Crazy Day!

Wow. Today was insane! Thankfully the kids are tucked in bed and the rest of the evening should be relaxing.

So, today was Thomas's 9 month well-baby visit. The appointment was for 9AM, and I did a pretty good job of getting myself ready, getting David's breakfast and lunch ready, and getting the kids ready and fed breakfast by 8AM so we would be on time. We were all loaded into the car and I turned the key and my car wouldn't start!

We actually have a portable power station that can be used to jump cars (and it's worked before on my car), so I fired that up in the garage and tried that. No dice. Tried several more times, and the power station didn't have enough juice to do the trick. At this point, I knew there was slim to none chance that we'd make the 9AM appointment, so I rescheduled the appointment for this afternoon and called AAA to come out.

Triple A came pretty quickly and were able to get my car started, so that was good. Jack got a big kick out of having a big tow truck in our driveway. :)

So, we had lunch and had some time to spare before leaving for the now 2PM doctor's appointment, so we went to the library to drop off a few books that were due tomorrow. Jack made a potty stop before we left home, so I was pretty sure we were in the clear until we got to the dr's office, at least. Well, Jack asks to go to the bathroom about 2 minutes after we left the library (and after he told me that he didn't have to go at the library bathroom). I didn't have much time to spare to stop off at a store to use the restroom, so I tried to gauge how badly he had to go. Well, he asked again (pretty insistently), so I decided that I needed to find a place to pull off so he could use the little travel car toilet. I didn't think he could make it to a store, plus I figured that the travel toilet would be quicker.

Well, it took me a few minutes to pull off the busy highway and find a side street that we could safely pull over on. I got out and went to get Jack, only to find that we had waited a few minutes too long -- he had wet his pants. Not a big deal, because I usually carry extra clothes just in case.... except for today. I had an extra pair of underwear, but no extra pants or shorts for Jack to wear. By now, I didn't have enough time to run home or to a store to buy pants (without having to cancel the dr appointment again), so my mom survival mode kicked in and I decided that I would air-dry Jack's pants in front of the air coniditioner vents as we drove on. So, I put him in dry underwear, draped his wet pants over the steering wheel, turned the A/C on full blast, and fanned the pants every few minutes to maximize evaporation until we reached the dr's office.

Thankfully, my idea did the trick and Jack's pants were pretty close to dry by the time we got there. I felt bad for having to put the potty pants back on him, but I had no choice!! He did have a nice bath and a fresh change of clothes when we got home.

Thomas had a good appointment. He's 21 lbs (50th percentile) and 28 inches (50th percentile), so his growth is slowing down a bit, but that's normal. He's in perfect health!

Unfortunately, Thomas and Jack were pretty crabby for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and tomorrow I have to take my car in to get serviced to make sure she doesn't die again -- but we survived!

PS -- The photo of this post is Jack when he was about Thomas's age. Thomas's hair is considerably light than Jack's, but their faces look a lot of like at this age!

Baby Man

In the last week or so, I've been amazed at how much Thomas is growing up. He just hit his 9-month "birthday", and he goes to the doctor later this week for a checkup and for shots (and I'll be sure to post his height and weight afterward, which I'm sure will be impressive!).

Thomas is now eating finger foods -- Cheerios, graham crackers, pieces of cooked carrots, and whatever crumbs or debris look edible on the floor. He used to just play with any little paper bits or lint that he found while scooting around on the floor, but now it goes straight into his mouth. Ack! He has also started up with some high chair antics (much to the amusement of Jack), like blowing raspberries with food in his mouth, and yelling or growling when he doesn't think you're shoveling in the food fast enough. As his Aunt Wheetah noted yesterday, he's very good about not wasting any food by dropping it onto the floor. :).

Thomas is also surprisingly good at playing with a toy where you send plastic balls down a spiral ramp and they roll out of holes at the bottom. I think the toy is really designed for babies that can stand up (which Thomas is in no way close to doing!), but if you sit Thomas next to it, he'll take a ball as it comes out of the chute, reach up as high as he possibly can, and then put the ball back into the spiral ramp. I just didn't think he had good enough hand-eye coordination, or that he'd even understand that's how the toy worked, so it really surprised me when I saw him doing that over and over again (and really enjoying it!).

Now, the next thing I've seen Thomas do might just be my own imagination. BUT -- I've seen him do it several times, so there might be something to it. Thomas makes lots of noises now -- he babbles and blows raspberries and all of that. But I could swear that I've heard him make a baby version of a car "voooom!" sound, mostly when he plays with Jack's toy cars. The clincher is that he actually kind of moves the cars back and forth a little while he's making the "voooom!" sound, so I kind of suspect that it's the real deal. Jack certainly makes enough car noises around him, so it's definitely possible that Thomas picked it up from him.

Anyway, I guess it's just hard for me to believe that Thomas is doing all these things because in my mind it just doesn't seem possible that he can be growing up this fast! In reality, he'll be 1 year old in less than 3 months, so he's quickly going from "Baby Man" to "Little Man".

Little Man

In all the ups and downs of potty training and teething lately, I probably haven't focused enough on how big Jack is getting and how fun he is to interact with. Let's see .... lately, Jack's big thing has been reading. He really loves to have books read to him. He loves the same books read to him over and over again. :). I've decided that I really love some childrens' books, and appreciate the fact that the authors took the time to write and illustrate in such a way that I really don't mind reading it 1,000,000 times. Some of Jack's (and my) favorite books are: Go Dog Go by PD Eastman, Animalia and The Water Hole, by Graeme Base, all of the Curious George books, I Am Pushkin (can't remember the author!), Get to Work Trucks by Don Carter, and The Red Hen (the author's name escapes me again!). Jack has listened to most of them so many times that he says the words along with me at each page. And sometimes he says "Jack read you, Mama!", and he proceeds to turn the pages and recite what he remembers about each page. It's really cool!

On the other hand, some childrens' books are terrible!! Jack had one book (that was a hand-me-down from another family) that I ended up tossing out altogether. The whole book was about this little boy who kept making excuses for the bad things he did, like "I didn't mean to!", "I forgot!", "It wasn't me!", and stuff like that. I was totally floored one day when Jack was tipping his drink over again and again, and after I scolded him he said "I didn't mean to!" (when he definitely did mean to) just like the kid in the book. So, out the book went.

Jack also takes special joy in making Thomas laugh. He usually does something crazy like dance around or make funny faces, and Thomas starts giggling, and then Jack refines his actions to get Thomas into full-on belly laughs. Sometimes when Thomas fusses, Jack runs in and announces "I coming, Thomas!" and he tries to cheer him up.

Finally, Jack is expaning his repertoire of songs. He likes singing "####### ####### Little Star", "Go Tell it on the Mountain", "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", "We Three Kings", "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt (ack!), and any of the songs from Mary Poppins. He usually muddles the words up a bit, but it's heartwarming to hear him belt out songs in his little voice. One of these days I'll have to catch it on video :).