party naked

Tonight we had a fabulous home cooked supper at Dennis's Grandma's lake house. David and Jason did some major boathouse repair, and Grandma had some company visiting. She made pork roast, potatoes, corn on the cob, pinto beans, cornbread, beer bread, slaw, German chocolate cake, and blackberry cobbler, all absolutely homemade. I'm gaining weight just remembering it!

Dennis loved everything, and after he screeched to get down from his high chair, he walked around and around attempting to sample food from everyone else's plate. He really wanted more beer bread, and I think he successfully begged pieces from at least half the folks there. We were eating in the new screened porch, so he would periodically take a break and look out at the water whenever he heard a boat coming (and he'd say "boat"). He danced a lot, and he laughed a lot, and his antics made for an excellent free dinner show. When it came time to eat the blackberry cobbler, we took his clothes off so they wouldn't be permanently stained. He spent the rest of the evening in only his diaper, and he seemed so happy about it. After we were all finished eating, he kept going around the circle of people asking for tea. He got to drink some tea from Gran's cup and from Mommy's cup, and we are pretty certain that he found every unattended up and tried his best to get a swig before it was grabbed from him.

He had a great day. He loved the boat ride he went on, sitting back in his seat and surveying his surroundings through his very cool baby sunglasses, or walking back and forth in the boat, or helping Daddy drive the boat. When we got back to the dock, he walked over to the steering console and figured out how to honk the horn all by himself. He was very proud.

He didn't have to get dressed again until we went to Wal-Mart on our way home (had to buy dog food), and even though it was way past his bedtime, he enjoyed his shopping experience as much as he always does, smiling and greeting every person we saw and pointing to various unrelated objects on the shelves. He went to bed without a fuss, but I heard him in there talking to himself for several minutes before he dropped off to sleep. He was excessively cute today in everything he did. I love those days.

don't turn your back

There comes a day in every little boy's life when he feels that he must make mischief in order to feel complete. And after that first day, mischief days happen with increasing frequency as the boy grows and learns and explores new territory and re-explores old territory with a gained height of half an inch. Today was a mischief day, and Dennis did some menacing at Gran's house this afternoon.

He is not bad. He is curious. And he's fast! He did so many wonderful things today, like waiting at the bottom of the staircase for me before he ascended to great heights. He doesn't just take off and run up the stairs--he makes sure that I see where he's going and that I have time to get there and follow him up. He stands on the first step until I get there and give him the go ahead to climb. I think that is a very wonderful thing. He also has been reaching up for a hand when going down a step and when he wants to get down from a tall chair. He waits for help rather than tumbling down. Another very wonderful thing.

But there was a moment when Mommy reached an extreme frustration point, but fortunately I saw the humor in the situation and quickly managed to laugh it off. The phone rang and it was David, and while I was hanging up the phone from talking to him, Dennis managed to empty a bag of cat food onto the carpet in Gran's den. The dog, the cat, and Dennis immediately pounced on the spoils (hey, free snacks!), and I ran to intervene before that little hand managed to get a Tender Vittle into that little mouth. This was funny, if messy, and I might have been okay if the rampage had ended here. It didn't.

While I was scooping cat food up from the carpet and back into the cat food bag (she's a cat, she can eat off the floor, so she can eat food that briefly visited the floor), Dennis managed to get into the bathroom and I turned around to see him merrily splashing his hands in the toilet. So far about 30 seconds had elapsed since I hung up the phone. I left the remaining cat food for the dog and cat to clean up since they were eating it as fast as I was cleaning it anyway. I scooped the baby up and took him to the sink to wash his hands, and somehow he managed to splash around and soak us both. I needed to get him dry and change his clothes, and when I went to find the diaper bag, he squirmed away and went running through the house at full speed, wet (but fortunately not naked--he saves those moments for home) and giggling. I caught him, scooped him up in one arm, gathered the diapering supplies in the other hand and got back in the den just as I heard Gran coming in from outside and saying "What is this on the carpet?". I explained, and she checked out the puddle we left in the bathroom, and then she helped me by entertaining Dennis while I changed him because he was really trying hard to escape from the Evil Clean Diaper. He bit the clean diaper and tossed it around a bit before I got it into position, and he might have been a little more fractious than he was if I hadn't picked up his Moo Baa La La La book and began fanning his privates dry with it. He found this highly amusing. He already loved books even before we found this new thing that they can do!

He had many moments of pure sweetness today, as always, but those things are harder to remember than the things that I had to clean up after! The pictures show him discovering a new way to play with his Tonka truck first thing this morning. I'm glad we got a picture, because he fell out right after the picture was taken and he might climb in it again. He wasn't hurt, of course, but he was mightily offended that the truck would just flip over sideways like that with no provocation whatsoever. Gravity lessons are often the most painful kind to learn.

Gran and I spent the day working on getting a playroom ready for the grandchildren, and we are looking forward to having a safe baby zone where we can put his toys and let him run free and play. We still have a couple of days of work left, but we have made definite progress. It's always fun to visit Gran's house because she has so many interesting things around for Dennis to play with. Things like important papers, staplers, pens, markers, picture frames, neat breakable objects, computers, cords, bowls of dog food and cat food, etc.... It will be great to have a room where we don't have to chase him constantly and where he can have a sense of freedom.

Important first: we found a bit of green crayon in his diaper this morning! He ate the tip of a crayon while we were waiting on dinner last night, and it has now safely made it back out of his system only to face burial in the diaper pail. Dare we hope that this will be the only crayon he eats? Time will tell.

spin me around

Woke up this morning to a crying baby, and I realized that we were missing a member of the family! David usually does morning detail, and he wasn't here. He had woken up early and went on in to work, which turned out to be a good thing. I went in to get Dennis (who didn't wake up until 9 am, which means that I got to sleep late myself) and found that he had pooped through his diaper and his pajamas. It looks like his rash is really going away, so we invested in almost a month's worth of Seventh Generation diapers. They cost exactly the same as Pampers. We just didn't know where to buy them! They were a pretty good deal at Organic Harvest, but we found them on Ellen's advice at Babies R Us for a dollar cheaper per bag, and this put them at exactly the same price we paid for the same amount of Pampers Cruisers. Totally worth it. Healthy butt, healthy environment, and NO extra cost. Maybe it IS easy being green. Sorry, Kermit.

We spent our morning with Gran, playing in her den while she finished up some business. Dennis demonstrated one of his new games that he likes to play with Gran. He spins her office chair around with her in it, and he says "wheeeee" when he does it. Too funny.

We spent our afternoon visiting a hospitalized relative of David's, and Dennis discovered that it is seriously fun to run up and down hospital corridors. He made some friends, even wandered into a patient room for a second before we caught up to him. He was all smiles, and he spread some joy around on the 6th floor.

He's getting smarter and smarter. He knows the meanings of and uses the following words consistently: hot, shoe, out, on, off, up, Mommy, Daddy, Gheeee (Gran), Pop, open, close, juice, ball, dog, cat, diaper, raisin, bread, cheese, horse, duck, sheep, cow, eyes, nose, mouth, ear, chair, fish, book, cup, flower, bird, tree, and car. I know I am leaving some out, but these all come to mind immediately. He repeats words as well, but these things he understands the word and the concept. He says Pop whenever we drive up to Gran and Pop's house. He says "nye nye" (night night) whenever he wants to go to bed. It's so fun to communicate with him now! We've been singing the alphabet song to him in the car and in his room, and we were singing "a b c d e f g" when he suddenly piped up "h i j". We were so proud! Today we were singing it in the car, and he would sing random letters out while we were singing the song, letters that he apparently liked the sound of and so tried them out.

We shopped for a kitchen for him today, and have been looking all week online. Target sold out of the kitchen we've been planning to buy him for forever, and they have discontinued it. It has to be a wooden kitchen (with NO pink parts), and we've found a number of them online, but we have totally fallen for the Plan Toys kitchen pieces. I love the 2008 series which comes out next month, but I have found last year's pieces on several websites at decent prices. We're going to watch the prices of the new things and see if our Thailand connection can get them for us at a good price. If not, we'll be buying a piece every other month or so for St. Nicholas to bring at Christmastime. Today we found the Plan Toys City Station at a very good price and bought it for him. The Fisher Price little people sets absolutely pale in comparison to the Plan Toys playsets except for one area. The Fisher Price toys do make sounds where the others don't. I held up a sheep for Dennis this morning, and he walked over to his little farm and pressed down on the hay bale, which makes the "baaaaaaaaa" sound. I'm pleased that he knows what noises cows and sheep and horses and chickens make, and we have Fisher Price to thank for that. But we will definitely be buying more of the Plan Toys sets if he enjoys playing with this one. His wooden train tracks will hook up to the station we bought today, and he didn't have a train station yet. Of course, now we'll need to also buy a few pieces of 2 lane highway track for the cars to drive to the station... Good thing we've started this early! And I sure wish I could find a place that carries that brand locally. We bought the only Plan Toys item at Homewood Toy and Hobby, and I can find no retailers in our area that have them.

We had dinner with Pop tonight and shopped some more, then came home and crashed. Dennis was so asleep that he didn't even wake up when we changed his diapers and put his pajamas on. I'm glad he got to run around today--so good for him, and he had so much fun.

blueberry giggles

Today was Mommy's day out! I went shopping with a friend today and Mom offered to watch Dennis all day. He got to spend the day playing with his Gran and Pop. They took him for wagon rides and read I Love You Through and Through to him dozens of times. They watched him climb stairs and strew paperwork and push buttons. He made some calls on the speakerphone and switched the tv input away from the satellite receiver and Pop had to figure out how to get the picture back. He played on the computer some. He napped when Gran napped and really enjoyed their company when awake.

He apparently discovered his own little internal rhythm this week, and he's been dancing up a storm. His Gran offered him juice and he danced all over the kitchen. For Dennis, dancing means stomping his feet rapidly up and down. It's very very cute.

And, he discovered that he really likes blueberries today. Gran offered him his own little fruit assortment, and to take away the tartness of it, she even gave him whipped cream. But the blueberries were the only fruit he seemed to like. She said he'd put a blueberry in his mouth and giggle and eat it, then spit out the blueberry skin. He'd giggle for every berry he ate. And after his nap, when the blueberries came back out of the refrigerator, he saw them and danced and giggled.

Dennis has been blessed with some wonderful grandparents all around, and I love that he got to enjoy some special time with two of them today.

running on empty

Dennis went too long between naps today, but this is not to say that he was badly behaved. He gets really funny when he's overtired. He laughs at everything. He's excessively silly. He falls down a good bit, kind of like he's drunk. He gets huggy and snuggly, and he walks around in circles, hugging and screeching and chattering and giggling until he finally asks to go night night. He does occasionally get fussy, but nothing terrible.

Today we went in search of chemical free diapers, in a desperate attempt to finally cure his diaper rash. His little rear end has not been free of redness since before his first ear infection 3 months ago. It's hard to find green products here in Alabama, but I located a great market called Organic Harvest, and they had the diapers at a pretty reasonable price and I didn't have to be robbed blind by Whole Foods. Sad. After spending time in a state where they recycle consciously, it's hard to come back to the wastefulness that we're so used to here. Mom and I both were commenting on this, and we're going to continue to recycle like we did when we were in Washington. I'll have to drive our recyclables to a center to drop them off, but I won't have to go too far away. I think there's a place in our town.

I bought him some crayons and wanted some paper for him to practice his scribbling. I decided I'd buy a recycled paper notebook at Wal-Mart, and this proved near impossible. An employee finally pointed out the one little notebook made with recycled paper amongst the thousands that weren't. I suppose when it comes time to shop for school supplies, we'll have to really search for environmentally conscious products.

I did not take a photo today. I intended to, especially when he kept walking around with Uncle Denny's pen and cane. And he was cute playing at our friend's place on the swingset and eating his yeast rolls at Logan's. He had a good day.
For your entertainment, here's a video of his Uncle Michael giving him a driving lesson on Lummi Island in Washington.

my chair ROCKS!!!

Last night, Uncle Denny (Dennis' Godfather), bought for Dennis one of those great rocking chairs that live on the porches of Cracker Barrels nationwide. Dennis tried out all the chairs on the porch, and he didn't seem to really have a preference at first. We debated a slatted chair seat versus a woven one, and whether he'd want a painted one or a varnished wood one, and if he wanted the navy blue one that had a team logo on it or if he would not want that... At the end, he turned to the navy one, screeched in delight, and ran over to it and climbed in. That sealed the deal. It's the one I liked the best after all the considerations, too. It's painted dark blue and says 'Tigers' across the back. It's an Auburn team logo, and we are Auburn fans (and they don't appear to make a UAB one, where we both earned our degrees), and we like the chair very much. We pointed out a few more things that make it appropriate. The team mascot for our town is a tiger, and the school colors are orange and blue (just like Auburn), so this chair which doesn't actually say Auburn on it will also be a chair that supports Dennis' school team. Pretty neat.

He LOVES his chair. He spent much of the day climbing into the chair and out of the chair. He learned how to make it rock. Most importantly (for him), he learned how to stand up in the chair and hold on to the back of the chair and rock standing up. He thought this was great fun, much to our exceeding nervousness, but he fortunately managed to avoid falling out of the chair. He did slip once and bump his little bottom on the arm of the chair, and it hurt enough to cause him to get teary-eyed, but soon he was standing again with glee. We rewarded him effusively when he sat down, cheering and clapping, and we thought this might work. Pretty soon he was standing up in the chair clapping and attempting to direct us to clap along with him (for him). We didn't encourage this behavior. He did so much that was cute today, though, and he played for an adoring audience of some of his biggest fans tonight, including his grandparents and Godfather (and his parents, too!). We sure do love that little guy.

Yaaay me!!!

So much self confidence today! This evening we were all sitting around at the lake after Uncle Denny (the aforementioned Godfather) arrived, just watching Dennis play. He showed off his car to everyone, demonstrated his entry and exit skills, showed us what an accomplished backer-upper he is (darn car still won't go forward!), and then walked around brandishing Uncle Denny's cane. No one got whacked, fortunately, but there were some close moments! Gran's toes might have gotten pounded.

I changed his diaper, there in the middle of everyone, and he reached out and touched my shoe, and said (in all his adorable brilliance) "shoe". We all applauded and said 'Yay, Dennis', which he loves. Pretty soon, he was walking around and saying "yay" and clapping, and we were all clapping right along with him. Everything he did was a major cause for celebration in his book. He said "Grrrr Gheeee" (which is Dennis for 'Gran'), and he clapped. He said "Pop", so we clapped and he clapped. When we stopped clapping, he'd say something else and begin clapping. It was so cute we could have let it go on for hours, but it was suppertime, so off to Cracker Barrel we went. Not to worry--he continued the clapfest at the table, applauding himself and us for all our small accomplishments. It was nice. I think everyone deserves a round of applause from time to time, and Dennis gave us and himself that very service countless times today. He's just spreading the love, I suppose. I'd like to think that we're not celebrating mediocrity, but rather bolstering his self confidence. And it's fun, all that clapping. Try it next time you're feeling blue.