I know what you did last month

I realized today how bad I've been at posting pictures this last month. Don't forget, you can always go to smugmug to get the latest and greatest. But here are a few of the highlights:

Sometime during this month he turned into a 7 year old?!?

Perfecting Le Pout

Learning to golf = Mama and Daddy's retirement! I kid, I kid. Sorta. ;)

Eyelashes. Wasted on the young and male.

My kid can read.

"Poor man's booster chair", or "How many ways can I use a sling"?

Sleepy time!

My animals at the zoo

Baby giraffe!

High tech golf simulator. Gotta perfect the swing before he creates bad habits.

Update on Bloodwork

All of his bloodwork came back fine. Rest easy!

While I was dishwashing...

Joseph was teaching himself to read... Have I mentioned how awesome he is lately?

Yes, he probably did text everyone on my speed dial first, but he is a child of the 2000's, right?

Understanding Language

Joseph just *gets* so much lately. He can put his shoes away and bring them to me to put on for him, he also gets my shoes if I'm taking too long! He passed me his water the other day in the car because I forgot mine. What a sweetie! He (generally) will come over when I have a clean diaper for him, and sometimes will make a "tssss" sound when we change the diaper. I hope that's the first step toward potty learning. Haha!

He's also a reasonable listener. He will generally stop if I ask him to when we're out and about. Not that I trust him. But it's still cool. And he seems to understand that he can either hold my hand in parking lots or be carried. He doesn't usually like holding my hand unless he wants help up and down curbs, but he submits to it when I remind him of the options.

He can point to his nose, eyes, mouth, belly, and toes now. He loves to wink and look at you from the corners of his eyes.

He doesn't say too much, but he sure does know a lot! Time to start watching my words!

New video is up

I do not vouch for it actually being interesting, though!

Link

I'll be updating soon, I promise!

18mo Doctor's Appointment

T.J. and I took Joseph to the pediatrician today for his 18mo appointment. Stats:

Weight: 19lb 4oz (well below chart)
Height: somewhere between 32.25-33.5" (they measured him 2x) (~50%)
Head: 18.5" (~25%)

Doc threw the "Failure to Thrive" hat in the ring today. I knew it was coming, but frankly it still makes me mad. If there is one thing that Joseph is doing lately, it's thriving. He has great gross and fine motor skills, his verbal skills are developing, and he has a fantastic personality. Heaven forbid that he'd rather play than eat. Ugh.

But, the "tests" for this aren't very invasive, so we consented to starting them. First, they taped a bag to his groin so they could collect a urine sample (poor Joseph). Then we went to the lab and he had blood drawn and they did 4 or 5 different panels. The nurses there were hilarious - basically just rolled their eyes when we told them why we were there. I told them I brought T.J. so that the Doc could see that he was perfectly fine, but it didn't work!

So far nothing's coming back overly alarming. There are a few things abnormal, but they are mostly very close to the norms. We should hear back from the Doc next week on their opinion. If they do find something, we'll have to do more bloodwork, I guess.

My diagnosis: Skinny father. :)

After the doctor, T.J. and I had dentist appointments, so we had the dentist look at Joseph's teeth. His top teeth are all dark near the gum, and I was worried that it was decay. He says it just looks like stain, though he was confused by it. He said it's probably due to a bump he took to his gums as an infant or to vitamins. I'm glad that it won't require dental work, but bummed that it appears that Joseph will have dark teeth until his milk teeth fall out. Oh well, could be worse!

Can I get a what-what?

I was going through old posts today, and started looking at belly pictures. Can I just say how bizarre it is? Then I looked at the *last* one, and almost fell out of the chair.

Good god. Even I am wondering if there were twins in there!

No wonder that I thought the rest of me looked pretty good.

Making Toys

I follow a blog about child development (well, a mommy blogger who knows about development) and she had some suggestions for fine motor skill toys the other day. Joseph is very adept at using manipulating small objects, and I'm always trying to figure out how to give him new things to do with those skills. I read it, thought "wow, that's great" and promptly stole the ideas for myself.

Here are Joseph's new "toys":

Shape sorters: I had some empty containers that I washed out, and cut appropriate holes in the top (I do not recommend kitchen knives, though I did manage to keep all of my fingers). In one I put 50 popsicle sticks that I picked up at our local variety store on a whim a couple of months ago

This is too easy... where else could they go?

I know, my EARS!

(I'm positive that instead of stitches, our emergency room visits will include removing objects from Joseph's orifices)

The second one I cut a round hole and filled up the bucket with... wine corks. Hey, we have to do something with them, right? Cork boards are so passe. Ha! I did use the synthetic ones so they weren't full of old wine at least. Does that count for something?

Seriously, Mom? Don't blame me for how I turn out.

Feeding Tube: Empty paper towel roll, pipe cleaners, and voila! Fine motor skill tuning device. Joseph liked that quite a bit! I'm sure he'll find other stuff to shove through the roll, as well.



Hope this helps someone else!

My Little Engineer

Just... One... More

Concentrate, don't look away...

I bet you can tell what happened next. No picture, sorry!

FO: Faux Cranky Pants

Each new thing I knit is cuter than the last. These late-in-the-year babies are going to benefit from their birth dates!

This one is for my friend Kati, who's due in a few weeks. It's a diaper cover for cloth diapers. There is a company who makes "cranky pants" and they sell for $80/ea! Before you say that I should sell these, I'll have you know that I spent almost 15 hours on them. You do the math. I don't work for minimum wage, people. (Only for free for special friends!) Since they live in Houston, I went for shorts instead of pants.

Here is the pattern.

Business in the front

Party in the back!