These days, Evie insists on have tights sticking out of her drawer with her drawer closed, so it looks like legs sticking out. Those legs represent the Wicked Witch of the West.*
Nothing makes me feel less manly than having the alarm go off in the night. I guess I should feel the opposite, like big strong protector of the household, but really I’m just reluctantly jabbing a stick into dark rooms to startle anybody in there, ready to run at the first sign of trouble.
Although Oliver can’t walk yet, we discovered he can open the front and back doors. We have lever handles, and it turns out those handles are just a little lower than the rest of the doors in the house, so he can reach and pull if he really tries.
Babies are generally very good at getting you what you want, but a baby with sunglasses on is irresistible. I forgot about this since Evie was a baby, but it never fails. It’s like the atomic bomb of cuteness.
* EDIT: It has been pointed out that the legs would more correctly represent the Wicked Witch of the East, which is true. But come on guys, she’s three!
Oliver is at the age where he is doing a lot of new things. However, before I get into him, I wanted to acknowledge that Evie has a few new tricks up her sleeve as well!
The biggest new one is that she can zip up her own coat. She is very proud of this, usually exclaiming, “Guess who zipped up her own coat!” She still has issues now and again, but she got it down pretty quick and doesn’t have too much trouble. The other thing is that she figured out how to open the fridge. I guess this was more just her getting big enough to be able to handle the door. Anyway, so far she’s only used this power for good, mostly putting her half-finished glass of milk in the fridge after a meal. No helping herself, at least, not yet.
As far as Oliver, he did get both teeth in. He signs “more” and does “so big!” very consistently. He also does “all done” and “bye bye” occasionally, and claps for himself practically non-stop. He says “ma ma, “da da” and “Nala”, but it’s not always clear if he means what he’s saying or not. Certainly sometimes he does, but other times he’s just saying it to make the sounds. He definitely says “ba” to mean ball, but he doesn’t say it every time you give him a ball. He also pulls himself up to stand, and he must let go sometimes, because he gets into some compromising positions. This morning he stood up next to a kitchen chair in order to get his hands into the trash can.
He loves taking baths more than anything, so he gets pretty excited when he hears the water and we’re trying to teach him the sign for bath. Sara taught him a new thing, where he puts his finger out and then you touch his finger with your finger and say, “E.T. phone home.” He thinks that’s hilarious.
Here we are, one day after I wrote that post about Oliver, and he 1) got his first tooth, 2) figured out how to sign “more”, and 3) got a good night’s sleep last night.
Maybe I should write about more things that he’s almost doing, so that he’ll be doing them by tomorrow!
When we last saw our hero, he was just starting to pull himself up to stand. Once he figured this out, he doesn’t want to do anything else. Stand, sit, stand, sit, all day long. He hasn’t completely mastered it yet, specifically the drop onto the padded diaper to avoid injury, so he has had a little up-tick in the number of minor bumps and bruises. He’s even starting to try and climb up on things now, specifically his favorite standing place, the dishwasher. He did figure out that he can get into more mischief after all, especially grabbing all the dirty dishes out and generally making a food mess.
The most exciting part is that Oliver might have his first word! He has learned to say, “Ba!” for ball. He says other things, like “ma ma” and “da da” but there’s no connections between those things and the object they represent. If you hold out a ball to him and say, “Oliver, what is this?” he (usually) says “ba!”.
As far as signs go, he hasn’t really caught on to those yet. He’ll give high 5’s, and sometimes will sort of lift his arms for “So big!”. He kind of pounds his hand for “more”, but he pounds his hands other times too. We’re trying hard for more, all done, bath, and bye-bye. He always seems to be on the verge of getting it, but not quite there.
His teeth on the top and bottom seem to be pretty close. His teeth on the bottom in particular seem like they’re going to be through any day now.
With all this great new stuff going on with him, and just how interactive he is (almost like a real person!) I think to myself, “This is a such a great age!” And then other times I don’t think that.
Oliver has more or less stopped sleeping at night. This is not at all unusual at this age; there’s just so much going on. He wants to be awake and exploring, not wasting his time sleeping. At least this time around I know it is limited. We just need to make it through this period until he goes back to normal. But that doesn’t make me less tired! Lucky for me (and unlucky for Sara) there’s mostly not a lot I can do. At this point, only mama will do. I’m usually good for getting him to sleep once per night, other than that I can pretty much just hold him while he sobs until Sara gives up and takes him back. He is not happy to see me at night, no siree. So sometimes Sara tells me to go sleep on the couch for a few hours so I don’t fall asleep and die on my way home from work.
I still think the positives outweigh the negatives. This is, in fact, a really fun age and I’m trying to make sure I appreciate it!
Note, for the explanation of the title of this post, see this video:
Shane Halbach 