The Continued Adventures

New Blog Location

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:37:42 -0600

Grant has turned another year older so it’s time for us to archive Year 2 and move on to Year 3. Going to "http://scotandanita.org/blog" will redirect you to the new blog location. You’ll need to head over there for new posts and to sign up for the updated RSS feed.

Anita’s Reflections on Grant, Year 2

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:16:57 -0600

I must confess that I'm not sure where to even begin a reflections post for the past year! This might be an entry where you'll have to bear with me as I hop about.

It seems that he has always just happened upon a new discovery, learned a lesson or simply snuggled up for a great hug. He exudes curiosity and happiness (most of the time). Sure there are temper tantrums that sometimes leave me gasping, but I am so thankful for the wonder he brings to my life and the changes he has wrought in me. And as I watch him starting to make his own decisions, I praise God for the trust placed in me to raise Grant well. The phrase "leap of faith" is often used when someone puts trust in something they don't have evidence to support. But isn't it backwards when we say this about a person putting trust in God? Isn't it God who is really taking that leap by trusting us, day in and day out? How little evidence there is that we'll get things right, even when the stakes are small. And he trusts us to raise children!?!

Before Grant's birth I anticipated that having a child would be a rite of passage, but it wasn't until a few months later that the complexity and extent of it began to hit home. The waves have kept coming, and it took me until this fall to build something of a harbor. A friend of mine with three kids tells of her and her husband's experience in parenthood. After their first child they asked themselves, "What have we done? We had a great relationship and we ruined it!" Then things improved and they found that they had a stronger relationship for it. They expected things to go easier with the second, but found themselves again concluding they had ruined their great relationship before things improved and their relationship became even stronger. By the third child they surely would handle it smoothly, but that child, too, brought the same story. Over the past year I have developed a better understanding that this is not only common, but should be expected in families welcoming a new child. I feel a lot better about my first year now! I guess the arrival of each new child is enough to tear apart the harbors we’ve built. Then we build them again.

Another change in life is that I now spend more time wondering and thinking about human and community development. Scot and I have long been involved both financially and personally in a number of community activities, but Grant has brought a new incentive to ponder various aspects of the community. How does our community work today? What and who do well? What and who are short-changed? What rules govern its change? How can it be remade into something closer to the ideal? What is the ideal?

When it comes to child-rearing I sometimes speculate that one of the biggest losses in American society was the move from the extended to the nuclear family. Or similarly the move from villages to cities. When child-care and child-rearing were community undertakings, it seems like there were numerous benefits. Ideas for how to solve problems were readily available. Other adults offered outlets for frustration and for confidence, both for the child and the parent. Parents had some freedom to pass the children to others to get necessary work done or take breaks. And activities like learning to breastfeed a newborn were not undertaken blind and alone as they are today. One really interesting change is that we have swung so far the opposite way in cultivating individualism that when current generations adopt an extended family structure (out of choice or necessity) we chafe at the intimacy it brings.

Part of this shift is probably due to our modern workstyles. About a year and a half ago Pastor June made an observation in one of her sermons that I have considered and reconsidered many times since. She noted that in past times, people who worked for others were slaves. Reading that sentence buried in a paragraph makes it too easy to breeze over so I'll say it again. In past times, people who worked for other people were slaves.

That simple observation has led me down many trails of thought since she voiced it. An obvious one is the startling implication that someone warped forward in time and looking at us today would conclude that the vast majority of us are slaves... that I am a slave. The carpenter, weaver and boatmaker of the past were all small business owners. They crafted their goods on their own timeline (to the extent that a hungry stomach allowed). Other than apprentices and slaves, they didn't contend with a boss. You would directly feel the outcome of your decision by having fewer goods to sell or fewer return customers. Getting paid prior the actual sale of the goods or services seems a little strange when you think of it in those terms, but this is exactly what happens for the salaried and hourly employees of today. Our time traveler would surely find this community a bizarre place. Would he wonder why we place a middle man (a boss) between the person and the customer? Would he see the "float" between pay/sale and the intermediary role of a boss as a driver of complacency and weak performance? Doesn’t it seem like personal pride is built up by small businesses and sapped by slavery?

I'm not suggesting that we should limit ourselves to sole proprietorships. Losing the economies of scale and limiting our innovations to what a single person can handle would both be grievous losses to society. But considering the implications of the relationship between ownership and work can offer insight, both for business and for someone raising a child. Have we watered down rational and powerful incentives for good work with our modern work structures? How do I raise a child who retains a strong sense of ownership, even while salaried or otherwise removed from the most direct implications of his decisions?

Beyond the philosophical, there were other major changes in the Salmon household this year that are particularly worth calling out. The first is Equally Shared Parenting. Scot posted in August about the article that got us interested and shared some initial success. We've tried to adopt this as a way of living. The second is that I changed to a 30-hour workweek and moved to a different group in October. I had mixed feelings about it (which was part of what took me so long to do it), but I seem to be moving toward a peaceful resolution with myself. These two things (and maybe also simple "time logged" as a parent?) have made a major difference for me. I don't feel like there is as much "stuff" looming overhead, needing to get done. I have been getting time to myself and more time with Scot and with Grant. And perhaps the most fundamental change is that when I do tackle the less-than-fun tasks of daily living, they now feel less like chores and more like gifts to my family. Or phrased another way, ESP as a way of living provides me with a stronger sense of ownership than a traditional division of labor - less like a slave and more like a small business owner (with a great partner I might add!).

I should share a few additional words on ESP. Our attentiveness to our tracking list has waxed and waned since we started, and along with it, my perception of our success/non-success. We have had some days where, "Yes! We're getting it!" They are exciting. And over the course of a few weeks we can definitely move reality closer to the target. But as things like illnesses and holidays have come up, it has been easy to get off track and hard to get back on.

During a recent lull we weren't doing a good job of tracking our activities anymore. After a few comments about wanting to start tracking again, suggesting a parenting book to read together, and the like, I more or less concluded the effort had "fizzled." I have to confess that my original expectations were that this would happen within a few months. So rather than resorting to nagging I just started doing stuff as I noticed it needed doing. This, of course, means that it doesn't need doing when Scot later looks so it's easy to create a downward spiral. After a bit of that, I thought I should bring it up more explicitly, thinking that if we're going to abandon the effort, we should at least verbally acknowledge that's what we're doing. To my surprise, Scot was surprised. He had thought we had gotten so good at balancing that we didn't need to track it anymore! Some of what I had intended as explicit immediate suggestions for sharing had been interpreted as agreements about what we should do at some indeterminate point in the future. One take home lesson is that it seems the original article was right on at least one point. Without a tracking mechanism, you're sunk.

At that point Scot emphatically reminded me that sticking to this is extremely important to him. If it seems like he's giving up then there is some confusion. He and I had yet another long conversation about ESP, trying to figure out how we could get so far off course. And we're starting to track our activities again.

All in all, the time has flown by. It's hard to believe that a year ago Grant was still nursing, had just traded the bottle for a sippy cup, and said no meaningful words. Scot finds it funny to point out that now we're 11% of the way done with raising him to adulthood! It’s hard to believe, but at least one way of doing the math says it’s true.

- Anita

Scot’s Reflections on Grant, Year 2

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:22:44 -0600

Trying to get some inspiration and perspective for my thoughts about the last two years, I opened up the post I wrote at this time last year. I wrote a lot about the way memory compresses certain events and expands others, and that continues to be true. It’s particularly interesting to see my prediction at the end: “I feel like the Grant I know has always been able to cruise...has always pushed the laundry basket wherever he wants...has for sure always been able to say ‘dada’. These things are big enough, I guess, that I can't just compress them yet. Maybe next year.” And: so true.

It’s funny, now, to try to remember a time when any of those things were a big deal — if I try, sure, I do remember, but they are pretty much lost in the past. If I think about it, I know he cruised for months and months, but in my memory it really seems more like he just went from the “barely animated lump” stage straight to walking. And I don’t know for sure when he stopped playing with the laundry basket, but I’m guessing way back at the beginning of Year 2 — I’d completely forgotten about that. And...“dada”? Really? I thought he always said “daddy.”

I could go on for quite a while in this vein, trying to guess which “big deal” developments from Year 2 will continue to stick out in my mind in another year (being able to ask “what’s that?”, maybe?) and which will be lost (early potty successes?), but I think the real story looking back at Year 2 that will keep us busy in Year 3 is the equally-shared parenting thing.

You might recall my post about this from back in August. At the time, we had started to see some significant benefits from our efforts to share parenting more equally, and in the time since then we have had several “good ESP days” where I could ask Anita at night, “It felt like today was pretty equally shared — do you agree?” and she could say “yes”.

The key to our progress is definitely the grid we’ve put together of all the household tasks. The idea is that it includes everything you might spend time on during the day that isn’t just personal hobby time, or playing with Grant. Here’s a blank copy of the current grid: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pUoyaUeSWr1gmJ4hsBgAPIg (we only print the “housework” and “parenting” pages these days, we’d like to get back to monitoring our utility meters but that was too much to bite off at once).

We’ve had several periods where we let the grid lapse, though. It does take some time and effort to maintain the grid, and it’s easy to forget to fill it out at the end of a day. So, sometimes one or both of us forget about it. And I sometimes start to feel like the grid isn’t needed anymore — that we’ve been balancing our tasks well, and tracking the balance is redundant.

This is bad.

Maybe after a few years of tracking, and after we’ve reached a point where every day is a good ESP day, then the grid will be redundant. Three months and a few successes is not enough. There are just too many things that happen for the first time that we aren’t practiced enough to handle. Over Thanksgiving, I stayed home with Grant, who was sick, while Anita went to Advent camp with her family for a couple of days. This worked out best for everyone, but it meant when Anita came back and we tried to compensate for the ESP imbalance, we overdid it. A week later I still felt like I needed a break from Grant, long after Anita felt it was her turn for a break, and since we’d been slacking off on the grid, we didn’t have any kind of tool to help us restore balance (related note: how anyone does this as a single parent just boggles my mind). After 10 days Anita thought I’d given up on ESP entirely and was ready to do the same. We had to reset completely a few days ago and start the grid from scratch.

This is fresh in my mind, so maybe it is dominating the Year 2 recollection more than it should; we’ve only been at it for 1/4th of the year and its connection to Grant is sometimes indirect. But given the way we want to operate as a family, getting ESP right is nothing less than the most important part of parenting to me right now — and with parenting being the most important part of my life right now, well, you can see why this dominates Year 2, and why I think and hope it will be a big deal in Year 3 too. It’s really hard, and some days it adds more stress than it saves, but every success is such a great feeling for me, and so promising for the future, that I am determined to keep trying.

-Scot

2-Year Doctor Visit

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:33:39 -0600

Since Grant's 2-year doctor visit was the day after his birthday, we wanted to make a quick followup post on his latest stats:

Height: 34.5 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 28 pounds (50th percentile)
Head: 49 cm

He hit almost all the other milestones they asked about. That's good because as you may recall, for his 15-month appointment they wanted him to know 5 words, and he didn't. We got a lot of good advice at that point. Most people (including the doctor) said it was probably nothing to worry about, but she recommended we consider speech therapy on the theory that if there is a problem, the sooner you start working at it the better and even if there isn’t a problem it couldn't hurt. In the end we didn't do that, and it seems it really was nothing, since the new milestone is 50 words... and he probably has at least five times that many.

The only milestone we couldn't answer "yes" to was on our list of questions for the doctor -- about his recent tendency towards shyness and his desire to play alone. The doctor does not think this is "pathological" at this point -- most likely just a combination of him being a little young among his playmates, being a boy, and probably having a personality that tends that way anyway.

We brought a few other questions with us to the appointment which were all answered uneventfully. His continued GI tract issues are annoying, but if anything they might ease potty training (which we were worried about) and may just be a manifestation of "toddler's diarrhea". The doctor recommended a few food items to add (fiber, probiotics) and a few to avoid (juice). She also wasn't worried about some tummy bloating we noticed around the time when his bowels were really acting up; just a side effect of that, probably.

Today's blog is also a great excuse to post more birthday party photos and to share this tidbit of news from the local weather network: "As far as we know, yesterday was the first time in Austin where temps reached the 80 degree mark and yet it snowed on the same day!” Check out viewer submitted photos on News 8, and video taken in our neighborhood on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_FEidyVXMNQ (click to watch in HD for best
view of the snow).

Grant scopes out the cake before the party and has fun opening presents.

- Scot

2-Year Birthday

Sun, 7 Dec 2008 01:18:56 -0600

These days Grant:

Has turned anti-fuzzy pajamas. He hates to get put into them, and we’ve mostly given up trying. Instead he wants a stack of every blanket in the house when he goes to bed. 
Loves coloring with crayons. 
Likes crashing his trucks into appliances and walls. 
Is apparently either a loner or shy. Scot and I hadn’t noticed this until lately. He is very talkative and interactive with us and, until recently, doled out smiles and interacted with other kids at church. We’ve noticed lately, though, that when we have guests at our house he no longer interacts with them like he used to. Now he clams up and often won’t say a word until they’re gone. When Mommy came early to pick him up from day care last week he was playing by himself on the playground. Usually he throws down whatever he’s doing and comes running when one of us arrives, but instead he calmly said “no” when his teachers and I told him I was there. He then kept on playing. He was pushing a truck in, out and around a playhouse. I wasn’t in a rush so I sat down at a patio table. After watching him play by himself for a while I asked one of his teachers if that’s usually what he does. She said that it is, both on the playground and in the classroom. At “circle time”, he will sit with the group, but doesn’t really speak up to answer questions and name items in the books they read. If she brings the book to him alone later, he’ll answer all the questions. She thinks it might be related to the fact that there is only one other boy in the class. 
Has learned how to blow out candles! He can also toot a party horn. 
Uses sentences like “Please take off sock.” He has dramatically expanded his vocabulary this month. And it’s not just nouns. He knows a surprising number of verbs and adjectives. He often describes things around him. The chair is “heavy” as he moves it. He has small conversations. Grant: “Dog chasing ball.” Mommy (thinking, “He knows ‘chasing’?”): “Yes.” Grant: “Ball in mouth.” Mommy (thinking, “Wow, he used a preposition correctly.”): “Yes.” Grant: “Dog running.” Mommy: “Yes, the dog is running back to its owner with the ball.” 
Really liked the special Advent music at church today, including selections from Messiah. 
Doesn’t like giving kisses and hugs anywhere near as often as he used to. 
Will seemingly intentionally hurt you (jump on your foot, for example) and then give you a kiss where it hurts. He seems to think this makes everything okay. We’re working on setting him straight. 
Is wildly taken with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He is also starting to realize that open-face might not be the best way to eat them. 
Has had his first experience with Play-Doh and seems to enjoy it, but hasn’t quite “figured it out” yet. 
His favorite toys this month are his books. At any time of day, without warning, he may run up to someone with a book and say “read!” For many books he knows what they are about and will say “read gorilla” or “read elephant” or “read tractor”. He keeps bringing books until you find a way to divert him or accept his crying. 
Enjoys prayers. We’re now trying to teach him the full words of the prayers we say regularly in addition to the enthusiastic “AMEN!” he’s been saying for a while. 
Is a fascinating language laboratory. The curriculum from Anita’s first Japanese class focused on teaching common exchanges rather than memorizing vocabulary and grammar. At the start of each chapter were several conversations that you were expected to memorize verbatim. Some of the grammar included in those exchanges wouldn’t be covered for weeks, but some would be taught with each chapter. When you later saw the more advanced grammar explained you went, “ahhh” and already had something of a grasp on how to use it. I thought it was an interesting strategy at the time, geared at moving the student toward conversational skills. Now, I see that Grant is learning this way. He sometimes produces perfectly grammatically correct sentences, including articles, prepositions, and subject-verb agreement. He certainly doesn’t know the parts, but he has figured out the whole meaning. After building a gingerbread house together with Mommy pointing and saying “right there” as he attached sweets, he commonly answers “Where is X?” by pointing and saying, “Right there.” 
Doesn’t generally seem interested in the potty, but does request to go on occasion. 
Has a wild imagination when it comes to colors of objects. Last month, everything was yellow. This month, we think he just names a color at random. 
Asks “Ahzat?” (what’s that?) multiple times per day. 
Loves watching sports videos on the computer or, when he gets the chance, on a TV. Can usually tell the difference between the sports (he’s seen quite a few baseball and football highlights, so he’s pretty good at identifying those -- basketball and hockey will come soon enough I suspect). 
Often builds a “camera” out of his Lego blocks and yells, “Cheese!” as he points the camera at us. Conversely, he loves to ham it up for the camera when the opportunity presents itself. 
Is starting to be more prone to tantrums. We’re being pretty wary of how we react to these, and so far they are fairly rare, but certain situations can really set him wailing for no good reason. This week, he has cried like crazy whenever presented with breakfast or his post-nap snack. Maybe he’s teething again? We weren’t able to see anything when we looked? 
Tries to put on his own shoes when he wants to go outside. He’s getting better, but still needs help. He is pretty good at dragging a parent off the couch to go with him, and getting the parent’s shoes too. 
Has 16 teeth. 
Really want to unload the dishwasher, even when it’s dirty. He names the items as he takes them out. Big plate. Little plate. Bowl. Cup.  
Can still simply be left alone in his room when he is reluctant to take a nap...but not for much longer. He can reach doorknobs now and he’ll soon figure out how they work, so we’ll need a new trick to convince him to stay in bed. 
Can open the French doors from his room to ours. He sometimes relocates to our bed for his nap. Most mornings he goes to the kitchen instead of climbing in with us. 
Probably is lactose intolerant, though we are not 100% sure of this yet. He is currently on a 3+ month stretch of almost continuous digestion problems. Switching to lactose-free milk recently seemed to help for a few days, but there’s been some regression. It’s pretty hard to police his diet for dairy, so maybe we missed something; or maybe he’s come down with some passing illness; or maybe it’s a different problem entirely. We’re still investigating. 
Sometimes counts to four (not coincidentally, the number of snaps on his diaper cover). He knows snippets of the alphabet. It shocked us one day when when he spontaneously recited A through F and then, with a little prompting, a few other series of letters. I guess they’ve been practicing that at day care, because except for reading “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” we don’t work on the alphabet around here!

Anita & Scot

Advent Family Activities

Wed, 3 Dec 2008 00:29:16 -0600

Ed: Posting two at once. Make sure you didn’t miss the other one!

We had been planning to attend a family Advent retreat last weekend with my parents... until Grant got sick. The vomiting started right around 12:01 am on Thanksgiving morning, hitting all five of his blankets in addition to his sheets and a stuffed animal. Yuck. That’s right. In the Salmon household it’s another holiday, another sickness. :(

In the end, my parents and I still went to the retreat. Scot and Grant stayed home. I’m glad we went, although I certainly would have been a happier camper had my boys been with me. My parents and I took advantage of the time without a little boy running around to make a woodburned nativity set. I started a gingerbread house while there, and then Grant and I worked on it more on Sunday night. He had a great time.

I collected a list of Advent family activities. It is mostly from material the retreat.

Make and Advent Jesse Tree and add a symbol each day of Advent. The idea is that you get a stick tree and hang a new symbol on it each day. The kiddos can decorate the symbols. Then as a family, you read a short scripture passage followed by a few sentences about the scripture reading. The devotion includes a discussion question for the family such as "Why is waiting so hard?" for the passage about waiting for the branch of Jesse and the tree stump symbol. There are a verity of flavors of Jesse Tree devotions out there. This is one that I thought would be about right for families with young children. http://www.rca.org/Page.aspx?pid=1628 This page includes a link to how to make the tree, and that page includes a link to pre-made symbol patterns that you can print out and decorate.
Gingerbread house building and decoration. You can find patterns and instructions online. I was surprised how much Grant enjoyed decorating, and he's just turning 2!
Popcorn Christmas bulb. Put 30-35 microwave popcorn kernels into a clear glass (or maybe a hearty plastic?) Christmas tree bulb. Put in microwave with the top open to pop. Looks very cool!
Stringing popcorn on fishing line. Or fruit loops or cheerios for the little ones. This was surprisingly relaxing.
Wood burned nativity set. Very cool but requires special (and very hot) equipment so probably not for most of our kids.
More Family Activities are linked from this website: http://www.catholicmom.com/advent_kids.htm including the Advent True or False game http://www.catholicmom.com/advent_game.htm
And here is a link to a set of longer, more adult-oriented daily scripture readings http://krislinatin.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/advent-family-devotions-the-first-week-the-prophets/
Just for you gifts - When the wise men brought their gifts to Jesus, they were picked especially for a baby king. Make a list of family members. What gift can you get for them that is especially for them?
Relay race - When Jesus was a baby his mother wrapped him in swaddling clothes - strips of linen material wrapped like a burrito. Organize a family relay race where you have to run the course wrapped up in "swaddling clothes." Bedsheets work great.
Carpenter's Hands - Joseph, Jesus' earthly father, was a carpenter. As a family, decide on a wood piece that you can make together - book ends, end table, etc. Look up designs on the internet or go to Home Depot. Place your finished piece somewhere everyone will see it.
Oral Traditions - 2000 years ago, families passed on their history through telling stories. Have each family member tell their favorite Christmas memory.
Hometown visit - Mary & Joseph had to return to his hometown for a census. Plan a road trip to the hometown of your family. Go sightseeing and tell stories about growing up there.
Take a Hike - People 2000 years ago in Bethlehem either rode animals or walked everywhere they went. Pick a place (neighborhood or park) and go for a hike together as a family.
Sheep tag - Pick a person to be "it" - the shepherd. Everyone else are the sheep who keep away from the shepherd. The last person tagged becomes the next shepherd.
Make an ancient snack - Buy olives and a selection of cheese from the middle east region. When you get home have an ancient snack.
Movie Night - Plan a family movie night. Rent a movie that takes place in the Holy Land where Jesus lives. Examples: Veggie Tales, Gladiator, or The Start of Bethlehem.
No room in the inn - The inns in Bethlehem were packed because of the census so Mary and Joseph had o stay in the stables. Search your house for materials (straws, popsicle sticks, paper. etc.) and build a model stable like the one where Jesus was born.
Make a joyful noise - Drums, harps, and horns were popular in Jesus' time. Raid your house for supplies and create some Biblical instruments. Then, make a joyful noise to God.
Angels' voices - Pick your favorite Christmas carols and hymns, bundle up and go serenade your neighbors (or nursing home). Old fashion Christmas caroling is a tradition you don't want to miss!
Baby names - Both John the Baptist and Jesus were given names with special meanings. Look up in a baby book or on the internet the meaning of your names. What would your name be translated as if you lived in Bethlehem?
Star Gazers - The Magi were experts in the science of the starts. Go outside on a clear night, put down a blanket, and lay down together as a family. See how many constellations you can spot or make up your own!
Pray the news - Sometimes tv news and newspapers are filled with tragic things. Open your newspaper and find an article about the middle east region where Jesus lived. As a family, pray for the situation in the article.
What kind of pet would Jesus have? - Can you imagine having donkeys, camels, horses and cows all around you? 2000 years ago, these animals were important for food, travel and income. Go visit a place where you can see these animals - the zoo, an exotic farm or a petting zoo.
I'm going to Bethlehem... - This is a great game for travelling! Start out by saying "I'm going to Bethlehem and I'm bringing...". The first player names an item that starts with the letter "A". After "A", the next player will do "B" and so on.
Drama Queen - Life is a stage! Raid your closets for the best costumes, assign each family member a part and act out the Christmas story.
Open a book - Go to the library and look at books about places where Jesus grew up - Bethlehem, Nazareth or Jerusalem.

- Anita

Time for 529 Contributions

Tue, 2 Dec 2008 17:28:01 -0600

Just thought I’d mention that if you want to practice “buy low, sell high” now is a good time to invest in your kiddo’s 529 college savings plan (or open one if you haven’t yet). You can read more about 529 plans in my previous posts in June 2007 and March 2008.

Let’s take a look at the per share price of Grant’s on the various dates we’ve made contributions.
05/25/2007 $13.95
07/03/2007 $14.21
08/27/2008 $11.88
12/01/2008 $7.35

The widely held expectation of a long, hard downturn have sent share prices to major lows. With everyone so sour, that makes for great deals. Sure, stock prices might not have fully bottomed out yet, but with all the talk of “this will be the worst since at least WWII” everyone is already assuming the worst... which means that prices are already well depressed. Yes, it’s true that the corporate revenue drop definitely isn’t yet anywhere near the expected lows and there will be more bankruptcies and layoff, but these expectations for crappy future performance are already factored into the current stock price. And, as Warren Buffett reminds us in his NY Times op ed piece (a good read), there is no way to know when it will pick up. If it picks up sooner than expected, I sure want to be invested for the full duration of the ride up. The only way to know that for sure is to get in now.

- Anita

Language Explosion

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:46:27 -0600

One of Grant's favorite things is his book of words. It's a huge board-book, more than a foot square when it's closed, with dials all around the edges that he can turn to change part of the page. Each page is full of illustrations with captions, divided up into related areas -- outdoor things, kitchen things, farm things, wild things, and so on, including special sections for counting, colors, and even prepositions (showing a cat "above", "below", "inside", "outside", etc. a box). You might remember him reading it on the way to Big Bend.

There are dozens and dozens of words on each page and ten pages. I think he knows all of them now.

Okay, not all. He has a hard time with the special sections, although he's getting the hang of the numbers section up to 3, and I think he's starting to get the idea about 4 because that's how many snaps his diaper cover has. But, yeah, the pages with nouns? He's pretty much got 'em figured out. The increase in vocabulary, especially in the past two weeks, has been amazing. At breakfast one day this week he started naming everything he saw. Plate. Cereal. Spoon. Table. Milk. Cup. Paper. Mommy cereal. Ahzat? <Pause.> Ahzat? <Pause.> <Now more emphatic.> AHZAT??? It took a few moments, but Mommy finally understood. “Bookcase,” she answered. Grant went on. Book. Chair. Ahzat? “Placemat,” Mommy answered, amazed by his new interrogation skills. Now that he has learned how to ask “ahzat?” (“what's that?”) he seems to be picking up new words even more quickly. He seems to be doing the same at daycare since he’s also been using words that we don’t regularly use around him. It's a useful question to be able to ask!

His use of more complicated sentences is spotty, but sometimes he'll come out with the perfect multi-word phrase for a situation and leave our jaws hanging open. It's pretty cool to hear him make that kind of progress -- and helpful, too, because now he can explain relatively complex thoughts in a way we clearly understand. He had a nasty cold this week, which apparently has been going around, and we had to take shifts at home taking care of him, so we had plenty of chances to experience this =). He'd say things like "neck hurt" or "cold daddy" and I'd know his aches or fever were back. Sad, but wow, a whole lot better than the sobs he was limited to just last month in the same situation.

Actually, despite this week's cold, he's been mostly better recently now that we have a working theory about his long illness last month. Cutting back on milk and other lactose-containing foods is difficult (he loves pizza...hard to get lactose-free pizza), but that has made a big difference and has actually allowed us to resume potty training. Sometime, maybe this weekend (?) we're going to take some advice we've read in a few places and make a concerted effort to get out of diapers. Yes, it’s early by modern American standards, but with the cloth diapers he seems pretty in touch with what’s going on. We have the underwear ready to go. We just have to take a deep breath and do it.

His new underwear features Thomas the train or Elmo from Sesame Street. Despite his lack of TV time he has learned to love these characters, and it's actually quite difficult to avoid them when buying things like underwear at Target. It's okay. I don't really object to his being sucked into that particular marketing ploy -- I guess it might bother me if it started with him watching the shows and then he demanded Elmo underwear, but that's not how it went. Anita remarked a little while back that at some point he is going to reach a stage where all he wants to do on Saturday morning is watch cartoons. Since it was 6:30am on a Saturday and all he wanted to do was get us out of bed to play, the cartoons seemed like a darn good idea. But I'm really glad we don't do that, actually. It would be really easy to justify -- I really could get a lot more work done on a day at home with a sick baby if he was just plunked in front of the TV -- but I am really, really, really glad not to be missing out on the language explosion going on in his brain right now.

-Scot

23-month Birthday

Fri, 7 Nov 2008 07:50:24 -0600

Just one more month to go before we start giving Grant’s age in years!

These days Grant:

Is back to sleeping with a night light. He also loudly insists on both of us joining him for bedtime prayer. Then he says “Amen” and usually goes straight to sleep, as long as his required items (Blanket, Woody, Puppy) are with him. In the morning he likes to go straight to breakfast, stopping just long enough to wake one of us up on the way. 
Has regressed completely on potty training. We bought him “underwear” (training pants) after his most successful few days, but never got to try them. He got sick the next day and hasn’t been willing to try the potty at all. 
Is not actually sick, as it turns out, despite having long-running digestive problems (we are now into the 3rd month of this and have had long bouts before). The doctor ran all kinds of tests (the blood draw was awful) and everything is came back negative. He may just be lactose intolerant or allergic to something we feed him. We’re starting to record his meals to see what pattern, if any, we can figure out. 
Can make simple full-sentence requests that aren’t just demands to meet some need of his own (“move over Daddy”, “sit down Mommy”, and so on). He has also learned the appropriate time to say “please” and “thank you” and will sometimes do so unprompted (he has mostly moved past the phase where he would say “I’m welcome” after someone says “you’re welcome”). He picks up new words all the time and talks constantly. He has started saying “no” more, but seemingly without meaning it. He’ll just shout, apropos of nothing, “NO NO NO!” while we’re in the car or whatever. 
Really enjoys his visits from Granny and Grandpa, and phone calls and cards from Mem and Papa. 
Seems a little less messier lately than he was last month. We also made some changes to control his worst impulses -- we started putting the lids back on his sippy cups (instead of letting him drink like a normal cup) because he was acting out by intentionally spilling, we lowered the water pressure on the bathroom sink, and we put part of the tray assembly back on his high chair to keep him from putting his feet on the table. That seems to have made life much, much easier for us, especially at mealtime. 
Is surprisingly eager to help clean up when he does make a mess. 
Enjoys coloring with crayons, pens and pencils. 
Trick or treated at our neighbor’s houses. He was very excited to eat his candy afterwards.  
His favorite toy this month is balls, again. He has several varieties to choose from and likes them all. He likes to say “baseball game!” and line up sideways, like a pitcher (I guess he pays closer attention to the games than we realized), then wipe his brow (!) before throwing the ball -- surprisingly hard and accurately, I should add. Trains are a close second favorite. 
Is getting more out of his wooden and LEGO blocks lately, making more complicated creations. He built a train the other day which you can identify as a train with only a little imagination. 
Still loves, loves, loves to climb. The higher and more dangerous-looking the better, I think. So far he has been spared injury, but...knock on wood, I guess. 
Loves to run down the hall and leap into a hug -- an official Salmon family “Superhug.” Fun for everyone involved! 
Often “steers” Mommy or Daddy through the house to get what he wants. 
Enjoys the company of other kids, and is very intrigued by smaller kids (whom he calls “babies”, which is funny to hear from your 2-year-old). He’s a little inconsistent in his enjoyment of his music class, but he eagerly runs into his daycare classroom now, often saying the names of his classmates and friends as we pull into the driveway there. 
Tries to sing songs he knows from his class or his childrens’ CD’s. He’s not very good at singing but he knows some of the words and likes to dance to it in his head... 
He seems to particularly like the egg shakers, maracitas, and sticks in his music class. 
Is learning how to work his Climbing Bear from Rootin’ Ridge. 
Will pull/drag/carry a stepstool from place to place as needed. He often pulls out his Learning Tower on his own to watch cooking (he says “watch cooking”, too). He carries the heavy folding stepstool out of the bathroom (where it boosts him up to sink height) to play on it elsewhere. And last night he ran the entire length of the house to get his footstool to climb into my lap to read. 
Loves to spot buses. But this is a prime example of a more general problem, because to Grant, every color is apparently yellow. School buses? Yellow, right? Good job Grant! But...blue and green city buses? Also yellow. Red fire trucks? Also yellow. We’re not sure what he thinks he is saying but he is very clear whenever we ask what color something is that it’s yellow. 
His favorite animals this month are Tucker, the neighbor’s dog; and fish, anywhere (in a tank, on a shirt, whatever).  
Likes to grab condiments when we open the fridge and then carry them around for a while. If any of you have insight on what this should be telling us, please fill us in. 
Is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Anita’s cell phone. It was missing for most of a day while it was set to vibrate, and suddenly he brought it to her. We don’t know where it was all that time...but well-hidden. 
Was surprisingly interested in the “desert stories” at Big Bend, when Sharolyn would take out a blanket full of sand and shape it into dunes, valleys, mountains, rivers, and towns to tell stories from the Old Testament. Grant paid very close attention and helped move characters around the scene when appropriate. Pretty cool!   
Has sixteen teeth. Still no two-year molars. 
Says please, thank you, and you’re welcome at least some of the time. 
Can identify “two” of an item. 
Makes himself dizzy by spinning. 
Has learned to jump, getting both feet just a bit off the ground.

- Anita & Scot

Election Day

Wed, 5 Nov 2008 21:53:50 -0600

Yesterday was quite a day. I spent most of this past weekend on an emotional roller-coaster anticipating the election, and I told Anita it was making me lose sleep. By Monday I reached a sort of rational calm. I really think both candidates were and are good guys and certainly a far sight better than the Current Occupant (as Garrison Keillor calls President Bush), so although my heart was pulling hard for Obama, my head had accepted what I considered the likely reality of a McCain upset. During the day on Tuesday I talked briefly with a sympathetic coworker, but otherwise avoided seeing or hearing any election coverage. By the evening, Anita had her bout with the bug that kept me home from work last Thursday and she crawled into bed before Grant did, so I was on my own around the house as they both drifted off to sleep. At that point, real returns had started coming in and I was hooked, hitting the Refresh button every few minutes on several news sites covering the vote count. I distracted myself by joining a (successful! a good omen) online battle with some friends until reputable sources called Ohio for Obama. That was my cue to break out a long-preserved bottle of Balvenie and join the election party across the street; the photo above is taken a bit later, during Obama’s victory speech. The crowd of happy, slightly-out-of-focus Obama fans is pretty much how I remember the evening. And now...what can I say that hasn’t already been said better in McCain’s perfectly calibrated concession speech or Obama’s tears-to-your-eyes victory celebration? The world is a better place today than it was Monday. That sums it up for me.

Anyway, back to your regularly-scheduled Grant news; it’s related, really! In the last week or two Grant had heard enough election coverage and discussions that he started saying Barack Obama. We hadn’t been trying to teach it to him so we were pretty surprised. After last night, it became clear we needed to teach him a new title to go with that name. So when he came into our room to wake us up for real this morning (not any of the times between the hours of 3:30 and 5 am...just because Mommy and Daddy are up in the wee hours doesn’t mean little boys are invited!) we told him that we had exciting news for him. “Barack Obama is going to be the next president. Can you say President Barack Obama?” And the answer is...sort of. Judge for yourself, but I don’t think Pezdent Bawako Mama is too bad for a first try.

-Scot

“I feel like I've died and gone to America.” -Barry Franklin, Tuesday