A Wobbler at Last

For a while there, I thought I could try to follow a particular theme for each blog entry (like describing of the back of a baby’s head). But recently, we've let a little more time elapse between postings and I suddenly find that I just need to dump our anecdotes, discoveries, and the contents of our photo files into this blog.

Thanksgiving was at Jenny’s sister, Karri’s house. The food was terrific. Oliver got to spend time with the grandma and grandpa who live furthest away. His little digestive system was introduced to pumpkin pie and whipped cream and seemed to like them just fine. After stuffing myself, I fell asleep on the sofa (which is my habit). Because I try to reflect every day on all the things I’m thankful for and for which I feel very fortunate, I won’t go into details here. But life is good.

For the rest of the long weekend, we took care of some projects around the house. Jenny sewed some curtains for Oliver’s room. I did some stuff in the garage in preparation for the new foundation this coming spring. I also installed a little twanging door-stop in Oliver’s room. He can’t leave it alone. Finally, I lost myself in a snappy horror thriller by Scott Smith called “The Ruins.” Right now I’m 2/3 through it and calculating how much time I can shave off tonight’s sleep to finish it.

With Oliver now spending a majority of his time on two feet, it seems there are a dozen little breakthroughs to report. Since this time last month, he seemed to add a few steps every week to his walking distance. Just in the last week, he’s learned to go from a crawl to a squat, to standing, to walking. He now covers any distance between our walls and furniture with a bow-legged stumble, his arms up in the air so that when he falls, he can keep the momentum going in his furious crawl.

He loves to dance. He pushes buttons on one of his electronic toys and when “Old McDonald” or “The Saints Go Marching In” starts playing, he bops in place to the music, waving his arm and smiling. He’ll dance for a long time if someone keeps hitting the button.

He has a thing with placing hats and other objects on his and others’ heads. Here’s a plastic blue ring that he wears sometimes, or sticks on someone else’s head. It’s pretty funny.

He’s learned he can get a finger up his nose. I’ll spare you a picture of that.

His vocabulary is still shaping around a few crude words (dada, mama, nana, duck). We’re encouraged by the long periods of babble, where he talks at length in sounds we don’t understand. Sometimes there are questions, or exclamations (“Yeeaaagh!!!!” = “kitty/doggy, I’m coming for you!”), and also frustrations punctuated by thrown objects. Yes, the tantrums have started, revealing the classic toddler struggle between independence (put me down!) and complete dependence (pick me up!), along the way discovering subtle cues that certain behavior leads to consequences. Yesterday we took him shopping for groceries and when Oliver saw the box of graham crackers, he started reaching and pleading. We hid them under other stuff in the cart, but it was too late. He’d seen them, and in the interest of getting through the trip as quietly as possible, we opened up the box and gave him a graham cracker. Naturally, we ask ourselves – what are we starting here?

Despite all that, we just love every minute with him. He loves to wobble up to us and give us big hugs. What more could we ask for?

Catching Up

A lot has happened since we last posted. Oliver turned one last Sunday and we celebrated Halloween. Here are a few pictures from the festivities.

Oliver and I hanging out waiting for people to arrive to his party. Amazingly, I wasn’t running around at the last minute trying to get things done.

Oliver and his cupcakes.

Oliver tasting his first cupcake. He approached it as one would a fine dessert, slowly sampling and then diving in!

Oliver was Indiana Jones for Halloween. He didn’t get dressed up on Halloween, just looked at all the kids that came to the house. Here is a picture of him all dressed up at the party they had at his daycare. He’s missing his gun but that spider is hanging on for dear life.

I needed some inspiration when designing my jack-o-lantern. I decided that I should model it after my little pumpkin. For those of you keeping track of teeth--Oliver now has 3 ½ teeth. That last one is coming down pretty fast. He has two on the bottom and two on the top.
- Jenny

Pumpkin Patch

Let us now join all our other blogger friends in posting pictures of our kid surrounded by orange pumpkins.

This was at a farm in Boring, OR. But it was far from boring. Crowded and muddy yes, but not dull. An ambulance and firetruck showed up when a glow stick exploded in someone's face! We didn't witness that event, but the emergency vehicles kept us in the parking lot longer than we intended.

Obviously, all of this is new to Oliver so we tried to let him touch and hold as many different kinds of squash, tiny pumpkins and apples as possible. We decided that with the mud and the crowds, we'll wait until next year to do the hayride and the corn maze. This sunny Sunday, we just strolled around to see the animals, the produce, and the pumpkin fields.

I should have stopped him from licking this pumpkin sooner, but I didn't. Sometimes a funny picture trumps hygiene. Worse yet, this is not a pumpkin we took home.

Oh! And another milestone! After we got home, Oliver took his usual spot pressed against the glass of the front door looking outside while Jenny and I prepared our shopping list nearby. Jenny suddenly looked down and said, "Oh my God!"

Oliver was TAKING HIS FIRST STEPS TOWARD US!

-Keith

Lake Quinault

Two weeks ago, Jenny and I went to Lake Quinault, in the Olympic National Forest of Washington. It was beautiful. The lake is huge, and the lodge was one of those giant old buildings with lots of natural wood and a big roaring fire. One of the most interesting aspects of the area is that, surrounding the lake are several world record size trees! It was raining slightly, but that didn’t hold us back from taking some trails to see the trees.

There is also a trail that runs deep into the woods where you suddenly find a very interesting abandoned farm. Old rusty trucks are always fascinating to me, so I took a couple pictures of an ancient Chevy. Jenny’s big find along the trail was $6! The $5 and $1 bills were just laying on the ground – clearly dropped by another hiker. We didn’t see anyone else out there on the trail, so we figured that the six bucks wasn’t the difference between anyone’s grandma’s heart operation and it was ours.

The trip was nice, but it was our first weekend away from the little guy (whose grandparents stayed at our house to keep an eye on him and his dog and cats). We probably left for home sooner than we could have. -Keith

When mom is away the boys will….

...play the piano.

Last week, I was in Sunriver for a long weekend so Oliver and Keith had some guy time to goof off. They took a little side trip to McMinnville to see family and just get out of the house. One of their stops was Union Block Coffee, where Keith used to work. Union Block is not very far from Linfield College and Keith and I had our first date there. From what I understand, the place was pretty empty so Keith proceeded to tell the staff that Oliver was a child prodigy on the piano. Actually, Oliver had never sat at a piano before (except his little plastic one).

Below is the coffee shop video displaying Oliver’s amazing piano playing skills. -Jenny

Photos at 11 months

Just a few recent photos...

Giving his mom a hug.

Trashing his bookshelf.

Learning to rock.

A Room of One's Own

"Welcome to my house!"

We recently refinished a room downstairs that will become Oliver's bedroom. It used to be our bedroom and originally contained the entryway to the stairs. After we remodeled the upstairs and redirected the stairway, it became our entertainment room (meaning we watched TV there). Finally, we finished a bunch of plaster work to repair things that happened with the remodel, fixed the old windows, and repainted. For now, its a good a place to keep Oliver's toys and give him room to play. Eventually he'll sleep there.

A big play rug sits in the middle of the room. Jenny picked out some colorful collapsible toy bins which he enjoys emptying over and over again. The bins and his books are kept on a deep sturdy bookshelf against the wall. Our futon makes an ideal spot for relaxed parental supervision and is a perfect height for Oliver to cruise along.

The picture above is his toy walker. He surprised us last week when he pulled up onto it and just cruised across the room. It was the most like walking independently that we'd seen him do. Once he reaches a wall, he can't really turn around without some help. He can, however, crawl around and mount the thing backwards so he can push back in the direction he started, but it's a little more difficult to use that way.

A few posts ago, we showed Oliver's gummy smile with a note that we're still waiting for front teeth. In the last couple weeks, his left front tooth has broken out and grown to about 1/3 it's full length. It's pretty cute to see some top tooth in his smile. I'll try to get a good photo once it really shows.


And in our "Adventures in Solid Food" series, here's a vampiric picture of a bad case of ravioli tomato sauce face.

Yesterday at the nearby park.

The Physics of Throwing a Ball

OK, Oliver is obsessed with his ball. It used to be one of the dog's tennis balls. When he started playing with it, we decided that we should wash it and let him have it. Within a short time, Oliver started throwing it and I grabbed the camera. His technique here is pretty rough -- he might throw it at his own face, send it straight down, or manage to launch it directly behind himself. But he's having fun, and in the days since I took this video, he's tossing it with a little more style.

Abbie is still adjusting to this, but really, there is one more person in the house to throw a ball for her, so there's an upside. She just chases it very short distances.

-Keith

Cruising

1. Crawl across room

2. Climb up table

3. Grab plastic spoon

4. Crawl back across room with spoon in one hand

5. Climb up other table / chair / leg

6. Show spoon to whoever is looking. Beat spoon on table if necessary.

7. Repeat over and over again until objects are all over the room.

This is Oliver's routine right now. He's all over the place. He's crawling very fast (he pushes with both legs now). He'll climb anything to stand up and get at stuff, and now every object within 2 1/2 feet of the ground is fair game. Is is made of paper? Great! Does it have buttons? Even better. He drops things just to watch them fall then laughs in delight when Mom or Dad pick them up for him. He's blabbering (lots of "Da-da-da-da..." and "Mamamamama...") and making little chimp sounds. Also, he likes to blow raspberries all the time.

A couple days ago, he has standing up while I was holding onto him. I let go momentarily and he stayed where he was, balanced. It was probably a count of 5 before he realized he was unsupported and crumpled to the ground.

Right now, he's taking a break from pulling all his books off the shelf to read a little Winnie the Pooh, upside down.

Oliver likes music too. We sometimes catching him bopping up and down to music. He likes bang on his tiny piano or slap the front of my guitars
-Keith

Still waiting for front teeth!

Whistler and Vancouver, B.C.

Here are some photos from our trip to British Columbia last weekend. We spent a couple days in Whistler and a couple days in Vancouver. Whistler will host the 2010 Winter Olympics, so we posed with some Olympic props they'd set up. The Gold, Silver, and Bronze metals on the finalist boxes were spray-painted CDs.

In Vancouver, we trekked around Stanley Park and visited Granville Island, where we found a little food booth that serves meat pies. The weather was warm, but cloudy off and on, and rainy once. At Granville Island Children's Market, which is just a collection of toy stores, we bought Oliver a big bag of plastic fish. We rarely buy him toys, because right now, he'll spent an hour playing with a big vinyl label we cut off an IKEA carpet. On the drive home, we got another 2 hours of play out of repeatedly stuffing his fish in an empty tissue box so he could pull them out.

More Adventures in Solid Food

Funny, this photo looks like a nice collaboration between Oliver and Jenny to hold up the sign, when in fact it was a spirited tug-of-war between Oliver and his mom for a piece of paper he desperately wanted to wrinkle, chew on, ball-up, and throw on the floor. He has a thing for paper.

He is eating a variety of things now. Except for a few potential allergens or extra spicy foods, Oliver gets tiny bites of pretty much whatever we eat. A lot of it ends up on the floor, or on his shirt, or in his hair. But enough gets in his mouth that he is developing clear preferences and dislikes. What a surprise to discover that he likes sucking on dill pickles. -Keith

Learning to Clap

Visit to Fortuna Rodeo!

The weekend before last, we all went to Jenny's hometown of Fortuna, CA to visit her folks. Oliver did all right in the car, but we realized that for long trips, we need to station a parent in the backseat for entertainment. Fortuna has a yearly rodeo, and we got to see kids chase chickens, rabbits, and geese, a parade through downtown, and ATV riding competitions. Oliver's grandma got to show him off. She waved him at people passing by in the parade, calling out, "Look, it's my grandson!" Jenny and I found him a nice cowboy hat to fit the occasion.

Swingset

Oliver is much better after a really bad last week. He had a temperature as high as 104.4 and we were fighting it for about 5 days. He developed a bad ear infection, and was just not a happy camper. Once he got antibiotics, he cleared up in no time. He is now tearing around the office (on elbows and knees), pulling books off shelves, and jabbering loudly about something. His second tooth is just now coming up alongside the other one on the bottom. So he gets cranky about that sometimes. But he's a mathematically impossible 110%. Here are pictures from the park yesterday. The hat came off!

A Funny & Bouncy Moment

Creeper Crawler

Here are Oliver's first attempts at crawling. This was last week, and he's since refined his technique somewhat. He has no problem moving where he needs to on the ground, and he's discovered that pulling books off the bookshelf is pretty fun, too!

Also, about the same day he figured out locomotion, he showed signs of his first tooth! Jutting up from the front bottom gum, it has since grown a bit longer and sharper. This has led to some fussy discomfort, but mostly just lots of drool -- add that to the crawling, and you get slime trails across the carpet. -Keith

Adventures in Solid Food

Oliver loves to eat! He never seems to get full. I keep expecting him to explode but it hasn’t happened yet. He’s a little skeptical of things that are green. Spinach isn’t his favorite food, but he manages to get it down. He just doesn’t eat it with the same enthusiasm as his oatmeal. Here is his typical day:

Morning

• Nurse


• Breakfast: oatmeal with fruit. Today the fruit was apple and blueberry. Tomorrow will be Mom’s peach and mango combo
  

During the day at school

• Bottle


• Lunch: one container of vegetables (green beans, peas, broccoli -- you can see why he is suspect of anything green -- carrots, squash or sweet potatoes) and one container of fruit (pears, apples, peaches, etc.)


• Bottle


• Bottle
  

Evening

• Nurse


• Vegetables/meat combo (tonight was turkey, vegetable and barley) and steamed broccoli
  Usually a little fruit for dessert but not tonight


• Evening snack/education in self-feeding: Cheerios

Although he has yet to show a single tooth, he’s finally figured out how to chew. Now we just have to work on chewing with our mouth closed. It’s just that he’s so proud and having so much fun! - Jenny

Aquaman!

Oliver has been taking swimming lessons since the beginning of the month. I use the term lessons, but it amounts to him just hanging out in the water with either me or his dad. He enjoys it a little more each time we go. The first couple of lessons his dad helped him get acclimated to the pool. Oliver enjoyed bouncing up and down. As you have noticed from previous blog entries, Oliver is obsessed with Nemo. Imagine our good fortune when we discovered a Nemo toy in the toy bin. That made pool time even more fun. This last time we worked on floating and not touching the bottom of the pool. He did pretty well but didn’t enjoy floating on his back. I guess we’ll work on that next time. - Jenny

Visiting Sophia Part 2

Yesterday, we visited our neighbors, Neil and Sarah, and their daughter Sophia. If you remember from our December 2 post, they were in our birthing class, and Sophia was born just three days before Oliver. Unfortunately, they're moving soon, so we wanted another chance to compare notes and let the little ones check each other out. It's funny how much they look and sound distinctly like a little girl and a little boy.

Sophia is adorable. On her turf, she was much more confident about checking out Oliver. They had a really cute little moment of slobbering on each other.

Oliver became momentarily overwhelmed by the five adults (two taking pictures), three dogs, and kissy little girl. He was gently comforted by the little hostess.