The Small Family     

Alas, I couldn’t think of a clever title for this week’s blog, so it’s accurate but boring. This was a week of birthdays (Chris’s and his mom’s, as well as my cousin Heather’s) and doctor appointments (Theo’s two-year checkup).

Let’s start with birthdays. Chris turned 34 on Tuesday, and we both took the day off work to celebrate. We started the morning with Theo’s float lesson, and Chris was amazed to see Theo’s progress from last year. Theo had a great lesson, earning TWO stickers from Miss Monica for his excellent floating without fussing. (Alas, Wednesday and Thursday were not sticker days, as Theo was in “a mood” and not cooperating. Ah well…) I took some pictures, which you’ll see in this week’s album. I’m hoping Theo graduates this summer. The twins who are three days older than him graduated this week, so I know he can do it if he just settles down and stops fighting so much.

After Theo’s lesson, Chris wanted to go to the consignment store to get Theo some new books, so we did. We’re reading to Theo even more than usual these days because we’re still working on potty training (s-l-o-w process), and we were both pretty bored of our book selection. So we now have a whole new stack of books to read--although, like any good toddler, Theo would prefer that we read the same three or four books over…and over…and over….

We then stopped at the mall for some playtime for Theo, as well as a Jamba Juice. Theo didn’t have much of an appetite early in the week, so we figured we’d at least get him some nutrition through an all-fruit smoothie, which he really enjoyed. (His voracious appetite has now returned, I’m pleased to report.)

In the evening, Grandma Diane came over to babysit Theo so Chris and I could go to Suede Blue for dinner. Chris started with a Surfrider Martini (a fruity, tropical-type martini) and salmon carpaccio, while I started with a Chocolate Martini and, of course, oysters on the half shell. Chris finally tried an oyster and pronounced it “not bad.” He had his usual artichoke chicken for dinner, and I had crab-stuffed shrimp wrapped in pancetta. Both delicious! We split a chocolate bread pudding for dessert, though we both agreed that the chocolate croissant bread pudding in Reno was far superior. Overall, a fantastic meal!

After dinner, we bowled a couple games and played some video games. Chris stomped me at bowling and video games (as always), but I trounced him at air hockey (as always--one of the few games I can consistently beat him at).

We returned home to find Theo still awake. Apparently he didn’t want to go to sleep until we came home, and knowing that we would be home within an hour or so, my Mom let him stay up. He was good as gold--just wanted his mommy and daddy home before he’d go to sleep, which I thought was rather endearing. My Mom’s theory was that perhaps he remembered that the last time someone other than us put him to bed (Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy, three days before), we hadn’t been there the next morning (a first for him). He was happy to sit quietly with my Mom in the rocking chair while he waited for us--he just didn’t want to be put down without us there. And sure enough, as soon as we got home, he went right to bed without a fuss. Awwww…

So on to doctor appointments. Theo’s long-delayed (by Kaiser) two-year appointment was Friday, and we were very pleased with the appointment. Theo is 26 pounds, 12 ounces and 34.5 inches long. This puts him in the 40th percentile for height and the 29th percentile for weight. So he’s average height and a thin build, at the moment. (His head circumference is in the 80th percentile--ha! It’s all those devious toddler brains stuffed in there, I think!)

The doctor was delighted to hear how well he eats vegetables, fruits, and other healthy foods (okay, I admit it--we didn’t mention his occasional French fry habit!), and he checked out beautifully on all physical levels. It turns out he did indeed inherit my tibial torsion, as I had suspected, but the doctor said it appears to be a mild case and no cause for concern. In fact, she said that some of the best sprinters in the world have tibial torsion, which is rather amusing given that I am a horrible jogger. Hopefully Theo will be better than I am at that!

We also talked to her about Theo’s propensity to hit when he is frustrated, and she gave us some good feedback. Essentially, she said that we are using the best possible strategy for dealing with Theo’s strong will--timeouts for hitting, and being consistent with delivering those timeouts. She also said that we were wise not to use timeouts for anything other than hitting or possibly throwing toys, since timeouts sort of turn into “white noise” when they’re used for every infraction under the sun. We expressed our frustration that it has been ten months of timeouts for hitting, and he’s still doing it, and she smiled and said, “He’s very strong-willed. And when you’re thinking, ‘My God, you are so stubborn! You’re driving me nuts!,’ remember that this temperament is going to be a great quality in 20 years, when he’s out in the job market. With his smarts and strong will, he is probably going to be a leader--someone people look up to.” Wow…what a nice compliment for our boy! Now it’s up to Chris and me to guide him so that he’s a benevolent leader.

She gave us a couple suggestions for how to make timeouts more effective (using a timer instead of us keeping track of the time, and also holding him from behind while on timeout, so he can’t make eye contact with us), as well as a couple book suggestions. So, we’ll try those and order the books from Amazon and see how it goes. It was nice to hear that we’re doing things right, from an impartial source. Obviously our parents have been very supportive, and that is a wonderful thing…but sometimes you need to hear it from someone completely outside of your world, you know?

So, we have a happy, healthy, strong-willed two-year-old, and that is a beautiful thing. What’s also beautiful is Theo’s latest fun interest: plants! My aunt and uncle (Sally and David) will get a kick out of this, I think. David is a botanist, and Sally knows a lot about plants as well. They have a beautiful garden (well, they did at their old house--I think the one at their new house is currently a beautiful work in progress!), and my uncle loves to go new places and botanize. It seems Theo is a tiny botanist these days. We go out in the backyard to play almost every day, and part of Theo’s repertoire is to walk around the yard over and over, looking at each plant carefully and saying, “Oh! Whoa, wow!” He carefully touches them and now tries to smell them, too. It’s really cute. (I actually posted a short video of this on our Videos page!)

He also has to stop and see the flowers at Target’s garden center when we walk by. If I don’t stop and let him gently touch the plants and tell me the flower colors, he has a big tantrum. So the tantrum part isn’t cute, obviously, but the fact that he’s so interested in flowers is really sweet to me. He just has such a neat, gentle little soul about things like plants and animals!  And the tantrum was easily solved--we now stop to see the plants at Target for a minute or two each time we walk by. And if they are closed, we just tell Theo that the plants are sleeping, and we’ll see them next time. He normally whimpers for a minute, but then settles down. He knows he’ll see his good friends the plants soon.

Saturday was an iffy-weather day around here, so we decided to stay relatively close to home and just drive out to Vacaville for a trip to the Nut Tree (a small, mostly free amusement “park” for kids--just a few little rides and lots of shops) and lunch at our favorite pizza place out there (Amici’s). Theo rode the carousel twice and had great fun playing with a bunch of other toddlers at this large plywood structure where you can open all sorts of doors to put your face in different animal bodies. (That doesn’t describe it well, but you’ll see pictures.) He also had some fun playing on the various cars for kids to “drive.” You’ll notice in this week’s album that he developed a bit of a crush on Snoopy, who was present in several of the cars. And he did super-well at the restaurant--he cracked us up by repeatedly demanding “Salad!” very loudly! Here we are in a pizza place, and the kid is requesting a salad--I love it! (Of course, he can’t have much of the pizza since he can’t have cheese, so it makes sense that salad would hold more appeal. And it is a yummy salad, full of things Theo loves, like tomatoes, black olives, and cucumbers. As a side note, Chris hates olives and can’t believe he has a son who likes them. That’s my genes coming through! Theo would eat black olives until they came out his ears, I believe. Same thing with cherry tomatoes cut in half--he adores them.)

I also got around to the always-fun (and normally done by Chris) task of shampooing the carpet. Our poor carpet has survived so much. Renters before we bought the house, a dog who drags in all manner of dirt from the yard, and Mr. I-Spit-Up-15-Times-a-Day-for-the-First-Nine-Months-of-My-Life. It has really seen better days, having not been overly high-quality carpet in the first place. Someday we’ll replace it with hardwood or laminate flooring, and I’m sure we will marvel at how easy it is to keep clean. But alas, if we keep getting slammed at tax time, that day will be a distant dream. And until then, we shampoo the darn thing to death. But at least it looks better now. It’s amazing how stubborn stains just keep coming back up, no matter how many times you shampoo the darn thing.

The productivity continued on Sunday, when Chris purged the garage of the Goodwill/consignment store items while Theo and I met up with Auntie Jeanette at the Folsom Zoo. Unfortunately, I don’t have any zoo pictures because it’s a bit of a challenge to juggle a big camera, a diaper bag, and a toddler with only two hands. But we had a good time. Theo spent much time putting leaves in the trash can (of course), but he also liked seeing the bears, raccoons, and chickens. Oh, and the peacocks, which led to an embarrassing moment for me! Theo went racing through a crowd of young kids watching a wandering peacock, and as I chased him, one of them said, “Daddy, is that a boy or a girl?” The man said, “That’s a boy,” and I replied, “Yes, he’s a boy--but he gets called a girl a lot!” Jeanette kindly clued me in that the kids were talking about the peacock, not Theo! Ah well. I’m so used to people (especially children) telling me what a cute little girl he is that when I heard the inevitable question, I assumed it was aimed at Theo! Auntie Jeanette got a good laugh at my expense. :-)

Chris and I are planning our upcoming Oregon trip, which we leave for in about 2 1/2 weeks. We’re spending three nights at a beach house just south of Newport, Oregon, with Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chris (and Theo’s good pal Ava, the golden retriever). But we’re planning the before and after days. On the way up, I think we’re going to spend one night in Klamath Falls, which has a children’s museum that Theo will probably adore. Then we’ll see Crater Lake (I’ve seen it, but only briefly, and Chris never has--and it’s beautiful; not to be missed!) and spend a second night in Bend, which is just about right smack in the center of Oregon. (Side note: My parents spent their 25th wedding anniversary at Sunriver, which is just outside of Bend. It’s beautiful up there!) Then we’ll drive from Bend to Newport. That breaks the driving up into a 5-hour day, a 3-hour day, and a 3 1/2-hour day, which is very manageable for Mr. Theo. And, we get to see a lot of beautiful places that way. On the way back, we’ll probably stop in Medford/Ashland (southern Oregon). We stopped there both ways last time we did a beach weekend in Oregon, and we really enjoyed it. There’s some pretty wine country around there, and while Theo obviously has no interest in wine (ha!), he does like running around in open spaces, of which there are many in that area.

And last but not least, we’re starting to plan our Great Buffalo-Virginia trip for around Labor Day. I mentioned some weeks ago that we were both taking on extra side projects in a quest to earn the money to pay for the trip in cash, since we were nearly killed by that giant tax bill. I’m pleased to report that as of now (six weeks ahead of our goal!), we have achieved our savings goal to afford the trip. Woohoo! My cousin is getting married on Labor Day weekend, so the trip is in large part for that, but we’re also going to drive down to Virginia to see my Aunt Sally and Uncle David (mentioned earlier in this blog as the botanizing folks!). My Mom has never been out to Virginia to see them and has wanted to go for years, so this is a perfect opportunity. Plus, they hear so much about Theo that they really need to experience the little monkey in person--ha! We’re considering driving down via Philadelphia, since we so enjoyed our visit there last year, but haven’t decided for certain yet. My Mom has never seen Philly, and they do have that incredible Please Touch Museum for Theo…and Chris has relatives there that we really enjoyed spending time with last year. So we’ll see how it all shakes out. Chris only has limited time off work, so most likely my Mom, Theo, and I will fly out to Buffalo four or five days ahead of him. He he he…this will be interesting. Not only will Chris have a silent house for several days, but my Mom and I will have the interesting experience of traveling cross-country with a very active 2 1/2-year-old. I’m anticipating this with a mixture of joy and terror. :-)

Hope you are all enjoying May! We’ve been having strange weather out here (15 to 20 degrees cooler than normal), but I’ll take that over extreme heat any day. It means lots of days where Theo and I can log a lot of outdoor time...never a bad thing!