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 I was little, I loved the book The Boxcar Children. I’m talking the original book here, not the 700 books that came later in the series, where they were solving mysteries and fighting Nazis and what have you.
There was something I just loved about these kids living in this boxcar, making a go of it. They’d scavenge things from the junkyard and modify them to make their life a little more comfortable. I remember how it blew my mind when they made a little refrigerator by putting their milk in a little cave under the creek. It was awesome. I loved it.
For me, the zombie apocalypse is like a modern day Boxcar Children. It’s the ultimate you’re-on-your-own scenario. It’s imagining how you could adapt things to a different use. How you could carve out your own little comfortable castle in the middle of the chaos. It’s the ultimate exercise in self-sufficiency.
In fact, I think they should redo the whole book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies style. The children hiding out in their boxcar while the zombies groan outside, scratching out a living until Mr. Henry comes and whisks them away to his island compound.
This would fit so perfectly, that I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t the original intention of the book. It was originally published in 1924, so zombie books probably weren’t quite so common back then. But even as a kid, I could read between the lines.
Boxcar fortress. Zombies. Think about it.
Oliver has been a busy boy lately!
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:
When I was but a younger lad,
Much time was spent, much fun was had,
I wasn’t grown, not yet a dad,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.
When I was a lad of twenty and two,
I’ll tell you now what I would do,
I’d watch football the whole day through,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.
When breakfast time it came to eat,
Pop-tarts and diet coke, so sweet,
Potato chips, my day’s complete,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.
When I was young I slept ’till noon,
To my alarm I was immune,
I wish I could repeat this soon,
When I was a younger lad,
Oh, when I was a younger lad.
I have a bit of a problem. I can’t stop saying like.
This is not a new problem. I don’t know exactly when it started, but it hasn’t been less than 8 years or so. It has been going on for so long, and it is so ingrained in my speech, that I don’t even notice myself saying it. And it’s not the first time that I’ve tried to quit either. Refraining from saying it seems like an *impossible* task.
Now let me just say that nearly all of my uses of the word like do serve a purpose. I did start off by saying them intentionally. I can usually justify it’s usage. (I was sure I wrote a blog post defending my usage of the word like, but I couldn’t find it. I even knew the title! But it turns out it was actually Meg who wrote the post, with inputs from me, which you can read on her blog here.) So I don’t really object to the word per say. It’s more just the frequency and the fact that I don’t notice my use of it that bothers me.
But the big problem is that Evie has now picked up the habit. As disturbing as it is to hear myself using like with such frequency, it is 100 times more disturbing to hear her do it.
So I’m trying to quit, but it is not going well. Sara is pointing out every time I use the word. It is absolutely maddening!! I’m hoping that it drives me crazy enough that I will actually think about saying like BEFORE I say it (and before I kill her). Right now I’m to the stage where I notice it after I say it, when it’s too late to do anything about it.
One idea I had was to substitute something else instead of the word like. I decided on ‘for all intents and purposes’. For example, “It’s like the pot holders don’t even fit.” becomes, “For all intents and purposes, the pot holders don’t fit.” Simple right?
Sara even authorized me to substitute ‘fricken’. Although that would not be a great habit either, she maintains it would be fricken less annoying.
Shane Halbach 