of months ago now, so if we were going to have two kids roughly four years apart, as both Neal and I are from our respective brothers (give or take), we'd need to get pregnant within the next month or so. Obviously, our kids are not going to be close together at this point. In hindsight, I'm glad I had my first early enough (finding out I was pregnant on my 30th birthday) to choose and not feel rushed into getting pregnant again before I'm ready, but on the other hand, who knows if I'll be as lucky next time around.

At any rate, at this point, to be honest with you all, it makes more financial sense to wait until Elias is in kindergarten to be home with a baby again. Depending on my work situation (my Etsy shops keep me busy but I continue to submit resumes to the rare job opening), I'd like to take another one to one-and-a-half years off (or working very, very part-time as I did during Eli's first year) but I'm not sure I can manage that goal and send Elias to any sort of paid daycare/preschool, as we have since he was about 19 months and will continue to do so for the next two years of preschool. And what's another year, right? And yet somehow I'm still torn between 4 and 5 years (or perhaps somewhere in between). I'm not sure what sign I'm waiting for but I keep telling myself, well, let's see how the next few months pan out.

And on that note, I've made a list! Along with thinking about having another kid comes thoughts of all the things I'd like to cross off that never-ending to-do list before chaos once again becomes the norm for three to four years. Here's what I have so far:

1. find a primary care doc and have a good old-fashioned physical

2. lose a wee bit more weight

I'm about ten pounds lighter now than I was when I got pregnant with Elias, but part of my pregnancy/new baby PTSD revolves around my experience with my first OB/GYN who obsessed over my weight gain. (I also went over a certain number I'd like to stay below this time. And that's all I'm gonna say about that.) I do think she went a little overboard and I bounced back to within about ten pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight pretty quickly. So I'd like to lose another ~~15-20~~ 10-15 pounds before getting pregnant again. I think of it as a running start. But I'm also not going to put off family planning until I get to that magical number since I know that number may be a little elusive, especially considering it took me six months to lose 10 pounds.

3. hair

Grow it out so as to master the true "mom hair" eternal ponytail and/or find a style that's as low-maintenance as possible. (Does anyone know if this exists? If so, please leave instructions in the comments section. Thank you.)

4. get a pedicure

5. cut out coffee, splenda, limit artificial stuff like Fresca, etc.

We sort of arbitrarily went off coffee a month or so ago, only because we decided to let our Costco supply run out, but without a half-caf bridge we didn't do so well. And the thing is, there are a few reasons it would be nice to not be addicted to caffeine, but it's mainly a pregnancy thing for me. Splenda, on the other hand, is mostly out of my diet. I gave most of my Costco supply to my diabetic MIL, keeping just a handful of packets for myself.

6. have professional family photos taken

7. cats!

I go back and forth on this one. I'd actually love to find them a new home but the chance of that happening is minimal and I won't take them to a shelter. We'll jump off that bridge when we get there. (They've been pretty mellow the last few days, can you tell?)

8. finish room makeovers and other house stuff

Eli's room and the office are mostly done, so we still need to do our room, both bathrooms, repaint the kitchen, relandscape the front and back yards, oh, and figure out where baby #2 will sleep.

9. go through all Eli's baby stuff (currently in the shed where a mama spider recently had seven billion baby spiders, so, yeah, fun!)

10. go on vacation!

Yeah, okay, so we're getting ready for our third and final "vacation" of the summer in a week, and no offense to any family who might read this, but we'd also like to take a trip just the three of us.

~~11. buy a minivan~~ (check!)

That's all I've got so far. There are a few other items that are more for when I'm actually pregnant, if we do go for #2, but these are the kinds of things I'm thinking about now, with baby #2 still a very abstract idea, as Elias once was, not so long ago.

So, readers, what is or was on your pregnancy #2 (or 3, or 4) bucket list?

Christmas in July

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:32:00 +0000

Yeah, okay, August. Before I blog about our recent stay-cation with my Dad, brother, nephew, and niece, let me finally post a few thoughts and pics from Christmas. You know, now that we're closer to Christmas 2011 than we are to Chrismtas 2010.

This past Christmas was our first in our old-new-to-us house and I'd say Eli's first that he somewhat anticipated and somewhat experienced a little bit like I remember holidays from my own youth.

Mommy & Daddy and Santa Claus were on the same track with outdoor-themed gifts, giving Elias more things to do outside while we attempt to tackle yard work each week (this many months later, sadly I can't say we've accomplished a whole lot other than weekly maintenance and a small patch we re-planted in the front).

Elias took an impromptu picture with Santa right after Thanksgiving when we made a rainy-day visit to an indoor play space at a local mall, and then again (above) in a much more intimate setting at Play Cafe, closer to the actual holiday, both of which went more smoothly than in 2009.

We saw festive light displays (one of mama's favorite parts about the season) in Alameda and at the Oakland Mormon Temple (on Christmas eve, as is becoming tradition).

New last year (and probably not happening again for a few years) was a long trek to Berkeley's Tilden Park where we stood in an even longer line to ride the carousel.

Elias also had his first taste of hot apple cider while waiting in line. Maybe we'll try again but perhaps not on the last night?

Elias sharing some of Santa's cookies with a Grinch "snuggle-buddy" that he received with his obligatory Christmas eve pajamas.

As for the day itself, while we celebrated Thanksgiving with Neal's brother and his family, we stayed put for Christmas, just like I like it. What I didn't like, and it's hard to say this without seeming ungrateful, was the overwhelming amount of gifts. I think it took us three or four days to open all the gifts since 1) Elias time and again chose food over gift-opening on Christmas day, drawing out the gift-opening process (based on birthday behavior I'm not sure this will be a problem in 2011)

Christmas morning cinnamon rolls before gifts.

...and 2) he actually wanted to spend some time and play with each toy before moving on to the next gift. Crazy, huh?

This picture says it all - Elias hanging on to one toy with a flurry of activity around him.

We complain about how kids have such short attention spans and then we overwhelm them with gifts and expect them to open one after another.

So....What we'll do differently this year, as I wanted to do this past year, is celebrate Christmas eve and a bit of Christmas morning by ourselves, just the three of us. Grandma can come over after, as well as any other family that might like to visit the Bay Area that time of year. But from about 5 pm on Christmas eve until about 10 or 11 Christmas morning, we'll be hunkering down doing our own thing, just the three of us. And there will be a limit on how many gifts to give. At least, that's my plan. I have four months to make it happen that way.

3 years

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 00:06:00 +0000

As with most holidays lately, we celebrated Eli's 3rd birthday multiple times. Since his actual birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, we held his party the Saturday before. And since we have a yard this year, we decided to have the party at home. Most of the celebrating took place indoors, but there was some pinata action out back.

The theme this year was Cat in the Hat. We were at Michael's one day and passed a Dr. Seuss display and I had had that theme in mind specifically as one that would be fun to plan. I asked Elias what he thought of a Cat in the Hat party and he said yes. So I asked him several more times several days later and the positive response seemed to stick (you never know with these toddlers).

I stocked up on a bunch of Dr. Seuss themed paper products and favor bag items at both Micheal's and Joann, which is where I got the letters I used to make the bunting/banner.

For the food, my thought was green (deviled) eggs and ham (platter...plus a little turkey, roast beef, and various cheeses). If I had to do it again, based on tips I picked up at the three birthday parties we attended the following weekend, I'd offer pre-made sandwiches instead.

I made the cupcakes myself, which is another thing I shall henceforth outsource (I knew I should've contacted the gal behind Oakland's own James and the Giant Cupcake, who provided our brunch-y cupcakes at last year's birthday bash...I'm sure she could've made killer Cat in the Hat cupcakes. Oh well, lesson learned.). My original idea was a red velvet version of this "zebra cake", thinking I could alternate vanilla and red velvet to mock the stripes of the Cat's Hat. Then I saw all these cute - and relatively simple-looking - cupcake decorations when I did an image search for general party ideas and thought, I could do that. I ran out of time to make the cake from scratch so I opted for the tried and true Trader Joe's box mixes and was able to make enough for 24 cupcakes for the party and two layers that I froze to decorate during the week for the daycare crew.

Only problem was I failed to add the entire cup of melted butter to the vanilla cake. I realized this when I went to clean up after popping the cupcakes/cake in the oven and spotting the bowl o' butter on the counter. D'oh! And I'm certainly not blaming the birthday boy but I was a tiny bit distracted by my three-foot assistant. Just sayin'. Anyway, in the end Neal and I decided they tasted good enough (the fact that they were sort of marbled with the chocolate cake helped) so I stuck with the low-butter cupcakes and decorated them to look like fried eggs with green yolks (a green candy melt atop white frosting), the Cat's hat (marshmallows dipped in melted red-colored white chocolate - you can find the candy melts at Michael's, for example), and what was supposed to look like Things 1 and 2, except I never got around to putting the labels on the cupcake wrappers. So you can see why cupcakes are the kind of thing I'll leave to paid professionals next year.

Oh well. The kids didn't seem to mind!

The goody bags, on the other hand, I was pretty pleased with. Initially I stressed over the bag itself, since last year I used reusable canvas tote bags with red bandanas instead of tissue paper. Not that it went with our train theme so perfectly but because it was something the kids could reuse. This year I thought the perfect Cat in the Hat goody bag should be a box - as in the red "box of fun" that the Cat brings in, the box of course containing Things 1 and 2. But it turns out gift boxes are prohibitively expensive, even with a relatively small social circle invited! So I went with small paper gift bags, with a "bag of fun" sticker and personalized hang-tag.

I totally scored with these spiky, rubbery balls I picked up at Target. Don't you think they look like Thing 1 or 2 hiding in the gift bag?? Well, I'm not sure anyone else got that but I was pretty pleased with myself. Other goodies included green egg soap:

...and crayon rolls made with Cat in the Hat fabric:

These I purchased on Etsy, of course. As well as the shirt Elias wore that day, made by this Etsy seller, seen here in action, pre- and post-pinata's demise:

So, yeah, hosting a party at home is a lot of work but I'm into this kind of stuff so I enjoyed it. I also made the invites, but I've yet to photograph and list them in my shop (because, of course, they're going in my shop!). The only thing I'd do differently is the cupcakes. I'd definitely leave those to a pro and I'm guessing this may be the last year I can get away with not really having any planned activities for the little ones. I don't know...Maybe one more year?

On his actual birthday (you see, we haven't even made it to the actual day yet!) I asked Elias if he'd rather stay home with Mommy for a bonus "Mommy day" or go to Eryn's house. His answer changed a few times, not surprisingly, but in the end he opted to hang out with me. It was pretty warm that day so I decided it would be a perfect day to drive out to San Francisco's Ocean beach, typically better suited for evening bonfires. But when it's 90 in Oakland, it's a perfect 75 on the beaches of San Francisco. We packed a picnic lunch and changed clothes, in one way or another, a total of three times. He napped on the way home (making this a truly magical day) and then we met up with Daddy as soon as he was done with work for an early dinner at Fenton's, complete with the now traditional shared banana split. We were even seated at the same table we got last year! (Let me just add, after looking at that post, written in August of last year, that I no longer feel so bad that this post is exactly one month late.)

So what's in store for Eli's fourth year? Well, to start, we're amping up the potty-training efforts as the transition to preschool is just a month and a half away! Elias has intermittently gone numbers 1 and 2 in both a training potty and a smaller seat that sits on the regular toilet and tends to do number 1 standing up. Both that detail and the fact that he's gone number 2 about half-a-dozen times surprised me. But he continues to refuse to wear underwear and/or go on the potty many days. So while I'd say the gradual process has been successful and surprisingly easier than I thought it would be, now that preschool and their fully potty-trained policy is looming, I'm pretty sure we'll do the three-day-weekend-run-around-naked-thing to seal the deal in early to mid-August. Then, of course, preschool, a transition I'm mostly excited about and only a tiny bit apprehensive. And the apprehension is more along the lines of opening a big box, the contents of which are a total mystery. Mostly, I'm really excited to see how Elias will transition to suddenly being around five times more kids than he's used to and several more teachers. Hey, at least we already have a lunch box.

Well, buddy, here's to another great year full of interesting challenges and wonderful surprises!

His name is Eli...he loves to dance!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:43:00 +0000

And he's three! Holy cow, how'd that happen?! Needless to say I have a lot of catching up to do. Right on the heels of his birthday we went to three more of his buddies' and now we're preparing for a 4th of July road trip north to Bend, Oregon! I'm kind of counting on a slow July (work-wise) so I can finally catch up on some other stuff in the evenings and on the weekends instead of catching up on work. In the meantime, allow Elias to do a little dance for you:

Happy 4th!

a roll down the hill rite of passage

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:36:00 +0000

This is classic kids' stuff, am I right? A first roll down the hill experience shared with best bud, Hazel. Hazel's mom got this on video (the video on my phone wasn't working, for some reason) but in the meantime, I'll do my best approximation:

father-son shenanigans

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:10:00 +0000

So what did Neal and Elias do during my exciting girl's weekend? They enjoyed a relaxing overnight stay in Browns Valley, California.

Thank goodness, a push toy.

Isn't this the cutest little bridge? Perfect size for toddler shenanigans.

Wildlife sightings! A bat!

A snake!

Frolicking in the flowers.

Pooped.

girl's weekend (or, a big boy bedroom makeover)

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Tue, 24 May 2011 00:47:00 +0000

Neal took Elias to visit his Dad and step-mom this past weekend so I had the house to myself from about 10 am on Saturday until about 3 pm on Sunday (but who's counting the hours?!). Here's how I spent my child- and husband-free time:

10-11: removed all furniture from Eli's room, except for newly installed "big boy bed", including untethering and de-booking (is that a word? it should be...) the bookcase and changing table/dresser combo. Schlepped dresser out to garage where it now stands next to disassembled crib.

11-1ish: taped off entire room: baseboards, corners, doors, window. Tedious, time-consuming, but ultimately totally worth it step.

1ish-3ish: painted room one coat of Carolina Parakeet, with a few breaks for Trader Joe's yogurt covered pretzels.

3ish-4ish: painted one coat of Vintage Orange on the room-side of closet and main doors. Decided definitively that main door simply needs to be replaced. Duly added to ridiculous list of house projects (there are currently over 70 items on this list).

4ish: Realizing that smell I kept smelling was me, decided to take a break and shower. I also decided lunch was probably not a bad idea.

5ish-7ish: After deciding one coat of Carolina Parakeet was mostly good enough, got second wind and applied second coat of Vintage Orange to doors. Taped carpet around baseboards and decided to touch those up as well with white paint left in the garage by previous owners. Took a break about halfway to remove 1/4 inch long splinter lodged in finger nail.

7ish-9ish: Done! Celebrated by spending two hours working on Eli's 3rd birthday party paper goods and plans.

9:30: So. Tired. Decided to call it a night and make myself a quesadilla, already. Ate said quesadilla while watching last 15 minutes of When Harry Met Sally on PBS. Spent the last hour of my day the way I plan to spend the entire weekend next time I get this kind of freedom: reading two issues of US Weekly.

On Sunday I spent most of the morning removing painter's tape, cleaning, and putting Eli's room back together. I then cleaned up the rest of the house, showered, and had a late lunch right before the guys returned home. Elias was delighted with his room, giggling for several minutes when he first went in. I'm not sure, though, if he was giddy from the colors I chose, the fact that his train table is now standing where his changing table used to be, or lingering paint fumes, but he seems pretty happy about his room's make-over. And so am I. Here it is, the big reveal (man, I am watching way too much HGTV these days...):

We have since added dark curtains to the window in the hopes that Elias will stop waking up at the crack of dawn only to yell at the sun, "go down, Sun!"

Our makeshift train table used to be under the bar between the kitchen and dining room. There are bar stools there now. It's a nice change all around.

The big boy bed! After sitting in our garage for two weeks, Neal finally had the chance to put it together last weekend. So far, so good (knocking on wood). I think we like this bed as much, if not more, than Eli does!

Originally I wanted to get a second bookcase like this and put them side by side where the train table is but, alas, Ikea no longer makes this style. Elias will have to be a one-bookcase kid for the foreseeable future, it seems.

The colors, up close: Carolina Parakeet for the walls, pure white for baseboards and trim, and Vintage Orange for the doors.

I've shared these pictures with just about everyone I know (and now the entire world, theoretically). I don't mean to seem braggy, but not only am I happy with how the room has turned out, I think I'm maybe a little extra excited about it because not only did I never really have walls of my own to paint (I covered my walls in posters and a shopping bag collection instead), but Elias hasn't up until now either. We never really did that whole nursery thing since he was brought home from the hospital to a rental we knew we were leaving within a couple of years and from there we moved to another apartment across the country. So this is kind of a big deal for me, if not for him, too.

That said, I think I've satisfied my painting urge for awhile! This DIY stuff is hard work when you add a little one to the mix.

a week of firsts

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:47:00 +0000

It's been a long while since we had so many first experiences in such a short period of time! Since last weekend Elias has experienced, for starters, his first drama-free haircut:

In addition to the orange car-chair, the great thing about this new place is that it's just a couple of blocks away and so inexpensive I felt a little guilty afterward. The cut itself needs a little fine-tuning but, just as you have to pick your battles with your kids, the pros of this place outweigh the cons and we'll definitely be back.

After his haircut we went out to dinner, taking Elias to his first sushi restaurant:

The sushi itself didn't go over too well but his kid's plate, including chicken teryaki, gyoza, and tempura, did.

Monday, being Easter Monday, was a bonus "mommy day" and I decided to take the plunge and treat myself - I mean, Elias - to his first movie theater movie.

Instead of our usual afternoon quiet time, we caught a matinee of Rio, complete with popcorn and blue icee. As I suspected he might be, Elias was pretty antsy during the last half hour or so of the 96 minute long feature and had a little bit of a hard time keeping the seat down, but overall he did really well. So begins our official weekend matinee training!

The grand finale in this week of firsts was Eli's visit to the dentist yesterday, including his first cleaning (they seemed surprised that I was up for exam plus cleaning during the first visit...Why not kill two birds with one stone?).

It took some research to find a pediatric dentist that would take our insurance. I even made an appointment with the dentist Neal and I go to and started to question the necessity of this whole pediatric specialty, but in the end I'm glad we trekked out to San Francisco to go here.

The place is completely decked out for kids, with, I think, slightly smaller chairs, and TV monitors attached to the ceiling above each station. So while Elias's teeth were examined and polished, he got to watch a scene or two from The Little Mermaid, one of his favorites.

Cheese!

I wasn't sure how he would react. On the one hand, he has no reason to fear the dentist, having never been. And of course we've only spoken positively of the experience. Maybe it helped that Neal and I had just been to our dentist the week before - the first dentist I've had that I actually want to visit twice a year. But oddly enough he did seem to get that this was something to be somewhat apprehensive about, saying things in the days leading up to our visit like "I don't want to go, I don't like the dentist," or "I don't like it there." In the end he did really well - he was a total champ about it and very cooperative. On the other hand, I take this first visit with a grain of salt since, historically, Elias has almost always done suspiciously well the first time at something new. It's the subsequent visit(s) that will tell the true story of Elias at the dentist. Either way, I'm happy to have this under our belt since I'd been a little concerned about what turned out to be just some staining on his upper, front teeth, likely from all the fruit this kid likes to eat.

And he ought to want to return since the day was packed with positive reinforcement. In addition to the balloon, sugar-free lollipop, toy, and goody bag he got at the dentist's office, afterward we walked to nearby Dolores Park for a picnic lunch and then lucked out and found a second parking spot as we cruised past Mission Pie on the recommendation of a friend.

Yum! We shared slices of banana cream and strawberry rhubarb and brought a piece of apple huckleberry home for Neal. Great coffee, too. I don't know about Elias, but I can't wait until his next dentist appointment!

the story of my life: mama edition

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:27:00 +0000

I don't remember where we were coming back from, and Elias hasn't done this in awhile, but a couple of weeks ago, he fell asleep in the car. I stayed out with him for a bit (always surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable), then attempted to carry him into the house, letting him stay asleep for as long as possible. Neal took this video of me trying to get comfortable on the couch, with Elias stretched out on top of me. As you can see, he had a hard time getting comfortable and eventually woke up just a few minutes after coming inside. Despite my having been out with him all day and my selfless attempts to facilitate his napping, who does he ask for in the end? Yep, you guessed it - Daddy.

This isn't the greatest picture in the world, but for comparison purposes, here we are in a similar situation just about two years ago:

What a difference a couple of years makes, huh? I've been doing a lot of this kind of thing the past few days, looking at old pictures and watching old videos. Looking at the baby version of our now full-fledged toddler always has the dual sense of feeling like just yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at the same time.

In other news, and as usual staying on the topic of sleep, I finally finished Elias's bedtime chart and wrote a bit about it on my other, more crafty blog. I can report now after almost two weeks of use, that it's working pretty well, although I hate to admit not as well as I'd hoped. We still struggle with a master staller, and I'm not fully comfortable with the reward part of it (I don't know that rewarding him with food or stuff the next morning is ideal and fear we're creating an even bigger problem), but some nights it does really seem to do the trick. And when a star or two are left on the board, he does seem awfully happy about it the next morning. As my brother likes to say, we're staying in the fight...I'm just not sure who's winning.

Flip Fridays: performing

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Things have been crazy busy around here (in a good way), but here are a couple of short videos I captured the last couple of weeks, starting with a short snippet of Elias singing along to the ending of an episode of Thomas:

...and at the zoo one Sunday morning, climbing in and over the tortoise shells in the children's area, one of his favorite activities:

Shy he most definitely is not. He's been hamming it up for the camera quite a bit more lately, smiling and saying cheese, albeit only for a second or two before moving quickly on to the next thing. He's also fond of saying hi and waving to complete strangers pretty much whenever we're out, wherever we go. It's a little heart-braking that so few people say hello back. Are they completely oblivious or late to respond because we're so unaccustomed to a casual greeting? Who knows. It doesn't seem to bother Elias too much whether they respond or not. In fact, if someone says hi back, that doesn't keep him from saying hi again next time he sees the person, like the bus boy at the restaurant where we celebrated our wedding anniversary this past weekend. That time, I actually felt a little bad for the other guy!

You can read more about our anniversary shenanigans on my other blog. In fact, Elias has been making cameos over on that blog quite a bit these last few weeks.

Flip Fridays: Swoop Swoop Slide

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:19:00 +0000

I know it's Sunday, but this is video I took on Friday, when we met a couple of friends at Dracena Park. Elias is turning out to be a fairly cautious kid. Which is fine by me, but I have been encouraging him to explore the climbing structures, especially recently when it seems to bother him a little that other kids his age or not much older can wriggle their way through an obstacle without hesitation. I noticed he tends to treat everything like stairs and if that doesn't work he'll ask one of us to help him by holding his hands. But sometimes that won't work. Sometimes he needs to climb across something using his entire body. And on Friday, he seemed to get the knack of this by climbing up the slide and sliding down on his belly. Over and over again.

In other news, I think it's finally time for some sort of visual reward and punishment system for the bedtime routine that has once again gotten a little out of control. Like a typical two year old, Elias stalls every step of the way, whether it's a bath night or not, from brushing his teeth, to putting on his pj's, even to the point of stopping in the middle of his fourth (yes, fourth) and final book in an attempt to essentially get a fifth one out of us. Once we finally wrestle him into bed, he's allowed three return visits, which has basically turned into Neal granting three of a number of requests, one after another, including face massage, back rub, belly rub, and sitting on the chair in his room while he unwinds. We (and by we I mean Neal, since Mama has no patience for these kinds of shenanigans and Elias knows it) do it because it works. At the end of the day, an extended bedtime routine with ridiculous toddler requests is better than the post-bedtime-routine screaming that was happening pretty regularly a few months ago. But kids are like computer hackers. As soon as the authorities have figured out a way to secure information, the hackers have come up with a new way to hack into your system. As soon as we feel like we've successfully dealt with the toddler shenanigans du jour, Elias pulls something new out of his sleeve and we have to go back to the drawing board. Such is parenthood, I guess.

And I might have time to whip something up tomorrow (I'm thinking there's a very good likelihood that felt will be involved) since that whole three day work week thing didn't last too long. Before it even really started I began to have second thoughts. In other words, work got busy - insanely, unprecedentedly busy - as soon as I made the decision to drop from four to three daycare days. I think I was reacting a bit impulsively to a really slow stretch last month and lost sight of the many pros that result from that extra day. What a difference that one day makes. Perhaps I had to rock the boat a little to realize that our family had struck a pretty decent balance after all. Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the work keeps coming in. And Elias will be in preschool before I know it.

Also, I haven't forgotten about that holiday post. Promise.

catching up

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

I'm working on a longish post about holiday shenanigans ('bout time, right?) and looking at this picture...

...of Elias enjoying a brief play-date with his buddy Henry, who was in town for the holidays, made me search my blog for this image of the two of them at play in Boston's Museum of Science just about two years ago.

My how they've changed.

Mommy Mondays

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:24:00 +0000

Once again, I failed to keep up with my Flip Fridays series last week. No video to share, but you can check out an amateur review I wrote up of a new restaurant in town on my other blog. Yep, I'm that hip, trying out a new restaurant during opening week! With my toddler companion!

In other news, I've finally made the decision, after months of agonizing over it, to decrease Elias's daycare days from four back down to three. As I mention in my other blog post, I think I can get all my work done in three solid days and while the savings aren't substantial, trimming the budget wherever we can does help and it adds up after awhile. I'm still planning on four days of preschool in the Fall, since four days of preschool is significantly cheaper than four days of daycare, but we'll see. It will depend on my work situation, various travel plans, and the longevity of a growing list of stuff - car, water heater, furnace, you name it. Owning a house is fun!

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the change for a few reasons. Following a month that beat out November as my best, February has been depressingly slow, business-wise. If wedding invitation orders pick up significantly in the next couple of months, which I'm hoping they do, I might be pulling my hair out on Mondays. Time will tell. For now, things are a little on the slow side so three days seems like it should be enough. And I've really been enjoying Mommy Fridays again now that Elias seems to finally understand the concept of Daddy being home but inaccessible (more or less...knock on wood) and with the altered expectation of an hour of "quiet time" in lieu of the anxiety-inducing nap that never happened. So hopefully this means a little more of a good thing.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Monday is not a run day. Oh yes, didn't I tell you I started training for a half-marathon that I can't afford to actually register for back in January? A little pathetic but even so, it's proven to be pretty good motivation. I'm only down about five pounds, but I'm keeping up with my "training" schedule and I'm up to about 6.5 miles with no sign of the knee problems that followed my first (and perhaps only) marathon almost ten years ago (knocking on wood again). I haven't felt this motivated to get back in shape in a long, long time. Self-care has been slow to come back for me, post-baby, but now that I'm making a real effort at it, I see how important it is to good parenting. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but it's like the flight attendant tells you on the plane, in case of an emergency, put your mask on first, and then help your kid. But mostly, I think it's because I've finally found something that I enjoy all by myself. Maybe a room of one's own is actually not a room at all.

Flip Fridays: Happy Valentimes!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:15:00 +0000

Sorry for the no-show last Friday. I can't remember what we did but I'm sure I had a good reason to skip blogging for the week. Without further delay, here's a video from today:

As you can see, we enjoyed a mild Valentine explosion this morning. It's funny because I made several Valentine's Day cards for my Etsy shop but it didn't dawn on me to have Elias make some until he brought home this Valentine that he made at daycare earlier in the week:

I don't know how we can top that, but we'll try. I doubt they'll go out before Monday but better late than never, right? At least my V-Day post is early. One of these days I'll get around to a Christmas re-cap (oh yeah, remember that holiday?). In the meantime, have a great, hugs-filled weekend!

Flip Fridays: Quiet Time

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:10:00 +0000

These are the kinds of shenanigans that have replaced the afternoon nap.

I mean, really, who could sleep with a brand new truck like that?

Flip Fridays: feeling a little punchy

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:09:00 +0000

No Flip movie today. I was able to shoot a couple of video segments but in the longer of the two Elias actually ended up essentially talking about the same things as in the first video: the big bad wolf (no longer the big fat wolf) and the "baby lights" on the camera. Cute but, you know, done. I'm also too tired to blog much and spent the first part of the evening fetching a space heater at Costco to hopefully keep Xander, the cat, from waking us up at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning. Oh, have I not shared with you the craziness that is our life amongst felines? Well, in short, they're the most neurotic cats I've ever had and I've had some crazy cats (there was a period in elementary school where I remember keeping one of those metallic-y emergency blankets on my bed to keep one of our two cats at the time from peeing on it; everyone else in my family had taken to keeping their doors closed but I felt bad and left mine open. That was my compromise. I mean, really, what's up with cats peeing on beds? In their defense, we got them as only recently tamed feral kittens. Not sure what Xander's excuse is.) Anyway, the short story is that Xander meows incessantly. Mostly for food but more and more lately for mysterious reasons and at all hours of the night. On and off over the past month, he's taken to beginning this incessant meowing, despite having a waterfall of never-ending dry food mere feet away in the kitchen, around 4 a.m. and continuing off and on until we wake up...I mean, get up since, obviously, we're already awake by then, at 6:30. We've tried a number of things, trying desperately to make this human-feline co-existence continue as harmoniously as possible (since, really, who's going to take this cat off our hands?). We no longer feed them wet food in the morning; we're back to their dry food being out all the time and frankly, I don't care how fat they get. We brush Xander almost every night. We let him cozy up between us on the couch while we watch t.v. We happily welcome the cats to sleep on our feet through the night. If only they'll keep quiet. But they won't. Well, Xander won't. Ironically, Sophie, the other cat, is the one who seems most distressed by Elias's full-on toddler boy behavior, with the chasing, and the screaming and whatnot, but all she does is spend a lot of time in my closet. I feel a little bad for her but I'm glad she doesn't take it out on us vocally.

So, anyway, over the past couple of nights Elias too has been waking up but within the first couple of hours after we go to bed. So a typical night this week went a little something like this: in bed around 10, first wake-up around 11:30 on the part of Elias, partly due to what we guess is a bad dream, partly due to a mild cough he has. It took us almost two hours, on and off, to get him back to sleep. Second wake-up around 3:30, this time just enough meowing from Xander to fully wake me up. I believe the night in question he settled in eventually only to begin meowing again at 5:30, settling down and allowing me to fall back asleep just in time for the alarm to go off at 6:30. Yeah, not so great for sleeping. Repeat and what you have is crazy-making. I can't even write a complete sentence, for crying out loud. He's even woken up Elias a couple of times. One early morning he started doing his thing and we heard Elias yell, "No!" Word, little dude. When your cat is waking up your toddler at the break of dawn, there is something seriously dysfunctional about your world.

So hopefully this space heater will keep the precious little feline warm and, most importantly, out of our bedroom and quiet, and I can get back to my regularly scheduled program next Friday. In the meantime, here's a still shot from a return visit to Fairyland today.

Look at Elias taking off his socks and shoes? Does he think we live in Berkeley?

Flip Fridays: a boy, a girl, and a train

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 01:07:00 +0000

I mean, does it get any better than that? Today's installation of the Flip Friday series wasn't shot with my Flip camera. Alas, I used my phone. But it still works alliteratively (is that a word?). As in phat with a "ph." Anyway, for this week's "mommy day" we met up with one of Elias's best buds from daycare, Hazel, also home on Fridays, who's almost exactly the same age - just four days his junior. He was really excited last night and all morning leading up to our outing about Hazel's first visit to Fairyland and in particular her first ride on the "jolly trolly," easily his favorite thing about the place. Here's video from that ride:

If you're familiar with toddlers, you might be able to foresee, in those final seconds of the video, the minor tantrum that was to follow on the part of jolly trolly novice, Hazel. Exiting the jolly trolly for the first time is tough. Elias has been there. Nothing a little time in the Alice in Wonderland maze couldn't fix.

And in discovering, months after getting this new gadget, how to extract video from my phone, I came across the following, much shorter video taken not long after we moved into our new house last August and headed, one nap-less weekend, to Babies R Us to buy a water table for our back yard so that we might extend our yard-taming sessions.

This is about when Elias really started to drop the afternoon nap - not just occasionally, and not just fighting it, but very rarely napping in his crib on the days he was home. And here's a very similar scene from just this afternoon:

Despite the fact that he clearly still needs an afternoon snooze, as of the New Year we've officially thrown in the towel on the nap. We've threatened doing so before but he'd throw in a magical, two-hour nap all of a sudden and we'd be convinced it was just a phase. Of the week and a half he was home around Christmas, however, he napped once. It was becoming pretty maddening, to say the least, to continue to structure our days home around a nap that only happened about 10% of the time. And instead of viewing this non-sleeping time in the crib as restorative in a "quiet time" sort of way, Elias started getting really worked up by the end of these sessions and then becoming completely unbearable by about 5:30 that evening. Expectations needed to change. So as of the New Year or so we've been, more or less successfully (knock on virtual wood) implementing afternoon "quiet time", starting with 20 minutes and working our way up, so far, to 45 minutes. Last weekend he actually feel asleep on his own, on a bunch of blankets on the floor, two out of the three days he was home. In fact the first time that we timed it, I used a kitchen-type timer not at all expecting him to actually sleep. But he did and of course the timer, when it went off after a half-hour woke him up. Go figure. So we quickly modified our quiet time routine to included a timed projection using his SoundSpa, silent when it ends. He doesn't sleep every time, but he stays in his room and everyone gets a much-needed break from one another. Another transition successfully navigated. For now.

Flip Fridays: The Big Fat Wolf

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:13:00 +0000

In an effort to blog a little more regularly, I'm starting an alliterative blog series - Flip Fridays! (Because what else am I going to do on a Friday night?!) My Dad gave us a Flip camcorder over a year ago but since we can shoot video on both of our phones and our camera, it hasn't seen a whole lot of action. The only problem with that is, even if I do take video, I'm unlikely to be the one to download and process it. I'm hoping the Flip will help in this department and give me a weekly blog subject. And video is great for this stage in Elias's baby/toddlerhood since some of the best things about our days together lately are what he says or sings or dances. Things best captured in motion pictures. You get the idea. So here goes.

So today he was playing drums on the container that his set of wooden blocks, a Christmas gift from Grandma Joanne, came in. Clever guy, right? But you'll see the drumming quickly morphs into a discussion about the "big fat wolf." Ever since Elias watched the Blue's Clues episode in which Steve tries to piece together the clues to Blue's favorite story - The Three Little Pigs - he's a little freaked out about the whole wolf part. He seems to think he's hearing something in the house that is the "big fat wolf," as he calls him. This has resulted in a little more snuggling than is typical for Elias, which you see in the second half of the video. And in that minute or so, the conversation morphs again into an investigation of the various lights on the Flip camera, including "baby lights" that mysteriously never come on. I'm biased, obviously, but it's pretty darn cute. Speaking of pigs, how 'bout that nose, huh?

Anyway, enough with the tell, now for the show:

the adventures of a costumed toddler

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca Bird Grigsby) — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 20:08:00 +0000

Seriously, people, where are the holidays going? Before we get to Thanksgiving...wait, what? We've already passed that one, too?! Okay, before we get to Christmas, I'd better post some pics from Halloween.

It's funny, thinking back over the past three years. I remember being pregnant and one of the things about parenthood I was most looking forward to was experiencing the holidays anew through the eyes of my kid(s). But the thing you don't really think about, as obvious as it is, when all you have to take care of is your baby bump is that it takes years for kids to develop the kind of long-term memory necessary to anticipate the arrival of a birthday or holiday. Anticipating birthdays and holidays is not, in fact, an innate thing.

That said, it seems for Elias at least, that once they get the idea of special days, they run with it. As I mentioned in my last post, while Elias still didn't seem too excited about dressing up and trick-or-treating (the candy he gets but why do we have to put on such a show in order to get it?), he was very into the idea of decorating, pumpkins, and special visits to our usual weekend spots. In fact, we had such a packed weekend, by the time Sunday evening trick-or-treating rolled around, I was sufficiently Halloween-ed out. The weekend started with our usual Friday "mommy day," which included music, to which Elias wore the hat and mittens from the puppy costume Grandpa Dale gave him last year (that he never had a chance to wear since our Halloween weekend visit was rescheduled, last minute, to Thanksgiving instead). After music we stopped at Michael's for some last-minute decorations and from there hit IHOP up for their free "scary face" pancake, which wasn't scary at all (unless candy and cookies on the biggest pancake ever is scary to you).

On Saturday, we attempted to get Elias into his official Halloween costume, this year going as the French comic book character, Tintin. The costume was simple enough: highwater khaki pants, white button down shirt, blue sweater. Key details included a plush version of Tintin's dog, Snowy, and the spiked 'do. Elias was fine with the clothes, and of course excited for a new stuffed animal, even with the added instructions to carry him around all day, but threw a tantrum when I tried to add product to his hair. Hair that we grew out especially for this costume (and hair that still hasn't been trimmed due to another tantrum...I'm hoping I can remedy that next weekend). I still think it was Tintin-esque, and I'm sure next year he'll have an opinion about his costume and so will hopefully be a little more enthusiastic about making it happen.

After throwing in the towel on the possibility of getting his hair to look anything like Tintin's, we went to Piedmont for their annual festivities along the main drag of shops and restaurants. We missed out on the free cartoons this year but headed straight to the special Saturday story-time (my favorite in the area), followed by a parade and trick-or-treating along Piedmont Avenue.

After a rare nap that afternoon we ambitiously set out to carve two of our three pumpkins.

I do believe the successful carving of the pumpkins was directly related to the fact that Elias, magically, napped that afternoon. Neal took a classic approach while I tried my hand at a spider web.

And then posed with the pumpkins.

On Sunday we went to Fairyland. I remember thinking last year that going to Fairyland on Halloween was a bit overrated since all Elias wanted to do was ride the jolly trolly and going on Halloween only meant we got to wait in a much longer line to do so. But this year was different.

We once again opted for the "plain clothes" modified puppy costume and spent several hours hitting up all the treat stations, riding the train, and enjoying a healthy lunch of corn dogs and nachos.

As I mentioned earlier by Sunday evening we were, well, kind of done with Halloween. We weren't sure what to expect in our new neighborhood and since Elias is still a bit young for trick-or-treating (we'll send him out on his own next year...just kidding!) we decided to call it a weekend. Turns out we had quite a few visitors and passed out our one huge bag of candy within the first hour. Next year I think we'll plan the weekend accordingly in order to save some of our energy for actual Halloween evening trick-or-treating.

In other news, they don't call them terrible 2s for nothing, do they?! In typical Elias fashion, the past few months, our first few months in our house, have been very two steps forward, one step back for Elias in a lot of ways but overall certain things have improved. Elias continues to nap very sporadically, even throwing in the occasional no-nap day at daycare where he usually sleeps for an hour and a half or two. He's napped better the past couple of weeks but for example right now he's singing away in his crib when he should be sleeping. As I told a friend recently, the afternoon nap ritual has become a bit like a sham marriage. We still structure our day around it and go through the motions even though we all know it probably won't happen. It's hard to officially throw in the towel. I'm really at a bit of a loss as to how to get through the long, long day with no afternoon break.

On the other hand, nighttime sleep (knock on wood) has improved. He still wakes up occasionally but overall I think it's safe to say the good nights outnumber the bad. For now. He had a particularly hellish stretch a few weeks ago before, during, and a bit after he was sick. The after part additionally morphed into a sudden wave of separation anxiety which included a week plus of daycare drop off sobbing. When will I learn that getting over an obstacle once doesn't mean we've conquered that particular challenge forever? With a long break over Thanksgiving I was worried this past week would be equally hellish but he seemed to be over his brief and unusual attachment to me and settled right back into his usual routine.

Needless to say, when people ask how old he is and respond with, "Oh, what a fun age!" I usually assume they either don't have kids or had them so long ago they don't remember what this age is like. But now I think what they're focusing on is the language and general personality development. Because that part is indeed pretty rad. Elias is such a little character. It's still hard to converse with him, as talkative as he is, but it's fun to listen to his constant chatter, to hear him singing bits and pieces of songs, or telling me about a book, or something we did together "last day" (his words for "yesterday," usually used to describe an event that happened weeks ago). Neal was helping him put his vest on a couple of weeks ago. He put his arms through so that the vest was over the front of him instead of over his back. When Neal commented that he had it on wrong he said, "not wrong, just different." Kids really do say the darnedest things, don't they?