Allan Jude is a complete and total brat. He is the world's most determined toddler. You can not distract him like you can his brother. If Allan fixes on a course of action, he will perservere until you give up or he achieves his goal.
This morning Griff had the Singing Maraca (go with it) and Allan wanted it. More than any thing, apparently. More than I realized. I noticed that he was stalking his brother (who had it first) but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Until Allan started crying miserably. Howling really. As if Griffith had whacked him or something. But he hadn't. Because I was Right. There. Allan was putting on. Trying to get his brother in to trouble so that I would give HIM the maraca. No such luck, pal. Of course, less than 3 minutes later, Griff was on to something else and Allan had the maraca. Brat.
Jay had the boys this morning and took them on their usual outing to the farmer's market while I hauled the flotsam and jetsam from my efforts to their various donation locations. Then he hied off for work, leaving me to get the boys to sleep for their naps. This isn't as onerous as it used to be. Griffith has decided that he likes his afternoon nap. Can't wait for it, actually. You ask him if he is ready for his nap and he will say "ba!" and "night-night!" and head for the nursery. He climbs up in your lap, settles down under the blanket, breathes deep, drinks his milk and settles down for 2 to 4 hours. Unless his Monster Brat of a brother interferes. Which he decided to do. Usually the problem is that Allan wants to play with noisy toys, but I had gathered those up. Mind you, he had 3 million other things to play with. None of which was nearly as interesting as his brother and me. So he comes in to the nursery, crawls over, whacks his brother who is nearly asleep. I readjust to keep him away. After a few exploratory swats, he realizes he can't reach Griff. So he yells. Griff stirs. "JUDE!" he yells. Amen, I second. Hand Allan something quiet. Every time I we are about asleep, Allan manages to find a way to intervene. Fine. I plunk his a** in to the crib with quiet toys. He is not interested. He stands up and shakes his head back and forth, jumps up and down, squawks. All of which causes Griff to laugh like a hyena. Then Allan decides to drop every toy in the crib on to the floor, one by one. Every time he does that, Griff says, Oh, no! Fall down!
Time for Plan B.
Take Griff back out and try to rock Allan to sleep. Not happening. He squirms and yells. Griff, for his part is ominously quiet. I can't stand it and go in search of No. 2 son who is playing with a truck. And who has, clearly, pooped his pants.
Great.
Dump Allan on to the couch. Go for a diaper. Catch Griff who has decided that diaper change time is the time for the 100 yard dash in our house. Catch him, wrestle him in to a new diaper, wipe the sweat from my brow, gather up Allan, sit back down.
Allan can not be soothed. Griff starts pulling all of the laundry out of the armchair and on to the floor, flinging it about wildly. You.Have.To.Stop.
God love his heart, he was finding Allan's Lamby which was at the bottom of the pile. He found it and brought it over as if to say, here, this will help.
I stink at this mother business.
Lamby didn't help. Allan was still being a pill. Fine. Back to the nursery. Back to rocking. Young man, if you are not asleep by 1:15 I am totally giving you Benadryl. 1:13, he drops off to sleep. No kidding. He will push you to the limit.
Griff climbed up in my lap about 15 seconds after I got Big Al down. He was out in 5 minutes. I got him down, read for about 20 minutes and fell asleep myself. 2 Hours later, we all felt human again.
Dad came home and we all had dinner and fun time. Baths, book and time to go to bed. Griff is pretty good about getting in his crib and entertaining himself until he falls asleep. Allan, on the other hand, was quite a pill. Again. He would not go to sleep. He flipped, flopped, squirmed and yelled. Finally, I just put him in his crib to let him sort it out. He didn't like that. Not one little bit. He squawled and stood up and I put him back down. Sat down. Griff got up and jumped up and down, yelling. Put him down. Just in time for Allan to repeat.
After about 10 minutes, though, Allan decided it was too much effort and went to sleep. Griff, without an audience, laid back down and started his evening ritual which includes a lot of flipping and flopping and reciting everything he knows how to say:
No, no, no, Daddy.
No, no, no, Momma.
NO, JUDE! (heh.heh.heh.)
Two, three, two, three. (I don't know what happened to one.)
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, ad nauseum....
More to report, but it is nearly eleven and I want to read some before I sleep.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Missing card reader
I can't find the card reader so no new pictures tonight. Thought I would go ahead with a little update, though, and then try to add pictures later.
The 3rd of July, we went to visit Greg and Alice out at the farm. Heather met us out there, too, and we ordered pizza and drank wine and generally chilled in preparation for the race on the 4th. Greg and Alice have an entire menagerie -- dogs, horses, who knows what else (they used to have a very grumpy minature donkey). The boys had a great time. Allan absolutely adores the horses. Can not get enough of them. Griff is a little more reticent, but he gets in to it, too, eventually. We should have some good pictures of them.
Alice put on some vintage Madonna to see Griff bust a move and no one was disappointed. I thought that she and Heather were going to wet themselves watching Griffith putting on his best moves. Allan wasn't having any of it -- he was too busy exploring the house which has a sunken living room and stairs that are just Allan-sized for climbing up and down.
Griff hadn't taken a nap, though, so by the time we got home, he was completely worn out. Actually Jay is doing some work for G and A so he came separately and about ten minutes behind us. Ten LONG, LONG minutes. Griff howled like a banshee for his daddy, daddy, daddy. Inconsolable. When Jay finally turned up, the relief was palpable -- for Griff and Momma.
Jay and I were supposed to run the annual 4th of July 10K at 7:30 the next morning. The forecast was 50/50 on thunderstorms, but I couldn't hear anything during the night. I was up at 6 and got ready. The babysitter was to arrive at 6:45. At 6:20, Jay got up and I realized that it was raining. Ever so gently, but persistently. Do we call Ana and tell her not to come ?? Let her come and we'll see what happens.
What happened was that it was still raining at 7. Jay elected to walk down to the race start and run. I elected to go in to the basement and clean. Anything sounded better than walking a mile in the rain, running 6 miles and walking a mile back.
Dad did great. Ran it in less than 56 minutes. Then he called to see if we would come to Jim and Montell's and have breakfast. And, oh, yes, by the way -- could we bring a shirt and shorts and underwear and shoes, too? And drive him home? Sure.
Still, it was a good effort for the whole team. I got a lot done in two hours in the basement (took 6 large garbage bags out, 8-10 white garbage bags to the Salvation Army along with a car load of babygear that we can't use, and a box of toys for the children's hospital. And a pile of cardboard for recycling.
Dad is crazy busy with work so we got home, got the boys fed and he headed out to work. The boys took decent naps (as did I) and we got ready for company for dinner.
Jim and Montell came over as did Markus, Hannah, Alan, Michele and (eventually) Matt and Nicole. The weather turned stormy for our grilling but covered deck served us well. We stayed out all evening long. At first the boys were daunted by the weather, but they both eventually got over it.
Jim kept encouraging Griff to take off out in to the rain which he did. What Jim didn't expect was that Allan was going to insist on going, too -- with Jim's help. Serves him right.
The boys ended up completely wet, filthy and exhausted. So much so that they hardly stirred all night despite the fireworks. (Jay kept saying that we should expect people to put off fireworks in the parking lot across the street. I finally pointed out that it was usually US doing that and, sure enough, no one filled the void.)
So, all in all, a good 4th of July. Not as wild and woolly as some, but we aren't complaining.
The 3rd of July, we went to visit Greg and Alice out at the farm. Heather met us out there, too, and we ordered pizza and drank wine and generally chilled in preparation for the race on the 4th. Greg and Alice have an entire menagerie -- dogs, horses, who knows what else (they used to have a very grumpy minature donkey). The boys had a great time. Allan absolutely adores the horses. Can not get enough of them. Griff is a little more reticent, but he gets in to it, too, eventually. We should have some good pictures of them.
Alice put on some vintage Madonna to see Griff bust a move and no one was disappointed. I thought that she and Heather were going to wet themselves watching Griffith putting on his best moves. Allan wasn't having any of it -- he was too busy exploring the house which has a sunken living room and stairs that are just Allan-sized for climbing up and down.
Griff hadn't taken a nap, though, so by the time we got home, he was completely worn out. Actually Jay is doing some work for G and A so he came separately and about ten minutes behind us. Ten LONG, LONG minutes. Griff howled like a banshee for his daddy, daddy, daddy. Inconsolable. When Jay finally turned up, the relief was palpable -- for Griff and Momma.
Jay and I were supposed to run the annual 4th of July 10K at 7:30 the next morning. The forecast was 50/50 on thunderstorms, but I couldn't hear anything during the night. I was up at 6 and got ready. The babysitter was to arrive at 6:45. At 6:20, Jay got up and I realized that it was raining. Ever so gently, but persistently. Do we call Ana and tell her not to come ?? Let her come and we'll see what happens.
What happened was that it was still raining at 7. Jay elected to walk down to the race start and run. I elected to go in to the basement and clean. Anything sounded better than walking a mile in the rain, running 6 miles and walking a mile back.
Dad did great. Ran it in less than 56 minutes. Then he called to see if we would come to Jim and Montell's and have breakfast. And, oh, yes, by the way -- could we bring a shirt and shorts and underwear and shoes, too? And drive him home? Sure.
Still, it was a good effort for the whole team. I got a lot done in two hours in the basement (took 6 large garbage bags out, 8-10 white garbage bags to the Salvation Army along with a car load of babygear that we can't use, and a box of toys for the children's hospital. And a pile of cardboard for recycling.
Dad is crazy busy with work so we got home, got the boys fed and he headed out to work. The boys took decent naps (as did I) and we got ready for company for dinner.
Jim and Montell came over as did Markus, Hannah, Alan, Michele and (eventually) Matt and Nicole. The weather turned stormy for our grilling but covered deck served us well. We stayed out all evening long. At first the boys were daunted by the weather, but they both eventually got over it.
Jim kept encouraging Griff to take off out in to the rain which he did. What Jim didn't expect was that Allan was going to insist on going, too -- with Jim's help. Serves him right.
The boys ended up completely wet, filthy and exhausted. So much so that they hardly stirred all night despite the fireworks. (Jay kept saying that we should expect people to put off fireworks in the parking lot across the street. I finally pointed out that it was usually US doing that and, sure enough, no one filled the void.)
So, all in all, a good 4th of July. Not as wild and woolly as some, but we aren't complaining.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Gimme Three Steps...
Guess what big boy took three whole steps unassisted this morning???
Miss Julie got Big Al distracted enough that he didn't realize that he wasn't holding on to anything (other than a block). As soon as he realized it, of course, he sat down, but, without question, he did it and can do it. He wouldn't repeat the effort, though, he knew what we were trying to do and refused to be duped again (fool me once....). He kept sticking his butt out behind him to try to stay in contact with Julie while grasping for the toys. Or he would go stiff as a plank and lean way back. Brat. Smart, walking brat, though.
Miss Julie got Big Al distracted enough that he didn't realize that he wasn't holding on to anything (other than a block). As soon as he realized it, of course, he sat down, but, without question, he did it and can do it. He wouldn't repeat the effort, though, he knew what we were trying to do and refused to be duped again (fool me once....). He kept sticking his butt out behind him to try to stay in contact with Julie while grasping for the toys. Or he would go stiff as a plank and lean way back. Brat. Smart, walking brat, though.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Let the Wild Rumpus Start!
Lots of new pictures. Trying to clear off the card before the long holiday weekend.
We will have to get some video of Griffith dancing. He kicks and stomps and throws his arms up in the air. He looks for all the world like Max in Where the Wild Things Are.
What is really funny is that the music he was dancing to was some classical whatever on the local NPR station. It filled him with the spirit, though, that's what counts.
Allan is far more sedate. He likes to sit and circle round and round in time to the music. He's too cool to do some mad Highland fling.
We will have to get some video of Griffith dancing. He kicks and stomps and throws his arms up in the air. He looks for all the world like Max in Where the Wild Things Are.
What is really funny is that the music he was dancing to was some classical whatever on the local NPR station. It filled him with the spirit, though, that's what counts.
Allan is far more sedate. He likes to sit and circle round and round in time to the music. He's too cool to do some mad Highland fling.
Stacking 'em high.
Working on our toddler skills. These a little easier to stack because they have grippers on them.
Finally!
I must have taken 20 pictures trying to get one of Allan sticking his tongue out while he was working with the blocks. It is a wonder the kid could see anything for all the flashes.
Oh, no! Fall down !!!
We have an epidemic of falling down at our house. Somehow Griffith's trucks keep falling down in to the bushes. Possibly helped by the fact that he keeps flinging them there.
Flowing locks
Allan's hair is getting long again, but he really liked the way the breeze felt, blowing his hair back.
Reading time.
The boys love to read -- especially first thing in the morning.
Look at how brown Griffith's legs look.
Working on our stacking skills
Stacking is apparently a very important toddler skill so we have been working on Big Al's hand/eye coordination.
What's Daddy saying?
I'm voting for "swishy-swoshy" from We're Going on a Bear Hunt, but it really doesn't look like that to me either.
Listening very intently
The boys at bedtime with Da.
Griff with his bottle (yes, we know he's too old for it.) Allan with Lamby.
Maybe not babysitter material
I'm not sure what Tyler is doing right here, but I don't think that it is covered in Babysitting 101.
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