Category Archives: oliver

they call him “Da Tig”

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Oliver has rediscovered his white helmet with the green visor, it had been out of circulation for a while, and has been put back into action with great enthusiasm. Last night, had donned “wace hat” and informed me “me Tig mommy!” “to car me!” “vooooom!”

I posted the photo on twitter, and one of my friends tweeted back:

“some say his favorite snack is Cheerios, and all of his race suits are made by Garanimals. All we know is he’s called the Stig!”

Later O gave the helmet to P, and then we had Baby Stig. His race suit is from Hannah Anderson.

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May Day

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In both 2002 and 2005 I had the pleasure of being in one of the little towns near Augsburg for May Day. Instead of workers rights and civil unrest, the Germans celebrated the arrival of spring, erecting a giant may pole, serving lots of food and getting quite drunk.

Today we opted to celebrate more in line with the German tradition (minus all the beer): we grilled burgers, ate outside for the first time since last year, and the boys got played in water table.

It was Patrick’s first time at the water table (and outside on the patio without being held) and with the help of Oliver, he got soaked to the skin. Oliver also helped to “wash Baby har!” and make a “road!” of water all over the patio.

    

I suspect this is going to be come a recurring theme over the summer, so I need to find Patrick some shoes that can hold up well to getting wet a lot. Hopefully I can find some in the box of shoes O’s outgrown (although P has larger pudgier feet than O did at this age and O was 11 months in the dead of winter). I suspect there will be a pair or two from last summer, or the summer before that fit, I just need to figure out the American vs. European sizing and find all the size-labels.

See Howie? See Diggar!

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The neighbors in the back orchard have a backhoe, not sure what they’re doing with it, but it has made more than a few passes past our back fence.

Oliver is fascinated by the “diggar!” and spent a large portion of Tuesday afternoon in his observation tower watching the progress. He insisted on holding Howie so that he could see too. “See Howie! See Diggar!”

Zucchini Confessions

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I hate zucchini, I have always found it to be a revolting vegetable. Texturally slimy when cooked, mushy even when breaded and fried, zucchini was something I avoided – that and eggplant, but this post isn’t about that.

Up until about two months ago our home had been a zucchini-free zone, then P started to eat, and eat, and eat. So I started making my own baby food, which led to me reverse-engineering his all-time-favorite jar of mush “organic summer vegetables.”

Organic vegetables are easy to come by so I read the label: potato, carrot, green beans and zucchini.

Zucchini?! Really baby, can’t mommy get a break?

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no-night!

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In Oliver’s world there is no “day” there is just “night” and “no-night.”

In the evening as the sun goes down it becomes time for “night.” In the morning, when the sun comes up and the darkness is replaced by light, there is voice, inches away from my face which enthusiastically announces “No-night mommy! No-night!”

The baby does not “sleep.” P is either “awake” or “no-awake.” No-awake is usually easily resolved by being poked at which point baby is “awake!” again. The baby does “nap” but when nap time is over, baby enters “no-nap” time, sometimes with a helpful poke.

There is also “no baby!” but that is reserved for when P gets into something of O’s.

me turn! me help!

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Oliver has decided he likes to Help! This is not a new feature, but it has become more pronounced as the months pass, and now that O is armed with his helping tower his rate of helping has increased dramatically.

O has also acquired the concept of “me tun” – after waiting patiently and watching me do something, he decides it is his turn to undertake the task. It does not matter if the task is vacuum cleaning, unloading the dishwasher, feeding the baby, pressing the buttons on the food processor or spooning muffin batter, eventually, if it is OK for mommy to do, it is OK for O to Help!

The challenge comes with balancing what is truly helpful and what just makes a big mess. We are working on finding balance in the kitchen: chopping cucumbers for the salad is truly helpful – he can manage to do so with a dullish knife, and it does not matter if the cucumber is a uniform size. I will not however, let him chop onions. Pressing food processor buttons is fine too, he’s helping make “foof” for “Pa-tik.”

Then there are things which require no help. The other day P slept late and I felt the need to express some milk. O came into the kitchen where I was pumping, declared “me see boob!” and then attempted to assist with the positioning of the shields. Thanks for the offer, but no help needed.

I try to have several activities through out the day that O can help with. This morning started with a trip to the grocery store where O helped push the cart, bag apples, and navigate to and select the ice-cream. This afternoon, during P’s nap time, he helped bake muffins lemon blueberry muffins.

Helping “cook!” muffins is a finer line: half an extra egg here, some extra salt there, batter dripped all over the counter – my inner baking perfectionist does not appreciate the mess, but the muffins came out tasting alright, and he had a lot of fun while helping “cook cake.” The recipe was fairly forgiving -it held up to my modifications and O’s input- and while they are unlikely to win any awards, they will make for excellent snacks through out the week.

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Rocket Man PJs

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Until this evening O has been sleeping in one-piece Hannah Anderson footless pajamas, Carters snap-up pjs, or, on very hot nights, just a diaper.

Tonight marked the transition to two-piece pajamas, the Kirkland organic cotton ones from Costco (they’re $12 vs. Hannah Anderson’s $28-42 for a similar style). They are size a 2T and fit fairly snuggly (as child pjs should) and these are covered in rocket ships.

O was very excited and he zoomed round the living room. The pjs seemed to fit well, and he was thrilled by the rocket ship. When we got to his room he pointed to his ceiling fan (which has rocket ships on the blades) and to his shirt. After a little more zooming (and a story) he settled down to sleep with his turtle casting constellations on the ceiling.

Most of O’s old pjs have been boxed away for Patrick to grow into, when P is done with them, the survivors will likely end up on the nekkid dawg or the baby-clothes quilt.