Baby Nege #2 – ETA December 20

As many of you already know, David, Timothy, and I will be welcoming a new little one around Christmas. We have no idea yet where we’ll be living then, so we are taking this one day at a time. But it’s official. I saw Baby AJ on the ultrasound today, and suddenly all the nausea felt a little more worthwhile. AJ is tiny, but we could see her moving around, and her heart is beating. So cool. I never would have been able to see AJ this early in Nigeria!

Oh, and AJ is from the first initial this little one will tentatively have – A if it’s a girl and J if it’s a boy. Not for sure yet, but it’s a decent name for our little squirt at this point, so I’ll stick with it for now.

Timothy as yet does not understand the concept of Mommy’s having a baby in her tummy, but I have mentioned it, and I think once I start showing and once he can feel AJ kicking, he’ll start to grasp the meaning in some way, shape, or form. He’s such a cutie – a rascal and a disobedient little tyke but still very cute and lovable. :) And to think, three years ago, I was throwing up because of him! Ha. Yes, it’s definitely worth it after the birth. :)

Time for bed. I’m exhausted from a heavy workload this week. Good night, world!

Easter egg hunt

Timothy, Grandma, and I had a great time at the Exeter Easter egg hunt this morning! We met my friend Mia and her family at her house first and followed them to the park. There we saw patches of grass that had been roped off with yellow CAUTION tape, and scattered on the grass lay brightly colored plastic eggs. We waited a few minutes with Timothy’s friends Claudia (3) and Patrick (4) before we were given the go-ahead. Even though Timothy is only two, I let him hunt in the three- and four-year-old area with Claudia and Patrick. It ended up being a mad rush anyway, so he could have been in the 0-2 lot, and he wouldn’t have noticed any difference!

 He may have been racing older kids, but Timothy still got plenty of eggs, and he had a fun time collecting them. We emptied out our eggs into a plastic bag (thanks, Mia!) and then put the plastic shells in the bin for next year. (That sure is a great idea for recycling!)

Afterwards we followed Claudia and Patrick to the little petting zoo. We saw two miniature goats, two calves, two rabbits, two chickens, some brightly colored chickies (including pink and green), a Golden retriever, and a sheep. Timothy kept coming back to the upright calf and the little goats, especially once the chickies “went to sleep” (got covered up to keep them warm). 

We passed on getting our photo with the Easter Bunny (never having been a real fan) and ended the morning by playing in the playground with Claudia, Patrick, and three other older friends from church and MOPS. I tried to get a photo of Timothy and Jenna playing chase, but they were just too fast! So instead, here’s Timothy playing in the sand with funny expressions on his face in both photos!

 

We had a marvelous time and were glad we went. Now Timothy gets some new “treats” for potty training. :) Happy Easter!

Training pants

I unintentionally started potty-training recently, and now I am bracing myself for the long haul, knowing there is no going back. We got a free DVD from Pull-Ups in the fall, and I let Timothy watch it this week for fun. It was probably time anyway, but I have not been looking forward to this stage at all since I got pregnant three years ago! So please wish us luck!

Handsome little man

Here are some photos of Timothy in the past few months.

Opening presents at Christmas (December 26, 2009)

 Enjoying the Christmas tree (January 2, 2010)

Seeing Zoo Lights at the Fresno Chaffey Zoo (December 27, 2009)

Putting dirty laundry in the kitchen sink! (January 2010)

Timothy and David on the Star of India – San Diego (February 8, 2010)

Playing in the heavy rope on the Star of India – San Diego (February 8, 2010)

Timothy playing with his blocks and Little People (February 28, 2010)

Timothy’s talking

Here are some of my favourite things Timothy has said recently.

When I thought aloud, “Wow, did I just give that paper a hundred percent?”

Yes, you did!

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When I asked if he wanted an egg for breakfast:

No yolk. Mommy eat yolk.

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When watching the beginning of a DVD that has a preview for Shrek the Third:

No scary one! No scary one!

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Lining up his animals in front of the computer:

Hippopotamus watch Thomas [the train].

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Getting wiped off after lunch:

No nap, no. Watch pig, yeah.

(He does this one with the shaking of his head and nodding – priceless.)

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During afternoon “rest time” in his room with the shades drawn:

Get dark. Put light on.

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After I’ve told him not to spit:

Horses spit?

Me: “No, horses don’t spit.”

Horses spit? No.

Me: “No, horses don’t spit. Camels spit.”

Horses spit, no. Camels spit, yeah!

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When asked where his owie was:

Right here! Right here! [pointing to his leg]

TWO YEARS!

I truly can’t believe it’s been two years since David drove me the three-minute walk down to the hospital for Timothy’s birth. Wow! These two years, God has blessed David and me so richly with our delightful and sweet son. As I’ve mentioned before, Timothy is far from angelic, but his sweetness and delight far, far, far outweigh his naughtiness (most days)! I wouldn’t trade being his mom for anything.

Some people say the reason women can have more than one kid is that as soon as each baby is born, they forget the awfulness of pregnancy and delivery. Well, not me. I can tell you what it’s like to feel nauseated most of the time, to have awful heartburn every night and no Tums, to agonize through each contraction, to be poked with needles “in case they need to set a line” and because I’m Rh-negative, to actually deliver. Oh yes, I remember very clearly. Even if my body doesn’t remember, my brain remembers – which is why Timothy is all the more a wonder to me, and why I’d seriously consider not having another kid! But I’m glad for Timothy. He was worth every minute of it. And I hope I can still say that honestly in 13 or 14 years when he’s learning to drive, spending time with girls, hiding in his room… God, prepare me for those days!

Here are some of Timothy’s recent “cute” moments:

• Lining up toys and other items in a careful and precise row. I’m pretty sure this is a normal development step, not a sign that he’s obsessive-compulsive. :) He’ll take his toys in the bathtub and line them all up in a row, or his animals from his Noah’s Ark. It’s a real hoot.
• Playing games with his books. He’s got a touchy-feely book with puppies and kittens, and the other day, he pointed to the dog and said “meow.” When I said, “That’s not a cat!” he just laughed and kept doing it to the other pictures of puppies. He then pointed to each cat and said “woof-woof,” just to keep me laughing and himself giggling.
• Reading aloud his books. He’s got one book that just has one word on each page and then a picture of that word – butterfly, flower, friend, airplane, frog, and moon – and he’ll say them now. Okay, so to those of you who have older kids, this may seem silly. He’s not reading. He’s just saying what the picture is. I know that. I’m not delusional. But to see him open the book and say the word that happens to be on that page is still adorable!
• Calling me “Mary.” He has a First Christmas book we’ve been reading for months now, and the first page has a picture of Mary and says, “This is Mary.” Yesterday morning, Timothy pointed to me and said something I couldn’t understand (“mimi”). He finally pointed to the picture in the book and then at me and repeated himself. I finally understood he was calling me Mary! I just loved it!
• Saying hi to everyone he sees. He doesn’t do this all the time, but in the past week, we’ve been several places where he’s just kept saying “HI!” to everyone he’s seen for at least ten minutes straight. Great attention-grabber!
• Repeating back “Happy birthday!” He’s a good repeater (although he seldom is intelligible), and he always copies my greetings – good morning, see you later, good night, how are you. In fact, when I ask him to “ask nicely,” instead of saying, “please,” he says “ask nicely.” It cracks me up. So today every time he heard “happy birthday,” he said his garbled version of “happy birthday” back to the person. We all loved it!

So that’s Timothy for now. His birthday party is tomorrow, so I’ll try to take some pix and post them. Dada is still in Nigeria, but he returns Monday, so we’ll try to have a family celebration next week.

Pumpkin patch excursion

Timothy and I visited a pumpkin patch for the very first time yesterday! We’d been scheduled to go with some MOPS moms and kids this past Tuesday, but it ended up raining all day long (what are the chances, especially around here?), so we went yesterday instead. After two mostly-sunny days between Tuesday and Friday, it was overcast and sprinkly. And it wasn’t even particularly cool. So weatherwise, we didn’t get the best of days for our outing, but at least it wasn’t hot.

The pumpkin patch is south of town a bit, bordered by corn fields, and includes a corn maze. I was disappointed we didn’t get to go through the maze because of the mud, so we might have to return when it’s dried out a bit. There are two tractors that pull wagon trailers with hay bales, so we enjoyed a hayride with the other moms and kids (above). The mud the tractor went through was really amazing – the exact kind of mud you would never drive through in a regular car or even probably a 4-wheel drive. I mean, these tractor wheels were almost as tall as I am, and they were quite efficient!

We also got to sit on picnic benches (right) and hear two books read to us by one of the patch employees. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d have picked the first book. Although it wasn’t “scary,” per se, it was about pumpkins not being scared by witches and ghosts, etc. I grew up with Halloween as a fun holiday but never scary (we never dressed up as anything ghoulish, only wholesome characters), and I don’t think Halloween ought to be scary, especially for pre-schoolers! Most of the kids there with us were 4 and under, so maybe the book wasn’t right. Oh well. I’m not going to write a formal complaint about it, but maybe next year I’ll find an alternative book to recommend…

The pumpkin patch itself was so muddy we didn’t even dare go to that side of the compound. I mean, honestly, if it had been our only chance of going this year, I’d have ignored the mud and explored more. Mud comes out of most clothes, and Timothy loves baths, so we could have gotten clean. I’m not obsessive about that kind of thing if we can go home and get clean right away. And we can go back for free later when it’s dry. So we just avoided the actual patch this time (and still managed to get a bit muddy).

Timothy spent most of the time we were there pulling around an empty wagon. (At left, he started pulling someone else’s wagon full of pumpkins!) I finally chose a pumpkin from one of the piles of hay bales and put it in Timothy’s wagon to give him more of a sense of purpose. (LIke it matters to a 23-month-old.) We pulled the wagon all over the grassy, hay-strewn part of the compound, around the hay bales, steering clear of other children and parents. Timothy loved it! Then he noticed a pyramid of hay bales that had no pumpkins, so he climbed up and started playing on them, followed by other kids. His favourite thing was to jump down from the bottom row (right) – one, two,, three!

So all in all we had a pretty good time, even though we didn’t really hang out with anyone but each other. We got a little muddy and brought home a pumpkin! I have no idea what to do with it now, never having cooked a pumpkin before, but at least it looks nice on our porch for the time being. We won’t even be home for Halloween!

Imminent arrival of the terrible twos

Timothy will be turning two in just about three weeks. Wow.

In some ways, it will be fun. I have no idea yet what sort of celebration to plan, since we’re not a very party-oriented family. I know, though, that Timothy loves playing at the playground, so we might just meet a few kiddie friends there and eat cake. Oh, and we must have balloons, since Timothy is a balloon-lover. (Even when they pop, he doesn’t worry.) The presents will be few, but at two, will he really care? I think not! As long as there’s something sweet to eat and a slide to go down, he’s likely to enjoy himself.

In the past week or two he’s developed a special attachment to Elmo (or “Melmo”), so I’m thinking of looking for cheap Elmo gifts. He’s only seen a few snippets of Sesame Street, since we don’t have a TV, but he’s got an Elmo book about colors, and we picked up some Pampers last week (instead of our usual Costco diapers), which of course have Elmo on every single one. I tell him he’s got Elmo on his bottom, and he gets a kick out of that.

But I’m afraid the bad behaviour has already begun – perhaps not in force, but enough to bother me. On our play date last week (yes, we actually had a real play date!), Timothy started being aggressive, which he has never done before. The next day at Bible study, they told me he had pushed a few kids and hit some. This is not the little guy I know! The problem is that 90% of the time he’s with other little kids, I’m not there, so I can’t even figure out a way to combat the problem. This is going to be tough.

Tonight we went out to eat (it’s been a long past few days for me with grading papers), and Timothy is usually great at restaurants. Loud, perhaps, but not bad. Well, tonight was different. He was downright rotten for most of the time we were there. When he wasn’t being naughty, he was pouting because we were being stern with him. David finally had to take him outside while I paid the check and got the leftovers to go. He hadn’t even eaten anything. Good grief. And Timothy cried for the next half hour until he finally got ready for bed. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this – between being angry and frustrated half the time, and feeling sorry for the little guy the other half of the time. I cannot even imagine having to go through all this again in a couple of years with another kid! How do people do it??

Timothy-isms

I know I’ve been absolutely horrible about working on this blog. And trust me, it’s not because Timothy’s not funny or interesting! Considering how lax I’ve been on my own blog, I guess it’s hardly surprising I haven’t done much work on Timothy’s. But I’m here to say that’s going to change! So if I have any readers who were reading and gave up, the good news is I’m getting back to it! That’s a promise. If I make that promise publicly, I’ve got to keep it, right? ;)

So what has Timothy been up to?

• Talking! Not very many words yet, but one of his favourites is horse, which he pronounces “oh-se.” On the way to the grocery store one day when we were walking—which we will probably never do again because there’s no sidewalk much of the way, and it’s a narrow road with a 45 mph speed limit—we saw a corralled horse in a paddock. Now whenever we go that direction, Timothy makes a cow sound (go figure) and says “horse!” Another of his more familiar words is “yeah.” Whenever you ask him a yes or no question, he’ll say, “yeah!” Sometimes he’ll shake his head, too, to indicate no. The painful thing is that he’s also started using “no,” which he just says as a very long and drawn out “oh,” usually while covering his face. The terrible twos are just around the corner.
• OCD already! Timothy has always had this thing about getting anything on his hands, whether it’s jam, peanut butter, dirt, crumbs, or milk. He whines and wants me to clean him up as soon as possible. Well, in the past week, he has started to notice particles floating in his bath water. They’re practically microscopic, but he notices them. Two bath times this week, he just stood in the bathtub, surrounded by his toys, and whined, refusing to sit down in the water and play. Oh no, he pointed to the elusive particles and fussed. There was no way I could get them all out—especially considering I couldn’t see most of them—so I just forced him to get wet, washed him, and gave up on “bath time.” Tonight I scrubbed the tub before his bath, and he seemed not to see particles. Phew. So now I get to scrub the bathtub every time he takes a bath. Yay.
• Building a social life! Now that I go to MOPS twice a month and Bible study every week, Timothy’s spending a couple hours in the church nursery two to three times a week. He gets to play with kids mostly his own age, which is something he hasn’t really done ever, so I’m sure he enjoys it! One day when I went to get him, he just turned back to playing, unlike the other kids, who ran to their mamas. I had to laugh. We had him in the “baby” nursery at first, since he won’t be two for another six weeks, but two weeks ago the person in charge asked us to please put him in with the two- and three-year-olds. He’s just too big for the babies! Hardly surprising considering he is bigger than many of the two-year-olds! (And outgrowing more clothes…) He’s also enjoying story hour at the library every week, especially the songs when he can jump up and down. It’s a little intimidating (with anywhere from 30 to 100 kids), but as long as I stick close to him, he loves it.
• Learning to cook like Mama! (May God make him a better chef than I!) I don’t have baby-proofing in my kitchen, so I arranged everything such that things on the lower shelves are Timothy-safe. That includes the pots and pans, which Timothy loves to take out and play with around the house. He even uses the potholders to hold the handles, and sometimes will put a potholder on the table or floor before putting the pot down. He’s getting the hang of it! He likes to fill the pot with his little animals – Noah’s Ark Stew!
• Reading books! Timothy loves books, especially about animals. (I’m grateful for such a wonderful library!)He can say words that I recognize as giraffe, frog (although this can be confused with dog and duck), and dog, and he makes the noises for other animals. One of his favorite books is Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton.

   

And his feet are really wide and fat. If anyone has insights on where to get shoes for huge toddler feet, please let me in on your secrets!

So these are some of Timothy’s antics of late. He sure can be naughty, but he sure can be sweet, too. And generally speaking, he’s a good little guy, a real bundle of joy. Thank heaven for little boys!

Cute tidbits

I thought the other day, as I watched Timothy play during a break from my work, I’m going to miss so much of his development because I’m sitting at a desk in another room. I envy the moms who are active in their toddlers’ development, the ones who plan activities, art projects, trips to see museums, etc. I sometimes try to do those things, but at this point in our lives, if I don’t work, we don’t eat. Not that any mom sits and watches her little ones 24 hours a day! But maybe if I weren’t working, I’d see more things like this:

• The other day, I was cooking dinner, and Timothy came into the kitchen to play. (He really likes to be in the same room I’m in if I let him.) He climbed up onto a chair at the kitchen table, put his plastic peahen on the table facing him, and proceeded to “talk” to it. He used a high-pitched voice and jabbered away at the little peahen. He stuck his face right up into the peahen’s face (it’s about 1-1/2” high) and talked to it! I had to turn around from the stove and just watch for the duration, which was several minutes. It was priceless!
• One day last week, I was really tired and went to lie down after dinner. (This is the first time I’ve ever done that.) Timothy came to me and brought me toys and books as I lay there. He climbed up and sat with me. When he brought a book, he lay down on my chest and let me read it to him lying down. When he left the room, he came to bring me his precious Pippin-Bear. Then he gave me a kiss and went out the bedroom door. Within seconds, he was back with his Pascal-Bear. He gave me a kiss again and headed out. But before he got to the door, he turned around and came to give me another kiss! This was so reminiscent of our nighttime routine that I just had to laugh.
• Yesterday, I turned around from working at the computer to look into the living room, where Timothy was playing quietly. (Quiet is always worrisome when you have a toddler!) My little boy was sitting across the living room, facing away from me, reading a book, and he had his little hat on! I can never get him to wear the hat, but he was sitting there inside, wearing it, happy as a clam!

These are just some examples of my cutie. I hope I get lots more of these glimpses, even though I’m working. At least I get to work from home!