Last week and incidentals

* Last Sunday we met a nice mom and baby at Thamien Park.. I think baby’s name was Anya, but don’t quote me on the spelling. Anyway, I gave her contact information but I also ran off kind of spaztastically because I’d just slammed James’s middle finger in his trunk and we were going to head to the ER. Anyway, we did go to the ER that day but left after an hour when his finger reinflated to look like a finger again. He’s doing pretty well fingerwise – he tells me only the cut hurts still – and we all haven’t been to that park much until today (at all? can’t remember Monday) since then because the weather’s been shitty. Anyway, sorry to James for messing up the finger while I was chatting away at him, and sorry to Anya’s mom for what must’ve been a weird parting.

We were at the park in the first place to spend time with Madeline and Mateo as an outdoors playdate. As per usual procedure, James and I switched off so I could chat with Madeline a little bit, since the two babies wanted to play on opposite sides of the park. It was very nice to chat with her a bit and hang out with Mateo!

* Tristan is now using a stepstool to come help wash dishes just about whenever he hears the water turned on. He’s not great at actually positioning it, but he’s a ninja at staying up on it and actually playing. He can barely reach the faucet..

The very first time, daddy had to help him up and down from it. Only the first time. Now, Ninja Child is by either of our sides whenever the water is turned on in the sink for any reason. Hell, if we turn on the water so it can heat up for cooking (shhh, I made chicken soup, but accidentally made it too spicy to even offer to Tristan), he’s up on that stool expectantly.

Here at Casa de Long, we believe in using obsessions (in our child AND in us) to our advantage whenever possible. Suddenly we’re up to date on washing dishes (not necessarily putting them away or using the dishwasher, though) because there’s no more need to supervise Tristan to keep him from getting into trouble while you’re just trying to wash HIS damn drink cups. As long as he doesn’t trip and fall, and as long as we’re vigilant with the fucking knives (we have to lock up the damn KNIVES this weekend now!), this is a very good thing for our household. Plus, this is how we’re encouraging household chore participation – through the “water is fun!” principle.

(I’ll punt anyone who goes into any sort of description about literal knives used for that purpose. :P)

* Tristan seems to have gained mad skills lately. He’s obviously doing neat things physically, such as climbing into chairs and sitting nicely at the table, the aforementioned usage of a stepstool, walking up and down stairs independently (and holding like hell onto the rail, of course :D), and today he even almost climbed INTO his crib. But I also feel like I can trust him a bit more. We can actually get him to go up the stairs when we get home and not try to linger and need constant support. He’s starting to understand that people behind him need to go through the upstairs gate and just keep going instead of trying to shut the gate on us. After I close the gate, I can drop whatever I was carrying on the chaise lounge and go pee without fear that he’ll be an inch away from certain death if I don’t hurry with ninjalike speed. He’s also not compulsively joining me in the bathroom anymore, although I believe he is still joining his dad at night. It’s actually important that he joins his dad in the bathroom to observe the mechanism in adults – he’s had plenty of practice with me, anyway.

* I have some sort of community-esque project planned. Yah, I know, yet another project. I never finish any of them. 😉

[afternote: this entry was completed with NO SCREAMING BABY! Wheeeee!]

This entry was posted in Uncategorized.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *