Happy 1st Birthday!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Today’s the day, can you believe it? Our big boy is 1 year old.

As one always says in posts like this, a year sure goes fast! Oliver has grown up quite a bit in that time.

The words that he reliably says are “Nala” and “book”. He can sign “book”, “milk”, “more” and “all done”, though he is more likely to use his own modified signs for these things; “more” is usually hand clapping, banging a hand on his tray, or gesturing towards his mouth, and “all done” is usually just putting his hands on his head. We haven’t required him to do the signs as rigorously as we did with Evie, so this is probably our fault for not being quite as strict on that. (For example, letting him get away with just banging on the tray for more.)

He does some other “non-official” things as well. He gives hi fives, and he occasionally does “so big!” He loves to point to pictures and say, “Ba ba” which means picture in Oliver’s language. He will occasionally say “ba” for ball or “Ba be” for baby and point to the object in question.

He can crawl really, really fast, on his hands and knees now, as opposed to his long-time belly crawl. He pulls himself up to stand and cruises around furniture, etc. but no first steps yet. I would imagine those would come soon.

Physically, he has 5, going on 6 teeth. He has always been a pretty big boy in terms of percentiles of height and weight, but he never went through a really chubby looking phase. Evie looked chubbier than him, even though she didn’t weigh as much.

He eats pretty much anything you put in front of him. Even if he won’t, you can usually just offer him that thing later, and he’ll eat it. This is a big difference from Evie. Also, another big difference from Evie is that, pretty much the only thing he won’t eat is avocado, which remains one of Evie’s favorite things to this day.

Of course Oliver’s first year was dominated by the whole eczema thing. But that’s pretty much controlled now (by a lengthy, twice-a-day routine). I’m hoping that gets better in year 2, but it is certainly a lot better now than it had been.

So that’s pretty much it. Obviously a couple of paragraphs don’t properly represent the entirety of our smiling, pointing, shrieking, splashing, lovable book monster. But that’s the best I can do at the moment, so it will have to suffice.

Quote Monday enjoys Halbach Baconfest

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Nathan (telling Grandpa Johnny his age): “Yeah, I’m 26.”
Evie: “You’re almost gonna die!”

Me: “I really want to get a picture of all 3 of us in our shirts.”
Sara: “Yeah, before Nathan eats again.”

Sara to Nathan: “You’re at the bottom of the list of people who annoy me. You’re even below Shane.”

Me: “This room is a mess!”
Evie: “It’s because of Uncle Nathan.”

Nathan: “Good thing fingerprints weren’t invented yet.” – Apparently not even by ’84 when the movie came out. I think everybody’s fingerprints raised in the early ’90’s or so.

E is for Evie

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie asked me to write a poem for her, and this is what I wrote:

E is for Evie,
so innocent and sweet.

E is for Everyone,
that Evie likes to meet.

E is for Evelyn,
the woman you’ll become.

E is for Evie,
whose life’s just begun.

Scaredy Cat

/ Shane / 6 Comments

Evie is quite the Nervous Nelly these days.

She is afraid to have her head out of the covers. She has to take a stuffed animal (preferably a big one) to leave her room. She won’t go downstairs by herself, in fact, she won’t go half way down the hallway, even if you’re watching. She won’t be the first one down the stairs or the last one up the stairs. She can’t go to the bathroom by herself, even with the door open and us in the next room. Always, always, there are “monsters”.

I believe that she is truly scared. I spent a lot of time as a child being scared to death. I have a very fertile imagination, and so does she. And, much like I did when I was a kid, she sort of courts disaster. For example, she spends all day, every day playing “monsters” at school, so is it that much of a surprise that her mind turns to monsters when she is alone?

I also believe she, like any kid her age, is a master manipulator. There’s a fine line between not wanting to walk downstairs by herself and screaming, “I’m scared, I can’t take it anymore!” and trying to get out of her timeout, when she’s a couple of feet away from where I’m standing. I think she can detect that being afraid is something I am sensitive of, and she knows she can use it against me. It’s a hard one for me to ignore.

We’re not completely heartless. We don’t force her to do things, and we do try to be sensitive about this. One time Sara gave her the bottom piece of the fridge to use as a club for self-protection when she went to the bathroom. We let her sleep with her fake sword in her bed. And I even made a sign for her door (with her input of course) that says, “Don’t open this door, there’s giants in here!” (Monsters, of course, being afraid of giants, would run away and not open the door.) Even as we’re doing this, we always re-enforce that monsters don’t exist, and even if they did, we are safe in our own home. But so far, no amount of assurances on our part can make her feel better.

Any suggestions from you parents out there? Should we just ignore it until it goes away? Is she just doing this because she knows it’s my weakness?

Or is our house actually full of monsters that we adults have lost the ability to sense?

I always wondered about this…

/ Shane / 2 Comments

You know how you’ll see a pack of Rayovac batteries on the rack next to the Energizers and Duracells, and they’ll be half the price? But you end up getting the Energizers, because you think, “Yeah, but how long are those Rayovac’s going to last?”

Well, science has confirmed you should go with the Rayovacs! There are even charts!

Basically, there isn’t much difference between any of the batteries tested; the cheap ones perform as well as the expensive ones. The only exception was the Energizer Advanced Lithium batteries, which were way better that other batteries. However, they are about 4 times better than the other batteries, but they are more than 4 times as expensive as other batteries.

In other words, buy cheap.

Once I was in a battery research mode, I was on a roll.

What about refrigerating your batteries? I’ve heard that can make them last longer. Nope. You just need to keep them under 100 degrees. In fact, they have to reach room temp to work anyway, so cooling them isn’t all that helpful.

But what about buying recyclable batteries? They’re so expensive and they seem like the stop recharging almost immediately.

And while a 4-pack of NiMH batteries will typically cost $4, while a 20 pack of alkalines might cost $9, you’ll save a minimum of 100 disposables for every rechargeable you use.

I guess that answers that question. Just make sure you get NiMH batteries and not toxin-spewing NiCd. They’re cheaper and better in every way.

Link via John, but Sara says everybody already knew this stuff anyway.