Crazy fan yelling

Oscar likes to turn on the fan in his room and then yell into it.
He's also replaced "Dada" and "Mama" with "Daddee!" and "Mommee!"

Oscar, age 2

If you ask Oscar how old he is, he will tell you "Two."
If you ask Oscar how he's doing, he will say "Uh good," with his inflection rising.
If you ask Oscar what he ate or would like to eat, his answer is "Meat."
Oscar likes to watch "Car? Eye?" and "Truck? Eye?" videos on YouTube. That's how he refers to Pixar's "Cars" because all the cars and trucks have eyes.
On the street, he will identify Jeeps, trucks, cars, rigs (SUVs) and Neenee (Mercedes Benz, like his Naunie drives).
He has started to string a couple words together like "Mama work" and "Dada home." Tonight we think he uttered his longest sentence: "I don't want to." (when asked whether he wanted to put away his toothbrush and toothpaste)
Today he marched through the kitchen and into the bathroom and shut the door. Adam checked on him. He was using Mr. Potato Head's nose to "unlock" the door and told Adam "key."
"Key" is also what he says for cookie, Monkey and cat. Context is very important when trying to understand toddler speak.

Lately when we go for a walk, Oscar's often walking instead of riding in the stroller. Here's a nice family walk we took last week.

Waste Management

Our friends Will, Stacy and Sam are on vacation at Playa Viva in Mexico. This morning Oscar and I were checking out the resort's Web site (Will had tipped me off to a cool video of baby turtles). Oscar wasn't too impressed with the baby turtles, but there were many other videos available to watch, like "Nature Preserve" and "Tree Houses." Which one did Oscar want to watch? "Waste Management." Chip off the old, old block, eh?

Is it any wonder it was on his mind? Tonight he pooped in his potty for the first time. Yea! Photos available upon request.

In the meantime, here are a couple recent pictures to tide you over plus a video.

Oscar sporting, sort of, his new hat from Gramma's trip to San Antonio.

Punk Rock Bath Time


Happy Easter

Mr. Sandman, I love you

Oscar after his 3-hour nap, bringing Mama a giant cookie at work. Right after this shot, he bit right through the plastic into that chunk of sweet goodness. Photo by Jillian Daley.

Many, many of you have listened to our family's woes about lack of sleep. Every night. Every day. Ugh.

The beloved Sandman paid us a nice visit yesterday (3 hour nap for Oscar) and last night. Oscar was up 3 or 4 times by 10:30 p.m., so we gave him some baby pain killer for the excruciatingly huge molars that are cutting through his sweet, soft baby gums. We've done that before, so it's likely unrelated, but he slept—like a baby—until 6:15 a.m.

Adam got to bed after we dosed Oscar, and he didn't have any insomnia. Yea!

I was up for a work project until midnight, but I got a solid 5 hours in, until I started worrying that we hadn't heard Oscar yet. I slept fitfully for the next hour or so until he woke us up.

I'm not foolish enough to hope that this will continue. But I am grateful that my family got a good night's sleep. We needed it.

Babbling

Oscar has many, many new words, both verbal and signs.

He also tells us stories, talks on whatever he's using as a phone and asks questions (we can tell by the way his voice goes up at the end of the babble).

He is obsessed with a mole on the bottom of his left foot and will show & tell anyone who's interested, "mole!" as he pulls off his shoe and sock and grips his little foot as close to his eyes as possible to make sure the mole's still there.

Another of my favorites is when he says "home." He really draws out the o-m sound.

The other day, he was making fake crying sounds and hugging George, his stuffed monkey, and patting him consolingly. I got a little teary seeing my son's compassion for his distraught friend.

One of the fun babbles Oscar does is...well, I can't figure out how to spell it on here. In any event, I managed to capture it on video tonight, so thought I'd share.

Making cookies

I've been wanting to bake cookies for days. I've also been wanting to try to have Oscar "help." For fun. For both of us.

We did make cookies tonight and it was mostly fun. But I have to admit, I was a bit stressed out. He was standing on a chair. He was flipping dough all over the kitchen while "stirring."

And he ate cookie dough! How did he know that tan goo is so good? I was all, "No, no, salmonella!" He just laughed.

He didn't want to relinquish the spoon. Ever. He also snapped up about five chocolate chips after he poured them in the bowl. And didn't want to relinquish the bowl. Ever.

And then he made some music and told some fibs and cracked up. The end.



Oh, he also helped clean up and then ate a warm cookie. The end.

New dance moves

I know, I know, I just posted a video of Oscar dancing. But he has some new moves, people, and they're irresistible. Adam called me at work the other day to tell me he was in trouble. "Why?!" I asked, worried. "Because Oscar's figured out that he can shake his bum and look me in the eye when I'm trying to get him to do something and I'm completely powerless to continue." Here's a little taste.

Oscar and Ulysses

Oscar and Ulysses met in July 2008 at Parents Infants Plus, a parenting group run by Silverton Together. Here are some shots of them taken at one of our last classes, just about a year ago.


We eventually figured out that Ulysses and his parents Kat and Eli live right around the corner from us. Yea! Since then, the boys have gotten to know each other a little better.


Ulysses and his mom Kat
Eli, Kat & Ulysses at Willamette's Cherry Blossom Festival

To be continued...

Fridge toy

Oscar likes his magnetic and musical barnyard animal toy. He has a hard time deciding which tune to play sometimes...and then there's that annoying towel...

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

A week or so ago, Oscar was helping Adam make my lunch in the morning before work. I was on the phone, but we were all in the kitchen. Suddenly Adam stops what he's doing and crouches down to help Oscar with something. I can't tell what's going on, but I can tell something's wrong. Oscar's been vigorously rubbing his nose and face and I can see red on one of his fingers, so I figure he has a bloody nose. I get off the phone at the same time Adam realizes that Oscar swiped the dollop of Sriracha, or rooster sauce, off the top of the bottle while the fridge was open, and he popped it in his mouth! Ouch! We got him some milk and gave him some frozen blueberries to try to wash the taste--and burn--away. It wasn't pleasant, though, poor baby.

I don't think he's been back in the fridge since then, though...


Note: the photo I included is one of Oscar sort of fake crying--I didn't run to the get the camera when he was suffering from hot sauce ingestion!

Rockin' Robin

Oscar and I were dancing to one of my favorite oldies, "Rockin' Robin," the other night. I thought I'd share some of our evening:

Indulging mama

How big is Oscar?

Drumming and cooling off

Well, I was really hoping to get something up during July. Ah, well. Here's something for the beginning of August!

Oscar likes hanging out with us in the kitchen. To keep him out of the cat food and trash can, we gave him some music makers.

And here's something from today's (!) trip to the River Road Park:

Oscar loves broccoli

Disco fever

My Auntie Barbara made this video on JibJab and sent it to me on Facebook for my birthday last month.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

I will admit that it kind of freaked me out, but fascination and hilarity won out in the end. Enjoy!

Dancing fool

Instead of getting ready for dinner or bed or our roadtrip to La Grande tomorrow, here's how our family spent a good deal of time tonight:


Three clips for a total of about 4 minutes. Enjoy (I know we did!)!

Haircut

Oscar's bangs were in his eyes...and had been for weeks, now. I took my time thinking about getting those little baby locks cut off, his original hair, the tips that were the first wisps on his tiny newborn head. I would get a little teary thinking about it, but not too bad. And I thought it would be better to mourn in advance than to make a big weepy show of it at the salon or after.

So we headed to Americuts on Saturday for his appointment with Debbie, the owner. Here's how it went.

Checking out the joint.

In our capes, checking out Debbie the hairdresser (and owner of Americuts).

The first cut.

Taking some off the top.

Getting the hang of it.

Clutching the iPuppy that Debbie had for Oscar play with.

Oscar seemed to enjoy getting his haircut.

Mama and baby are happy with the results.

Papa and baby are happy, too.

Time for a celebratory ride in the big boy firetruck chair.

Oscar got a certificate and some of his locks for the baby book.

Oscar crawls!

Oscar's been scooting around backwards and in counter-clockwise circles for weeks now, and he's recently started pulling himself forward with his forearm, one scoot at a time. But this weekend he really went for it, and he was so excited!

If you listen carefully, you can hear a little toot escape, I'm sure from all the exertion.

It's definitely time to babyproof!

Oscar eats "real" food

Oscar started eating rice cereal about 6 weeks ago or so. Here's a video clip of that milestone.



He started eating jars of organic baby food a couple weeks ago. We started with peas. Here's that video clip.



I've missed updating my blog, but can't make any promises about how often I'll be able to. Thanks for checking back!

Rollin' along

Tummy time at Gramma's in August.

Tummy to back
Oscar rolled from his tummy to his back on Sunday morning. He wasn't even trying, he was just playing on his play mat and ! just like that, he was on his back, looking at me with juicy spit bubbles on his lips.

I felt several things all at once: protective (I thought the sudden change might have startled him), proud, excited, relieved I'd been looking right at him, sad that Adam wasn't home to witness it...I felt like swooping him up in joy (and comfort) and at the same time I felt like playing it cool, like I didn't want to further startle him or just generally have a first-time parent freak-out. So I kind of did all those things in the next moment. I said something like, "Wow, look at you, Oscar, rolling over from your tummy to your back, what a big boy you are!" as I calmly dabbed the spit bubbles away with a burp cloth. The next second, though, I had grabbed him up and was hugging him to me, just loving him and being happy with the moment.

Keeping an eye on Gramma. And the camera.

Back to tummy
Tonight, Oscar was laying on his back and ! just like that, rolled over onto his tummy. What the?! I thought it would be a while longer before he could roll from back to tummy. I thought he'd be practicing his tummy-to-back roll first. I also thought the back-to-tummy roll would require much more effort. He did it without any at all. As soon as he was on his tummy, he was kicking his legs like a frog and he was grunting with frustration. He still doesn't love being on his tummy. I eventually helped him roll back onto his back. He continued to throw a leg over and turn onto his left side, but he didn't roll completely over again. Yet.