Notes from the crib

I'm moving the blog elsewhere. If you'd like the new address, shoot me an email or post a comment with your email address (I won't publish it).

Sometimes I think I need a button to put on George on days he shows up to work dressed like this...

I haven't updated in awhile because I've been meaning to move the blog over to a new address. DH has set up the new blog software for me, but I haven't had time to customize it yet. So I figured I better at least update this one for awhile longer.

We've been keeping very busy lately. George has been to two birthday parties in the last week and a half. I was honored to get to make the cake for one of them - it was a jungle theme.

George is finally cutting his two year molars and he's been drooling and crying more than usual. I can't wait for these teeth to come in. He's grown taller and his head must have grown, too, as we needed to buy him a bigger biking helmet.

Painting with water requires a lot of concentration to get everything just right.

After church today, I spent time cleaning out and organizing the pantry. I turned my back for a minute to get a garbage bag and returned to find this:

George had grabbed a bag of goldfish, opened them up, and made himself a little nest amongst the boxes and bottles. He was quite content to hide out in there munching away, and was very upset when I finally worked my way down to organizing the bottom shelves.

We got a surprise at the grocery store today. We turned a corner and found a vat of squirmy, creepy, crawly crawfish. George enjoyed peeking at them and waving bye-bye as we left them for someone else to take home.

I took George to the pediatrician today because DH thought he must have an ear infection. The doctor declared George perfectly healthy and simply willful.

We took away the binkie about two weeks ago by taking George to Build-a-Bear and letting him "feed" a binkie to the animal of his choice (Binkie Puppy) and then trading all the remaining binkies to the lady in exchange for getting to take his puppy home. The first night was pure Hell, but the next five or six were just fine. We even made it through Vomit Fest 2009 without a binkie. But for four of the last five days, George has been waking up repeatedly at night and just screaming inconsolably. Last night was the final straw, he cried for about three hours. By two in the morning, we were at our wit's end. We scoured the house, turning over furniture and searching through bags to find a binkie, but we couldn't find one anywhere. So DH snuck Binkie Puppy out of the room and performed emergency surgery to extract the binkie from his foot. He washed it off, we gave it to George, and he was out within minutes. I gave it back to him at naptime this afternoon, and he napped for the first time in weeks. I even had to wake him up to take him to the doctor, so that we first-time parents could rule out any physical reason for all the crying. I was pretty sure George was just heartbroken over losing his comfort item and stubborn like his parents, and it looks like that was the case. So for the moment, he has his old pal back for naps and night-time and we'll try giving it up again later.

And since it's been so long since I posted a picture, here's George walking Binkie Puppy.

A friend commissioned me to make a birthday cake for her daughter's first birthday party. She gave me a photo of a cake she liked as well as the colors she wanted, and this is the final creation. I had a horrible time getting the frosting to be smooth - it was too humid when I was making it. But I did the best I could and hope she likes it!

George has inherited many traits from his father. But this week he's shown that he is indeed my child, too. Some of the similarities include:
(1) Crying when he throws up;
(2) Becoming whiny and clingy when he doesn't feel well; and
(3) Begging for donuts as soon as his appetite comes back.

He's feeling much better today. It had been over 24 hours since he was last sick, so I took him to the park and then on a grocery run to Target. While at Target, he proceeded to throw up on me. I think he gagged himself though, ever since we took away the pacifier he's been spending a lot of time with his hands in his mouth. So I don't know whether to reset the "sick clock" or call today an accidental upchuck and declare him well. At least we were buying napkins anyway, so I was able to easily clean up and finish our shopping. I don't know if George will believe me from now on that we "pay first and then open" as I always tell him when he wants to open a special treat or snack, since I ripped right into those napkins as fast as I could.

There's been a bad bug going around lately. I've tried to keep George from catching it, but I think we are just unlucky lately. He's got stuff coming out of both ends, and is very unhappy about it. We've been cuddling on the couch today watching Looney Tunes and Cars, and I run him to the sink every time he needs to throw up which is probably just as traumatizing for him as the act itself. Poor guy, I hope he got the quick version of the bug and not the one that lasts for a week.

This weekend's been rough. I managed to give myself a minor concussion on Friday. We took away George's binkie on Saturday. And today I've discovered that I am a victim of identity theft and it looks like it's pretty far reaching. Never thought I'd look forward to Monday.

George made a new friend today at the mall.

George has a love affair with Mickey Mouse. It started when we took him to Disney World for his second birthday this past fall. George had never seen Mickey before, but after a week in the land of the mouse, he was in love. One night we wandered into a gift shop at Disney Studios and George grabbed a stuffed Mickey by the ear and dragged him around the shop for 20 minutes while he tried on hats.

We didn't take Mickey home with us that night and George was okay with putting him back on the shelf and saying "bye bye". But the next night we went to Downtown Disney and George again found the stuffed Mickeys. I was wearing George on my back in an Ergo carrier and George reached out, snagged a Mickey, and clutched on to him for dear life for the 30 minutes we perused the store. We returned to the hotel with Mickey that evening and he's been a constant companion for George ever since.

For Christmas, George received some Mickey Mouse DVDs and those were the only thing he allowed us to watch on our marathon 66 hour car trip out East over the new year. When he got the flu weeks ago, I bought him a "feel better" Mickey Mouse clubhouse mega blocks set and we play "clubhouse" every day. George is clearly a fan.

With nice weather this afternoon, we all spent some time outdoors. I pulled out my roller blades, George got in his Cozy Coupe, and I pushed him around the neighborhood much to his delight. After a couple of circles around the neighborhood, we stopped at home and convinced DH to come play with us. So we headed down to the neighborhood playground. There, George jumped out of the car and headed to the playscape with DH, while I skated around the large block surrounding the playground. At the farthest point I could get from the playground, I heard DH exclaim "Oh, no". There wasn't anything else alarming, so I continued skating at my normal pace. As I rounded the block, a mother came hurrying up to me to tell me that George was hurt. I took off running (in my roller blades) across the grass to get to George and DH. There had been a lot of commotion on the playscape with bigger kids playing and George got so excited watching the big kids that he didn't pay attention to how he was seating himself on the slide. He went down sideways and since he's so tiny, he flipped a little on the dismount and bumped his nose on the side of the slide causing his first nosebleed. DH was cuddling and comforting George when I got there, and then George crawled over to my lap for some more snuggles. I pulled off my rollerblades and walked home with just my socks on my feet, carrying George, while DH pushed the Cozy Coupe. A little ice cream, a binkie, and some cuddle time on the couch watching Mickey's Christmas Carol and George was all better. His owie did leave quite a bit of blood on DH's shirt, and as I was doing the laundry I was amused to see that George's love for Mickey reflected in the one of the stains.

Last night we were getting ready for our annual neighborhood garage sale. We sorted through belongings and started setting up in the garage. And then we decided that it would be easier to just drop it all off at Goodwill and go to an Easter Egg hunt instead. So that's what we did.

We found a very nice, free egg hunt complete with train ride, pony ride, petting zoo, balloon artist, moon bounces, cookies, and a visit with the Easter Bunny himself. George was unimpressed with Mr. Bunny.

During the egg hunt George picked up two eggs, a nice lady snuck in two more eggs into his basket, and then he went around picking up the empty discarded eggs of fellow litterbugs. Inside the eggs were Starbursts which George described as "square candies, yummy, good!" when he was trying to get me to give him more.

We've been exploring new parks, since George has pretty much given up napping and the afternoons get long. George enjoyed peeking at me from a playscape tunnel yesterday.

A boy, his truck and about a million flowers. We had a fabulous family road trip today.

George's friend Abby is about to become a big sister. Today I attended a baby shower for her mommy and was honored to be asked to make the cake. The nursery is being done in a robot theme, so I used homemade marshmallow fondant to create a cute robot design. I layered the fondant on top of a thick layer of buttercream since not everyone likes fondant, and the ending result was total sugar shock. My teeth still hurt thinking about it.

George threw himself on the floor in front of the door and did his best to try to keep me from leaving with the robot cake. He came to terms with it by the time I returned home though. He spent the evening repeating "Cake all gone."

It's been a very long week. Here are some highlights:

• George imitates the dog. Instead of walking, he now crawls around on all fours, but more like a crab walk with his butt in the air.


• George takes a bite-sized portion of his food, puts it on the floor, lays down on his stomach, and tries to eat it with just his mouth.


• He tries to feed the dog his toys, and then steals the dog's toys for his own. On more than one occasion I've caught him with a dog rope in his mouth.


• I overheard DH tell George "George, get your foot out of your mouth. We don't chew on our feet!" Apparently both George and Rufus were sitting under the kitchen table and Rufus was gnawing on a paw. So, of course, George had to mimic him.


• George tries to drink out of the dog bowl.


• Yesterday I left George alone in the living room for a few minutes while I helped future-aunt S. design some wedding announcements in the craft room. George was fairly quiet, except that he was making a snorting noise. I came out to find George in the kitchen, soaking wet. George must have gotten bored (or thirsty) so he dumped the dog's water bowl all over himself and the floor. He was trying to wipe it up with towels when I caught him. He looked so cute standing there dripping water and holding a towel in his hand, grinning at me with his "I'm so cute you can't be mad" grin. I so wanted to take a picture of him, but didn't want to reward the behavior by getting out the camera.

As you can see, George and Rufus are becoming fast friends. Rufus is so very patient with George and tolerates him climbing and tugging on him. Rufus is not endearing himself to DH though. Based on how he's acting, we think Rufus must have been abused by a male in his past. I'm hoping that Rufus chills out soon and realizes what a great guy DH is.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from George and Rufus!

Today George and I took the dog to the vet for a checkup and vaccines. We went with the vet recommendation from the shelter and ended up going to see a rural country-boy vet. He doesn't take appointments and was only open until noon today. After getting off work, rushing home in the rain, and loading up George and the dog, I made it to the vet with five minutes to spare. We got right in, the vet gave George a lollipop and got down on the floor to check out the dog. Looked him in the eyes, ears, mouth, felt his body, checked his paws, and declared "You got yourself a right fine dog here". There was no charge for the office visit and the shots were only $30, so all in all I think we'll be going back. We scheduled neutering for early next month.

So how did we end up with our new family member? Last Saturday after George and I left the birthday party, we met DH at a shopping center so I could buy a book I'd been wanting and so he could take George home. We got there before DH, so we walked down to the pet store to look at the doggies that a shelter had available for adoption. George and I have been entertaining ourselves looking at doggies for several months, but I didn't expect to find one I liked enough to want to take home when we looked on Saturday. It's always been "Oh, look at the cute doggies. Nice doggies. Let's go now." Well, this time was the same, until I was drawn to our doggie. He was so sweet and gentle, and I ended up crawling into the pen with him for a good 30 minutes where he tried to do his best lapdog impersonation. The shelter agency that was at the pet store was actually located not far from our house. So on Wednesday, George and I went back to visit him again at the shelter and spent about an hour seeing how well the two would get along. They acted like the best of buds chasing each other around in the mud (have I mentioned that after months of drought it's poured for days straight). We made an appointment for them to be open after hours that night so DH could come check out the dog. He thought he'd be okay, but had reservations about having an animal in the house again so we slept on the decision. In the morning, he decided that as long as we made a conscious effort to keep George's toys picked up and vacuum frequently that he'd be okay with us getting the dog. So on Thursday afternoon George and I went to pick up our new family member.

First thing upon arriving home, we gave the dog a bath. He was filthy what with all the mud and all. He was also covered in fleas, but a good flea shampoo made quick work of that. After bathing, we loaded up the doggie and headed to a pet store for supplies. George rode in the cart and the dog walked on a leash, and we were quite a site loading up on collars, bowls, brushes, toys, and a kennel. I ended up having to get an employee to help me load everything and everyone back into the car.

Everything is going well with the dog, with the exception of crate training. I want the dog to have a safe place to go to get away from George. But the dog wants little to do with his crate. I'm sure his experiences before have been bad, what with being locked in the shelter cage, and loaded up in crates to go to adoption events only to have to be loaded up again to be returned to the shelter. And who knows what happened in his previous life, with owners who abandoned him on the side of the road.

The only other issue we have to work on is getting George and the dog to play with their own toys. The dog wants to play with George's toys, and I caught George trying to chew on the dog's plastic bone. Eww. I'm sure we'll get it all figured out soon.

George is super excited to have a doggie in the house. His first words this morning were "Hi, Daddy. Where's Rufus?" Oh, yeah, we named him Rufus. DH came up with the name, apparently it's Latin for "red-headed". It took forever to get George down for a nap since he was so entranced with his dog. It turns out while George had quiet time, he didn't nap at all.

Notice how one of the bins is missing from the changing table? George dumped his shoes out on the floor and turned the bin over on the bed. Then he stood on it and turned on the lights. With a lit room, he turned his attention to stringing dirty clothes around the room and emptying his toy-filled bean bag. It looks like he sure had a lot of fun in there, doesn't it?