Weeks 29 - 30: The changing table revolution begins...

Things I have learned over the 2 ½ week blog hiatus:

The Changing table revolt is under way. My friend Samson has settled on a few things:

1. His legs are now strong enough to kick out of any hold that Danielle and I might have him in while  “cleaning” him. He exercises this right frequently despite my explanation that one wrong move will require a thorough cleansing and potentially a bath mixed with Ajax. 
2. It is fun to put his left leg on the wall to push off, thereby sliding the changing pad and causing his parents to freak out. 
3. Samson will continue to lead the changing table revolution for as long as it takes.

Samson is like a crime fighter – except that instead of crime he is busy fighting sleep with everything he’s got, one nap at a time.  What’s the big deal about nap time? He has no problem going to bed at night but the day….

Things I never thought could end ok – having your child up for 8 hours straight. Somehow Samson managed hold it together and to actually be in a good mood. I do not think this is a coincidence. This is a child trying to strategically prove that he doesn’t need to nap. I mean, come on…

1.       The term : “Fomo”

Fö-Mö

      1.      –noun

Usually, the fear of missing out

Example: I’m pretty sure Sammy has massive daytime Fomo – That must be why he hates taking naps!

Yes, it’s fair to say that I am scared of the big boy car seat.  The big boy car seat should not have come into play this soon but given Sammy’s insane height we’re here early. What this means: Limited to no sleeping after a car ride.  In the past we’d just take out the car seat so the little guy could continue napping

Sammy loves football – but he is learning what it’s like to be a Giants fan. He got so anxious and excited during the 4^th quarter comeback vs. the Patriots that he threw up all over me. I was close to throwing up but I need to set an example.

What does it mean that Sammy wakes up from his nap the instant our nanny leaves everyday. How the heck can he figure that out? To me this is just further evidence that he’s a Jedi.

Sammy has a tough side to him. For weeks now, when he’s playing with older and more advanced pal Baby Owen, he’s been the recipient of some mild baby on baby violence (Owen keeps wanting to sit on Sammy). Well, Sammy finally had enough and decided to fight back. By licking Owen and trying to eat his head.

In other efforts to prove he’s tough – Sammy has decided that it would be good to scratch his face until it looks like he’s been in a bar fight. Despite cutting his nails insanely frequently (ok, our nanny cuts them) he has managed to find a way to make his face bleed every day. This is either a) madness or b) toughness. I’m telling you…don’t mess with this guy!

Just when you think you know something moment of the week: I come home one day and all of a sudden, Sammy just wants to play on the floor. No more “pick me up! Pick me up!” – Now when I pick him up he just squirms. Of course, two days later things went back to normal.

What does it say when our nanny has not only trained us but also my mother? She’s good….

On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s a 10. What’s the scale you ask? Oh…ummm….the scale of how bad I feel when playing on the floor with Samson and I fart (he’s at a much lower level than me!)

The definition of being caught between a rock in a hard place is when you walk into your child’s room at midnight and smell poop. UGH.

Video Skype  is awesome but it’s no substitute for the real thing. Learned this the hard way last week in LA!

Worse things have happened than having your wife work on getting Sammy back to sleeping until 6:30am while you are out of town. To be fair, there’s no way she accomplishes that task if her weak husband had been home (Yes, I know I'm weak and I'm ok with it).

New weird thing that is happening:

All of a sudden, Samson loves to jump. All the time. Now when he’s practicing standing (read: we’re helping him stand) he just bounces endlessly. Did I say endlessly?

Awesome website that you should see and that I wish I thought of (credit to Shawn for finding this one): http://www.studioarthur.co.uk/

Important statistics we are tracking:


- Number of days I was away from Samson during week 29: 5 (and it sucked!)

- Number of times we had to call Savtah (grandma) to come babysit because Danielle and I both had to be out of town the same day: 1 (THANK YOU!)

Many Pictures for your amusement: 

Sammy has more friends than I do. I have no clue who this is...

Loving the swings

At first glance this picture is cute. Then you start to think about the new "big boy" car seat that will require me to wake up my napping child to bring him inside. I actually took a 15 minute detour to give our little anti-napper more nap time.

Giants vs. Patriots stress-induced spit up

Those are muscles in his legs.

Chilling with Baby Owen

Post-bath punk rocker....Is this how Sid Vicious got started?

Practicing standing with Kenia...crazy!

Does the bib interfere with this hip look?

"The Dude"

Gotta look cool in the baby swings.

Some things never change

This is the equivalent of a baby taxi

Sammy reading Entertainment Weekly. Sideways.

See how happy you are after naps? Why must it be so hard!?!?

No clue who this is but she's reading to a captive Sammy.

Ummmmmm....

A video for your amusement:

BEST VIDEO EVER (otherwise known as my happy place - it can be yours too.)

Week 28: Beware: Daylight savings is coming...

Things I have learned:

I’m not sure it’s fair to say this, but I’m going to anyway. For years, I have been called the “slowest Kroo”. Specifically by my wife and, well, everyone else.  Now I’m hear to declare that Sammy is going to take that mantle from me. He is WAY slower than I am.  He’s a real primadonna when it comes to getting ready. Example: I have to put on his pants, socks, shirt, and everything else, really.

Ok, so I noticed last night that I had not even seen the pacifier in over a week. It then came to our attention that our nanny hid the pacifiers from us!!!! Seriously. So this means two things:

              1.       It was us, not Sammy that had to go cold turkey on the pacifier at 6 months.

              2.       When I did finally find it and try to use it to calm Sammy down in the middle of the night last night – it was completely ineffective.

I have officially been weaned.

Who is the bigger child in this story? Danielle came home with a giant box of animal crackers from Trader Joe’s the other day. When I asked what could have possessed her to buy them (Sammy can’t eat them and I might not have had one in 15 years) she responded “Sammy really wanted them! He was going nuts for them in the store!” I’m not sure what to make of this since I’m pretty certain Sammy has no clue what and animal cracker is, though I suppose he might have liked the box. Now I’m eating some really bland animal crackers everyday and loving them.

Last week I mentioned that Halloween is truly about the parents. After experiencing it first hand, it is unbelievably true. If it were up to me, I would have Sammy wear his Yoda costume every day. In fact, I hope he goes through one of those kid phases where he wants to wear the same thing everyday – and I hope he chooses Yoda.

Halloween for me was like one of those people who like to celebrate their birthday 10 different times surrounding the actual day. By that I mean, that we had Sammy wearing his awesome Yoda outfit for several days – because why not!?! He looked so damn cute!

I think it’s built into babies that they always need to keep you on your toes. There is no such thing as a groove. Sammy has now started to wake up at 10pm and 3am for no real reason. Unless it’s the ever-coming teeth. In which case, let’s get this show on the road! We’re ready. Enough with the false alarms. BRING IT.

I love watching Sammy feed himself a bottle. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to use “the force” to feed himself. After a little while of holding the bottle to his mouth, he will slowly pull off one hand – he’d rather hold it right next to the bottle and looks at it versus using it to hold the bottle. Then, hand number 2 will come off to see if he can use the force to hold it. This usually ends in my having to pick up the bottle to feed him. I’m not giving up on Yoda just yet.

List of things that are officially not fun:

             1.       Trying prevent your son from meeting a giant snowstorm head on. This generally involved  my taking it on yourself...and my sitting in wet jeans for an entire day.

It is not the least bit ironic that of all the things to be afraid of right now, like natural disasters, the recession, and an Adam Sandler movie in which he actually plays his twin female sister opposite himself – I am most afraid of: DAYLIGHT SAVINGS. HELP!

New food of the week: Peaches. Mmmmmmmm….millions of peaches.

I might be obsessing – Is it crossing the line if I make the Yoda hat Sammy’s winter hat?

I really enjoyed being up from 3:15am on Friday night until 5am with a screaming child. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for that experience.

I’m not taking it personally (I don’t think), But this morning when Sammy was half asleep in the bed with Danielle and I (the end of our 2 hour ordeal) – He flailed his arms so hard that he slapped both of us in the face (I’m talking full on, open-handed slaps) and then sat their giggling playing with his hands. Come on, man!

I am by nature a tenacious person. I will not give up in trying to deter Sammy from sucking his thumb all the time. Sammy is also a tenacious person. Therein lies the conflict. I could literally spend all day pulling his hand out of his mouth. And he is more than happy to pretend like it never happened and will jam his thumb back in immediately.

Statistics we are keeping track of:

       -          Number of days spent wearing Yoda costume: 3

       

       -          Number of days spent wearing Yoda hat: 5

       -          Number of times I tried to tell Sammy that eating his carrots will help his eyesight: 2 (it did not have a lasting impact

       - Number of times in a one minute span that I pulled a thumb out of Sammy's mouth only to have in put it back in: 7

Things we googled:

       -          “colic at 6 months” (that’s how rare last night’s cry fest was

       -          “Soothe a teething child at night” (I was desperate)

      Pictures for your amusement:

After last week's criticism that I am not handy enough with tools, I sat down for a lesson from the master.

Ben offers Samson some friendly encouragement

Yoda: Day one - Public library scary story reading

Yoda and The Owen-tiger

Sammy doesn't have to read books - he absorbs knowledge through the force

Hello Winter hat.

For those that remember, this is Sammy's Sprockets outfit

We've come a long way from the original bath time reaction... (see below)

This was after all the yelling of bath time was worked out....

Yoda: Day 3 - The Halloween party

New level of laziness - no longer intersted in holding up his head, Sammy figured out that he could rest it on this.

Mmmmmm....Dinner. 1 cube peas, 1 cube mango.

Yoda: Day 4 - no real reason.

Poor Giraffe

This show continues to taunt me. Does that Exersaucer look familiar? (or maybe everyone has that one?)

Preparing to release his hands and to hold his bottle using only the force

                 An Example of Sammy's tenacity: never give up on sucking the thumb: