Temper Tantrum

Moments after the tantrum with a balloon in the back seat.

Vake's new response to things going wrong is to throw a big gigantic temper tantrum. They are happening more and more frequently- usually when he's tired or hungry (they're almost always afternoon occurences).

Today, we went to Saxon Shoes. Now keep in mind that I haven't bought a pair of shoes for MYSELF there in, oh, two years, but Vake's got very very very very wide big feet, so I cannot buy shoes at a place like Target for him.

We arrive and everything's fine. We try on even the first pair of shoes and everything's ok. But Saxon's (probably to their credit) requires that every child's purchase of shoes get past a fitter. Who promptly flunked the fit of the red Keds that I LOVE.

So we tried on basically every other pair of shoes and finally found one extra extra extra wide pair that he could get on. And he was starting to lose it.

Now if I were a stay-at-home mom, I would have called it a day and hustled out of there. But unfortunately, Vake needs shoes and I cannot make two trips. So, we toughed it out for church shoes. And pumpkin had had enough. And literally melted into a pile on the carpet.

It was really awful. It was so bad, in fact, that other mothers with older children walked over and told me to hang in there.

Fantastic.

Beach Bum

We spent the day at the beach with friends yesterday- such a fun trip.

Vake really liked the sand and the waves this time- instead of being upset about the ocean, he got pretty angry when we tried to take him OUT...

There were some pretty serious riptides and I was worried about him.

Missing: 1 Baby

Has anyone seen a baby? He looks like this!

Isn't time flying- this was Vake 1 year ago.

13.1 Finisher

i ran the Patrick Henry 1/2 marathon today. Not quite the disaster that the last 1/2 I tried was but BOY was it hot and miserable.

It was in Ashland, so a lot of rural rolling hills. I basically ran out of gas at 12 and just gutted it out to 13.1.

Ugh.

Bathing Beauty

We love bathtime around this house- a LOT!!!

Taren (who, sadly, is on vacation this week) gave the boys a bath together the other night.

Interesting Article

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/parenting-under-scrutiny/#more-14699



Obviously, I represent clients most frequently when there's an allegation of abuse, but I've had more than one or two cases that were neglect cases.

Applesauce

Vake's picking up new words with each passing day.

He loves applesauce and regularly asks for it now at mealtimes, which is A.) amazing and B.) pretty cute.

Here he is telling you what he's eating.

STOP!!!

Would it be possible for someone to stop time please? All of a sudden I've got this big boy. Who looks like a big boy and likes dinosaurs.
I vote that we return to 6 months.

New Words

[by guest blogger Daddy]

We're on the cusp of a word explosion.

Seems like every day Vake picks up new words.

Some recent additions to his vocabulary (in addition to "thank you" as noted below):

Sock
Applesauce
Purple (daddy's favorite)
Vroom (the sound anything with wheels makes)
Door
Car
On
Off
Toes
Ears
Nose
Eye
Knee
Book
Wow
WooHoo!
yeah, yeah, yeah (so far only when he hears momma say that when she's on the phone)
Ow (usually when singing along with the muppets)
and Bye

Of course one of his favorties is "No!"

When he pounded on the keybord of my work computer I told him "No" and put it up. And when he touched the dials on the stove, I would tell him "No" and move him away from the stove.

He's pretty smart, It really took - Now when he pounds on my keyboard he says "No" over and over. And he says "No!" as he plays with the oven dials.

Thank You!

Vake said it today! Whoo-hoo!!!

Our child has some manners!!!!

12 miles

it took forever yesterday but didn't feel so bad...

The pace wasn't a lot faster- still about 13.3 minute miles but overall I was pretty happy to get it finished.

Next week is (only!) 10 miles.

18 month stats from the pediatrician's visit

Vake is 36.5 inches long, somewhere between 35 and 39 pounds (he was too big for the infant scale and actively unhappy about it so the poor nurse had a hard time getting an accurate measurement), and has a head circumference of 19.75 inches.

He's still crushing the growth charts. Which is great for him and his development- I am just sad that the smocked outfits are on their way out.

18 months!

Vake - you are EIGHTEEN months! You are a year and a half old!! I can't believe it!


What are you up to?

I don't know exactly how much you weigh but am guessing about 36 pounds. I have NO idea how tall you are at this point- either!!!

You wear size 7 diapers (of course available only on the internet!) , size 3T or 4t clothes which is hard to believe, and size 8 shoes.

You have 8 teeth on the bottom and probably 8 teeth on the top- but getting you to open so that I can see the tops is not in the cards.

You still love to sleep- 7 pm to 8 am without interruption most nights and a 2.53 hour nap most afternoons.

You drink from a cup. You can tell us where your belly, nose and ears are. You have a vocabulary of probably 15 words, including wash, no, milk, bye, ball, purple (!) and dog.

You love to dance, as well. You ask for music and then just bop along.

You feed yourself pretty well with a spoon and you seem to be right handed. You have a great sense of humor and laugh when other people are laughing.

We love you, small pumpkin!

Eighteen Months Portrait at the Jay-Cee-Pee

We went in with our buddy Huff today to get our 18 months pictures made by the lovely Lindsay. If you live in Richmond and you want someone reasonable to take pics, I cannot say enough good things about her- she totally gets it!!!

And we took some pics with our buddy Huff.

Serious, introspective Vake.

Both of us cheesing it up for the camera.

Oh hello there! I am up to no good.

I am too cute. Look at my RED hair!!! And I didn't even use Sun-In.

Oh getting my picture made is a GOOD time.

I just LOVE it.

Hello ladies.

Hmmm. I wonder what I'll do when I grow up.

Good buddies.

Reading and Dancing!

Most of our weekend mornings when we are lucky enough not to have obligations outside of the house are spent reading and now, dancing, with little V.

On Sunday mornings, I've been doing the marathon training and then getting Vake ready for the day when I get back home. Over the course of the weekend I've taped a lot of our antics and tried to edit them for the best ones. Vake is so close to having a fantastic vocabulary- his new favorite word du jour (and I honestly feel as though each day brings a new word) is wash. He loves helping with the wash. Today, as I threw in what felt like the 300,000th load of laundry for the week (how that's possible with Eric traveling so much I have NO idea) and he just stood in front of the washing machine repeating wash, wash, wash.

There are four videos below- in the first two, he's reading along with me- he LOVES a rotating collection of about 5 books and knows sections of them by heart. This is The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. In the last two, he's showing all the people out there how to do the mashpotato.

When the cat's away the mice will play!

Daddy's been gone for almost a week now by the Alison math and today I just pulled the trigger and installed the chandelier that I LOVE in our bedroom.

Now the good news for all the daddies on the interweb who are playing along is that I took down the other pendulum that E was always hitting his head on when he would get his shoes.
The bad news is that when the A/C comes on, it makes a little noise of paper rustling. Let's call it white noise.

Pretty awesome, no?

And then after bath tonight, my favorite little streaker jumped on his scooter before I could get him diapered up.

No pants, no problem.

For Daddy- he's out of town a LOT these days.

Mommy and Vakey were like two ships passing in the night today- poor Mommy, poor Vakey, poor super T.

These are gratuitous pics so that daddy can see what his big boy was up to today- thanks T.

Scoot, scoot, scooty-scoot.

All of a sudden I have this big boy. Today while Mom and I were working on getting the laundry put away, Vake entertained himself by scooting on his scooter up and down the hall.

Next thing you know he'll be asking for the car keys.

Where did my baby go?

I worked on sorting baby clothes again today. That coupled with the scooter is almost more than I can bear. Lucky for Eric who cannot stand the emotional Alison that he's out of town.

10 miles

That's right- I did basically the longest distance I've done since the 1/2 marathon fiasco last year. It was great- weather was almost cool and I've got a good group of 30-40 something ladies who are at the back of the pack with me.

2 hours 12 minutes. If I can sustain that pace, I can finish a marathon in about six hours, right?