Oops!

Daniel has connected the word "oops" with errors (of various sorts). He has taken to picking up objects, throwing them across the room, and then saying, "oops!"

Dinner of Choice

Daniel is getting picky about food again. He has flat-out rejected spaghetti, pancakes, guacamole, saag & naan (which he has eaten in the past). He is hit and miss now with pizza & scrambled eggs. He is still partial to peanut butter, cookies and has rediscovered the joys of "squeezie fruit."

Tonight, instead of our regularly scheduled Pizza Night, we went to Sweet Tomatoes buffet instead. Daniel's dinner of choice consisted of:

Jello
several bites of blueberry muffin
ice cream
cookies
...and several sips of chicken noodle soup broth.

I told him, "Daniel, I know your secret... you like sugar."

Thanksgiving @ Grandma Tidd's

We visited Mindy & Tom for Thanksgiving. Also present were Larry, Diane, Randy, Greg, Georgia and Ryan.

We planned the trip for mid-afternoon so that D would sleep on the way up. He stiffed us on the nap, though, and complained for most of the drive up.

Daniel spent most of the afternoon opening and closing the door to the bathroom - Grandma Mindy has these awesome doorknobs that don't need to be turned or twisted, just pulled down on. And they're shiny, shiny brass. Daniel was fascinated.

While everybody else was eating turkey with all the fixings, Daniel opted for a more traditional thanksgiving feast of PB&J.

Kissing Cousins

Daniel's cousin, Fiona, came over to celebrate Jarl's birthday last night.  Daniel was thrilled to see her and immediately took her hand to show her all his favorite spots in the house: his room, his closet, the kitchen.  Shortly before dinner, Fiona was sitting on the floor of Daniel's room when he decided to kiss her.  He took her face in his hands and planted one on her lips with a "mmmwww!"  Later, while Fiona was sitting in the glider, Daniel lay his head on her knees, looking very pleased.  Very cute!

Mommies and Daddies

Jarl mentioned that Daniel saw Natalie Portman on Sesame Street last week and said "Momma".  This reminded me that Daniel has called several women "Momma" and men "Dadda" over the last few weeks.  I gather from my readings that this is a developmental stage where children begin to differentiate between men and women, adults and children.

Daddy's Gift

Daniel gave Daddy just the gift he wanted this year. For the first time in days, he let us have a full night's sleep instead of waking us up somewhere between midnight and 2am (to be airlifted to our bed).

"Jump!" "Couch!" "Ears!"

Jumping on Mom & Dad's bed (with assistance from Mom & Dad) has become the hot new game for Daniel. He wants to do it thirty or forty times a day. We toss him up in the air a few times and then, "FLOP!" down he goes on the bed (just like in the Music Together song 'When I am Tired, Down I Flop').

Another popular game D likes is standing on the couch, when Mommy or Daddy are out of arm's reach, with a big idiot grin on his face, and then flopping down if we come close. If we ask him if he was listening, he says, "ears!" (because Daddy has pointed out, one time too many, that he needs to "listen with his ears").

The Ultimate Bachelor Pad

Daniel has moved into a new pad: his closet. He has become fascinated with the closet, and he will come to find us anywhere in the house, grab us by a finger, and pull us to his closet. He wants us to go in with him, and close the door. There is a semi-deflated exercise ball on the floor that he uses like a beanbag chair. He flops down on it and says, "cozy!"

He also likes to put Mommy in the closet and close the door, but he sometimes forgets she is in there and leaves her there while he wanders off to watch Sprout!

Monday, Monday

We had a busy day!  Daniel and I did the grocery shopping in the morning.  After lunch, it was nap time.  Daniel spotted his kangaroo puppet on the floor of his room, pointed and said "roo!"  So, I put the kangaroo in the crib with him.  He spent the first 5 minutes of nap time chanting "K-roo! K-roo! K-roo!"

Daniel and I planned a trip to the mall that afternoon to give Jarl some time to study.  As we were about to leave, I realized I couldn't find my wallet and remembered Daniel had snagged it while we were checking out at Target earlier.  Hopeful that it was still at Target, we raced there.  They had it safely stored in the lost-and-found lockbox.  Relief!

Then, it was off to the mall.  Daniel wasn't interested in the dinosaur-themed play area but enjoyed the mini-picnic tables with chalkboard tops.  The highlight was running up and down the ramp leading to the play area.  When we were ready to venture further into the mall, Daniel found a women's accessory shop (can't recall the name).  There was a wall of costume jewelry with all sorts of interesting pendants on necklaces.  Daniel's favorite was a bicycle with a clock in the front wheel.  Second favorite: a red rhinestone encrusted heart.

On the way home, we stopped at Larkburger to pick up dinner.  In the car, I handed Daniel a french fry which he happily ate.  When he'd finished it, he said "how 'bout it!"  So I gave him another one.  This exchange continued all the way home.  Somehow, "how 'bout it!" meant "may I have another french fry, please."

Monkey Bars

...a posting for this auspicious date, 11/11/11.

Daniel hung from the monkey bars today (he hasn't done this before). What's most interesting is that he did this after he watched another kid do it (Tristan, already 2). Daniel saw Tristan hanging on the monkey bars, and then requested "Up!" from me, so I held him up and he latched on. His grip was super strong, and I was able to (very carefully) release my grip for about 10 nanoseconds and he hung by himself.

Wiggle!

For the last several weeks, Daniel has developed a quite clever (and irritating) habit of saying "wiggle!" ("wee-gal!") and squirming whenever he doesn't want to do something.

Coincidentally, the CD for his current semester of Music Together class has a song that moves along jauntily, but with only one word (repeated ad infinitum, naseum)... "Wiggle wiggle wiggle..."

And of course, there's those dandy Australians on Sprout, too.

Running on Fumes

Monday night: he sleeps! All night! Wakes happy.
Last night: finally in the crib after sitting with Momma for an hour.  Wake at 12 am, wet.  Change diaper and PJs.  Lie down with Mom and Dad, but can't get comfy.  Back in the crib at 1:50 am.  Inconsolable crying.  Out of crib at 2:15 am.  Back to bed with Mom and Dad around 2:30 am.  Sleep until 6:00 am.  "Done.  Momma.  Eat.  Help."

Fall Back

The end of Daylight Savings Time brought us a pleasant day.  We went out for breakfast as we usually do on Sunday.  The restaurant was very busy so we had a longer wait than usual, but Daniel was a trooper.  He wandered around, played with toys, and smiled at strangers.  Once we were finally seated, Daniel waited patiently for his meal and ate with gusto.  He even snatched a veggie sausage patty from my plate and took a big bite.  He continued to munch on it throughout the meal.  Daniel didn't even begin his usual chant of "done...done...done" when he was full.

When we got home, Daniel wanted to walk so he and I wandered downtown.  He pulled on locked doors and peered in windows.  We visited the park.  He didn't fuss when it was time to go home and take a nap.  Daniel woke up happy.  We ordered Chinese for dinner, and Daniel ate a bowl and a half of egg drop soup ("doop...doop!") with rice.  He also tried a fried wonton for the first time.

Affirmative

During Pizza night, tonight, Christy asked Daniel if he wanted more pizza, and he responded: "Yes."

Astounded, we both asked him several more times, "More pizza?"

And he replied, "Yeah... yeah... yeah..."

As far as we both know, this is the first time that D has said, "yes." "No" has been in the vocabulary for quite a long time, but yes is a new arrival. First "yes" @ 99 weeks old.

Naptime Chants

Daniel is now amusing himself during naptime with "naptime chants." These chants can go on for quite a while.

Today's chant: "Door... open... door... open... door... open..."

Yesterday's chant (taken from a Bert & Ernie skit on Sesame Street): "My turn! My turn! My turn!"