Not using our inside voices

The screaming. Oh my, the screaming.

Jack has decided that if we take something away from him -- you know, like a bottle of cleaning fluid or a cigarette -- he should scream. If we tell him no, he can not touch the hot stove, he should scream. If he can't fit the circle in the square hole on his block container, he should scream.

Sometimes, just for the hell of it, he screams. And then looks at me to see what I am going to do about it.

I have tried ignoring it. I have tried reasoning with him. I have tried getting on his level and giving him a stern NO SCREAMING. I have tried saying calmly, "We don't scream."

Last night he tried this little trick at a restaurant when he no longer wanted to eat a quesadilla. So he started screaming at the decible-level of a jumbojet. With a fantastic pitch just below what only dogs can hear.

I scooped him up out of his high chair, took him outside and told him "We do not scream. If you are done, you need to say 'all done' or sign it. You don't scream."

And I shit you not, the kid looked me right in the eye and screamed. And then laughed.

Me, not so much with the laughing. Instead, I was biting my lip trying not to laugh.

Seriously, how do they instinctively know to make themselves so damn cute?

Weighty matters

Friday we took Jack to see his pediatrician. We wanted to make sure he was gaining weight properly since he can't drink whole milk.

I knew he was getting heavier, because my biceps are looking like I got a "B-12" shot in the ass from Miguel Tejada. But I was hoping he was keeping up with his curve. He's been drinking rice milk for a month now, with a few ounces a day of goat's milk thrown in for kicks. It hasn't been bothering him, so we've stuck with that.

The doctor said first thing he wanted to do was weigh him. If he was still on his curve, we wouldn't even need to talk about my concerns because they would be a moot point.

Imagine my surprise when we put out little 10-percenter on the scale and he had gained 2.5 pounds IN ONE MONTH.

Apparently, I was starving him with the breastmilk. Because since we weaned, he's porking out. He went from between the 10-25th percentiles for weight (which he's been at since birth) to between the 25-50th percentiles.

We are stuffing him full of almond butter and avocado every day and sneaking things like olive oil into the preparation of his food. (Note to self: avoid avocado and almond butter if trying to lose weight.)

The belly that ate Chicago is growing by leaps and bounds on this kid, which is great. I am thrilled to see him move into the average range. Yay for mediocrity!

His doctor said he wants us to try phasing some whole milk in gradually. He said rice milk doesn't have nearly enough fat for the long term and goat's milk is missing some key vitamin growing kids need in their diets.

So dutiful patients that we are, we will start that next week. Maybe the Easter bunny will bring Jack a basket of cheese, yogurt and milk. Because nothing says "let's celebrate the resurrection of our Lord" like a little dairy-induced diarrhea.

Bully Girl

On Fridays, I take Jack to a little play/music class in the neighborhood. It's a nice setup, a huge room that looks like a meadow with tons of space for the kids to get their groove on.

They sing songs, dance, play with stuffed animals and then play instruments. He seems to like it, but it's a huge class with a range from 1-2 years old. Our old class was for crawlers, which was so nice and calm and small. But he outgrew it when he started walking, so we moved to the older class.

Our friend Madonna and her little girl, Elena, are also in the class, which is really fun. I get to have a Mommy friend there and Jack and Elena, who are three weeks apart, get to play together.

But the last several classes, a little blonde girl has been pushing Jack. And not a slight push, but an all-out shove that sends him on his ass and then she plops down on top of him. It's like she's some sumo wrestler going for the pin.

Now I am all for my kid working things out on his own, but this little girl is definitely closer to 2 years old and she's big. She also doesn't seem at all remorseful about her bully role.

I have learned the rules of the playground well so far: you don't parent someone else's kid. If a child is doing something to Jack that is inappropriate or unsafe, I am going to just remove Jack from the situation. It's not my place to correct the other kid.

But Bully Girl's mom was not at the class. Her nanny brings her every week. And the nanny doesn't say a word as Bully Girl shoves Jack. And that's when I have a problem.

Get off your ass and open your mouth to your charge. And if you don't want to do that, the least you can do is keep your eye on her so if she gets close to pushing, you can step in and play a little prevent defense.

Today I had enough and I gave the nanny a super dirty look, pulled Jack out from under the little girl, and told Bully Girl, "No! You can't push him down. That's not nice."

Nanny comes over when she sees the dirty look and apologizes to me. Doesn't tell Bully Girl to apologize, doesn't tell Bully Girl not to push other kids, nothing. Which pissed me off even more.

So now I feel like I have to watch Bully Girl like a hawk. And that's crap. I shouldn't have to worry about my 13-month-old getting pushed down in a class where we sing songs about butterflies.

Next week, I think I might just trip her when I see her going anywhere near Jack.

Head Bangers Ball

When you get frustrated because you can't figure out how to complete a task or don't get your way, is your first instinct to bang your head on the floor or the wall or any hard surface that's handy?

Because, apparently no one told me, that's what toddlers do.

Last week, Jack started this little routine. At first, we were alarmed. Oh my god! He'll knock himself out! Stop him!

But then, we started recognizing he might be doing it for attention. So we tried ignoring it. That just made him madder, resulting in more head-butting.

Finally, I consulted the Internets because if Al Gore invented it, by God, it should have an answer. As always, my Google Medical Degree comes in handy. I found that this is totally normal.

Toddler around Jack's age (13.5 months) understand everything you say to them. But they don't have the ability to communicate back to you with words. So everything frustrates them, from trying to put a square block in a triangle opening to letting you know that "NO I DO NOT WANT MORE BANANA SO GET THAT SHIT OUT OF MY FACE."

Instead, they bang their head. When they learn to talk, or are sick of knocking themselves silly, it stops.

(Maybe I should start trying this tactic with Josh when I don't get something I want. Next time he says he doesn't want to do something, I am going to walk up to him and bang my forehead right into his knee. Then we'll see who's boss.)

Best advice on how to deal with this behavior, which OF COURSE was from Moxie, said to wrap them in your arms when they start the behavior and to give words to them. So a tight hug and a little "I know it's frustrating when you can't get your sock off. I am sorry you feel that way."

Amazingly, when we started doing this, the head-banging ceased pretty quickly.

So now we have less bruising and more hugging. Which is, you know, always a good thing.

Dirty diaper dancing

Word up?

Now that I am not working, you'd think I would have more time for blogging. You would be correct. But of course, that would mean I would need motivation for blogging. And that, I do not have.

But, for you all, I will suck it up. I will find something to talk about. I will satisfy the readers and be witty and insightful and bring meaning to everyone's lives.

Or, I could just talk about poop.

Today, I was getting ready to take Jack to Kindermusik and was busy tying my shoes for, you know, 30 SECONDS, when Jack toddles off to his bedroom. The gate was closed, the doors to the office and bathroom were closed, I figured it was fine.

Within 10 seconds, I see him running out of his room with something in his hand.

"Hmmm," I think to myself, "That looks an awful lot like a diaper."

Ah, yeah. That WAS a diaper. The dirty one from this morning.

As I lunge for it, he of course spins on his heel and runs from me, holding it closer to his body. And laughing hysterically. As I am chasing him saying, "Yucky! That's yucky! Give that to Mommy!"

I finally get it away from him and go to not only put it in back in the diaper pail, but to pick up the wipes he has scattered around the room as well. After washing his hands, (have you ever tried to wash a toddler's hands? It's like herding cats) we finally got ready and out the door.

So if you thought you had a rough day at work, all this happened before 9:15 a.m. at my house. And yes, it was the most exciting part of the day.

Fired up

I am writing to you as a newly-minted unemployed stay-at-home-mom blogger.

I was FIRED today.

Good times.

Obviously, I can't say much. Legal details and all.

Suffice it to say, I feel the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Jack is 13 months old

So I couldn't decide if I should continue with the monthly letters past 12. I mean how many is too many? And then how do you decide to cut it off? And wow, that's a whole lot of pressure every month to come up with something. I mean what if an animal ate my arm off and I couldn't type and then I felt bad about not posting?

So instead I am just going to do a little roundup post. Kind of a "greatest hits" of the last month. Bullets would be nice. Lazy, but nice. So I will actually try to form coherent sentences and use actual segues.

This month Jack finally clapped. For the last several months, we would ask him to clap and he would wave at us. We would clap for him and he would look at us like we had squirrels on our heads instead of hair. We tried it all, to no avail.

But just this past weekend we were at lunch with some friends and he started a slow clap. Our friends must have thought I was a lunatic clapper fan because I kept interrupting the conversation to tell Josh to watch him clap.

We get out a lot, as you can tell.

He also has mastered the art of turning on his crib soother. Now, in the middle of the night, instead of hearing whining and crying, we hear the strains of Baby Einstein melodies. It's a little weird to wake up at 3 a.m. and think you are at a classic music concert, but hey, it beats a 3 a.m. screamfest.

He's also starting to change his sleep habits. The 11 hours overnight is nice, I'm not going to lie to ya. And he had been taking two one-hour naps during the day. But then he started taking longer and longer to actually fall asleep for his afternoon naps. A few times now we have done one-nap days and they have gone well. The first time we tried it, he was awake for six hours and slept for two hours and 45 minutes. I almost fell off the couch when I saw the completion time.

But the good sleeping is somewhat mitigated by the picky eating. Previously enjoyed foods are now met with disgust. We try to give him vegetables -- green beans, peas, carrots -- in real people form and he spits them out the minute they touch his tongue. But spoon them out of a babyfood jar and he's all about them. Other non-hits include eggs in any form, hot dogs, turkey sandwiches, homemade pasta, hamburgers and french toast. Oh but his almond butter -- sweet, sweet almond butter than he loves more than life itself -- is making up for the deficiencies in his toddler diet.

This was also the month of the intolerance. Can't drink cow's milk. Can't drink soy milk. Can drink rice milk. Has started drinking a SMALL amount of goat's milk each day, with no ill effects yet. Of course, as I typed that the fates are laughing hysterically and will now send the eczema plague upon our house.

Jack has started to run here and there. Arms up, head back, laughing hysterically. This summer should be so much fun if he keeps up this daredevil manuever. We'll have skinned knees and faces left and right.

He's also up to nine words now. He can say mama, dada, kitty, this, baby, buh-bye, boom, pig and duck. So far, pig, duck and buh-bye have only been said a few times, but baby is a crowd favorite right now. He always has to call out the babies in his books and give them kisses before we can move on to the next page.

This is becoming such a fun age. Every day he learns something new or shows us a skill we had no idea he possessed.

If you're happy and you know it...

Behold, the child finally claps! That only took 13 months. But by God, he is a champion clapper already.

Seriously, I dare you to resist this face. YOU CAN'T DO IT!

And they all fall down

Can you imagine spending three-quarters of your day falling down? Like you are just walking along, minding your own business, and you just fall on your ass. Or you trip and stumble to your knees.

That's what it is like to be an almost-13-month-old.

I was watching Jack today and realized he isn't even fazed by his falls any more. He just uses it as an opportunity to check out a new toy he falls next to, or to lie on his back and smile, or to roll over and turn in a new direction.

His new thing is to run towards something -- no looking where he is going, chin up, eyes closed and arms outstretched. He inevitably gets about six good steps in before he gets too close to something and either trips or just falls. Of course he is laughing maniacally while he does this.

Sometimes he just plops down and picks himself right back up. But other times he sits there for a minute as if to say "Damn! What the hell happened? One minute I was running along, the next I was on my diaper. I bet Mommy tripped me. She's always trying to keep me down."