Damian: "When Damian pushes his nose, he can't sniff up. And when he's not pushing his nose, he sniffs up."

Damian's finally decided that he's ready to potty train. In the past couple of days, we've had several successes in the potty.

Unfortunately, the part he's mastered is sitting on the potty when we suggest it, and staying there until something happens. I've practically lived in the bathroom the past couple days. He's sat on the potty up to 1.5 hours at a time.

This morning I encouraged him to sit on the potty, and it became obvious we were heading for another marathon potty session, so I started giving him juice, hoping to speed up the process. The juice worked a bit too well - he did finally go potty, I congratulated him, and got him dressed (including putting a diaper on). A couple minutes later, "Damian just peed on the floor". Sure enough, there's a wet spot on the carpet. The juice had made it through his system, and all of it coming out at once overwhelmed the diaper.

Hopefully, he soon masters the 'sitting on the potty when he needs to go' part and I can move out of the bathroom.

In other Damian news, he's talking up a storm these days. He loves to tell stories, and his sentences have gotten quite long (especially when he starts a runon sentence). He still talks about himself in the third person most of the time ("Damian wants his water.").

Last night, syz read Damian two books, and then said it was time for bed. Damian wanted another book read, and when syz wouldn't read it, Damian brought it out to me (to try to convince me to read it). I told him it was bedtime, and one of us might have mentioned reading the book to him in the morning (not sure, but sometimes we do).

Flash forward to tonight, when both syz and I had forgotten all about the incident last night. Even though syz is almost always the bedtime story reader, tonight Damian said right off he wanted me to read his bedtime story. He ran right over to his bookshelf and pulled out the book from last night. This kid has a good memory now!

The book was Llama Llama Mad at Mama, which features a little llama throwing a tantrum while out shopping with his mom. When we got to the page with the tantrum, Damian started whimpering and pointed to the drawing of the little llama throwing the tantrum. I paused to talk about it a little, and then we finished the book.

When we were done reading and syz came in to say goodnight, Damian started talking about how the little llama had thrown a tantrum and made a mess.

It was obvious that after reading it, Damian was really thinking about what happened in the book - he talked about it for several minutes. We've read that book plenty of times before, but it was like Damian actually *got* it tonight. Of course, he has some experience with tantrums now. :p

Damian had his second birthday today. We had a little party this afternoon that was a lot of fun, at the wading pool. The sun even came out for the party, which I hadn't been so sure it would earlier in the day.

I can't believe how quickly he's growing up. It really doesn't seem like it's been two years. And he's just learning things at such an amazing rate. It seems like every day he surprises us with something new.

He's turned into quite a little boy. He can be bossy at times, but he has a great sense of humor. "So funny" is one of his current favorite phrases. Of course, he can crack Dad and I up without even meaning to, just because some of the things that come out of his mouth are so darned cute.

We took him to the Museum of Flight yesterday, and he had a great time. He's always pointing out planes and helicopters flying overhead, so we thought he'd like to see them up close. We told him before we got in the car that we were going to the "Airplane Museum", and the whole drive there he kept talking about the "Airplane Museum". He doesn't even know what a 'museum' is, but I guess the fact that it involved airplanes was good enough for him. We stayed for several hours, eating well into his naptime, but he was having such a blast looking at all the airplanes, we hardly got any fussiness. On the way out, we stopped at the giftshop, and ended up leaving with a toy plane. This morning, it was the first thing he grabbed when he got up, and he spent the morning talking about "airplanes and helicopters".

( Some of his accomplishments )

( Then and now )

Happy Father's Day to syz and all the other dads out there!

Inspired by zmary and cecimoi, I decided to start trying to cook dinner at home more often (had been eating out way too much), and track what I made for dinner each night.

Since a lot of people seemed to be jumping on the Dinner Club bandwagon, I decided a community was in order. So I created z_dinner_club. If you're interested in tracking your meals, or would just like to get ideas for menus, feel free to join up!

*sniff* What happened to my little baby? *sniff*

We bought Damian a big boy bed yesterday and got it set up in his room. He'd been trying to figure out how to climb out of his crib, so it was time.

Once we got the bed set up, Damian was having fun climbing up on it and playing and whatnot. He slept in it last night, and it seemed to work well. When he woke up this morning he played in his room for a few minutes before coming out into the living room.

syz tried to get a picture of Damian sitting on his new bed last night, but when Damian saw the camera he got off the bed and wanted to play with the camera. This is why it's so hard to get pictures of Damian doing cute things.

Also, Damian started Lil Kickers soccer last week. At his age, it mostly consists of running around and playing games with balls and bubbles and a parachute. Seems like fun!

OMG, two posts in one day! (Jeez, two posts in a month has been unusual for me lately.)

I enrolled Damian in a co-op preschool, and we had our first day today. (Yes, we. The parents work at the preschool, so I'll be going with him. In exchange, I get 3 credits a quarter from the local Community College. Yippee)

It looks like it'll be a lot of fun. Damian had a blast roaming everywhere playing today. He is not at all concerned about wandering away from me. Makes me work to keep track of him. :) Of course, he's used to going to Mom&Tot yoga with me, and playing with the kids there.

The class is twenty kids all around his age (12 to 24 months). He already knows a couple of the kids, one from the neighborhood and one from our yoga class.

Really, it's almost as much for me as for him, though - it gives me a chance to connect with other moms.

We stopped for lunch on the way home, and he did a really good job eating with a plastic fork. He more or less figured out the 'stab the food with the fork' bit. He had trouble with the 'get the food in his mouth' part, though, and usually resorted to taking the food off the fork with his hand and stuffing it in his mouth.

Meme:
1. Go to http://www.careercruising.com/
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top results.


1. Mathematician - now there's a shock!
( Click to see the rest )

I'll bite.

Hmm, I haven't been posting very often. I should make an effort to do so more often - little D is growing up fast. Trouble is, he keeps me pretty busy. :)

For a long time, we knew Damian was ready to walk, but he wanted to hold onto our hands all the time. We tried to encourage him to let go, but he wouldn't take more than a couple steps on his own. Then last week, he had a friend over for a playdate - a little girl two weeks younger than him. She was walking everywhere, and I guess he decided to follow her example, cuz he started walking on his own in the middle of the playdate. Now he's walking all over the place, though he still hasn't perfected standing back up when he falls over.

He's really turned into a sponge lately - he tries to imitate everything. He's still talking mostly baby-jabber, but he'll try to repeat stuff we say. His "uh-oh" is super cute. :) He also tries to imitate things we do. He's been trying to figure out how to use a spoon, and the other day when syz was brushing Damian's hair, Damian took the brush and tried to do it himself.

He's definitely becoming a toddler. What happened to my little baby?

Seems like all my posts lately are about Damian - guess I should write a bit about myself, too. :)

I've been doing really well. I enjoy staying home with the kid, though a break every once in a while is definitely appreciated. I got a nice one a little over a week ago. syz stayed home with D, and I got the day to myself for pampering and shopping. :)

I've been buying most of our produce from local Farmer's Markets lately. There's one fairly close to our house, and I walk down to it with the kid and dog. Gets me (and the pooch) some exercise, and all sorts of yummy, fresh food to bring home.

Damian's a year old today. syz took this picture of him this morning:



This picture is a perfect representation of who Damian is:

• He's a smiler. Everyone always comments on what a happy baby he is.
  
• He's a whirlwind. He's always on the go, has trouble sitting still.
  
• He's an explorer. No drawer or cabinet or piece of electronics (or pretty much anything else) is safe with him around.
  

Wow, just noticed what an extraordinarily long time it's been since my last update.

Damian will be 10 months old in a week and a half. Before I know it, he's gonna be a year old.

He's been getting super active lately. He's crawling around everywhere, and pulling himself up on anything he can. He loves getting into things - the lower shelf on our bookcase is one of his favorite targets.

He also likes getting into Daddy's record collection:


Here's a cool picture syz took recently that brings out Damian's darker side. :)

Originally uploaded by Zeusifer.

Luckily, I haven't had to return to work yet - I love staying home with Damian and watching him grow (and grow up). He changes so fast! He went from just taking his first crawling 'steps' to crawling around like a pro and being able to pull himself up to a standing position in less than a month.

Time for bed now, though. Damian kept waking up last night, and I didn't manage much sleep. Hope to see some of you at Sake tomorrow.

Damian's looking to get mobile here soon. He can push himself up onto his hands and knees - just needs to figure out how to move once he's there.

He has managed to push himself backwards a few times while trying to get up on his knees.

Guess we have to get serious about baby-proofing. He's going to be into everything once he figures out how to move. He's super inquisitive - loves to check out everything.

He's gonna grow up to be a hacker. He loves pounding on our keyboards, and has figured out a couple of keyboard shortcuts we don't even know. Last night, he managed to remove the 't' key from syz's laptop.

He's gotten his first two teeth in the past week or so. I keep thinking about that song "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth".

I can't believe he's almost 6 months old!

Didn't really have money in the budget for clothes, but syz and I both could use some updating to our wardrobes. So we've been out and about shopping this weekend (today it was just me and the kid). I'd like to start dressing a bit nicer - kind of got in a jeans, tees, and sneakers rut since I've had the kid.

In the two days, I spent $200 on myself. I feel like I did pretty good though, considering I managed to get 6 tops, 2 bottoms, and a pair of boots for that.

In other news, Damian's almost 4 months old and growing quickly. He's gotten a few comments about how tall he's getting recently. He goes in for his 4 month checkup soon - it'll be interesting to find out how tall he is and how much he weighs now.

Yeah, Damian just treated me to it.

There I was, feeding him and watching some TV, when he lets loose with a really impressive sounding poop. I figure I'll change him when he's done eating (since he might not be done pooping, either). A few minutes later, I notice his back is wet.

And the blanket he was wrapped in has poop on it.

And now that I'm investigating things, I notice my leg feels wet.

Yep, there's baby poop all over my jeans.

I stand up and notice the sheepskin I was sitting on has taken a hit too.

Crap, we just got that thing cleaned. And it's not cheap to clean.

Wow.

Wow, it's hard to believe Damian's three months old today. Time sure has been flying. (I heard someone put it well the other day: "Long days, short years".)

He's trying so hard to be a 'big boy'. :) He's holding his head up really well now, starting to roll from his tummy to his back pretty well, and trying to sit and stand.

Yesterday afternoon, I was out shopping when I got a call on my cell phone. It was my sister-in-law, who wanted to know if I was interested in attending the baseball game (that had already started). Turns out a friend of hers got hold of some really good tickets at the last minute.

We got to the game in the middle of the 4th inning, just in time to see the other team get a grand slam (it was a 10-0 shutout, with 9 runs scored in the 4th).

( Some pics )

Damian's two months old now (as of Monday).

He had his two-month checkup today. He's now 23 inches long, and weighs 12lbs 3oz. That's just over 2lbs gained in the past month.

He had to get 4 shots for vaccinations today (polio, DTaP, HIB, and pneumoccocal). Poor guy - this after being sick all week. He was pretty miserable most of the afternoon/evening, but it seems like he's starting to feel a bit better - he was grinning at daddy and I just a little while ago.

Doctor said that he's very social (he was grinning and 'talking' to her), and that he's doing really well on motor skill development - he seems to be a bit ahead of average on most of the milestones he's hit.

Damian's growing so fast! Where is the time going?

We finally bought a crib for Damian's room and got it set up over the weekend. (He's been sleeping in a bassinet in our room.) Now all that's left in his room is decorating the walls.



syz went back to work last Thursday. Damian and I have been adjusting to being on our own all day. So far, it's going pretty well.

I took a bath with Damian this morning. After I got him all cleaned up, I dried him off and set him in his carseat wrapped in a blanket while I finished up. He ended up falling asleep there, so I left him until he woke up. (I didn't want to wake him to get him diapered & dressed.) I took a picture while he was still asleep:

Wow, can't believe the munchkin is almost 3 weeks already.

I haven't been posting much because I haven't been spending much time on my computer lately - most of my time is occupied feeding the munchkin.

syz has been taking lots of pictures and posting the best ones to his journal - head over there if you wanna see pics.

Now its bedtime for me and the kid.

What an adventure the past couple of weeks have been. I meant to post something sooner, but kept getting distracted by everything else going on (mostly boy wanting to be fed).

Damian's still trying to figure out a schedule - night before last was pretty tough and he kept syz and I up quite a bit, but last night he slept like an angel. I think that's the best night's sleep I've had since before going into labor.

He sure is a cutie, though. You can see some pics here and here.

( My birth story )