Kai is 18 Months!

Happy Birthday, Kai! This past weekend you turned eighteen months old. Eighteen months!


Wait a minute, Aunt Heather. He's not that big!

For a long time now I've been watching the other 18-month olds at the park and they all seem so big and so old. They are practically running, and climbing up the ladders, and going down the slides all by themselves. Meanwhile you kept wearing out the knees of your jeans, crawling through the grass, gravel, and mud. It wasn't until this week that you really, really started walking. Hmmmm, I wonder why it took you so long?



Now that you're walking, you're all grown up. You demand a specific breakfast cereal in the morning (Frosted Mini Wheats, Oat Squares, or Life), you refuse to eat undisguised vegetables, and you go for the chocolate pudding every time I open the fridge. You've also mastered the two most popular childhood activities - whining, and whining for TV. Thank goodness you can't open our TV armoire doors yet, but I'm sure that's coming soon, right after you learn how to work the remote.



The noise level in our little condo is growing, which is bad timing for the new neighbor moving in below us. I'll admit that Jett is still louder, but you continue to mimic his every sound, when you're not plugging your ears and wondering what all of the fuss is about.



Of course some sounds are worth making - like singing. You love to sing. I can hear you in the back seat of the car, singing along to Aerosmith's version of "I Love Trash". Steve Tyler belts out "traaaaaaaash" and you belt it out along with him, just one beat behind. You also love to dance. Sometimes I catch you dancing and singing to yourself - a little "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" going on when you think I'm not looking.

Dude, it took you 18 months to walk and 18 months to develop a love of books. Whew, now I can relax. You can almost recite half of Moo Baa La La La and you love any book with flaps. Also, see the dinosaur in the book you are reading upside down? You roar through every page of that book. It's hilarious.



I love to hear you say "Book!" and watch you sign it. Oh yes, you are getting the hang of this sign-language thing. We have a Signing Time book that has pictures of kids signing words you've learned, and today I caught you "reading" the book and signing along with the pictures. There you go again, Kai, always giving me bragging rights.

Since no one asked, I'll admit that yes, you and I still have a breastfeeding relationship. I just deleted a long paragraph devoted to explaining why I am still nursing you, because I think a) no one cares, and b) it's sweet, it's boosts your immunity, and there really isn't much else to philosophize about. That's the thing about motherhood. At first I felt like I didn't know anything, and now I feel like I know best about almost everything that has to do with you. It's a conflicting mix of confidence and insecurity that I haven't quite yet figured out how to handle. Thankfully you are oblivious to my flailing about.



Finally, I can't write about you without mentioning your constant desire to "Go!", as in out the door. You yell it, you sign it, you run to get your shoes every time you sense that one of us is about to open the door. It doesn't matter who leaves, you cry if you can't go with them. Although mostly you cry when Daddy leaves. You love to go out the door with Daddy. He carries you in his arms and walks down the steps, and I stand in the doorway watching you leave. You wave, yell "bye-bye!" and blow me kisses over his shoulder, and then you turn around look forward, ready for your next adventure.

Go, go, go, Kai! Then come right back to me. Happy 18 months. We love you.



Squeal!

Decorations. Talk Amongst Yehselves

Charlie said my last post was a little bah-humbug. So I am here to tell you that I am not at all channelling the Grinch this year. In fact, I'm planning on putting up our Christmas tree next week, so when we come back home after Thanksgiving our condo will already be decked out in Christmas cheer.

Speaking of our condo, you should see it. We have pipe cleaners wound around doorknobs and chair legs. Dried leaves are hung on our door with magnets, piled on our mantel, and taped to our tv armoire. Scraps of paper cut from magazines are hanging on Jett's bedroom wall and overflowing two large plastic bags. You see, Jett is decorating.

I blame Halloween. I had to dig out some Halloween decorations, and they had to be cut-out ghosts that Jett and I made last year. Now Jett seems to think that any old scrap of paper that he put the smallest mark on is a decoration. You should see the scraps of paper that he won't let me throw away - and remembers to ask about days and days after cutting them/drawing them/gluing them on to other scraps. But that's just the creating of decorations. It gets worse.

At bedtime now we don't read stories, we talk about decorations. The ones he'll make tomorrow. The ones he made today. Who he will make them for, and what they will be. One night he talked about cutting out peas and corn. Do you know what he did the next morning? He drew yellow and green circles on a white piece of paper, cut them out, and taped them on our windows.

Not only does he seem to talk non-stop about decorations, he wakes up thinking about decorations, and wanting to make them immediately. I guess it's good that he's not asking for TV first thing in the morning, but still. The other day I had dug out the glue stick, two pairs of scissors, stacks of paper, and tape and it wasn't even 6:05 a.m. yet. The kid needs an art studio and a sleeping pill (just kidding!)

Surprisingly, his teachers didn't mention anything about his artistic talent at his conference yesterday. Yes, that's right. Charlie and I acted like true adults yesterday and attended our first parent-teacher conference. Jett's teachers told us that in the classroom he's helpful, friendly, has lots of friends, is well-behaved, and mischevious (in a good way, I assume. I mean, his teachers didn't elaborate, and if there were issues they would have certainly elaborated, right)? They have mentioned to us that he really sings out - he's a good little singer - during music time, and they told us a very sweet story about Jett helping another kid finish a puzzle (he's also very good at puzzles). Oddly enough, he couldn't stack 10 blocks up without them falling (an actual part of their evaluation), but they are keeping him anyway. He's doing great in preschool.



Also, have you seen Kai's hair lately? It is a wonderful mess.

Main Street Update: 13 Months

Seriously? We are entering another holiday season in unemployment mode, while Wall Street goes back to giving fat bonuses to the wise guys who got us in to this mess in the first place? I hear that unemployment isn't expected to get back down to 5% until 2017. Sobering. Who wants a beer?

On the bright side, unemployment benefits got extended 10 months, so that's something - a mortgage-paying something.

I just read an opinion article in the Chicago Tribune about a bunch of unemployed professionals who get together every Tuesday to discuss their job search strategies and encourage each other. The article followed this group's discussion on how to get in the holiday spirit despite their unemployed status. The advice these people gave each other was so quaint. When talking about giving gifts, one man said that last year, when he was first unemployed, he baked hundreds of Christmas cookies and gave those as gifts. Well isn't he just Susie Sunshine? When a mother lamented that she couldn't give her adult daughter (also unemployed) the type of Christmas gifts she used to, someone advised her that she give the gift of her time. Now, do I really have to be the one to say this? LAME.

I know it is nice to be on the receiving end of those gifts. I like to get Christmas cookies and I like to spend time with people I love. My point is, it's one thing to bake hundreds of Christmas cookies because you like to bake, or have people on your list who love to eat, but to bake hundreds of cookies because you are now broke? Feels shitty. Giving the gift of time can be a wonderful thing. But giving the gift of time to someone who you probably spend considerable time with anyway? Listen, moron. When I give a gift I want it to have required some effort, sacrifice, or thoughtfulness on my part. I want it to be personal. It makes me feel good to give gifts that way, and selfishly, I want to feel good. Giving the same gift (cookies) to every person on my list makes me feel like a robot. Spending my overflowing time with someone I already spend time with hardly feels like a gift.

What surprised me about that article is that the people giving such bad advice are themselves unemployed. It makes me wonder if I'm the only one who thinks their advice is simplistic and naive. I know they are trying to be encouraging. Maybe time and cookies are their only remaining gift-giving options. I know they might not know what else to say. I know, I know, I know.

Blowing Off Steam

Wrestling. When Jett starts bouncing off the walls, Charlie takes him back to our bedroom to wrestle on our bed. Kai won't know that Charlie and Jett have wandered off until he hears that first squeal of laughter. Then he knows exactly what is going on, and races back to the bedroom to be part of it.

Halloween!

We had so much fun on Halloween.

Actually, first things first.
First, my parents drove down the weekend before Halloween just for one night to babysit the boys so Charlie and I could go to our friends' wedding. That's twelve hours of driving for 24 hours of family time. And on top of that, they brought costumes and came with us to our friends' Halloween party. There were 14 kids at that party, and my mom spent a good portion of it up in our three-year-old friend Jackson's bedroom playing trains with the kids. Thanks, Mom and Dad! Now to really thank you, I'll post a picture of you in your costumes on my blog - great!



Then the Friday before Halloween was Jett's preschool's Halloween party. Oh it was the cutest thing! I helped out in the class that day, and it was a blast. Jett didn't cling to me, as I feared, but followed the routine of the class and listened to the teacher, and sang and danced, all the time with a proud little grin on his face, that I think meant that he knew he was doing great, and I was there to see it.



As a side note, if it is ever up to you to plan a Halloween game for a preschool class, don't pick Hot Pumpkin (Potato). First of all, the kids will spend half of the time debating whether or not the pumpkin is really hot and whether or not they should touch it. Then only about 2 or 3 of them will get the idea that the music has anything to do with the game, and that they want to be holding the pumpkin when the music stops. Then, when you realize that no one is having any fun with Hot Pumpkin and you change the game to musical chairs, don't be surprised if the kids are too polite to take the next chair. (Seriously, my great idea for Hot Pumpkin was a total flop. At least Jett is too young to be embarrassed by my bad ideas)!

Finally, we went trick-or-treating, and I can really sum up the night by saying that this was Jett's year for trick-or-treating. He was on top of it. Running from house to house, telling me not to come up on to the porches with him, yelling trick-or-treat, ringing the doorbells, saying thank you, oohing and ahing over every piece of candy. He loved it. He loved trick-or-treating with his cousin, Ellie. And Kai had fun too, walking up to the houses just like the big kids.

Jett and Ellie

Kai and Aunt Jenny

I hope you had a great weekend too!