Baby Loves Disco!

Yesterday, we joined about 200 other parents and kids under 6 at the Wonder Ballroom in NE Portland for Baby Loves Disco! – an event hosted throughout the country.

Remember those high school dances in the gym, where a mass of people did their best moves to “We Are Family” in the middle of the room, while others milled around quietly nearby, and a few more sat softly crying around the edge? Well imagine that, but with the floor is covered in apple juice and goldfish cracker crumbs. Oh, and there are hula hoops and bubbles.

Oliver is a natural dancer (he must get that from Jenny), and no sooner had we set him down than he started his usual bopping in place, arms swinging and sometimes clapping. Other than getting bumped a few times by other kids, he enjoyed himself like that for almost 3 hours. He was far from the smallest kid; some parents brought their 3-month-olds, and tried to get their $13 worth of the dance experience with the little ones on their shoulders. I don’t think we would have tried this when Ollie was that age.

Of course I had to save my best "Solid Gold" karate disco moves for fear of kicking some little tot at my feet.


After the dance, we went to get groceries, assuming that he would crash once we got in the car and one of us would stay behind while the other got the shopping done. (This one-parent-shopping arrangement is something we turn to more and more often these days. Usually, one of us has to take Oliver to some remote aisle and let him run.) But even after all that dancing, he was ready to play and flirt with the ladies in the store, so we were all pretty tired when we got home.

Wow! I’m sure I’ll say this many more times in the future, but this stage of Oliver’s language development is amazing! Not only does his constant babbling have the rhythm and cadence of natural speech, but real words are popping up here and there. As we read about speech development, we’re learning that toddlers learn to use distinct, if not correct, words for items and general concepts. So we’re slowly understanding what he wants. He’s also gesturing aggressively now, pointing at everything, talking about it, and opening and closing his hand at the things he wants. (I'm having temporary problems posting video)

Also, for the first time today, he looked at a picture of a cow in a book we often read, and said, “Moo.” Exciting!

Now what does “Dee-daw!” mean?

Children's Museum

Last weekend, Oliver and I headed to the Children’s Museum and the Rose Garden. The weather had been pretty icky so I thought this would be a great place for Oliver to burn some energy.


After the museum we headed to the Rose Garden. With the weather being so iffy, we practically had the place to ourselves. It was kind of nice after the crowds at the museum. - Jenny

Christmas 2007

We hosted some of the Evers clan at our house this year. The presents were wrapped, the fridge was stocked and the house was clean. Everything seemed to be going too well, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Oliver woke up and his eyes were practically glued shut with a gooey crust. We hit the web and our parenting books but ultimately called the advice nurse at Kaiser who confirmed that Oliver had pink eye. A few drops later and we were ready to enjoy the day. Christmas Eve day turned out to be quite clear so Keith, Dave and Oliver took the dogs for a walk. Oliver got pretty excited and started walking with a bit more speed on the sidewalk. Our sidewalk is a bit uneven in spots and Oliver took a header, didn’t get his hands out in front of him, and hit the sidewalk with his forehead.

I’m not exactly the Martha Stewart type so actually having matching linens was a big deal. I asked Keith to take a picture because this may be a one-time-thing. Big thanks to the Bunko Gals who allowed me to keep the place card holders during our Christmas Steal-A-Gift Party.

Below are a few pictures from Christmas. Oliver was very festive in his new Christmas PJs, red eyes and scuffed red forehead. He was a real trooper through it all and was delighted with all of his presents.

Oliver and his new little friend the ladybug. I kept waiting for him to squash the bug or put it in his mouth. I’m happy to report that the ladybug survived her meeting.

Oliver just beginning to open his gifts. He kind of looks like Rudolph, if Rudolph had had a red forehead instead of a red nose.

Hey, if I take out the paper there is stuff in this bag!

Just taking it all in.

More Adventures in Food

(shameless plug alert!)
Oliver's Aunt Karri and Uncle Mike have a restaurant called Philly Bilmo's, where they make great cheesesteaks, pasta dishes, sandwiches, and much more. Last night I picked up one of my favorites, their Chicken Parmesan (which, it turns out, I can't spell -- see my earlier attempt at avocado).

Oliver loved it. -Keith

First Haircut

This is the "before" shot, or Oliver getting ready for his first haircut. We went to a place that specializes in cutting kids' hair.
This is the barber's chair, a little toy car. My first thought was, cool! My second thought was, how much random kid hair collects in this thing?
The barber was fast. Lot's of distractions. Oliver thought he was playing the whole time.
Finished. What a handsome guy.

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.