Zoo Talk

Guinness has lots of words, but seldom strings more than 2 together for sentences. Here is an example of a Guinness 'conversation'/train of thought.

SETTING: at the zoo, holding the fence of the pony/goat pen at the children's zoo section, looking in longingly.

Gate.

Locked!

Stuck.

HELP!


Translation: Mommy, there is a gate between me and those animals. It is locked, and I am stuck on this side! Help me please to get inside!

This age is just so cute, he is the funniest guy and makes us laugh so much.

Things Guinness has eaten this week

in no particular order:

green chalk
baby lotion
antibiotic cream
the drain from the sink (OK, he didn't EAT it, but he put it in his mouth)
the bathtub drain (see note above)
toothpaste
his sister's toothbrush

Pretzel Party

Just had a late night pretzel party with my son.

He woke up yelling and crying, so I went to get him. "Pretzel!" he cries. So we get some pretzels. He eats those in the living room, then goes off for more He lugs the whole container into the dining room and so we're both crouched down on the floor, digging out pretzels under the glow of the Christmas tree lights. We do a few more trips and then I say, "No more." And he says, "Yi-ga" (=one) So I give him one. He holds out his other hand. I put one more in it, and tell him; 'liyan-ga' (two). He echoes me. So I say san-ga and hold out a third. He puts one pretzel in his mouth, holds out his now empty hand and copies me, "san-ga".

I put the pretzels away. I go to brush my teeth. He comes into my room with the pretzel jar.

Finally get him back into bed, a preztel in each hand.

Counting

Guinness is talking non stop: he commentates as he walks around. "Up" (as he climbs on the bed) "down" (as he comes off) "TV broken" (our bedroom TV isn't hooked up to cable), "Sleep"; he loves to come to my bedroom and just lie down.

Tonight we counted. We were going to downstairs on the elevator, ad I was saying 1 2 3,, 1 2 3, and then he said with no prompting four. So I said five. He said six. I said seven, he said eight. Crazy right?

This weekend

Pulled over the shoe rack in the porch wrestling with an umbrella.

Got the sugar bowl down and was eating sugar (and spilling sugar EVERYWHERE) Who likes walking on sugar, anyone?

Threw sand on a complete stranger at the park

Borrowed every single shovel in the sandbox today at the park

Threw the communion tray down (ok, this one I didn't see because I was in the big service but I heard it through the wall)

Colored his leg and abdomen

Colored the sofa

Put the Mr. Clean toothbrush I was using to clean the sofa in his mouth

Bit the ear piece off Daddy's headphones



In less destructive news he learned what a sheep days, and and can say some very sweet few word phrases: More Please! and when you ask him 'How are you?' he says, Good!

This week

He was messing around with the vacum cleaner today, and he when he pushed the power button and it vrooooomed to life he jumped about 10 feet back. Ha ha, it was so funny! Wish I had a video camera pointed at him!

Yesterday he ate fallen taco meat from the dustpan and my deoderant. He loves toothpatse, too, and we are constantly chasing him out of our bathroom. Oh, and in the bathroom he loves to grab the toilet brush. I have to throw out his toothbrush today because he threw it on the floor and then grabbed the toilet brush and although I didn't see any contact, I just can't in good conscience give it back to him. Like he'd notice.

He's been healthy for a week. I should run get his immunizations done...

So tired...

He was so tired today after supper that he went to his room, crawled up on a chair and into his crib, and went to sleep :)

Of course he is tired from CRYING most of the night. Ugg, trip to the doctor because we are hopefully not going to have a repeat of that. Doctor did a chest Xray because his breathign looked and sounded bad and its almost pnemeunia but not quite, so thats good. The ear drum doens't look good either but he thinks he bumped his ear or something and its not and infection so that is good too. Got the regular regime of cough syrup, decongestant, exportant, and tylenol.

Maybe it will be funny one day...

Today Guinness literally ripped the door off of one of our cupboards.

We have a (custom order) buffet thing that we keep the water cooler, microwave, and coffee machine on, Inside it is storage space we desperately need because our kitchen is so tiny. We have to keep the handles tied shut so he doesn't go in and muck everything up, and today he pulled so hard at the rope that he ripped the hinge right out of the wood.

Chris was so mad. I am pretty mad, too because it was nice furniture that we spent lots of money on AND we need it. Thats why we spent money on it. Oh, Guinness.

AHH!

ONly 18 months old, but have the terrible twos begun?

If he doesn't get his way he yells and cries. Refuses to sit in his high chair. Fussy and whiny. Trying my patience!!!

No, I will not let you throw the iPod on the floor. No, I will not let you run with a chopstick in your mouth. No, you can't play with scissors. No. No. No. No.

I don't think our house is that dangerous, I think he has a knack for finding danger. And really, it is an apartment. There are only so many places to keep things that are more than 4 feet off the ground. And he can open doors now...

Did I mention that he escaped from childcare in Taichung? They have babysitting at our professional learning meetings there so the spouses can participate in some activities, and when I went to get Guinness for lunch the lady said, 'Well he was here a minute ago but when we opened the door to let someone in he must have run out because he isn't here now.' Ummm, great. So typical.

(I wasn't really worried because I knew a lot of people we knew were milling about and that he was probably out playing. Also, it was an enclosed campus area, not like he escaped into a mall or a road. Just a bunch of teachers having lunch. I felt bad because I knew the worker searching for him probably felt terrible!)

Redeeming moments: How he says, 'Bye Steve!' to Blues CLues, and asks for 'George?' (as in Curious). He sits and reads books to himself, and loves pirates. (Arrrr!) He slept with his two big plastic dinosaurs the night before last. (ta de kong long). And he started saying 'bonk' when he bumps something, or 'broken' when, well, when something is broken.

We need to get pictures done soon.

Boys...

So Gemma and I were making the ponies hair beautiful by adding clips and things, and Guinness came by to check it out. I suggested putting a clip on him, grabbed a little rooster tail in the front and gave him a unicorn horn. What does Guinness do? Feel his head to find the clip, pull it out, put it in his mouth and run away, squealing in delight. What a stinker.

He is running a lot lately, which is so scary because he gets going so fast a major wipeout is inevitable. He ran down the hallway on Friday and turned the corner to Gemma's room so hard he missed the opening and ran full on into the frame. Ouch!

All done!

So Guinness was eating his McVittie's digestive crackers in his high chair when he heard the theme to Blue's Clues. "Done!" he says. And I say, "No buddy, you still have some cookie in your hand. See?" So he looks at the cookie that he is clenching, throws it on the ground, and says, "done!!"

Thanks, man. :) What a kid.

Guinness' Ear

So Thursday night he woke up at 11pm. Crying. Not just whimpering, unsettled, but 'WAH, I"m really upset, take care of me now pleassse" crying. No cuddles, song, book, TV show could console him. He cried until 1:30, slept till 3:00, was up till 4:30, slept till 6. I pushed him in the stroller in the yard for a bit till he fell asleep during the 3am stint, but anyway, yah. Bad night! (I am proud to say I didn't lose my temper or yell at Chris for something completely ridiculous or anything, as I am sometimes prone to do when I am way over tired.) So I took the morning off work (Chris had his own dr. thing), and took him in. Left ear; good. Right ear; not good. Very inflamed, acute middle ear infection the doctor said. "This is why he is so dis-comfortable" the doctor said :)
So we left with: amoxicillan for the ear, 3 more things to take care of the lingering cold symptoms from last week, and 2 things for the fever, including a very special up the b*tt fever pill they like to prescribe for high fevers because it brings them down more quickly. Oh, Taiwan. But thankfully the lines were all short, I got all of this for a mere 100NT (3$) and an hour after taking all this wonderful medicine he was feeling and acting WAY better. Pheww!

So thankful we live in the modern age, with medicine for my babies when they are sick!

Guinness' words part II

chicken
down
door
all done
uck! (as in yuck!)
Auntie

Guinness' words

mine
no
yah
wow!
nana (banana)
hot
tang tang (hot)
down
apple
cracker
cookie
go go (dog)
puppy
mao (cat)
book
more
ball

Talking

So funny when you're previously unintelligable infant begins making sense. Guinness says, 'Yah' and 'No' at the right times (mostly), and does a number of other really cute language things. Like "Pop-corn". And today when Elmo's world came on Sesame Street he said, without any coaching, 'Elmo!".

His bedtime is also super funny. He hardly like to be cuddled, he just tries to dive down into his blankets and stuffed toys, and then he lays on his back looking up at you and says, "Bye bye!" Tonight I blew him a kiss and he blew one back to me.

Out of the crib part II

Being the ever forgetful parents we are, the day after we discovered Guinness could climb out of the crib we still hadn't moved the dresser that was beside the crib out of the way. So Monday morning when Chris got up, Guinness was playing in his room. Then, when Annabelle was there and he was having his nap, she caught him in the act: she opened the door to him standing on the dresser. And the little stinker looks right at her and says, "NO NO NO NO NO!!!"

Ha ha!

Now the dresser is moved away and he is stuck again. I kind of felt bad for him, I think it showed a lot of creativity and strength to figure out an escape route, only to be outmanouvered by his parents (who are three times his size and much stronger). I feel we had the unfair advantage, hee hee:)

Oh boy...

It was bound to happen sooner or later...

After Gemma woke me up this morning she went to see Guinness so we could get him out of his bed. Except when she opened his door, out he ran. Which means at some point he climbed out of his crib, and was just playing in his room waiting for us. (He can't open the doors in our house yet.)

What a kid.

Guinness loves Daddy

It's true! Daddy is who he has to go check on on the morning and daddy who puts him to bed at night most nights. When he sees Chris he always exclaims "dada!!!". It's so cute!

Car

Newest word: car. He is referring to the Princess car, which he loves as much as Gemma did.

Sleep Machine

This kid, he is amazing.

We kept him the say we arrived until 1am. He slept until 4:30pm the next day. I had to wake him up, because I was getting worried he wouldn't sleep at night. It was my plan to keep him up till 10pm, to make sure he would sleep through again but he passed out in Chris' arms at 9:30, and then slept through (with only 2 short awakenings) until I woke him up at 3:30pm. So like 18 hours of sleep straight!!! I guess travelling for 30 hours pooped him out.

He travelled great. Wasn't too much trouble, but didn't sleep too much either. He couldn't get comfy on my lap so he would sleep for 2 hours and then wake up crying, stiff and stodgy I'm sure. He ate well, did a few laps of the aisles.

He loves being here, although he hasn't really been awake to do much yet!! Everybody loves him, of course! He's really just a great baby.

Second Child

Well, we have committed the classic 'sin' against the second child.

Not enough pictures.

I am trying to pick out ones to print for his baby book, and there are some serious gaps in his chronolgy:

No Halloween. (And he was such a cute prince ronald, from paper bag princess. Gemma was elizabeth, of course)
One crawling picture.
No first steps.
Few Christmas.
No first tooth.

We're sorry, baby! But we have lovely pictures of your 1st birthday trip to Bali. Next time you feel angry at us just look at your passport!

2 Words

He can say 'cookie' and 'no'. He usually says 'no' while pointing his finger.

Guinness ting du dong zhongwen!

Jen da!!

Guinness understands Chinese!

Really!


Annabelle asked him in Chinese to take the cookies to Gemma and she would open them for him. And he picked up the cookies, and off he went. And he has a great new trick; also courtesy of Annabelle:

Guinness, Shuei jiao: and he puts his head down on the table or on your lap.

qi lai!; and he wakes up! Shuai jiao = sleep, qi lai = wake up.

du bu qi, wo de pinyon shi bu hao. (sorry, my pinyon is bad)

Guinness ke yi kai men!! Guinness can open the door! Ahh! I like the speaking/understanding Chinese tricks better!

Chocolate Fountain

We were at the bakery getting bread and the lady offered small chocolate cookies to the kids. Guinness of course put the whole thing in his mouth and had the huge chipmunk cheeks. As he swished it back a forth it started to dissolve in his mouth and the river of chocolate started to flow. First it was all over his face and hands, so I wipe him. And it just keeps coming. And coming. And coming. I'd wipe his chin and then another dribble would run out. It was so funny :)

A book lover (I hope!)

A lightbulb has gone off! Books are NOT just for eating or throwing in the toilet. If I take a book to mommy, she will sit with me on her lap and make fun noises!

SO he has taken a new interest in the written word. His favorite is a fuzzy animal one with different patches of patterned fur and stuff to pet on each page; I'm a stripey zebra, pat my neck. I'm a wrinkly rhine, touch my rough horn, etc. The climax is the last page and the tiger; Do you DARE to stroke a tiger? ROAR!!

He loves it!

This week...

He is such a goof, he is making us laugh so much. He will just start giggling out of no where, which is really funny.

He loves the iPod, which gets him a smack on the hand and a firm No. (or bu ke yi form Annabelle) Then he throws a mini tantrum, arches his back and almost falls over until he catches himself and remembers how much falling over backwards hurts, so uprights himself. Sometimes when he's mad he leans forward and puts his forehead down on the ground. Its so funny, and so sad all at the same time. Can't always get what you want :)

Eating constantly, but having some tummy pain at night so trying to simplify his evening meals and keep is basic. He is not a great solid food eater yet. I sort of forget since Gemma, but he seems to need everything really small or really smooth. He still chokes on water when he drinks with a straw, that sort of thing. I forget he's only a year old.

Funniest thing this week? When I hold my towel covered arms out to him in the bathtub and say,"TIme to get out?" and he pushes himself back and says, "No no no!' He's not a super talker yet but he's getting that one figured out! He said apple in context last week, so I am counting that as the official first word. He doens't say to much else yet, just lots of sound and tries. He says die die instead of bye bye, and of course mama. He said Annabelle once, homes; I was there, but no repeats of that.

He loves to imitate faces and play peekaboo. He does this one where he wrinkles his nose up and breaths really heavy through it, almost like snorting. So we do it back to him, and he does it more. Probably funnier in person, sorry! Just trying to recount all the great moments. Small, but great! I want to remember them forever!

Getting Better

It is so great to see your children eating again after days and days of just nibbling at their food. Guinness ate a tonne today and kept it down, and has been playing and be-bopping around just like his old self. Although when he was getting hands on with the toilet brush I sighed, remembering how calm it was when he just lay around for a week.

Loving the boy :)

He was so sweet today, the little sicko. All he did was nap, and when he wasn't napping he was laying around the house. Laying on me, laying on the floor. He even walked over to the big diaper box from Costco and just rested his head on it. He perked up for about 10 minutes at 8pm, smiled and laughed and played some peekaboo and then petered out again, and is now in bed (where I hope he stays for a long time, and where I hope he doesn't explode through his diaper again in the middle of the night)

I just want to remember him forever like this; not sick but this perfect one year old, so cute and sweet and lovable and cuddly, and warm...I wish I would remember these moments forever.

One!

My boy is one!

He got a snappy new haircut today, too, which was almost impossible and the two of us were covered in hair by the end. Squirmy wormy. And unequipped Taiwan salon, but the guy was fun and worked hard and it turned out well.

We had a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday, pictures on facebook. Since Guinness doesn't have that many friends we just had our friends from church come. The cake turned out well, but too big and to sweet. It was fun to have our house full of people and to have Tegan and Ryan here to celebrate with us (and to bring sour cream home form 101 with the. You can't get sour cream at just any grocery store, you know.)

All is well!

First Ear Infection

He was coughing and grouchy last night, and cried most of the day today. Very unusual for Guinness so I took him to the doctor after school. After a quick weigh and measure the doctor quickly diagnosed a middle ear infection, we got some medicine and away we went. (When it was measuring time, the nurse showed me the laying down table with the tape measure on it, but then the doctor asked me if Guinness could stand yet. Ha ha! Can he stand? He could climb up to the top of your desk mister!)

I love the confidence of doctors. When I have a fussy sickly kid and no idea what is going on, they can so quickly look and listen and know what's what. He took a 3 second look into the ear. 'Oh, ear infection." Simple as that.

Guinness was acting more normal pretty quick after the medicine, so hopefully Annabelle and Chris have a better day tomorrow.

Thinker

Babies are so cute when they problem solve!

So he loves my cell phone, of course. Babies and destructable technology seem magnetically drawn together. So he sees my phone and goes for it, but there was a new variable to the 'steal mommy's phone' game: it was plugged in. So he can't get as far as he wants. He holds it walks around in these arcs, like a horse being tethered in a ring. He tries shaking it. Lifting it up and down. Then he walked up to the little cabinet where it was resting and where the cable was all tangled up and he wiggles it, trying to get the cable loose. Then he tries the brute force method of just holding on tight and running and that broke it free. But it was a cute process to get there.

Climb Every Play Structure...

We were at school playing this morning, and Guinness was happily walking around. I looked away for a minute, turn back around, and, uh, there was my 10 month old. Standing on top of the bridge on the play structure. I didn't even see him climb, but he must have climbed up the 8 or so steps to the top. What a kid!!!

Godzilla

The monster's reign continues!

He can climb up onto the footstool, but especially loves climbing on his squeaky Thomas chair. He stands at the front and grabs the back and climbs up and then down, then sits then up then down. The whole time I am freaked he is going to bite it but he is doing OK.

He teeth count is up to eight, the side ones came in last week.

He said Gemma twice; Gemma and I heard it. His other words are NaNa (for banana, or food in general), dada, and mama. He likes to clap his hands and listen to singing.

We are weaning; he is eating now only 2 or 3 times a day and then once still at night. I am glad. He is getting too big to hold comfortably across my lap like that, he's eating so much, and I am ready to end my nursing schedule of 7:15 go to work 9am go home 9:20 back to work 12 come home 12:25 back to work 3:15 come home.... Its too much!

very good bandaids.

I did get bandaids for his owie; big waterproof ones. On;y they were TOO good, and after 24 hours I could not get it off! Even in the bath, even with baby oil. It took about 15 minutes of picking to get it off!!! The bandaid was just so smooth it made a perfect seak to his skin. Oooops! At least though it is better now!

Godzilla

That boy, yikes. He pushed my buttons today.

-stuck his hand in the toilet after Gemma peed in it...EWWWW!
-threw his broccoli on the floor.
-knocked Gemma's plate of snack out of her hand on the floor
-spilled a cup of water
-threw food off the food shelf

He seriously is a walking disaster. Walk to the bedroom, pull down the clock. Climb on mommy's foot massager. Try to get in the bathroom to get the drain. Pull the stuff off the kitchen shelves. Go see if someone left the bathroom door open. As I am cleaning up one mess he is making another.And he will not lay still when I change his diaper. Which I had to do 6 times today!!!! All poopy ones!!!!!

His first rash went away last week only to be replaced by a different worse rash. This once looks like excema (sp?). It was bright red on his cheeks and nose, and scaly. Lotion seems to help and it is finally better looking today. I hope it is not a food allergy. And in other health problems, he has a sore on his.... hmm.... kind of down under his sack. It started as what looked like a little scrape, like a skinned knee but really small, and now it is getting bigger and redder. I mean, of course it is; its been in his poopy pee diaper all day. I've changed him a lot, and cleaned it as well as I could each time, and put polysporin on it but I am not sure how to dress wounds down there... I'll get some bandages tomorrow I guess and see if I can find a way to keep it clean and dry.

What's with kids being sick so much??

Should I stay or should I go...

...to the dr., that is. Ugg, so hard to know when they need to see a doctor or if they are just regular sick. The little man was really sleepy on Sunday. Awake for an hour, then a nap. Awake for an hour, then a nap. He also got a rash, and a mild fever, and hen he threw up a few times, so we took him in. Oh, and his lips turned purple, too. (Has anyone seen that before? It was like he was freezing cold.) He had that for a bit on Sunday and Monday. So I took him in yesterday. She checked him over really well, I really like this new doctor, and said it was probably a viral GI thing. She sent us down for a sonogram, just in case, but that was fine. So he has some medicine, and we'll see. He was acting more normal today so that's good. He looks terrible though, all bumpy and pimply but Dr. Tsai said that the rash will take 3-5 days to go away.

He has started saying No. You can tell he hears it about a million times a day. He sings a little song, up and down, "no no no no no no no no no. No no no no no." Babies are so cute.

The Treasure That He Seeks...

...is Nature's Valley Oats and Honey granola bars. You know, the ones from Costco with the green shiny wrapper and are super crunchy and crumbly? We have a box of them and have been keeping it on the floor due to lack of space anywhere else and the little guy loves to get into them. He grabs one, and struts around the house with it, waving it like a prize. Then he chews n it until he bites through the wrapper. Then he carries it around getting crumbs everywhere. This game of course got old really fast and now he doesn't get away with it as much, but hewas just so determined to get into that granola bar. And now he is having his first feelings of, Wait a minute, I WANT that! and he gets super mad when you take it away. Its still so cute and funny at this point, baby tantrums.

He is starting to really get the phone. Yesterday he was playing with my cell and he held it up to his ear and said, "hi?" I love how they start to learn things.