Just adding this because it made Melissa and I giggle. Mommy upgraded Ian to “big boy” zooeys… they’re kind of flat and don’t allow him to get suction so much as something to grind on… Ian awoke about five minutes after being put down tonight, handed me his “big boy” zooey and said “baby zooey.” (By which he meant “give me my old zooey back or nobody’s going to sleep tonight.”)
In general Ian’s being just an awesome chatterbox — his voice saying anything is still music to my ears.
Today is Saturday March 21st… and spring begins from a chronological point of view, but we woke up to a light coat of snow over everything.
At the moment Ian is upstairs doing this kind of warbling mumble that he sometimes croons before taking a nap or going to bed. Seth is asleep on the recliner I didn’t buy for him, and Mommy’s napping on the couch, having woken up far too early this morning with a little early bird knocking on his door.
We’ve been practicing all kinds of stuff with Ian, so he’s had few more tries at the alphabet; mostly on par with the description I gave a few entries ago. If you’re interested in hearing it, here it is… twice. The second one is about what we usually hear these days. It was recorded on Monday, March 16th. (Aunt Annie’s B-day! Hope you had a happy one!)
Click here to hear Ian singing the alphabet, it is 1.37MB in length, so even the slowest connections shouldn’t have too much of a problem with it. I particularly love “elemenelloemennopeeee.”
Yesterday we let Ian play that WiiFit game again. You’ve got to understand that up until now, he has stood on a pressure sensitive board, and watched, while I put my hands down near his feet, and pushed around to make things happen. In other words, I’ve been playing the game for Ian. (For those that don’t know, changing your balance slightly on the board steers the object on the screen… difficult for many adults to master.) So yesterday I leaned his body around for him, with my hands on his shoulders or hips, and taught him how to really play. I figured he’d maybe understand a bit of what I was saying and we’d come back to it again later, but was floored when I saw him play a game where he had to drop a ball through a hole. It requires some subtle movements… he made the ball move over near the hole, but was shooting too far to the north of the hole. He carefully shifted his weight back on the board, steering the ball to the south, but as it had been moving, it was now too far to the west. He shifted his weight to the right, to counter this, and the ball plunked in the hole perfectly. I guess this is maybe too hard to explain in a way that highlights just how neat it was… suffice to say he learned before my eyes, he did so very quickly, and perfectly.
Grandma Sue will attest to the fact that I get this look on my face sometimes when the TV is on, as well. See this image larger.
Yes, I rolled up his pant-legs eventually. That’s quite a soccer team he has there… (you can customize some of the characters on this game system) — left to right that’s Mommy, Gma Barb, Csn Connor, Gpa Dave, Unc Chris, Unc Ben, Aunt Mel, Gma Marcia, and Phil Oosterhouse. (The game chooses at random or else I’d get a family shot going.) See this image larger.
A few entries ago I talked about hiding the bunnies in the house somewhere… here’s a quick shot of the kind of place they end up, although most are a lot more hidden than this. (They’ve ended up on top of the picture frame on the left, wedged in a door-frame where it almost meets the neighboring wall, in a plant, on the thermostat, behind some dinosaurs, in a couple toy trucks, toy farm, etc.) See this image larger.
I think a dislike of pickles (particularly on cheeseburgers) permeates my side of the family as far back as I know… except that I like them sometimes. Hopefully there hasn’t been any talk of being kicked out of the Chapman clan because of my partial enjoyment of them, BECAUSE IAN LOVES PICKLES. He loves them so much he asks for them, by name, when I ask him if I can get him anything else. He also asks for them in a vocal tone he reserves for such delicacies as cookies, bananas, and snacks. His voice does an odd shift in all those words as well, with emphasis toward the front and a sort of questioning higher pitch toward the end… “PEEK cull?” “COOK eee?”
Here’s a picture of Ian scarfing down a pickle. We usually stop him at around 8-10 slices, but if we let him, he’d eat them until he made himself sick. See this image larger.
He did try to throw out the instructions to the tricycle before I put it together, however, so that should put any questions about the strength of the Chapman genes in him to rest. 😉
Funny to see how the bedtime ritual has changed now that Ian sleeps in his “big boy bed.” Melissa brushes his teeth, we change his diaper, give him his zooey, read him some stories — and then previously he’d hand his blankie over to mommy, who would pick him up, they’d walk over so that Ian could bend down and turn off the lights, I’d kiss him… into the crib he’d go, and off to dreamland. Now it is different: He picks up his blankies, walks by himself to the light switch, turns it off, comes back and hugs mommy, walks over on his own to me and hugs me… and then jumps into bed. (The other night, he then jumped right back out of bed and gave Melissa and I a bonus kiss, because he felt like it. We felt particularly blessed that night.)
We play a lot of little goofy games… during diaper changes I’ll sometimes act like I think his feet stink and make horrible faces down at him. He thinks this is the pinnacle of comedy, and between giggle-fits sometimes requests “ageen!”
Another thing I’ve been doing the last few weeks is hiding four little stuffed animal bunnies (these are little “peep” stuffed animals, for the record… Grampa Dafe got them for Ian on his first Easter, two years ago now…) somewhere in the house for him to find. They’re only a few inches tall, so they are easily integrated into other toys. But it is neat to see him brighten up when it is time to go bunny-hunting after day care — and then a big grin crosses his face when they’re all reunited. We also consider this to be a good way to practice for an Easter egg hunt.
Please keep Levi Schoenborn in your thoughts and prayers… he continues to struggle with RSV, although I believe he is doing better based on what I’m reading.
For those of you wondering, I am working some billing hours at the moment, but it isn’t anything long-term. I’ll take what I can get at this point. Melissa continues to be an excellent sugar mama. 😉
Sunday March 15th, Ian got his first Tricycle.
The moment his butt touched the seat he got older again; he looks cool though, doesn’t he? The day after this shot, Ian and I walked away from his trike and up the sidewalk for a bit… I turned around and pointed at it. “See that? You left that out on the sidewalk where anybody could take it… should we put it back in the garage?” By the time I turned to give him a questioning look, he was darting away and back down the sidewalk, almost breathlessly, his voice lilting with the effort, the human comet was saying “Mine! Mine!!! Cycle!” See this image larger.
In other news:
Also on that Sunday, Ian was standing on the stairs singing to nobody in particular… his mommy upstairs and myself downstairs… and he burst into the alphabet. It went something like this… “A-B-E-E-O-AH-EEEE, AH-E-E-E-AH, (and then, as if he learned the alphabet at that moment, in the middle of the song…) L-M-N-O-P… Q-R-Sth-T-U-V-DOUBLEDU-EXTH-Y-ZEEEEEE.”
Monday March 16th, Ian got his first cat scratch. I know, I know… you’re probably thinking negatively toward Seth. Bad kitty. But if you saw the crap this cat has put up with, without retaliation? You’d put a gold medal on this cat’s neck. As it is, the kitty was dignified and careful about the “lesson.” Ian was in tears holding his hand, but there was only one light line across his skin, that only barely drew blood. I happen to know Seth is capable of carnage on a significantly higher level, as any of our ex-vets would wholeheartedly agree.
A couple phrases Ian is using now… For some reason I showed him how he could rebuild a car of his so that it was small and said “look, a teeny, tiny car.” Teeny tiny is something he says fairly often, in a high pitched voice. He also loves to say recycle. He also loves to recycle paper by putting it in a recycle bin that I made specifically for him in the office. He’s very gung ho about the whole thing — in fact if you were to say, drop a gas bill on the floor, you might have to step on it to stop its immediate progress toward a papery afterlife via teeny tiny hands.
Ian is certainly testing our wills at this point. It is almost as if the word “not” has become “please” in his head. So like “Do NOT put your hands in the trash” becomes a new sentence entirely. I say “almost as if” because the reason I know this isn’t some language issue is that he puts his hand in the trash, mashes it in there up and down, and smiles at me with this “now what are you going to do?” look.
I was a bad son and didn’t call tonight, my apologies… but here’s a special message for Grampa Dafe on his birthday!
Click here to hear Ian wishing Grampa Dafe… a happy… I think he says birthday… He at least says “Hi Grampa!” at one point 😉
I don’t have much of an update, mostly because I haven’t had much of anything to record video or audio-wise… and no real photo opportunities have presented themselves (at least none that I was prepared for.)
If I haven’t mentioned it, a week or so ago Melissa swept her finger across Ian’s gums and found his little molars coming in. You can tell by the way he gnaws on his blanket that his mouth is not a happy camper.
Yesterday Ian insisted on watching Elmo while I was trying to show him a video game. (Go Dad.) I asked him which Elmo he wanted to watch; there’s an Elmo movie that we can watch in my office, and episodes on a DVD up in the living room. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him all of this, however, so I tried to come down to what I thought his level would be: “Do you want to watch the Elmo that’s upstairs in the living room? Or the Elmo here?” “Elmo blankie” was his response. See, it turns out in the Elmo movie, he’s got a blanket… so Ian was showing me that his level was higher than I had given him credit for.
Alright… so I titled this entry “Ready!” for a reason. This morning Ian got out the waterproof pad, and threw it on the floor, stacked a clean diaper on top of that. And then he laid down on his back, on top of that pile, spreading his legs slightly and turning to me with a smile. This is almost exactly what I do every time I change his diaper, except that I spread out the pad, and open up the diaper before I set him down. Needless to say, my jaw was on the floor.
He’s been steadily heading in this direction, but this morning was another one of those “wake up and he’s learned something new” moments. I know I’ve said before that we’re having conversations with Ian, but now it feels like having conversations with somebody who is reasoning and stringing complete thoughts together. I guess it is like raising any kid? Not sure — he started out trying to understand us, the parts that he understood he turned into language so that we might understand him. And now enough is known that we can have more elaborate conversations. Where he gets messed up is the syntax, and he replaces the words that change in a given sentence into mumbling, so that it comes out more or less correct to our ears.
This morning:
“Ahm poopy anga potty.”
Melissa – “You want to go on the potty?”
“No.”
Melissa – “Would you like a fresh diaper?”
“Yeah.”
Melissa – “Did you sleep well last night?”
“No.”
Melissa – “Do you want to say good morning to Daddy?”
“G’morning Daddy!”
Somebody showed me this picture on Facebook, and I wanted to share it because I love it! See this image larger.
I spend a whole lot of time photographing the front of Ian’s head, so here’s a quick documentation of the back. All of these shots were taken on March 2nd. See this image larger.
“Ruh? Did you just take a picture of the back of my head?” See this image larger.
“ATTACK!!!” Actually I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention that Ian has begun to hit… and he’s also been spending some time on the naughty step. See this image larger.
Good book? Bad book? I can’t even tell. See this image larger.
I like this shot because it looks like he’s trying to decide something. And that’s precisely what he’s doing, putting stickers on his mini-toy boxes. See this image larger.
Hmmm, another tough decision. See this image larger.
Well, tomorrow I watch Ian all day, (on a tuesday for a change, I know, crazy… Melissa and I switched days for this week only!) hopefully we’ll grab some additional shots, soundbytes, or movies…
Alright, finally… we’re in March and pretty much all caught up!
Finally got a chance to test out my back-up procedures for the high-definition video files from my new video camera and things appear to be a-ok. As a business, my company is looking into buying a blu-ray burner for archiving purposes, burning 25 – 50 GB blu ray discs should come in very handy and help free up some room on my drives so I can start work on more Ian DVDs! (Don’t worry guys, I won’t make you all run out and buy a blu-ray player, that’s not the purpose of this purchase.)
These were taken March 2nd.
Another shot for the “Show Ian’s Date on Prom Night” album… See this image larger.
I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, this would have been a cute shot if Daran wasn’t making a stupid face, and if he’d bother to wipe that kid’s nose.” (You get bonus points if you can tell I chew on my tongue in my sleep.) See this image larger.
“Whar car go?” If you can’t tell, he’s using a long plastic cooking spoon to reach for something under a chair here. See this image larger.
“TeeBee. TwoFrees” (I would like to watch “Here come the 123’s” on television, Daddy, please.) See this image larger.
So this final February 2009 blog entry should bring us all up-to-date…. like usual, first we’ll do the news and then the flashback.
News: Ian continues to do well with the big boy bed.
A bit of serious news: Levi Schoenborn is struggling — but appears to be stable with — RSV at the moment, and we send our prayers and well-wishes to the little one. Many of you should remember Martin and Melissa, his parents, from our wedding, where they were instrumental in making things go well. Please take time out to send a wish of good health for Levi if you could please.
Flashback: Back on February 25th of this year the following images were taken, and I wanted to share them with you.
Ian found Mommy’s camera and called to me from the top of the steps as he lifted it off the table… “Daddy! Camrah! CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ.” I know I’m prejudiced about this: My son is cute. See this image larger.
Stopping by my desk for a few quick pointers, Ian was not surprised when I turned my camera on him. See this image larger.
More and more Ian bits are becoming boy-like… so it is not hard to really cherish those baby parts that are left. In this case: his little feet. Something about looking over on the couch next to me and seeing those toes pointing straight up at the ceiling makes me smile every time. (You can also see our cool mat collection has grown, this makes for a lot of fun, and works great when we exercise too!) See this image larger.
A “still life” picture is technically supposed to contain only inanimate objects. Get him in front of the TV, though, and that’s pretty much what you’ve got. See this image larger.
“I’d like to thank the Academy and my producer, Mommy — as well as God and who am I forgetting… oh all the people at daycare… and my physician…” See this image larger.
Just a quick entry tonight, Melissa pulled the crib mattress out of the crib and set it on the floor, to do a sort of “big boy bed” trial. I have a feeling it’ll be back in the crib before the end of the night, but we’ll see, he’s always full of surprises!
EDIT – It turns out he did extremely well in the test big boy bed! And now, because you DEMANDED it!… or at least were THINKING ABOUT demanding it… here’s some pics of Ian’s first night in bed. Yup, I used the flash. BAD DADDY.
awww! Our little boy is so grown up! Before the little railing was put up we did end up finding him crying in the middle of the room a couple times. He just sorta rolled right off the side and kept going, I guess. See this image larger.
But yeah, his excitement level was huge about being able to sleep on his mattress on the floor; and each time he awoke he went right back to sleep on the mattress without so much as a whimper. In the morning we opened his door to find that Ian was already up and playing with toys, in a fairly quiet fashion. Awesome! See this image larger.
