Category: Updates about Andrew

April 22: I hate to do anything that sounds too much like complaining, but Andrew currently has at his disposal a set of behaviors that act upon my brain like the tactics of a malicious, medieval torturer.  He seems to assess my condition, and say to himself:

• “I think that the rack (a.k.a. whining) would work pretty well on her right now at melting her brain.  I’ve been honing my pitch undulation and body flopping techniques, and I think I’ve hit upon a combo that really does her in.”
• “Hmmm…I know we were just having a great time, but what if I was to run away screaming and hide right now instead of going nicely like we prepped all the way here.  That might result in some interesting expressions on her face!”
• “I’ve come up with 14 ways to avoid putting on my pants to go outside.  I bet I can come up with another 6 to make it an even 20.  Now that Sylvia is crying, this is starting to get pretty interesting.  I wonder if we’ll still end up going or if I’ll leave the house a naked screaming flopping mess under her arm.  Worth finding out how far I can push the situation until one of us pops!”

He mixes up the hard times with behaviors so angelic, so beatific and sweet that it makes it seem like heaven’s light is shining in our presence.  When he makes up stories or chases after bubbles or makes innocent and poignant comments about the weather or his feelings or his love for his sister, well, I can’t imagine anything more lovely.
Sometimes I think it’s a really good thing that he’s cute.

April 20: Andrew spent much of yesterday hunting for worms.  He calls earth worms inch worms, despite somewhat lengthy description of why earth worms are called earth worms.
We did a lot of gardening yesterday, and Andrew’s role was to find worms.  Bryan got out a jar, and Andrew put dozens of worms in it.  They marveled and remarked at each worm, often bringing them to me when they were particularly cool.  Andrew’s face was glowing with excitement and discovery as each new worm was unearthed.

Later, Andrew discovered that some puddles in the street in front of our house contained lots of worms.  The problem?  They were all dead.
Andrew didn’t seem to recognize this.  He said that they were “swimming in the ocean.”  He spent about an hour picking up the worms, holding their grayish, gooey bodies (“They are long and thin, Mommy!”), and moving them from the “ocean” to the pavement.  “Touch them, Mommy!”  I have a pretty big tolerance for dirt and decay and the general grossness of biology, but I admit to having a bit of a gag reflex when Andrew tried to set one of his very slimy, very dead worms on my knee.
this morning, Andrew woke up and nearly immediately started clamoring to go outside to see the worms:)

April 2:  I’m amazed that I’m having a moment to log on to the computer mid-morning.  Sylvia went down for a nap almost an hour ago, and despite waking up and nursing briefly, she’s still sleeping.  Alivia is spending the morning at our house, and she and Andrew built a cool fort made of blankets and chairs in the sun room.  They have flashlights, and pillows, and they have informed me that Spooky (our cat) is a monster from whom they are hiding.
Now they’ve switched gears and are dancing to the Nutcracker in the living room.  They are sure having fun together, despite some, er, negotiation about who is in charge and what it means to share.
I am driving up to Northfield on Thursday night with Sylvia to attend a Carleton Alumni Council meeting on Friday and Saturday.  Andrew is going to go to Karen’s on Friday.  I’m hoping he has fun seeing some of his old friends and spending some time with Karen again.
That’s the update for this morning.  I’m off to join in the Nutcracker dance!
Pictures from the last few days are in the gallery.

March 30: Andrew is constantly doing and saying things that melt my heart or just make me shake my head in wonder.  I try to file away in my mind a list of things that he’s doing.  I think the time has come to write them up!  What follows is a snapshot of some of the things going on in sweet, little Andrew’s life right now.

• We’ve been working on potty training quite a bit this last week.  We’ve started him on pull-ups, and he’s using the potty several times a day.  He is so sweet about the whole endeavor.  When we check and find that his pull-ups are wet, he sticks out his bottom lip and often says quietly, “I’m sad.”  He’s got such a sensitive little heart.  Just like his mom and his dad:)
• Andrew is also showing some interest in dressing himself.  He still prefers for me to change him on the changing table.  But in the last few weeks, he’s gotten interested in putting on his own shirt and pants.  Grace taught him some good techniques when she was here.  The other day during rest time, he had to be rescued once because he somehow got the neck hole of a t-shirt around his waist!
• We recently got Andrew some new yellow rain boots.  We got them at the Monona Bootery near our house.  We were driving by, and Andrew said, “Mommy, can we stop at the bootery?”  I had to say yes:)  It’s the same store that Mom used to take me for shoes when I was little. Andrew has a blast playing on the same horsey merry-go-round that I played on as a girl.
• Andrew often says, “Let’s talk about it.” in his adorable, lilting voice.  When Bryan or I are at odds with him, that’s what we say in order to head off a tantrum or a fit of whining.  When something worries Andrew, or if he’s thinking back on a serious talk we’ve had, he’ll want to discuss.  It’s too cute.
• A couple times in the (relatively distant) past, I’ve brought up Andrew’s indiscretions to Bryan at the end of the day.  These days, if I chastise Andrew for something, he says in an earnest voice, “We’ll have to tell Daddy about this when he gets home.”
• Andrew continues to be just incredibly loving toward his sister.  He comes to say goodnight to her several times.  He snuggles up to her in my bed in the morning and cuddles for quite a while.  He often remarks on her beautiful eyes and her sweet face.  The other day, he was searching for the right word to describe her.  “She’s just a …a …a yiddle princess,” he said.  He calls her “Sylvie-ba-dilvie” on a regular basis.  Sometimes he lengthens it out to Sylvie-ba-dilvie-ga-dilvie”
• Andrew is pretty into holding hands these days.  And telling me (and others too) that I’m (or they are) his “best buddy.”  He also says, “So…….that was fun!” after doing almost anything he enjoyed.
• I’ve had to put Andrew under my arm and carry him off kicking and screaming twice in the last week.  And both times I was also carrying Sylvia.  Both times we were trying to leave a fun place, and both times, he thought he would try to extend his time there by running away from me.  I really wanted to impress upon him that running away from me is just completely not acceptable.  Poor little guy was so upset.  I hate to make him cry.  I also really don’t like telling him to stop and having him turn and run away faster!  Parenting isn’t always easy on the heart.
• OK, it’s 11:30pm, and it is totally ridiculous that I am on the computer instead of in bed.  My sanity tomorrow may be in jeopardy tomorrow due to this post.  Good night!

Feb. 20: Andrew thinks that his new little sister is pretty wonderful.  When he met her in the hospital, I suggested that he touch her on the nose (Granny wisely had suggested a kiss on the forehead).  Today he probably touched Sylvia’s nose 40 times.  It’s his little way of checking in.  “I want to touch Sylvie’s nose.”  Fortunately, she can sleep though a gentle nose-touch.  Today he bent down to kiss her forehead and then went back for two or three more kisses.  She’s very kissable.  And Andrew isn’t a boy who gives kisses too freely.
Yesterday, Andrew was prancing around the house singing to the tune of “Mary had a little lamb” “Where did little Sylvie go, Sylvie go, Sylvie go?  Where did little Sylvie go? I want to see her.”  And he pronounces “little” “widdle,” so it’s especially enduring.
Before his nap earlier this week, I asked Andrew what he thought he would dream about today.  “I’m going to dream about Baby Sylvia,” he said.
And today as we were leaving the house, I asked him who was in our family.  “Daddy,” he said, “and Mommy and Andrew and Sylvia.”  I think he has the new family member thing figured out.  I feel so lucky to have two so amazingly sweet babies.

Feb. 7: Andrew has said a number of super-cute things in the last week, and I need to write them down before the memories flutter away.
Pirates
The other morning, Bryan was talking to Andrew in pirate talk.  “Avast ye squab!  Ye be eat’en your orange or yeh be walking the plank!”
Andrew looked earnestly at Bryan and said, “Don’t scare me.  I’m just a little boy!”  After laughing, Bryan said, “Alright then, wee lad, if yeh don’t want to walk the plank, I’ll just make yeh me first mate.
Have a parrot.”  Andrew placed the imaginary parrot on his shoulder and said, “He’s a little parrot!”
Tiger
In the mornings, Andrew likes to come in bed to cuddle.  Then he crawls down to the foot of the bed under the covers and starts to growl.  When we ask what kind of fierce creature is in our bed, he calls out, “I am a Bengal Bengal Tiger!”  Eventually, after some coaxing, he crawls back out and proceeds to eat us. “mumumumummmm”
Dancing
Andrew has a play saxophone, and he and Granny have been dancing for probably hours to some of the songs it plays.  Then they lie down on the floor and Andrew becomes a bouncy pillow for Granny to rest on.
Secrets
The other night after dinner, Andrew leaned conspiratorially over to Bryan and said in hushed tones, “I have a secret.  We could do play-doh.”
Story Hour
We’ve been to story hour at the Pinney branch library for the last couple weeks, and it’s so fun to watch Andrew.  He’s really reserved, but he’s paying such close attention.  Even though it takes a little coaxing to encourage him to move along with the songs, he talks about them for days afterward.  And during the reading of stories, he actively listens even when all the other kids are racing around the room.

Jan. 31: Andrew may not appreciate me sharing this with the world, but I found it to be so earnest and tender that I just wanted to write it down.

Andrew feels very afraid when he hears loud noises: coffee grinders, blenders, lawn mowers, and especially the vacuum cleaner.  This morning, I wanted to vacuum up the hallway carpet a bit.  Andrew was playing with puzzles in the living room, and when I came over to tell him I was going to pull out the vacuum for a few minutes, he got really panicky.  He started breathing fast and then started crying and trying to pick up all his puzzles at once.  I promised him (as I always do) that the vacuum won’t hurt him.  It helps Mommy clean, and it just makes a lot of noise while it does it.
Eventually, I calmed him down, and he went into his room clutching three of his toys, mumbling something about “saving them.”  When I peeked into his bedroom after vacuuming the hall, he was on his bed with his toys under his blankets.  Oh, he is so cute I just want to eat him up:)

Jan. 23: I had a nice list of things to do during Andrew’s nap this afternoon.  But I was so sleepy when I put him down that I decided I should just rest on the sofa.  And since I can’t really nap, my version of resting is reading blogs and posting new things to my website.  One thing I wanted to share was how cute Andrew is when he decides he wants to go bird watching.  He made a pair of binoculars out of toilet paper rolls and string, and now one of his favorite games is to stalk around the house saying, “There!  In that tree!  What is it?”  Then Bryan or I offer a suggested bird name, and he uses his binos to spot it.  Our yard is rather bereft of songbirds (due perhaps to our excellent owl and hawk population), but when we stopped by Dad’s house this morning, we saw a chickadee in a bush a few feet away.
Andrew stopped and looked at it amazedly.  It sang it’s “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” song a couple times, and Andrew said in a hushed tone, “Mommy, it’s a chickadee!”  How did I get lucky enough to have a little guy who loves animals as much as I do?  We watched my bird song video…an admittedly somewhat boring loop of backyard birds and their songs.  Andrew was just fascinated.  Pictures of the last few days are in the gallery.

Jan. 21: When I posted yesterday, I neglected to include several of Andrew’s recent cute mannerisms that I know will change shortly, so I wanted to record here for posterity.
He likes singing songs or saying things by changing the first letter.  For example, he gets a great kick out of singing, “Dinkle, dinkle dittle dar.”  Also, in a new interest in anatomy, he laughs hysterically as he says, “Not a teenis!”

The other day, Andrew came in the room and said quietly, “Daddy, I’d like to talk to you.” (while motioning for Bryan to come over to him…exactly like Bryan does with Andrew).  I could just overhear Andrew telling Bryan, “I feel nervous.”
What a sweet, sincere little person Andrew is!

I wanted to run the vacuum cleaner this morning, and Andrew asked me in a slightly panic-y tone of voice to please not vacuum because it scares him.  I showed him how much the vacuum helped me, and I understood that he didn’t like the loud noise.  I encouraged him to blow on his little horn so he would be making a lot of noise too.  So Andrew went into his room, went behind the rocking chair, and peeked wide-eyed around at me vacuuming the hall rug while he tooted determinedly on his little horn.

Andrew has been having a hard time falling asleep for naps. Today between his pre-nap books, we had a little talk about things that can help in falling asleep.  I told him about how cold and snowy it was outside and yet how warm and cozy his bed is.  And I told him how nice it can be to take a deep breath and snuggle down into your blankets.
When he crawled into his bed after the book, I noticed that he was breathing really funny and had to smile when I realized that he was just taking his versions of the deep breaths that I’d suggested.

Jan. 20: I feel like I have a whole book full of stories I want to share about Andrew.  He’s been doing such cute things!  This morning, for example, he slept late (7:20) and crawled into bed.  He was so sunshiny and loving.  The sun was out, so as I attempted to open my eyes, he had his nose touching mine, and he smiled as he blinked along with me.  Then he crawled over my (enormous) bulk to cuddle with Daddy.  He turned on my CD (James Galway) and told me when he was hearing the flute or the harp.
Bryan and I finished painting and decorating the bathroom last night, and I had put wall stickers up.  Andrew was pretty impressed to patter into the bathroom and see frogs and butterflies and caterpillars and other garden critters all over.
The little guy has needed a hair cut for quite some time, and after breakfast this morning, my little lion cub sat in front on his favorite show (Fantasia’s “Horses” aka the Pastoral Symphony).  Mommy Lion trimmed his curls while the little lion cub watched his show while sitting on the coffee table.  I’d done past hair cuts in the bathtub or longer ago in his high chair.  The video-watching scenario worked well.  I just hope I didn’t cut too much.  After I get it wet and can see how it curls up, I’ll know for sure.

Pictures from the last several weeks are in the gallery.