Inappropriate, Hillarious, Adorable: Things my Toddler Says

MLO pronounces truck, "Cock." That's right, ladies and gentlemen, my son exclaimed in an intimate restaurant during the lunchtime rush, "Cock! Big big Cock!" as he pointed out the window. It was awesome.

He pronounces "Silly" without the 'l' sound and everything is silly: Mama, Dada, the dogs Snoopy (who he calls "Sissy") and Ricky (who he calls "Wicky"), Grandma and Grandpa and the rain ("Wainy").

He loves to throw rocks in the water.  Suddenly during a meal he will exclaim, "Rocks! Water! Throw!" and make a huge splashing sound while throwing his hands into the air, all while making the most serious of faces.

He loves hiking and will pick up a stick, start to use it as a hiking stick then point down our dirt road and ask, "Hike?"

He refers to toast as "Pope." This makes breakfast a particularly holy experience for all of us.

He has started to refer to things in the plural, and when he does so he puts a long pause between the word and the 's' sound, for example, "Gape-eh-sss" for grapes.

He sings along to songs. We have our own version of "The Wheels on the Bus" and he acts out all the parts and sometimes finish lines when I sing certain songs. He can actually carry a tune incredibly well. He must get that from his grandma....

He will go to the stereo system in the dining room (even though he isn't allowed anywhere near it) and ask "Dance?" That's my queue to turn on Pandora so that we can rock out to Simon and Garfunkle or MGMT.

My son recently received a Melissa & Doug animal puzzle that he adores, although doesn't quite know what to do with. Whenever he sees it, he gleefully and affectionately exclaims, "Aminews!"

Though he hasn't purposefully achieved airborne status, he loves to "jump". Usually this means squatting down really low, then lifting one foot really high off the ground while shouting, "Gee-ump!"

When he falls down he announces his sudden contact with the earth in the following ways:

1. "Oh boom."
2.  An emphatic, "Oh no!" (complete with upturned hands in the air)
3.  "Bonk." (accompanied by a hand to whatever part of his body is "injured")

Wildlife Adventures in Montana

Described herein are two of the most dramatic wildlife experiences we have had as a family, so far.

I mentioned in my come-back post, "Oh, What?" that there had been an incident with a bat in the washing machine. To give some background, we moved to a relatively remote part of Montana in August. About two weeks after we arrived, I was doing some laundry. We had experienced our first real trial of back woods living when our septic system backed up and proceeded to leak black water from the bottom of our toilet. My husband soaked up the water with some towels and once we had the problem fixed I ran a load of wash that included said nasty towels and a rug that had previously sat directly around the toilet. The rug had been thrown over a bucket in the laundry room once we figured out what it had been soaking up, to be washed with the rest of the poo-water-soaked towels when the time came. As one might expect, I washed those suckers on hot for the longest time the washer allowed. Even though the days and nights were plenty hot to hang the washing out to dry, I wanted the added security of a hot dry cycle to kill any possible remaining poo-bugs. As I loaded the drier, I noticed a rather large and soggy piece of lint at the bottom of the washer. I thought to myself, "That's odd, I didn't wash anything that was that dark." As I picked up the lint I noticed that it was particularly felty feeling, not at all like the old rough towels and synthetic rug I had washed. Suddenly the shape and the texture came together in my mind: bat- wet, soggy, bat. I threw the drowned, ragged, lifeless body of the creature on the ground and shuddered heartily. I walked out into the kitchen and said to my husband, "I need you to go in there and tell me whether that's a bat on the ground."

Shocked and utterly confused, he walked in and confirmed what I already knew: I had inadvertently killed a poor bat in really a horrific way, then desecrated its body by throwing it with gusto to the ground. As close as we can figure it, the little fella climbed in the open washer sometime in the night and had gone to sleep. In the morning chill he was not able to register that I was throwing things into the washer and so didn't fly out. The other possibility was that it had gotten into the rug-covered bucket and was hanging from the rug when I picked it up and threw it into the washer. Either way, the poor little guy met a terrible end, for which I will feel
eternally sorry. As my sister said, "Peace be to that poor bat...." In homage, I briefly considered the following Halloween costume for MLO. Props to Pottery Barn for the adorable costume, but man, that kid sells it!


It's Fall, and here in our lovely valley the Birch and Cottonwood leaves are changing, the weather has cooled way down, and the fish have all left our pond for deeper waters. All the wildlife of our region are doing their best to put on some pounds before they bed down for winter. The berry crop was abysmal this year, and the glut of rain in the spring left the grass more tough than nutritious, so the entire food chain is feeling the effects of limited food. With that comes the inevitable attempt by our bigger and bolder predators to take advantage of the easy food supply that accompanies human settlement. Just a few weeks ago we had a 600 lb, 20 year old grizzly bear break into our closest neighbor's garage. Suffice it to say, Hubby and I are a bit on edge. Taking on a hungry animal 5 times your size, and likely willing to settle for eating you, is no small charge.

Tracks from the huge-mongous bear that broke into our neighbor's garage

With the scene set let me explain our latest big adventure with Montana wildlife. Hubby and I were enjoying the last warm fall day forecasted for as far as anyone could tell. I sat, unarmed, in our expansive yard while Hubby unsuccessfully fished our empty pond, which we share with our nearest neighbor. Yes folks, this is the same neighbor whose garage had been ripped into by a gi-normous grizzly bear. As he was fishing he noticed some movement near the neighbor's house and looked up to find a very brown bear standing on its hind legs, both front paws on the window. The hubster began to yell and the bear looked over, then proceeded to ignore him completely. Hubby yelled for me to take the dogs in and get his firearms ready.

My brave, madman of a husband went over to the neighbor and did his darndist to scare off this bear. No charging car, honking horn, or gun-shots seemed to drive the animal away. Only when Hubby fired buck-shot at the ground near its feet did the animal flee. Hubby came back and immediately called the grizzly guy, with whom we had come to be on a first name basis. As he hung up the phone, the hubster looked out the window and exclaimed, "Holy sh*t, the effing bear is in our yard!!" He had crossed the pond and now stood somewhat bemused in our front yard area. Now within 20 feet or so we could see that it was a little black bear, that couldn't have weighed more than 120 lbs. Hubby tried to scare him off with bear spray (the can of which we had not used before and found out in this instance that it was frighteningly sub-par), pots and pans and yelling. To no avail! The beast merely ran up a nearby pine tree bordering the pond. Finally we waited for the bear to move in a direction that would allow us to chase him off, and move he did. He ambled casually to within 10 feet of our window, near which MLO was enjoying a mid-afternoon snack. As I picked up my son he pointed out the window and said happily, "Doggie! Nice, nice doggie. Give pets." That was not the reaction I was looking for, regardless of how adorable this little bear was.  

Hubby was finally able to get close enough (yes, close enough) to spray the bear in the face, which should impart on the bear a healthy fear for people. We found out that this little fella had been orphaned as a cub, raised in captivity, and recently released in our area. The bear was only about a year and a half, and his upbringing explained the alarming disregard he had for people-threats. We learned that a bear does sh*t in the woods (I have footage of it), that black bears can look very, very brown, and that MLO is an unreliable detector of potentially threatening animals in the wild, not to be relied upon when hiking. 

Our little black bear friend in our front yard

The baby who wouldn't kiss

Ever since MLO began to express his personality he has had a way of attracting an entire room's attention and sending the mood of the place into joyful wonder. He's always been beautiful, funny, easy to love and shamelessly flirtatious. However, while other babies his age would hug and kiss and express love in myriad other ways, MLO generally kept his affection to himself. For instance, after he learned to walk he would now and again run over to me, wrap his arms around my legs and say "Hiiiiii Mama." Then, as quickly as he appeared, he would scamper off to wreak havoc on some toy or clean corner of the house. That was it. No kisses, few hugs. As adoring and utterly devoted parents, Hubby and I would shower hugs and kisses and "I love you"s on the child with abandon, so we didn't really understand why MLO didn't seem to reciprocate. To clarify, neither of us doubted that he loved us and that he knew he was loved, we just didn't understand why he didn't express it in ways other kids his age did.   

My favorite example of this is as follows: One morning, when MLO was around 15 months old and had just awakened from his nap, I walked into his room. The picture of happiness, he smiled broadly from above the rails of his crib and exclaimed, "Hiiiii Mama!"  I went over and gave him a big kiss and a squeeze, and as our routine dictated, proceeded to play a game of hide and seek while he remained in bed. We both laughed and smiled and when I went to lift him from the crib I asked for a kiss. "Kiss for mommy?", I said, and leaned my cheek in toward his face. He took his little hands, one on each side of my face, and turned my face around to look him in the eyes. He then turned his cheek to face me, and pulled my face toward his cheek, so that I may kiss him. Yes, my son in effect said, "You may have the profound privilege of kissing me. That's as much affection as your gonna get, lady."

It was some months later that MLO finally started to give hugs and kisses. At first his kisses were fully opened mouth affairs, with plenty of drool. He finally got that he should purse his lips a bit. He still only very rarely volunteers a kiss, though he generously doles out hugs. His favorite times to hug are when he is sitting in his highchair or laying on the changing table. I'm fairly certain he uses the imploring request "Hug!" on the changing table as a distraction mechanism, since he seems to hate having his diaper changed. He has also picked up the habit of saying lovingly, "Ooooh, Mama!" and "Ooooh Dada!" when he finds us particularly funny or sweet. He has even started saying "Silly Dada!" (or Mama) and pronounces "Silly" without the 'l' sound. So yeah, my baby that wouldn't kiss is now the toddler that loves to hug. I'll take it!

The joy of cooking... for baby

Ah the food issue. Mommies have all had it: my kid won't eat this, my kid will only eat that, my kid ate this religiously and now won't touch it.... I can safely say that, in short, food is a struggle for all of us at one point or another.

When MLO started on solid food there was little he didn't like. Those few things were easily avoidable and nutritional equivalents were readily available and appreciated by him. Somewhere around 12 months he started to get weird on me. He would turn his nose up at our tried and true routine of scrambled eggs with cheese, broccoli, and  a touch of garlic powder for breakfast. WTF pal? All of a sudden I had to get creative. How do I pack the same amount of nutritional bang into an MLO sized meal? I started to branch out: french toast made with maple syrup instead of sugar, no syrup on the toast with a banana or oatmeal with honey and whole milk and a serving of veggies and hummus at lunch or dinner. I cut scrambled eggs out all together and started to offer more meats and cheeses. I discovered he loved goat cheese and that aside from 'outside' the only other discernible word he uttered was 'hummus'.

As I was struggling with the need to explore food choices for MLO I kept asking myself, "What changed?" One day it dawned on me, the kid was bored. Can you imagine eating the same things at the same time of day for 3 or more months straight? In hind-site, I would have been concerned if he hadn't started to turn his nose up at our "tried and true" routine. As time went on, I started to mix things up as a matter of course. I tried hard to move those staples around so they didn't happen in the same way at the same time. I began to bake bread and muffins that I knew could pack a punch for the whole grains they contained. As our trip to Montana grew closer I began to fret over how I would meet his needs over 8 days and 7 nights of road trip and camping. The cooler and the fridge in our tiny trailer weren't long term storage situations that I trusted, and I knew that at least one meal of the day would happen in the car. Fortunately, I stumbled on Go Go Applesauce, an individually wrapped packet of organic applesauce. I packed string cheese and a plethora of crackers, my favorite for MLO being the Trader Joe's Multigrain crackers for their relatively low sodium, delicious flavor, practically choke-safe texture and Peanut-free-ness. What I didn't plan for was the emotional and temporal need for fast food; on that trip MLO was introduced to his first McDonald's hamburger and fries, and Jack in the Box breakfast bowl, and I don't feel a bit guilty about it. MLO ate Daddy's grilled burgers for dinner and enjoyed many a breakfast of cheerios and banana as we rolled out of the campsite. 

Since arriving in our destination MLO has discovered fresh trout (shish- for fish), raw spinach slathered in ranch dressing, raw green beans and plain raisins. He loves wheat toast with butter at breakfast and snacks of yogurt with cinnamon, cheerios and applesauce. Oatmeal with whole milk, a touch of honey and raisins or fresh fruit is a welcome way to beat the morning chill. Much to my shame, he has a derth of experience when it comes to feeding himself with utensils. He has such a propensity for making a mess that I shy away from giving him the spoon when he has yogurt and I never thought to hand over the fork except with food already on it. I have resolved to overcome my fear of mess and give him cheerios in a bowl with a spoon (I'm starting slow... don't judge me!) and green beans on his high chair tray with a fork at his disposal. The dogs are going to love it.

Oh, What?

We're back! Well, actually, we are very very far away. But with all the new adventures afoot I knew I needed to update the site, so here we go:

MLO turned 18 months old on September 2nd. In the last few weeks he has begun to say 'no' and nod his head 'yes' in response to questions. He has started to string words together such as, "River... cold water... fish!" You may wonder where he got those particular words, seeing as we live on the central coast of California. It just so happens that Hubby has the type of job that lets him shove off and work from a home office for, say, three months every seven years. That being the case, we moved to Montana at the end of July. That's right, Montana. Big sky country, lakes, rivers, streams, mountains, grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, black bears, beavers in our pond, bats in the washing machine and moose in the road. Us being us, we did it in style. We are living fifteen minutes out a dirt road off of the only paved road in this particular valley. We are about an hour and a half from a hospital, and half an hour from the nearest physician. Most days we are literally miles from any other human and the eighty year old rough hewn log cabin we are living in has been broken into by bears twice in its lifetime. Roughin it? You bet your ass!

So MLO has a whole new vocabulary to match his new world: "Boom! Thunder" (that applies to thunder and gunfire....), "Doe! Buck!", "Dada rod" (don't be gross, daddy fly fishes!), "Lake, river, creek" and "Pond" all have "Cold water" and "Fish" and we explore them on the "Boat" together. "Rock, stick, pine cone" and "Log" are his new favorite toys which he throws with relish into his new Tonka dump truck or in the case of the log, balances on and practices his jumping. The Tonka is a mild manifestation of MLO's newest and most potent love. MLO can now identify excavators, skid steers, loaders, dump trucks, bull dozers and backhoes... he's obsessed. To fuel this love of big machinery we watch the "Twenty Trucks" videos on You Tube. CHECK IT OUT.

We all love them, but for such different reasons. I have never heard a man sing so passionately about excavators. It brings tears (from fits of laughter) to my eyes. MLO sits transfixed on my lap, absorbing every word. I think those videos have taught him more about trucks than the myriad truck board books he reads every day.  

Speaking of videos, MLO has also started to watch the "Baby's First Word Stories" video series by So Smart. I relented on the whole TV thing when I realized that he had the patience to sit and watch a few minutes at a time. When you think about it, TV is an incredibly potent teaching tool. It combines images with corresponding sounds and allows for repetition so that the kiddo can start to integrate words with objects in context. He has really picked up on the vocabulary introduced in the videos. I do limit his TV time to 30 minutes a day, as I don't want TV to overshadow play. He has gone from watching 5 minutes at a time to demanding more when I turn it off after 30. The videos have engaging but gentle music, cute relate-able characters and simple story lines. Each episode finishes with a review of the words learned. We have the "Pets", "Get Dressed", "House" and "We Go" DVDs and there are several stories on each. MLO loves them all, and now asks for Edward, Dee Dee, Larry and Iggy when he gets up in the morning.

MLO is now awake and demanding that we go outside, so I will leave you with those wild images and movie recommendations with more descriptions of outdoor toddler living to follow.

Cheers from MT!

A view from our yard

 

A Weaning

MLO and I struggled with nursing these last few months. I screwed up my milk supply and had barely enough to get us through the day. The nursing first thing was the only really good feeding we had. The others, generally occurring at 3 hour intervals thereafter, were low volume, and he tended to fuss for much of the time. By March we had, for the most part, dropped the latest feeding (occurring between 3 and 4 PM), sort of accidentally. Neither of us remembered, and with all that exciting solid food he didn't seem to mind. So, on March 1st I stopped the other feedings all together. For the first two weeks of March we nestled close in the mornings and shared our beloved morning routine. It wasn't the quiet, focused feedings we shared months prior. He pulled off and looked around, poked my belly button and would seem to lose interest entirely, only to cry when I buttoned myself up, so to speak.

One morning in mid-March he woke up, and instead of expressing interest in my chest he seemed to want to get down and play. So I let him. And then it struck me, "He isn't asking to nurse. You wanted to nurse for a year, but no longer. Let's just stop." With a twinge of loss and nostalgia I fed my son a meal of eggs and cheerios and he hasn't looked back. I both miss nursing and relish not having to do it. The quiet moments spent holding each other that led to long gazes into each other's eyes are no longer. These days I can hardly get MLO to sit still long enough to hug and kiss him before he pushes my face away and slips from my lap. I have to admit, though, that I don't miss the pressing feeling of obligation that came like clockwork to find a quiet place to nurse. I don't miss sitting alone in a room to avoid the constant distractions that led to MLO's patented nurse and pull-off, nurse and pull-off method of nursing; a completely maddening way to feed a child. I don't miss fretting about what I've eaten and how much water I've consumed. I don't miss worrying about how much milk he's getting and how to increase my supply.

Overall, the weaning was easy and has been a good experience for both of us. MLO loves to drink his milk and snack every few hours. In addition to his milk cup, he has a water bottle that is always accessible to him. He doesn't seem to miss snuggling with me, and he certainly relishes feeding himself. As with everything so far, I register a deep significance, feel strongly these senses of loss and gain. MLO just keeps on keepin' on, living fully in each moment but always ready for the next. I have discovered there is no greater teacher than my 1-year old son. 

Have shoes, will travel.

Milestone alert: MLO is walking. Not just a few steps here and there, but exclusive use of the soles of his feet to move from point A to point B. This happened on March 29th. All of a sudden he decided that he preferred walking over crawling. I realized he had made this decision with one tiny action. I went to open the front door and from across the room he began to crawl toward me, then got up and essentially ran over to me. It wasn't coordinated or fluid, and he fell, but he got back up and walked over. That was it. He didn't really go back to crawling after that. So the next day MLO and I went to downtown San Luis Obispo, and holding my hand, we walked around. Not down the street, but the equivalent of about 2 blocks over a few hours. We moved at his pace, and ended up in a couple of places I hadn't intended to go. We saw goldfish in the pond at Growing Grounds and hippies in the square at the Mission. He made friends with young and old alike. He showed me things I hadn't bothered to notice before, like the bright new fire hose hook-ups on the sides of buildings and tiny hidden walkways behind locked iron gates. It was lovely: making friends with strangers, not feeling rushed, watching my son learn the ropes of sitting on a park bench or walking down a slope. I kept hearing "It goes by so fast. Savor it", and that day I did. I moved with my son, savoring his experience of life and being thankful for a slow day in SLO.

Baby Love

First of all, I have to say "thank you" to Dakota for inviting me to post on her blog. It's been great fun getting insight from her on daily baby life, whether through talk or reading her blog. It truly helps to confer when you become a parent, especially to help keep your sanity - with not just your husband, but family and friends, too.


My baby, J, is 6 months old now, and since his birth I have just been in utter baby love. I never knew such a love. He was a surprise in every way - unplanned pregnancy and we didn't know that we were having a boy either. I like surprises as my hubs would say. My pregnancy was bliss, but my labor not so much. It was long, but I got through most of it without pain medication, which is what I wanted. After about 17 hours of hard labor with no change and just an hour and a half of sleep in 34 hours, we decided that I would get an epidural. Once I received the light epidural, my hubs and I got 2 hours of what felt like really deep sleep! Even better, once I woke up I was ready to go!! Then came our reason for living. We brought J home a day later and I just wanted to kiss him all over. Seriously, I wanted to kiss him non-stop. Perhaps, the overwhelming amount of hormones rising and falling in my body pursued me to want to make out with my son? This never-ending experience has made me feel so fortunate and I will continue to each and every day for our sweet boy.


J has been a pretty happy and mellow baby for us - easy to nurse and smiling early on - but when it comes to sleep he let us know early on what he wanted and that was to be walked and held to sleep. At about 3 months he soothed himself to sleep a few times in his crib, and had also been sleeping up to 9 hours at night, which was fabulous of course. Then that bubble burst and he was waking up 2-4 times a night screaming out of hunger. It wasn't until his 4 month well visit that we found out he grew 3 inches in length in 7 weeks. That was a vaild enough reason for me!


As parents, my hubs and I knew that we wanted to keep doing the things that we loved pre-baby, so we did and are continuing to do so. When J was 3 months old we started to do some small travels, like overnights not too many hours a way. We even took him to his first concert when he was just under 4 months, which was fortunately an accoustic show, and he wore sound-out headphones. He was amazing throughout and just slept as I carried and swayed him in the Ergo - all amidst windy and rainy whether. He was such a sport for his mom and dad. And right after that we did our first camping trip as a family - pretty much where it all began as it was the place where hubs and I got engaged. It was extra special because the campground had just reopened after a big fire 2 years prior.


The second bubble burst a little while after his first big growth spurt. He was indulging in longer night sleeps, until the week of Thanksgiving. I drove J, my dog, and I (poor hubs had to work) to Southern CA to my parents for the night before driving to Arizona to see J's great grandmother for the week. Driving what normally is 3 1/2 hours ended up being 7 hours for nursing stops and J was just plain lonely in the back seat when our dog wasn't standing up to look at him. That night was the first of many more disrupted sleeps, and driving to Arizona the next day was an even longer haul. So, for the past 2 months J has been waking up several times a night to nurse and be held. I thought it was all from travel and that this was the forefront to getting stuck in a rut that could possibly last 10 years (believe me, I am kidding!), but at his last well visit he did have another growth spurt - his head! Yaaa, for his growing brain! I am not worried about his constant night waking, though, and just keep telling myself that I will one day get a full night's sleep. So what if I am half awake when we are having productive bonding and nurturing time! I will miss it someday because they really do grow fast. And I now understand why my dad always told me, "Don't grow up. Stay how you are now," when I was little. I truly want J to stay a baby and in my arms forever. Then again, I miss having more than a glass of wine, and getting up and go for selfish reasons. So perhaps he can stay a baby 6 days a week and then give me one day to not have any responsibilities. If only we could pick and choose in our lives. But he is forever my little boy and I don't want to miss one second of him either.