Playing Dress Up

Now that he can do a lot more for himself, Xander has tons of fun playing dress-up. In the picture above it's cleaning gloves, but he also likes to put on mittens and oven mitts. I remember just a few months ago he wouldn't let us put anything at all on his hands.

He does yet have a personal style, but he does like to have a choice in what he wears. He seems like to wear the same kind of clothes that his daddy wears. He has a couple Elmo shirts that always make him a hit at school.

He's pretty good at taking his clothes off, which can be trouble. He particularly likes to take his shoes and socks off on the way to school...but only when it is raining, and daddy has to stand in the rain to put them back on.

Easter Bunny came early

The Easter Bunny came early this year. He left a trail of plastic eggs filled with goldfish crackers and m&ms candies. The trail lead to Xander's easter basket.

Xander wasn't too interested in the eggs until he realized that some of them had candy in them. After that, we had to open them all just to make sure to get all of the candy. He really liked the bunny. We've been reading a lot about bunnies lately so he knew the right word to use. He also really liked the letters.

I decided to have the Easter Bunny make an early visit because poor Xander was really feeling all that well today. There are three illnesses going around right now so it's hard to say which he has. At school there is seasonal flu and strep throat. At home, I had an ear infection due to who knows what. He had just been pretty pathetic all day, and I thought a visit from the Bunny would be a good cheer up.

Ranch

I've never seen someone eat ranch dressing by the spoonful before. Eww, Xander.

Shapeman for hire

Xander is a shape expert now. If you need to hire someone to help you with your octagons, stars, crosses, circles, or triangles, we have your man! His rate is $10,000/hour with a minimum of 1 hour (since he won't actually sit still for more than a few minutes). For this rate, he will physically and verbally identify shapes for you. Don't let Disney get his contract before you!

Ah...now, how shall I spend my retirement?

More on shy

I starting to think that Xander's shyness is less of a phase and more of a permanent personality trait.

In the past week, I have discovered that is Xander is not equally talkative with everyone. It's just this past week that he has started to open up more at school with his newest teacher. She's been in the class every day since the beginning of Febrauary. This week was the first time he would sit in her lap. Fortunately, he is very much attached to some of the other teachers, but still...6 weeks.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised if it is permanent. I mean...he is my son after all. I'm not exactly a social butterfly.

Lunch at the topless bar

I got this picture from Xander's teacher today. This is because they were having red Jello that day. Red die just doesn't ever come out. Good solution!

Potty stuff

So, Xander sat on a potty for the first time today at school. No big drama to speak of...sounds like it went ok. He's sat on it at home a couple of times for a few seconds at a time.

He really does not seem that excited at all about using a potty at home...well, or diaper changes for that matter. There's always something better, more fun that he'd rather be doing. Oh, we have so many battles over diaper time!

Initially, there was some interest his potty because it was new. Now, the newness has warn off and he is back to being uninterested. I'm not really sure how to make it more EXCITING for him.

Happy or Terrified?

We've got a new game in the house. Our main living area creates a loop with the kitchen, living room, and dining room. It's great for playing chase, but we have a new game. We chase Xander around for a while, and then at some point, quietly go around in the opposite direction. When he least expects it, pop out and say "boo".

The first time that I surprised him, I almost regretted it. I swear he screamed like he was scared, but then he immediately started laughing. So, we kept on playing.

The only thing not so fun about the game is the dogs. For some reason, they insist on jumping on me when I play this game. The dogs are also very good at ruining the element of surprise....big oafs.

Nigh-nigh with Baby

I bought this baby doll this weekend for a prop for a friend's baby shower game. I figured that I would get some extra use out of it by letting Xander plan with it. He thought it was pretty cool. So cool, in fact, that he wanted to take it to bed with him. Now, I'm wondering if I'll be able to get it back from him.

He was mostly nice to his baby. He gave it many hugs. He also was stomping on it when he figured out that was the best way to get it to say "mama". It has a pretty hard to squeeze sensor to trigger the noise. So, not all sugar and spice and everything nice...

Teenage blackmail material

Xander found my "there's no place like home" shoes.

Little Daddy

Grandma Jo sent us this picture of little Dolphin today. We don't have many pictures of Dolphin when he was little. Doesn't he look SO much like Xander?

Lawnmower: Marco Polo

This weekend, Dolphin mowed the grass. This was really Xander's first encounter with a lawnmower, not that he got anywhere close to it. He and Daddy shared their version of "Marco Polo". Xander yelling "Daddy" and Daddy yelling "Xander" (if you listen closely) over the loud noise of the lawnmower.

Insight into the mind of my little boy

Xander is possibly a little afraid of the dark. I've noticed that for a few months, he doesn't like to wonder off into dark areas of the house. He would just start whining until someone came with him. Now, he has starting asking us to turn the light on for him when it is dark. He basically points at a light switch and says "on, on, ON" until we turn it on.

The other thing that I think is funny about Xander is how upset he gets sometimes when food gets stuck to his hands. He'll have food all over is face, and not care at all. However, if he gets something stuck on his fingers, he start whining until we give him a paper towel or napkin. I'm fairly certain that he did not pick up this cleanliness obsession from Dolphin or me!

Fascinating adventures of the silverware drawer

So, Xander's latest entertainment of choice this past week was to pull up a chair to one of the kitchen drawers. He then gets on the chair and explores all the kitchen implements in the drawer. It's just amazing how long this can keep him occupied. I was able to fully clean the kitchen thanks to the fascinating adventures of the silverware drawer.

He hasn't pulled up to the "junk drawer" yet thankfully. Who knows what he'd find in there!

Austin Kite Festival

We had a really nice time at the Austin Kite Festival today. I have never seen so many kites together in one place. There were hundreds all flying at once. It was really amazing to me that they were not more tied up and twisted together. I'm so glad that I took a little time away from work to go see.


Xander, of course, enjoyed the experience also. I think he was equally intrigued by all of the people, the kettle corn, and the snow cone that Daddy shared with him. He spent a good portion of the time up on Daddy's shoulders until we could convince him to get into the stroller. Unfortunately, we all forgot the sunscreen and turned a bit red today.


Next year, I think we'll have to bring a kite of our own.

Time for schoolin'

I think Xander is finally ready for some serious learning. Today, on the car ride home, I gave him some big hard pretzels to eat. After I while I hear him yelling "A, A, A". I look back and he was holding up a pretzel in the shape of an "A".

Please

I wish the sign for please was something different. The way that Xander signs "please", it kind of looks like he is scratching his chest with both hands. He's great at using it for request more food in particular. He's probably slightly better than me at remembering to say please. The problem is that when he's eating, he has very messy hands, and he ends up "please"ing food all over his shirt.

A little bit shy

This past week, we've had a slew of strangers come over, and Xander has shown some pretty strong shyness. First, it was a cable guy, then a roofing guy, and a neighbor who doesn't visit often. Xander was really interested in checking out the strangers but also really shy. He kept a good distance between him and the stranger.

He was also a little shy of little 3 year old girl, Hailey, that we ran into at the Carinval today, but it didn't take too long for him to warm up to her. They were a good pair and she even helped push him down the slide.

Crayons!

You know what? A big box of crayons is still way fun. Xander asked to play with the crayons tonight after dinner. Playing with crayons was fun for me, too. It was a great de-stresser after a long, hard day at work. If you haven't played with crayons in a while, I recommend it!

A cute photo

Here's a really cute photo from a wedding we recently attended: http://peace4artphoto.zenfolio.com/eawed/e2914ba0d

I'm trying to figure out how I can order a copy.

More terrible twos: MINE

Oh gee...he's started to say "mine" for HIS things. He's gotten pretty upset now when he drops or throws some food on the floor and Copper eats it. He yells "mine" and starts screaming at Copper.

The other day, he even tried dragging her by her collar because he was so mad at her. I mean...it's bad that he does that to Copper, but it's hard not to laugh as he (26lbs) tries to pick a fight with a 75lb dog. He was clearly frustrated that Copper was not listening to him (hey, she doesn't really listen to anyone when there is food on the floor). I need to figure out a way for him to ask for us help in situations like this instead of getting physical.

He's also used "mine" with us if we eat something off his plate...trying to show him that some new food is yummy. OK, fair enough, we'll respect the plate.

Some relief

I was talking to Xander's teacher today about a number of things. She indicated that he has very good verbal skills compared to some kids his age. Not that it is good for parents to compare, but it is a relief for me to hear that he is not considered language delayed.

I think I have stressed about language delay from day 1. There's too much stuff out there online to totally stress out new mothers. If it weren't that, I'm sure I'd being worrying about something else because that is just my personality. Because of all this fear, I have put a lot of effort and personal sacrifice into try to teach Xander how to communicate.

So, at this very moment, I'm going to choose to believe that all of this hard work encouraging his verbal skills is paying off. I obviously cannot say with scientific certainty that the extra effort made any difference, but I don't care. It's ok to have a little pride, right?