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parenthood archives (summaries | full text)

The Beaner has a habit of focusing on the negative. We can have had a fabulous day together, and he'll focus on the toy I just told him he couldn't buy, or the fact that he has to take a bath when he doesn't waaaaaaaaaaant to. Usually I try to snap him out of the downward spiral by building a ladder out of all the good things that happened that day. (It's sort of a variation on the "mommy...

One summer Sunday when I was about 8 years old, our friends Anne and Peggy and their two kids, Lee and John, came over to our house. I'm not sure what the adults were doing—sitting in the house or the yard talking or cooking, probably—but the four of us kids were playing outside. We had a GMC pickup truck with a cap on the back at the time, and my father had tricked it out with carpet remnants and...

Short summary of today: golf lessons for Cousin H and the Beaner (the latter's first, and he loved it), a shopping walk for me (woo, three pairs of workout pants from Gap Body!) that ended in a migraine (OW!), a lunch of leftovers from Graciela's (yum!), a nap for Al (so he'd be awake enough to drive home) and for me (so the icepicks in my left eyebrow would relent a bit), a tantrum by the Beaner when we...

I'm writing this longhand (because blogging from my iPhone when the post is longer than a Twitter entry is tedious) and will post it when I get home tomorrow night. We're in NYC visiting Al's brother's family for the weekend; Cousin H's school fair was this afternoon, and we drove up to join in the fun. The roasted corn was tasty, the fishing in the Little Mermaid blow-up pool was fruitful, the cupcake decorating was a sparkly, sugary hit,...

Today was Grandparents & Special Friends Day at the Beaner's school, so both Al's parents and my mom drove up to attend (my dad had to work). It's also my mom's 61st birthday today, so after school the Beaner, Grandma, and I walked/bused to More Than Just Ice Cream for a birthday lunch....

We had a rough lunchtime today. Well, lunchtime itself wasn't rough—we played at the playground, sat down to eat together, shared some yogurt, read a book twice. It was when I got up to go back to work that things got bad....

A sure sign that we're actually paying more attention to the Beaner now: I'm getting irritated when someone interrupts my lunchtime conversations with the Beaner, and Al's getting irritated when I try to talk to him while he's having playtime with the Beaner. Ah yes, I remember this!...

I mentioned a few days ago that we were trying to rearrange our daily schedule, and that I intended to get input from the Beaner about it. In the end there was really only one option that worked, so he was not consulted. He was informed, however, and though it wouldn't be his choice—his choice would be for Mommy to do everything... except when he wants Daddy to do it—he's adapted pretty well. Al's now in charge of the...

Despite my reluctance to discuss the details of the current parenting nightmare, I've apparently been clear enough here that the Beaner's been on a Bad Behavior tear lately that it prompted my sister to call and offer her sympathies today. And with that opening I proceeded to write four paragraphs on the Beaner's behavior... only to decide against publishing them. It's too complicated, with too many threads leading into dangerous places, to talk about in detail publicly. Instead I...

Today's post will be a short one, mainly to report that after two atrocious days at school (where sending the Beaner home was considered but rejected because it would be seen as a reward, because Mommy works at home) and a slightly longer stretch of disrespect, defiance, distraction, and disruptive behavior at home, the Beaner had a better day today. As Mrs. Bennett once said in reference to Mr. Collins' marriage, "I only hope it will last." Unlike Mrs....

The longer I wait to write about these random conversations I've had with the Beaner recently, the more likely I am to forget every damn one of them. Not even the notes I've been leaving myself on napkins and in my iPhone will help; "discussion of whether Thom Yorke is a Radiohead" is enough to make me recall him asking, but I can't remember the actual discussion, which is a shame....

I have two posts I've been writing in my head for a while now; hopefully last night's adventures in sleeplessness haven't driven them out. For a synopsis of the adventures, I offer my Twitter stream and one of the grainy photos I took out my window:...

On Sunday morning we walked (or rather, I walked, and the Beaner rode his new bike*) to Trader Joe's to buy flour buttermilk for pancakes, and on the way we talked about having tea with breakfast. I suggested that we each have our own teapots. "But I don't like tea," said the Beaner....

After a couple (three? four?) months of going to bed on his own after a story or two, the Beaner in the last few weeks has decided that he DOES NOT WANT TO BE ALONE. (I could swear I'd mentioned this in a post before, but I can't find any evidence of it; maybe I just told all my friends?) The story I thought I'd told happened several weeks ago, when I discovered that the Beaner knew what manipulation...

We've noticed that the Beaner has started singing on key, and he's also got a bit of rhythm. Not sure if it's just the fact that he's getting older, or whether the music and movement classes he has at school each week (movement twice a week, music once) are helping, but he'll sometimes catch a tune playing in a store or at the house and spontaneously break it down....

I have a gazillion little videos of the Beaner doing his thing (whatever that thing happens to be at any given moment), and I'm waaaay behind in uploading them all. (I also have a bunch of hockey videos to upload, but that's a topic for the other blog. Here's a Beaner video from February 20, the day he and Aura baked pumpkin chocolate muffins together (enter the name of this site as the password to view):...

Sorry for the loooong silence. Busy busy busy, sick, busy, hockey, busy, snow, blah blah blah. Some Beaner things I've jotted down over the past week or so:...

The Beaner approaches with his sneakers on his hands, clapping them together....

Overheard from downstairs, while I was making lunch for myself in the kitchen (yes, it's 3:27pm, I know):...

We've been telling the Beaner that when he goes to the dentist, he'll get a new toothbrush (because that's what happens when we go :-). He didn't seem particularly afraid to go—he was calmer about it than I was, actually—and whenever we mentioned it, he'd say, "and I'll get a new toothbrush?"...

The Beaner is downstairs wailing because he wanted me to stay down there with him, and instead I climbed the stairs to my office after feeding him lunch. I have a meeting in 7 minutes for which I have not prepared because I couldn't get him off me....

I read the whole Helping a Toddler Do it Himself post from the beginning today (something I didn't do before posting it—a mistake, given that it took me over a week to write the thing), and I realized I'd left out the section on Helping with Chores. I added that today, in case you're interested....

One morning a couple months ago we went to a parent thing at the Beaner's Montessori school (was it a new parent orientation? I can't remember for sure, but that sounds right), and the subject of independence came up. We started talking about ways that our 3 year-olds could do things for themselves around the house. A couple parents expressed disbelief that their about-to-turn-3s or just-turned-3s could make their own beds or get their own breakfast; others shared some...

Hey, want to see me making a total fool out of myself? I knew you would! Al, the Beaner, and I played several games of Dora on Sunday morning, with the Beaner assigning us various roles ("ok, this time I will be Swiper and Daddy will be Dora and Mommy will be Boots") and the three of us acting out Beaner-defined adventures. Here's me in the role of Dora, after Swiper (the Beaner) stole my toy Lexus that Boots...

I wrote this down at the time because I thought it was funny, but because I only wrote keywords and not the whole conversation, I can't remember how it came about. Let's just pick up where it gets odd, shall we?...

I've been working on a long post for days now, and it's holding back a flood of smaller items. I've decided just to let loose with the small stuff, and get the longer post up as soon as I can....

I want to stress up front that what follows is NOT the description of a dream, but rather a real (if surreal) conversation the Beaner and I had at lunch today. I remember thinking in the middle of it that I wished I had a tape recorder, because there was no way I was going to remember EVERYTHING he said and how he said it, and it seemed really important to remember. This is the gist of what I...

Pittsburgh might seem an odd place to visit over the holidays, especially given that we have no family there, but visit Pittsburgh (or Pittspoop, as the Beaner calls it, not because he didn't like it, but because "poop" is the funniest word in the world to him right now) is exactly what we did for the last weekend of our holiday break. Why? Well, several reasons: (1) Al's very good friends Craig & Nico and their three kids were...

The Beaner and I played a little game at lunch today. He's forever picking up pasta, straws, crayons, pencils, etc.—anything relatively straight—and making capital Ts out of them. Today when he did it with his flaxseed fusili, he said, "T is for Tamago." I got out some paper and started by saying, "A is for...". He filled in the blanks....

Lori's I Hab A Code entry from last week (which I just read a few minutes ago; I'm so far behind on my RSS feed reading that I'm considering clicking the Mark All as Read button and starting fresh) reminded me of this exchange, which happened, now that I think of it, on the same day Lori wrote her entry....

By Al, who shot this video. I password-protected the clip it to keep the average ninny from viewing it on Vimeo; if you see a password field next to the lock icon below, enter the name of this blog into it. If you see a light blue/white play button, just click that. And if you see the video itself... well, you know what to do....

Beaner, to me: "Where's my macaroni and cheese? Where's my corn?" Me, to Al: "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."...

The Beaner woke up with a giant zit in the middle of his chin the other morning, most likely from not wiping his face after dribbling toothpaste (he likes to look at himself in the mirror while spitting, which is not conducive to getting the spit into the sink) and then sleeping on a somewhat scratchy pillowcase. (He loves the design of the case, but actually complained about the scratchiness after acquiring the zit. Why they make kids' sheets...

I found this New York Times article, Bad Behavior Does Not Doom Pupils, Studies Say, interesting, not so much because of any implications it might have for the Beaner's school career, but because it highlighted something I'd already been thinking about: emotional maturity. The quote that stuck out for me:...

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Kristin came to visit a couple weeks ago, and she brought the Beaner a bunch of cool! presents! One was a motorized squid that Beaner could not *wait* to try in the tub. (He won't take a bath without it now, actually.) I shot this video the night the gift was given, but my lazy ass just uploaded it tonight. I offer it for your amusement, though you may not...

Let's not talk about how I forgot to blog yesterday, shall we?...

Y'all, he did it. He went to sleep on his own....

I was trying to think of a name for this post before I started writing it (sometimes a good idea, but just as often it's better to wait until I'm finished), and Fat Boy Slim's "Won't Talk About It" is playing on my iPod at the moment, so there you go. I was worried about signing up for NaBloPoMo this year, especially with my full plate and the still-trying-to-keep-myself-on-the-upward-spiral situation (I've been mostly successful in, if not exactly staying...

I was planning to write a basically cheery post about how the Beaner woke up happy this morning, as is usual after a meltdown the previous evening, but then his teacher called. We knew he'd been taken out of the classroom a few weeks ago because he was having "body control issues," but when Al asked about it, no details were given. When his teacher called to ask that we reinforce this at home, I said that I needed...

Oy, we just had a royal meltdown here. Over snuggling....

For those of you wondering what happened at Target on Friday—did we get party hats? did we get presents?—an update. It was not necessary to buy presents at Target because when I came down to the kitchen at the (early) end of my workday, I found a bag from the AT&T store sitting on the counter. I tracked Al down and said, "did you buy me an iPhone?" He smiled and nodded....

Last night when I put the Beaner to bed I told him that tomorrow would be my birthday, so when I came in to wake him up in the morning, I'd say, "good morning, sunshine!", and he could reply, "happy birthday, Mommy!"...

We are all doing better over here. The Beaner is adjusting to the school routine, I am coping better, and Al isn't having to work such crazy hours anymore. I think we're all feeding off each other; as one of us improves, so do the others. It's a nice trend, spiraling upward rather than downward....

I still need to go around the house collecting all the random bits of paper and notebooks on/in which I've scribbled the hilarious things the Beaner's said lately, but one that I haven't written down yet just occurred to me thanks to Julie's post about Schmooieisms....

Yes, yes, I know, I haven't written the school post yet. I'm totally overloaded with writing a spec for my feature and two presentations for MAX, plus life in general. So why am I pausing to write this post now? Because it'll be quick (unlike the school post, which requires some more organized thinking), because I haven't written here in a long time, because I know you're all dying for some Beaner news, and because he's been dishing up...

On Monday morning, before leaving Lancaster (yeah, I know, I never announced that we'd be spending Labor Day weekend in Lancaster, PA, but the evidence that we did is on Flickr), I requested to be dropped off at the Borders Outlet for a while. I was still in a "need soothing" mode, and a wander around a bookstore with my Favorite Early Music playlist seemed like just the ticket. It wasn't, really; outlets aren't the same as real bookstores...

A colleague asked me the other day, "how did we find stuff without the web? Seriously, I can't remember." I couldn't remember either. We're so used to Googling and just typing in whateverbusinessname.com and even checking the weather forecast and our bank balances online, it's hard to remember how we did those things before. I do remember using the phone for the last two, and the yellow pages for the first two, but the best I could come up...

Just a quick post tonight (because school starts on Wednesday, and we're preparing for the new routine—which involves an earlier start in the morning—by going to bed a bit earlier, and according to my schedule I should have been in bed two minutes ago) to say that we went to Dutch Wonderland this weekend, and I've posted photos of the outing to Flickr....

Tonight my best friend (and the Beaner's godmom) is coming to visit. We've been talking about Godmommy Sandy coming for a while, so the Beaner knows exactly whom we're picking up at the airport tonight. He's just not so clear on where she's flying in from....

I got out the camera after the Beaner played a marvelous little ditty on his harmonica, but of course once he saw the camera he was more interested in watching the videos I took than playing another song, and so he only tooted out a few half-hearted notes. After several attempts to capture the harmonica playing I said I was giving up...at which point he want back into play mode and did this, hardly aware that the camera was...

I was reading through my archives the other day (invariably I go to look something up, and I end up lost in there, reading sequentially, until the phone or an IM ping bring me back to reality), and I happened upon this post from January 2005, in which I described a dream:...

It'll become obvious in a minute, when your RSS feeds get flodded with posts, that I'm in the process of clearing out the blogjam I'd intended to clear out last week. Yay for moving Tuesday's drama off the front page with more frivolous things!...

The Beaner's been saying "don't forget for me!" a lot lately. He says it whenever we leave the room, go up or down the stairs, or even turn away from him. He wants to be included, dammit! Don't forget for him! Other variations: "Can I come wit you?" (yeah, it seems he's getting a bit of the Philly accent :-/) and "Can I come TOO?" The answer is usually sure... as long as we don't move at this weird...

My company has an awesome benefit that started this year: Backup Care. We get 100 hours a year of home or child-center care at highly subsidized rates from local providers, for use when our regular child-care arrangements fall through for whatever reason (a nanny's vacation, a holiday week at the pre-school, etc.). I've used it before when Jess was away and Aura wasn't available (or vice versa), and Al needed it when I was in Germany in June and...

I think I mentioned somewhere (though I can't find it now, so maybe it was just verbally to Al or a friend) that I was dying to see what the Beaner would draw next, but that I didn't want to influence him at all by suggesting that he draw. I especially didn't want to say, "let's draw" and then have him copy what I did; I wanted to see what he'd come up with on his own....

Here I am with a long list of things to blog about, and Lori just reminded me of another one by commenting on the Flickr photo below....

The Beaner drew this in his handy-dandy notebook (a small, square notepad he picked out at Staples, rather than an official Blues Clues branded one) last night:...

This photo makes me so happy:...

Al just remarked how funny it was that our first baby gate is likely to be our last. He's right: Since he took the gate off the doorway to the Beaner's bedroom (we've been leaving it open for a couple months now at least) this morning, the gates around the staircase in the living room and entrance hall were dismantled months ago, and I remember putting the basement playroom gate out for freecycling when it was snowing, we're now...

Conversation tonight with the Beaner, as I was putting lotion on him:...

After a long layover in a smoky, under-construction terminal at Frankfurt airport and a 90-minute flight delay, I finally made it back to Philadelphia on Friday evening. I arrived home to a startled Beaner, who gasped, "Mommy!" when he saw me, but then froze on the spot. I scooped him up and snuggled him, so he'd realize it was really me....

I took several photos of the Beaner yesterday, and I didn't end up posting a couple of them because although they were cute, they weren't particularly flattering. He looked kind of... chubby. Is this awful of me?...

Until we find swimming lessons (thanks, Marisa, for the tip about the Christian Street Y!) or a regular pool to visit (does anyone have information regarding rumors I've heard that some Center City hotels offer pool memberships to locals?), there's always the plastic baby pool that we picked up at Babies 'R Us for like five bucks. It was a total impulse buy; we sort of just shrugged and figured if the Beaner used it once, we'd have gotten...

I pretty much abandoned the Beaner updates around the time said Beaner turned two, and I've kinda regretted that. I've said it before, but this blog, in addition to being my place to rant about random political/news/media issues and rhapsodize about food, is our baby book. It's where most of the milestones have been recorded—with context that's often missing in an actual baby book. Partly I stopped with the updates because between work, hockey, and the actual raising of...

I've been waffling about posting the videos Al took of me and the Beaner in the hotel pool because in most of them I am so obviously giving Al a horrified look..and then giving my body an even more horrified once-over. I seem to be saying, entirely with my eyes/facial expression, "Jesus Christ, I'm in my bathing suit!" and "good lord, is anything incriminating hanging out?" The swimming videos are worse than the jumping-in-the-pool video, so I'll start with...

Al likes to give the Beaner some room to roam, but he has a mental line that causes him to call, "that's too far, buddy!" I think it seems gentler to him to say "that's too far" than to shout, "{Beaner}, come back here!" as many a panicked parent would (and I sometimes) do....

Between hockey and the Beaner, I have about a gazillion videos (and some audio, too) to share with y'all. Most of Beaner videos are a few weeks old, though if I get completely caught up, I'll have some from today to post, too. This first one is from the weekend that my mom and dad came up; my dad left on Sunday, but my mom stayed until Tuesday morning so she could fill in for a vacationing nanny on...

We're back from an orientation at the preschool the Beaner will be attending in the fall, where we learned about the drop off and pick up procedures, what goes on during the school day, some the Montessori materials, that parents are expected to participate on the board and on committees, etc. I'm sitting at my desk, attempting to stuff an egg salad sandwich past the world's largest canker sore (thanks to a savagely bitten lip), and Al is going...

The Beaner has always been what people call "a good eater". We don't have standoffs over what he will and won't eat, he's never gone on an all-white diet or a hunger strike, and the biggest food problem we've ever had is running out of his favorite fruit of the moment. (He doesn't seem to understand that we're not just denying him when we say "there is no more mango, honey.") He's a healthy, strapping, active boy who's at...

Interesting article in the NYT today: Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus. Totally brought back memories of my own pregnancy, and the discussions preceeding it....

Apologies in advance to anyone visiting on a slow connection; the video that follows is 5.2MB and may take a while to download. It features my very cute 29 month-old, however, so I firmly believe the wait is worth it. Really....

I mentioned in one of my bathroom progress updates yesterday that the Beaner has a teddy bear, and that he thinks of it as a her. My sister and my niece got the bear for the Beaner for his first birthday, but he didn't show much interest in it until his second. Anyway, it's a Build-A-Bear, so naturally my sister and my niece got a couple outfits for it (that's the whole point of Build-A-Bears—the clothing and accessories that...

I've been complaining about the Beaner's shaggy mop for a while now; my last attempt to cut it just made him look like a cross between Keith Richards and an early Beatle, and it didn't do much to get rid of most of the bulk. Several times I threatened to whip out my Wahl clippers if Al didn't take him to a proper barber, and over the weekend I actually got the box of clippers (I have two) and...

I feel like I've been slacking off on the parenthood posts lately. I've abandoned the monthly updates—which is probably a bad thing, as they help remind me when things happen and how we got where we are now—and I don't blog most of the funny stuff the Beaner does these days. To assuage this guilt, here's something that happened tonight:...

While Al and I were in the kitchen cleaning out the refrigerator in preparation for Trash Night, the Beaner turned to his toy drawer to amuse himself. He pulled out his little Fisher-Price phone, held the receiver to his ear, and said, "Hi! My name is {Beaner}. What's your name?" Next he held the receiver out to me and said, "Do you wanna talk to the li'l boy?"...

Two unrelated items:...

When we took the Beaner in for his two-year checkup last Friday, our pediatrician was half giddy, half amazed as his verbal and cognitive abilities. I tend to discount any assertions that the Beaner is smart, precocious, advanced for his age, etc. because really, who cares? If he's any of those things, the only reason to be glad of it is because it makes him a better conversationalist and more fun to be around on a daily basis. It's...

While we were waiting to see the doctor on Tuesday evening, I taught the Beaner how to chew gum. I did it mainly because his breath smelled so foul I couldn't stand it anymore (something I need to ask the dentist about when I finally get around to making his first dental appointment). Although we brush his teeth at least once a day (and sometimes twice), we're obviously missing something, and I figured maybe some sugarless gum would have...

Note: Excuse the flurry of out-of-order postings and whatnot. I've got a bunch of half-written posts on a variety of topics that I'm trying to finish up, and some have more blocking issues associated with them than others. There will also be more photos from Hawaii posted later today (or tomorrow, given that I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, and I'm barely functional at the moment)....

5:45pm pediatrician's appointments that end up encroaching on bedtime, that's what. Especially when you wait 90 minutes to see a doctor who pooh-poohs everything you say, does nothing except tell you to do what you're already doing, and then makes you wait another 15 minutes for your paperwork. I'm convinced that last wait would have been longer if the Beaner and I hadn't exited the exam room and plunked ourselves in front of the nurses' station, in full view...

The Beaner is a total ham who, like all kids his age, is very aware of the camera. He's particularly fond of the Finepix and its large LCD screen (the Canon 10D is a little less interesting because there's nothing to see until after you're done shooting—which suits me just fine), and I think he appreciates the Finepix most for the same reason we do: it takes great little videos....

You know the pilot episode of Lucky Louie that Mrs. Kennedy wrote about (transcribed, actually) way back in July? We saw that episode (or at least that opening scene) when it aired, and neither Al nor I found it funny. We found it annoying. Well, guess what? THAT SCENE IS NOW MY LIFE. The Beaner's favorite phrase used to be "what happened?", which could be annoying enough when repeated. But while "what happened" is still in rotation, it's been...

Just wanted to let anyone who was holding their breath in suspense know that the Beaner was accepted at the Montessori school for this fall. We are still trying to figure out all the things we need to commit to/pay for/sign in the coming days, but we're thrilled. I really think he's going to love it....

Al and I cannot stand the local news. We do not want to hear the gory details of all the murders, rapes, drive-by shootings, hit-and-run accidents, and drug transactions that afflict Philadelphia. We hate the hyperbole, the non-news, the on-location reporting when being on-location adds absolutely nothing (look, here's a shot of the street where the water main broke! you can't see anything now, but a few hours ago there was water here!)....

Overheard from downstairs just this moment: "I found my black Jeep, Aura!"...

It was not a fluke. The Beaner fell asleep at 9pm last night, slept until about 8:20 this morning, and upon waking, got out of bed and waited patiently at the gate until his dad heard the metallic clunk of his little Jeep against the bars and went to get him....

The Beaner had his interview at the Montessori school around the corner on Saturday, and I have now gone from "whatever happens, happens" to "god, I hope he gets in." He so obviously LOVED it that I think I'll be disappointed if they don't take him. The good news is that I got a book on homeschooling Montessori-style and am in the process of formulating a backup plan for schooling him in the mornings before starting work should the...

Did y'all know that Daylight Saving Time is being extended this year? Instead of starting on the first Sunday in April and ending on the last Sunday in October, it'll now start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November. In other words, DST will start on March 11 this year instead of April 1, and it'll end on November 4 instead of October 28....

Have I mentioned that I'm in the process of replacing my entire stock of tops (shirts, sweaters, etc.) with offerings from Gap Tall? I'm doing this because now that I have three shirts whose sleeves reach my wrists, I WANT MORE. Suddenly all the shirts and sweaters that have always been a little short in the torso and the arms look even more ridiculous than they did before, because now I know that there's an alternative....

The Beaner turned 26 months old yesterday. I celebrated by giving him a haircut and putting him in underpants. He spent all day Saturday in underpants with only one notable accident, and after staying dry in his Pull-Up all day Sunday (when we went on a 3-hour car trip) and Monday, I decided he was ready for daily underpants. As on Saturday we had one notable accident, but other than that it went *really* well. We still have a...

In my last big boy bed update, I mentioned that the Beaner woke up screaming on nights two and three, and that Al was the designated soother for night four. Well, of course the Beaner didn't wake up on night four... and, in fact, has slept through every night since then until Monday....

Since I haven't been particularly good about posting developmental milestones in the past couple months, I wanted to write about a couple small things now, before I forget....

I read the blogs of other parents on a daily basis, and despite knowing the favorite foods, least favorite activities, sleep patterns, and even the bathroom habits of many of the children of those parents (not to mention the parents themselves), I realized the other day that with a couple exceptions, I know very little about how these parents organize their days. Are they stay-at-home moms or dads? Do they go to offices during the day, every day? Only...

I didn't write a 25-month update on December 30th mainly because I hadn't written the 24-month/2-year update yet, and I haven't written the 24-month/2-year update for a few reasons. One is that privacy thing I first brought up back in September. Another is that his 24th month happened to coincide with NaBloPoMo, so I feel like that month got covered better than most others anyway. But for all I said here, there's so much more I didn't say, and...

Remember how I said that the Beaner slept through the night in his big boy bed the first night? Not so the second or the third night. On Tuesday morning he woke up at 4:50am, crying from his bed. I proposed that we let him cry for a few minutes and see if he went back to sleep, but alas, it was not to be. I went up there and got into the bed with him....

We've been talking about moving the Beaner out of his crib and into a bed for a while now, but this weekend we finally did it. After many discussions about whether to buy him a twin mattress and just try that out on the floor, or whether to just use the crib mattress for a little while to see how it went, on Friday or Saturday night I came up with a better idea: Why not take the relatively unused...

When we were in Napa in the fall, we went to a great little toy store downtown to see if we could find something for Tony and Maria's son P and John and Kathy's son S. I asked about Huggy Buggies, the squishy little cars that Craig and Nico introduced us to long before we had a kid, that we'd bought for the Beaner's cousin when he was little, and which the Beaner now owns thanks to hand-me-downs. I...

Al and I noticed last week that The Beaner has started using the past tense properly. I'm never sure whether we notice it the first time he does it, or whether he's been doing it for a while and it finally sinks in with us, but in any case, he's now saying things like "I already ate," or "I saw grandma yesterday."...

I think I've mentioned here before that The Beaner's favorite Christmas tune is Sleigh Ride (also known as "look at the show"), though he's also fond of Jingle Bells ("jingle all da way"), Let It Snow ("weather outside"), and The Little Drummer Boy ("parum pa pa pum"). He's been singing a few selections at the top of his lungs lately; listening to a song 30 or 40 times in a row is apparently paying off when it comes to...

I have a reputation in this household for always being right. Not in a "because I said so" way; no, it's more that I either know what I'm talking about or guess accurately most of the time. This reputation was shot all to hell (at least in my own mind) when we went shopping on Saturday, and The Beaner had to poop....

I can't believe how fast I slipped back into my usual mode of having tons of things to write about, but not making the time to write about them. (Notice I said making the time and not having the time; I obviously made the time in November.) Before the backlog becomes crushing and I stop writing for weeks on end (er, too late), I wanted to write about three really great evenings we had last week. When you read...

I turned in The Beaner's application to the nearby Montessori pre-school yesterday. (Long story about odds of him getting in; I'll probably explain in more detail at a later date.) Two of the questions on the Child Profile were "At what age did your child start speaking?", and the follow-up "Does s/he speak in 2-3 word phrases or sentences?"...

Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Clingy Toddler Syndrome that I work at home? On the one hand, it means that The Beaner has access to me if he really needs it. On the other hand, when he needs it often, it totally interferes with my work. And then there are moments like right now, when he really needs my attention, and I need to be in a meeting. Thank god I have a headset...

Yesterday The Beaner and I had a lovely day together. We walked (or rather, I walked, he rode in the black stroller) to the bakery to buy some bread, and then we trekked down to the Italian Market to buy some more panettone cups from Fantes (I need them for muffin baking). On the way back we stopped at Seeger playground and played on the little toddler gym for a while (I'll post video tomorrow if any of the...

We celebrated The Beaner's 2nd birthday with both sets of grandparents today. I'll have photos to post tomorrow (both of the cake eating/present opening and of other events of the past few days—I brought my work computer with me to my in-laws', and I can't download photos with it). In the meantime, I'll mention three things that occurred to me today:...