Up the stairs

Stairstepper

James has a new hobby.  (Ok, a new hobby aside from being a binkie stealer.)  While he is still not walking, he has started to climb stairs.  A few weeks ago, he started getting on the first step at the bottom of the stairs in our living room.  Then he slowly started going up a few more steps, only making it up 3 or 4 of them.  He wasn't really sure what he was doing, especially on the way down.  His usual way to get down is to make it to the first step and them throw himself down.  This has lead to a lot of tears, but he's a tough little guy and continues to throw himself off that first step.  I'm not sure if his goal is to give his mother a heart attack, but he's succeeding at that fairly well.  On Wednesday, Rhonda told me that he had climbed all the way up the steps at her house several times.  She watches him very closely and he doesn't throw himself off the bottom step at daycare.  Yesterday, when Adam picked him up, she mentioned that James would climb the steps more when someone was standing next to him.  Last night, Adam tested this theory and James made it to the top of our stairs. 

15 month milestones

Mastered Skills (most kids can do)
Plays with ball - James loves to play with balls right now, he really likes to play fetch with Mac and the two of them are so cute together. 
Uses three words regularly - James uses a lot of words, I'm not sure if I would call them regularly, but he knows the usuals "mama", "dada", "hi", and "bye"
Walks backward - Nope, we are still not walking at all.


Emerging Skills (half of kids can do)
Scribbles with a crayon - Yes, James has learned that if we go to a restaurant, he will usually get to play with the crayons they give out to kids.  The only problem is that he wants to eat them. 
Runs - Nope, we are still not walking... 
Adopts "no" as his favorite word - Not yet, but I can see this coming at any time now.  James does not like to hear the word no, even if you're telling the dog not to do something.  He's more and more of a toddler everyday, meaning he has more and more little tantrums.  He will definitely let you know if he's not happy, we usually try to ignore and redirect.  Although he will get upset, James rebounds and moves on very quickly. 


Advanced Skills (a few kids can do)
"Helps" around the house - One of James' favorite things to do right now is to "organize" his toys into random boxes and compartments of toys.  He is learning to put his toys away, but we have a long way to go on that one.
Puts his fingers to his mouth and says "shhh" - No, James doesn't do this.  I'm not sure he's even seen anyone do this, so it doesn't surprise me. 


On the 19th, James goes to see Dr. Chander, his awesome pediatrician, so I will post his height and weight then.

Sassy the cat lives up to her name...

On Sunday, Adam's mom, dad, and stepsister and my brother came for dinner.  We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and it wasn't too horribly awkward (Adam's mom and dad are divorced and only in the last couple of years have really socialized at all).  Snow, the now 4 month old puppy, also came.  The last time he was over, we kept Sassy (aka my little princess, the only other female in my house) away from him.  You see, Sassy loves to beat up puppies.  She kicked Mac's butt all the time when he was little.  Eventually they learned to get along, or at least we learned that she wasn't doing much more than batting at him.  We also learned that Mac's loud cries were FAKE.  Sassy doesn't have claws on her front paws and although she has bitten Mac before, it was totally provoked.  Mac actually kind of likes the attention from Sassy and will mess with her on purpose now.  But poor Snow didn't know what was coming.  So the few times Snow has been over, we've just kept Sassy away from him.  She's charged him and attempted some of her batting, but nothing big (at least not to me, I'm used to it)  We should have kept that up, because without even touching him, she scared the pee out of the pup.  Yes, every time Sassy would come near Snow, he'd tinkle just the littlest bit on my carpet.  Who knew Snow was such a big baby.  And my Sassy girl once again proves she's the alpha animal. 

Signs that you've played with your kid's toys for too long

1. You sing along with all the songs (ex. “In and out, in and out, that’s what dump trucks all about”, “Now it’s time to Annie Ooo, Annie Annie Oooo, Ooo, Oooo, Ooooo.” You may even start to sing the songs while you’re away from your child, which may be rather embarrassing in the middle of a conference call at work.




2. You pick out the characters from The Land Before Time in a set of dinosaur magnets and have a long discussion with your husband about the fact that they changed the name for a Brontosaurus and whether Spike was a Stegosaurus or an Ankylosaurus. (Spike was totally a Stegosaurus… duh…)


3. You have specific toys that you hide because you can’t stand them anymore. See my post on toys that I hate.


4. You want to play with the toy more than your child does and get upset when he does a tornado through your newly set up barnyard train set (not that this really happened or anything…. *cough*)


5. You refer to the stuffed animals by names that you, not your child, have given them.

Baby Fever

Well now that I’ve gone and mentioned it, I suppose I will address baby fever.  I don’t think that I necessarily have a bad case of baby fever at the moment, although it seems like many people we know have recently had their second baby or are getting pregnant.  I know that we would like to have a second baby and would like to have them 3 to 4 years apart, which means sooner rather than later, its going to happen. 

The thing of it all is that Adam (and Jackie and my mom) are like, “Are you high?  Do you not remember the 8 days you spent in the hospital the last time?” And the really odd part of that line of questioning is that in many ways I was so freaking out of it that I don’t remember a lot of being in the hospital.  I mean, I wasn’t in great shape and I cried every single day, wanting to take my baby and go home, but looking back on it is easier now – I know the outcome.  I came home and James came home and we’re great.  All I had to do is lay in the hospital and veg out, I didn’t have to go to work, drive to Towson everyday, stay for a few hours, learn how to take care of a preemie, worry about my wife and baby and try to focus on the other million things involved in one’s daily life.  So I get that really, I was on the winning side of the situation. 

I am lucky that Adam is the amazing and supportive person that he is, because I never once questioned if he was able to take care of me and James.  I had always thought that he’d be a great dad and he beyond lived up to that expectation.  Also, he kept a steady supply of Junior Mints on hand, which I think gives him bonus points.  So where does that leave us for a second baby?  Nothing set in stone, no real plans at this point, we are definitely not trying, but are definitely thinking about trying someday.  And that’s enough for now.

Coping with the new baby

James has been learning to deal with the new baby at daycare this week.  From what Rhonda has said, the transition hasn’t been too bad.  On the first day Baby Landon was with the bunch, James and Kippy (who is 12 months other than James) both cried when he got his first bottle of the day.  But they eventually remembered that they don’t get bottles anymore (or forgot about it entirely, which is probably more likely).  But that was about all I had heard about the new baby until today.  When I arrived to pick James up, Landon was still there. 

I hadn’t seen the little guy yet, and I have to admit, he wasn’t very cute.  This proves what we pretty much already knew, my kid is the most adorable thing alive.  Okay, that’s not what it really proves, since I might be biased.  Well Landon was a little cute, but it might have been his Steelers onesie that was throwing me off.  Anyway, Landon was there lounging in his swing and sucking on his pacifier like nobody’s business.  Rhonda told me that James loves to stand or sit around the baby and really likes him, but he has a new hobby…  stealing the binkie out of the baby’s mouth.  I thought this was pretty hilarious, mainly because James never took a pacifier AND when he steals it, he doesn’t put it in his own mouth. 

 I am also going to take this time to mention that I am hugely antibinkie after about 6 months.  Yes, babies like to suck and the sensation soothes them.  But at a certain point, the binkie needs to go.  So I probably sound all judgey, but they increase babies’ chances of getting ear infections and between Adam and I, we don’t need to have James any more predisposed to ear infections than he already is.  Also, it annoys the bejesus out of me when parents won’t just cut the cord and end up leaving their kid with a binkie until they’re like 3.  So with James we were lucky, he didn’t really like the binkie and even when I wish he would have taken it, he didn’t.  But I digress on the whole binkie situation…  I am just glad that James is adjusting to not being the baby and I am attempting to not give in to the horrible illness known as baby fever.