Dop

Each day I feel the dawn of toddlerhood breaking before my eyes. I've written about Daniel's mini-tantrums before, but he is starting to exert his independence in other ways, too. He has started making requests. For instance, he likes to eat many foods with "dop," which is dip to the rest of the world. I think this started in Canada when we dipped his sandwich and apple in clam chowder, and he really enjoyed it. At this point, I'll do pretty much anything to get him to eat foods with vegetables in them. Funny thing is that I love dip. I am game for almost any kind of dip and have been since I was a young child. I guess Daniel is going to be just like his mother.

I'm trying to think of which other Daniel-isms you might enjoy. Hmm... For the longest time, we would take a few minutes when we put him to bed and say prayers, cuddle, sing a song, and other relatively normal bedtime activities. A while back, Matt started saying, "shh" and blowing a kiss or two. Daniel is not the cuddliest kid around. So now when it is time for bed, he throws his blankies into the crib and tries to dive in. Then he will "shh" us and blow a kiss. I kind of miss the cuddling, but I like the quick goodnights.

Last story for today. We started Daniel at a day care a couple weeks ago. It is a really nice private day care at a local construction company. There are only 9 kids there and four are in the baby room (under 2). Daniel was really ready for more interaction with other kids and other activities. The staff there is so brave. They let him paint and use glue! Apparently he really likes using the glue, and he does not eat it. Hard to believe. Well today when I was picking him up, I witnessed a true oldest child moment. I'm starting to think that Daniel has a bit of a devious streak. Here is the scene - Daniel is playing with a doggie pull-toy and another girl is playing with a ride-on school bus. Well, we have been talking about sharing for a while, and I think he is starting to catch on. He sees the girl on the ride-on toy and immediately decides that he would rather be playing with the ride-on toy. So he goes over to her and somewhat forces the doggie pull-toy into her arms and gets on the ride-on school bus. She, being the sweet girl that she is, rolls with it, and Daniel gets away with it. But, I tell you what, I could totally see it in his eyes that this was not a fair trade.

Ok, one more. Daniel has a small obsession with golf carts. My grandparents have one at the cottage, and he loved it. Well, he is getting close to knowing how to operate it. He finds the key, puts it in, and pushes on the gas pedal. Thankfully, you have to turn the key before the cart works, and he can't do that yet. Next summer we are going to have to hide all the golf cart keys :)

Amherst Shore 2009

Here are some pictures from our vacation. We had a blast. I'll give more details later. If you want to see more pictures, check out my Mom's Facebook album. Enjoy!

Daniel loved his first Craig's ice cream, but...
he liked Dad's chocolate better.

He also liked the sand. What a goatee!

I promise he does not have a black eye ;)

Time to go up for a nap.

The giant bathtub provided days of entertainment.

Our little beach bum.

In heaven with two dogs and another boy!

So you just go beyond the point for a few miles...

Hanging with Grampie!

On the sandbars.

Daniel pulled these out of the ground daily.

This was his first experience with the water. He jumped right in and wanted to swim. It was absolutely freezing that day. What a nut!

This is fun!

Can we go swimming?

Bunkbeds or Lots of Pink?

Today we had the 20-week ultrasound, and after much debate, we decided to find out the sex of baby number 2. Matt still was not 100 percent sure if he wanted to know, but I really wanted to know. He capitulated, and let me find out. The most important thing is that the baby is healthy and looking great. The ultrasound technician actually asked if we thought the baby looked like Daniel. I don't have nearly enough experience reading ultrasounds to come up with that sort of conclusion.

Leading into today, I've kind of built up the sex issue down to a relatively simple equation. If it's a boy, we are getting bunk beds, and they are going to share a room eventually. If it's a girl, I'm going to have to beef up our pink and purple inventory. So it looks like we will be shopping for bunk beds in the upcoming months! Daniel is going to have a little brother.

This weekend we are headed to our cottage in Nova Scotia for a week. Hopefully we will have great weather. I can't wait to see Daniel on the sandbars. He will be able to run forever! Did I mention that he runs now? Well, he does. It is really funny to watch his little legs go. He can't really move them like an adult yet, so he sort of wobbles back and forth as he moves forward. Of course, there are the periodic falls that disrupt his running, too. Thank goodness it takes a big fall to make him cry.

Daniel the Athlete

Daniel has been acheiving new athletic feats daily. He climbs in and out of the big bathtub, he can climb in and out of his highchair, and he can climb onto the stools in the kitchen, just to name a few. Yesterday he actually climbed up to and went down the big corkscrew slide at the park by himself. I always wonder whether or not to let him do these things. Normally, I just let him go unless he is in serious danger or is doing something totally inappropriate like getting on the kitchen table.

Daniel has a few favorite things. He loves the bathtub in our bathroom. He will throw all his 'toys' in and climb after them. You can see some of the items in the little video below. Thankfully he is not too adept at turning the faucet on yet. The bathtub gets really slippery when it's wet. Yesterday he decided that he wanted to crawl down the edge of the tub. You can see that in the video, too. For those of you wondering, he did eventually make it all the way down the side. Shorty after this, I decided that going to the park and playing on the balance beam might be a fun activity.

Another favorite thing of Daniel's is brushing his teeth. I'm pretty sure it's just for the toothpaste, but it seems to keep him busy for a few minutes in the morning. Daniel also enjoys Sesame Street. He will sit or stand and watch almost an entire episode. It is a savior on the days that he skips afternoon nap.

On the pregnancy front things are going well. I was feeling pretty worn out for a couple weeks, so I started taking iron supplements and have regained my energy. Next Wednesday we have the 20-week ultrasound, and we have decided to find out the sex of the baby. I'm looking forward to knowing whether it's a boy or girl.

Last thing, check out the Gagnon's blog, All Things Baby Gagnon, linked on the right to see a few pictures from the SFD weekend.

Sick

We have the flu. It has really taken the wind out of our sails. This is really not what I thought my next blog post would be like. We have had so many exciting things happen recently. We painted the exterior trim of our house. It used to be mint green, now it is cream and sage.

Also, we hosted my girlfriends from ND here last weekend. There were 23 people here for the weekend! The house worked out great for our huge group. We had 11 people sleeping in the basement, and I don't think they felt like sardines. At least that is what they told me. It was an amazing weekend. I have not received the pictures from our historian, Allison, so you will have to wait to see full footage. I have included a little video of Daniel and Grace on Sunday. We had a fun filled weekend. I think the highlight was the SFD (Sunday Family Dinner - our unofficial name) 5k. The neighbors did not know what was happening when 11 girls and their spouses took off running down our street in pink t-shirts. Being the pregnant gal in the group, opted for the 20-minute walk so that I could see the finishes.

It was really awesome for Daniel to spend time with his SFD cousins. There are three within six weeks of each other. It is really fun to see their personalities developing. Daniel is definitely the most active baby but has the smallest vocabulary. Over the weekend, I think he learned about 30 new words. Being with the other kids really inspired him to talk more. Thanks Will and Grace!

Ok, back to the flu. Daniel was a little off Sunday morning. I thought he just had stress induced vomiting since he was sick after we hosted people for Easter, too. Well, I'm guessing I was wrong since Matt and I both have fevers today and just generally feel yucky. I'm hoping that all of our guests didn't go home with the flu. That would be really bad. Parenting with two sick parents is kind of rough. Hopefully we will snap out of this sooner rather than later. We are going to run out of Sesame Street episodes if this lasts too long.

Sundays

Over the past month or so, mass has started to become a real struggle with Daniel. We are lucky that our church has a nursery and a cry room. Unfortunately the nursery is not always staffed and the cry room is not that pleasant. Also, mass time and nap time are difficult to coordinate. Recently we have been taking Daniel to mass with us. For the most part he is ok, but we always have one or two big squawks. Also, he has a very difficult time sitting still or relatively still for an hour.

It's normally some huge orechastration of toys, juice, books and snacks that gets him through. On weeks where there is a song sheet, it is all we can do to not have a sacrificed song sheet to Daniel's drool. He has finally reached the point where he can look at the misalette without destroying it or ripping the pages out. He also really enjoys climbing on and off the pew and over the kneeler which sometimes ends up with head bumps and big cries. If we are really lucky, there will be someone behind us who likes Daniel and will make faces at him the entire time. The only problem is that now he repeatedly says, "Hi," to people to get their attention.

My primary concern during mass is keeping Daniel quiet and somewhat entertained and still, so if we get through with mild disruptions, I'm thinking it's a victory. Matt's primary concern is allowing the people around us to have uninterrupted prayerful mass time. His stress level during mass is much higher than mine.

Hopefully our time at church will become more prayerful one of these days, but for now it is more like a circus than a time of reflection. At least being in church reminds me of all the virtues I can practice during our hour even if they are focused on Daniel and not the readings.

The Wrong Side of the Bed and Tantrums

Most of the time I think I'm better off being an adult than a toddler, but sometimes I think they have it made. For instance when Daniel woke up this morning, it was pretty obvious that he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and we would probably all be better off if he just went back down and tried again in an hour or so. He was not particularly grumpy or anything like that, he was just off. He was quite rambunctous and was not willing to concentrate for any given activity for more than 2 minutes. Normally we would get at least 5 minutes of concentration. So I decided that he needed to go down for his morning nap at 8 rather than 9. If I was having a bad day, I would love to be able to just go down for a nap and try again in a few hours.

One of the other reasons I thought he was having a bad day was because he threw a few tantrums. He has been doing this for a few weeks. It makes me nervous about things to come, but for now it's all I can do to not laugh when he does it. The reason I want to laugh if that he is super dramatic when he does it. For instance, if I have to take some contraband from him, he gets rather upset, and on occasion he will throw himself on the floor face-down and cry. This lasts for about 5 seconds before he gets up and moves on to the next thing. I guess I always thought that people didn't actually throw themselves on the floor when faced with emotional distress. Maybe people don't, but toddlers do. I'm sure that one day, I'll get fed up with the tantrums, but for now, I'm just ignoring them and moving on.