Fun with AJ

Last week I interviewed for a two different jobs. I could tell right away that one of them was not what I was interested in doing, so I let them know that. The other is very interesting to me, but they had a lot of applicants and I fear I won't be offered that job. I thought I'd be more upset about that fact, but I'm not. AJ and I are having lots of fun and I don't feel lonely any more. I have made several friends through the play groups and activity groups that we attend every week. Last night, the guys all went to one house to play poker and the girls all came to our house to play games and hang out.

I know that if I go back to work, it will only be for something I know I'll enjoy doing, and I only want to work part time right now. I hate the thought of giving up all my time with AJ. He is more and more fun every day. He has let me read to him for some time, but lately he is wanting to be read to more often. I love reading to him because it's one of the few times that I get to hold and cuddle him in my lap. I have baskets of books all over the house so that he'll be inspired to have me read to him. If he brings me a book, I'll drop whatever I'm doing (if possible) to sit and read to him on the spot. I never used to know for sure if AJ could tell what the pictures were of if the book had cartoon like pictures. In the past month, I've been able to tell that he does know. If he sees something in the book that he knows the sign for, he'll sign it when he sees it. He has a book with fish that he'll start signing "fish" when he brings it to me. He has another book that as I was reading to him yesterday, he started signing tooth brush. I looked at the page because the words don't say anything about a toothbrush, and noticed for the first time that there is a drawing of a tooth brush on the counter. One of his favorite books right now is called "This little baby's morning." He will often bring it to me and then sign tooth brush because the book is all about the baby's morning routine and the baby brushes her teeth as part of the routine. AJ remembers this even before we open the book. Of course, he should know what it is about, he's only had me read it a couple hundred times by now.

AJ feeds himself

So, more and more I'm trying to relinquish control over the spoon to AJ. I guess I still want to feed him to avoid the mess and also keep him my baby. But, he is becoming more and more independent minded and wants to do it himself. So, I am letting him, but the result is just as I feared, he is messy and always, always puts his hands in his hair. This is the new hair style he created at breakfast this morning.

COSI fun!

This week AJ and I visited COSI (Center of Science and Industry). It's a huge children's museum. It was awesome! There is so much to see and do for all ages. We visited a lot of the exhibits, but most of our time on this trip was spent in the small kids' play area. AJ had a blast! This play area is so big, there is just lots to keep him entertained, but his favorite part was the water section. There are three parts to it. For the older kids, there is a thing that you can shoot water at different targets. Then there is just an area where kids can stand and play with toys floating in this one water tank. Then for little ones and babies, you can put them in these seats and there is a big fountain that pours down water in the center and toys float around and small fountains shoot up little squirts of water at various intervals. AJ played in this and the water tank and had a blast! I got a few pics of him playing here before my camera battery died. I was warned by a friend I've made at one of the play groups to bring an extra set of clothes in case he got wet. He got very wet! But that was okay. When he was done playing with the water and wanted to play in a different area, I took his wet stuff off, put dry on, and COSI offers clothes dryers so his clothes dried while we finished playing. I'll warn everyone, we loved this place. We're getting a membership and anyone who comes to visit is going to be dragged there to play with us!

Vroom vroom!

We finally unpacked AJ's yellow mini and put it in his room. He LOVES that car. Every day now, he gets in and out of it and plays around. We do not plan to put the battery in for some time. For now, it has served a good purpose in AJ's room. He plays for a while by himself upstairs while I try to get more unpacking done. I have just about unpacked everything that I can. I think that the only things left to be unpacked are Dave's Nebraska room stuff and garage stuff. That is Dave's territory, so if he wants to have the garage and basement cluttered, that is fine as long as I have a place to park in the garage.

My little Anthony is becoming more helpful in other was these days. He is more cooperative while I dress him now. He follows directions when I ask him to put his arms through the sleeves or stick his foot up for a sock. He'll take things to the trash when I ask. Now I'm working on getting him to put toys away in the toybox. Yesterday he was pushing a toy that has balls inside that pop when pushed. It was time to go up for bed so I told AJ to put the ball popper in his toybox. I asked him two times and he took it right over and put it in. I cheered for his accomplishment and he was so proud, he started clapping. He is not always so eager to clean up messes he makes, but this is a good start. He is funny about his Little People Zoo set. It has a plastic bag that all the zoo animals go in. AJ will get out a few animals at a time to play with, but always puts them back in the bag. If I get any animals out to show him, he'll take them away from me and put them back in the bag. Not sure what that is about, but I'm glad because I was concerned that the animals would be spread all over this place.

Anthony's Daily Hygeine

Every day I brush AJ's teeth and then I give him the tooth brush and he brushes for a while. He loves to brush his teeth. He also loves to brush his hair. He takes his daily hygeine rituals very seriously. He has now leanred the sign for brushing teeth and has developed his own sign for brushing hair to let me know when he wants to brush teeth and hair. Of course, this is usually when I am brushing my hair and teeth. I start to brush my hair, and he runs his hand over his hair. So, I give him his brush while I finish brushing my hair. Usually, when I'm done and put my brush back in the drawer, he wants to put his back in the drawer too. Then I get out my tooth brush, and he puts his finger in or close to his mouth and moves it back and forth. So, I first brush his teeth, then hand him the toothbrush, pick him up and brush my teeth holding him. He likes to brush his teeth while watching me brush mine in the mirror. When I rinse mine and put it away, then he hands me his so I can do the same with his brush. By the way, AJ now has 5 teeth to brush!

My funny boy!

Lately I've been reading about developmental skills that AJ should have by the time that he is 15 months old. Most of which were things he had already achieved, but one thing he hadn't ever done was stack blocks. By 15 months, he only needs to be able to stack two blocks, but I had never seen him do it. So, I sit down with him and try to show him stacking. He, of course, would take great pleasure in knocking down the blocks I built up. So, after several attempts at getting him to do it by himself, I gave up for the day. Then at lunch time, I slice him a banana on his high chair tray, he puts two slices in his mouth then proceeds to stack four banana slices on top of each other. Today, I take him to the grocery store and then when we get home, I bring him in, plop him and a couple sacks of groceries on the kitchen floor to run back to the car and get the rest of the bags. When I get back to the kitchen, he has taken out cans of vegetables and has three of them stacked on top of each other. So, my kid won't stack blocks, but I guess he has the concept anyway.

AJ and I continue to have lots of fun. We started back to our Wednesday playgroup this week. He was really sweet to a little girl who came crying. He kept patting her back and getting in her face, expressing his concern. Unfortunately, she did not appreciate his attempts at comfort.

Dave is not working as much now that he has things better under control at work so we have had two Zoo outings as a family. AJ loves the zoo. He gets so excited to see the animals. I was proud that he did not call all of the animals dogs. In fact, he gave the sign for cat when he saw the female lions. He loved the gorillas the best. We got to see them in an indoor building through glass. We let AJ get down and walk around. The gorillas were very active and would come knock on the glass. There was a baby gorilla just about AJ's size that was running back and forth and AJ would run back and forth laughing like he was chasing the baby. We must have spent a half hour at the gorilla exhibit and AJ still did not want to leave when we told him it was time to go. I wish I wouldn't have forgotten my camera again!