Steps of Progress

I’ll start with the only particularly bad part of this last week. I believe it was Saturday night the 24th, we went out shopping, ended up staying too late, and subsequently threw off Ian’s eating schedule. Normally not a big deal, but he ended up eating a bowl of seafood chowder… very quickly. It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t seem like too big a deal at the time, but in hindsight very clearly spells disaster. That night I awoke to hear “cough. Cough. COUGH COUGH –” and then silence. I got up and shuffled to his room. I heard him more or less thinking about getting up, and then immediately he threw up. And then immediately again. Melissa and I stayed up for an hour or so, running up and down steps to throw old waterproof pads and blankets into a soak bucket and laundry machine. This unfortunately threw off the cat, who flipped out and started puking and pooping in a few places in the house. When we had most of this taken care of, Melissa sent me to sleep, and she slept as much as she could in Ian’s room, as he continued to throw up with exponentially greater rest times after each bout. It was crazy how quickly he rebounded from this, and was fine.

Ok, so. Tonight he has a 102-ish temperature, so maybe “fine” is not a great word. Tomorrow morning, off to the doctor.

Anyway… so let’s talk a little bit about this week. Ian’s vocabulary is basically exploding. He’s saying things like “Ready, set, go!” and “1, 2, 3’s!” and “A, B, C’s!” as well as “I dunno!” The “ready, set, go” is particularly hilarious, and clear. “RedDEEEEEEEEEEEEE? SetGO.” He’s going a lot more “That’s Barb, that’s Raaay.” “Connor.” and “Dis is Dave. Dis Meeshaw” “Gramma Suuuue.” And he is really understanding how to say “my” object. Like “my block.” He’s also able to communicate much better in general. We understand what he wants most of the time verbally, and it is awesome. He also likes to hand us things and say “Heur!” (Here!) or “Thargo!” (There you go!) Full conversations happen now… he leads me by my finger to the couch, says “siddown… sit.” and then hands me my game controller “Heur!” and follows it up with “Game-uh.” If I get a recording of any of these, I’ll put them up on the blog immediately, I promise. That last thing I mentioned, where he had envisioned me playing a game, and showed me what he wanted… has been a crazy game of its own. Melissa and I have been dragged around the house by our finger for the last several weeks, to help him achieve whatever goofball scheme he had bounding around in his head. Earlier this evening he specifically wanted me to go down the stairs into the office holding the handrail, while Mommy skootched down each step as Ian observed from the top step to make sure we were doing it right. That’s par the course.

On Monday, the 25th, I decided to push the envelope a little bit. He was doing well in the morning, so we packed up the car and went to Babies R Us. We got him a potty, a booster seat, a new gate for a segment of the stairs that goes down into the very lowest level of our house, and a set of metal silverware. I know, this is kind of crazy to do this to him all at once, but so far it has worked great. Here’s some pics and I’ll explain as we go…

Here’s the booster chair we got for Ian. Can you reach the table from there kiddo? See this image larger.

No, Daddy’s being silly. Speaking of silly Daddy… you might be able to make out in the background that the gate blocking off the entertainment center area is gone. He can get to any of those gadgets. This was based on a concept that I started to learn on my own watching Ian over the Florida trip, but that was cemented by an episode of Super Nanny. The more you open up small steps of trust to your child, the more he’ll grow into and accept that trust. I also remember how Ian’s cousin Connor seemed to light up and glow when I let him take pictures with my expensive camera… trust is good. See this image larger.

Ian tests out the potty. The only important thing he’s learned so far, really, is just that this is a potty, and that one sits on it. One step at a time, folks. This is a nice one too… you can pop the seat off of it and put it on a REAL potty to make the transition easier. See this image larger.

Fresh from his afternoon nap, sporting his zooey… A couple things to notice here. Number one, is this is the naughty step, and Ian is on it. We haven’t introduced him to the concept of the naughty step yet, but he sure seems like he has an inkling of what’s to come based on that face. (If you happen to not know, the naughty step is a sort of solitary confinement, without the confinement part. Sentences handed down by the judge usually range from 1 to 3 minutes.) Another thing to notice is that there is now no gate blocking off the steps. Ian is free to go up to the bedrooms and bathroom, or down to the office. You can see a gate in the office in this shot, but it has since been removed. See this image larger.

Here Ian uses the booster chair to sit at our table, like an adult. The high chair has been moved downstairs to live until a new baby needs to use it someday. You’re probably thinking Ian didn’t like this move based on this look. But hang on a sec… See this image larger.

See? Happy lil camper! (The gate on the right only blocks Ian from a small area where the kitty’s food is… this is only to buy the cat a few moments to start running, if need be, and nothing more.) See this image larger.

Ian joined Daddy downstairs to watch a video, and climbed into his own chair for this photo opportunity. Climbing into chairs isn’t new, but this sort of “joining Daddy in the office” thing is a kind of milestone. See this image larger.

Of note, I followed Uncle Ben’s advice and went to Big Lots to buy a recliner. It was extremely inexpensive. Brandon helped me get it home today and I set it up in the living room. Although I think Melissa and I were both wondering if it would come in handy, the aforementioned temperature Ian has been running today justified its use immediately. We rocked him to make him feel better, and Melissa is currently sitting on it with her laptop, typing away… Well worth the cash already! I’m sure you’ll see it in pictures soon.

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