Funny Andrew Stories

Story #1
Our friend Varnali visited us all the way from NYC last weekend!  I'll have to post more about her visit with some nice photos and everything when I get a chance, but I wanted to write this funny little story before I forget.

Varnali and I were up in Andrew's room reading to him before bedtime.  We have a book from the library all about animals and bugs you see in the spring.  So, I was asking Andrew to point to the bunnies' tails.  He pointed to the tails in the book.  Then he felt his bottom to see if he had a tail.  Then get got up off my lap and walked around to Varnali's back and inspected her bottom very seriously to see if she had a tail.  It was pretty funny and cute.

Story #2
The other night I was sitting at the dining room table doing something on my computer and my father-in-law asks me from the kitchen "Carolyn, has someone been stabbing these bananas?  They have all these stab holes in them."  I just started busting up laughing.  Andrew likes to stand on a chair at the kitchen counter so he can be involved in what I'm doing while I cook.  The bananas and the knives aren't kept too far from each other on the counter.  (Yes, I know, I need to get those knives out of Andrew's reach).

Andrew's First Sentence

Andrew's expressive language is definitely expanding exponentially.  It seems that every day I hear him say a new word or two.  He also started identifying words in the songs I sing to him before bed.  So in the middle of "Hush Little Baby" I'll hear him say "baby", "mama", and "woof woof" (for the dog named Rover that I'll buy him if the cart and bull I bought him turn over.  For a long time I've been trying to get him to put too of his common words together into a sentence.  "Night-night Daddy", "Bye-bye Nana", or "Hi Mama" are all things we've tried to get him to say.  Well, a couple of weeks ago he finally said his first sentence.  Drum roll, please...

"No more poop."

Said during diaper changes, of course.  Yep, I've got good blackmail material.  Although, it seems to be pretty normal for toddlers to want to talk about bodily functions.  The first sentence my Grandma Olive heard me say?  To my doll who had just fallen off the swing and onto the ground, "Did you wet your pants again?"

Andrew's Birthday

Ok, this is super late!  Andrew's birthday was October 23, but I got really behind on my blog in October and early November.

We had a fun family birthday party on Andrew's birthday where we carved pumpkins, made caramel apples, watched Andrew open presents, and ate yummy birthday cake.  Both sets of Andrew's grandparents were there, along with his Uncle Bill and Aunt Rebecca, Aunt Bonnie, and cousins Liam, Alex, and Melanie.

Check out the cute (and easy!) Barrel-O-M&Ms cake I made:

 Here's the cool pirate ship on the night sea pumpkin that Paul carved

Andrew enjoying his birthday cake (and hamming it up a bit)

Andrew showing off his new car bed (though he had not interest in sleeping in it at the time)

Cousin Alex is Buzz Lightyear

Andrew playing with his new Mega Blocks set with his Aunt Bonnie

 Andrew's new panda takes a ride on his new scooter

Cousin Melanie loves the scooter, too

Words of Wisdom, Part 2

I wanted to add this to the bottom of my previous post, but then decided that it deserves its own post.

In the midst of the difficulties we've been having with Andrew's sleep habits, I keep remembering these wise words spoken by the president of our church, Thomas S. Monson:

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important 
than a person to be loved."


This was from a talk he gave in the November 2008 General Conference of the church, "Finding Joy in the Journey."  What an excellent talk full of inspiring stories and important truths to remember amidst all the changes that life is bound to bring!  You can find that article here: http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=92764bb52a73d110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

Another Sleeping Update

I'm sorry if this talk about Andrew's sleep habits is boring to the small group of you out there that read my blog!  I just want to record this stuff so I can look back later and see how it all unfolded, and I'm just lousy about keeping a journal so I'm recording this on my blog.

I got Andrew a night light, and it seems to have helped.  He still wakes up during the night since I got it, but only once or twice instead of multiple times.  The bedtime routine has improved--now once he gets into bed I can close the door almost all the way and just reassure him that I'm still there and stand/sit right outside his door for 3-5 minutes or so, then ever-so-carefully and silently close the door once he settles down and seems to be going to sleep.

Unfortunately, he still isn't napping very well.  He takes about a 30 minute nap every other day.  Today he slept 30 minutes, then was able to go back to sleep for another 30 minutes because Paul went in and lied down with him.  The other inconvenient thing lately has also been that he's waking up earlier every morning.  First it was 6:45, then 6:24, 6:12, 6:06, 5:30, and today it was 5:18.  We can sometimes get him to go back to bed, but it's usually just for 10-30 minutes and then he's up again.  I've been trying to move his bed time earlier to compensate and in the hopes of getting him better-rested.  One key thing that "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" says is that the more tired a child is, the harder it is for them to fall asleep and stay asleep.  It's counterintuitive, but when a child stops napping enough and/or wakes up too early in the morning, you should try to get them to bed earlier at night.  It's been hard to get him to bed early because I just haven't been very organized about dinner time this week (what I'm going to make, when I start making it, etc).  Tonight we got him to bed just before 7, so hopefully that helps.  I'm going to aim for 6:30 tomorrow night.

Just another note, for future reference:  I think the chance to daylight saving times contributed to all this.

In the end, I know that this phase will pass soon and we'll settle into a comfortable sleep pattern again eventually.

Sleeping Update

Last night was pretty rough.  Andrew woke up six (6!) times during the night (if you count the last time, which was actually his morning wake-up, but it was at 6 am, so I consider that during the night, since he used to sleep until about 7:30, at least).  Four of the wake-ups were during my sleep hours.  I only got about 6 hours of sleep max.  A lot of the time between wakings I couldn't sleep because I was paranoid that he'd wake up again any minute.  It took me back to the days of being a nursing mother.  (This is where Paul would chime in something like "are you SURE you want to have another one of these?"  And I'd reply "Yes, but not yet!")

I have a theory that the switch to a toddler bed has suddenly made him dislike sleeping in the dark, so I bought a night light today and we'll see how it goes tonight.  So far, so good.  He's been sleeping solid for about 3 hours now.  I remember moms I knew in Pittsburgh saying that when they made the switch to a toddler bed their kids suddenly freaked out about them closing their bedroom doors.  I tried leaving Andrew's door ajar and the hall light on last night, but that didn't seem to help.  I'm hoping the night light helps.  It's actually a really bright light, so his room isn't very dark with it.  Ok, I'm rambling and I'd better get to bed since there's no knowing what the night holds for me.  Wish us luck!

P.S.  At least he took a nap today, albeit a short 30-minute one.  That's about the nap length we've been getting out of him lately.

The weather has been pretty yucky lately--cold, wet, and DARK.  Daylight savings just made it worse.  However, I discovered today that the absence of direct sunlight made excellent lighting for taking some photos of Andrew hanging out on the driveway and discovering a little puddle out there.

Isn't that face great?  I love it!

The Big Switch to the Big-Boy Bed

Getting Andrew to sleep has been kind of an ordeal lately.  It finally got to the point where Andrew was climbing out of his pack-n-play over, and over, and over (literally 100 times one night) and refusing to go to sleep.  So, we made another go at switching to the big-boy bed.  (We bought the bed off Craigslist on October 20, but he didn't have any interest in sleeping in it).  I didn't expect it to be so difficult, since he's been a pro at falling asleep by himself for so long, but he sort of has to re-learn how to go to sleep on his own now that he's in a new environment.  We're still at the point where we have to stay with him in his room until he completely falls asleep most nights, and some days he just doesn't take a nap (like today), but every day he seems to accept the bed as his even more.  In fact, he voluntarily climbs into it around bed-time sometimes.  Here's a picture of Andrew pointing to "his bed" after waking up from his first nap ever in his big-boy bed (which Paul had to take with him).

Pumpkin Patch

I love how having a kid gives me reason to do fun things that I would otherwise pass up.  We took Andrew to the pumpkin patch in mid-October, and I think it was the first time I've been to a pumpkin patch since I was a little kid.  The local farm, Bi Zi Farms, had all sorts of fun activities for families.

Here's Andrew on the big straw-bale pyramid

Andrew and Paul in the straw-bale maze

Andrew and me sitting on the maze walls

There were lots of farm animals to see.  Andrew got to feed some corn to a goat.

Turkey butts!

There was a sea of dried corn kernels for the kids to play in

We were finding corn in Andrew's and Paul's clothes for a couple of weeks afterward

We got to take a hay ride out to the fields.  This was just part of one of three huge pumpkin patches!

Andrew really wanted to pick up a pumpkin and carry it, but they were just too big.  

For a while it seemed that he'd have to be content with just sitting on pumpkins.

He looked all over the field for a pumpkin that was just his size

In the end he accomplished his goal.

But, of course, what goes up must come down

After we selected our pumpkins, we made a quick stop to get measured.

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

A Day in the Life of Andrew, 23 months old

Here's a project I've been working on for a couple of weeks.  I am in the process of making it into a photo book (I heard about a deal from Picaboo to get a large photo book for free!).  I'll have to do this again sometime on a day when Andrew actually eats some fruits and vegetables so I don't look like such an unhealthy mommy.  (I really do feed him better than this most days, I promise).  Anyway, without further ado, here is a day in the life of Andrew: