My Love Hate relationship with Aquaphor.

When Payne was an infant he had a lot of problems with dry skin. His pediatrician and I went through tons of failed remedies before we found the miracle combo, Aquaphor all over his body before bed, and Cetaphil cream all over in the morning. I love Aquaphor because it kept my baby from having such severe dry skin that he would have open sores. I hate Aquaphor because it's pretty much clear peanut butter.

It's gooey, and messy, and sticky. I have multiple permanently stained shirts from the stuff getting on me. There are oil stains on Payne's bedroom walls from him flailing an arm or kicking a leg while I was putting it on him after his bath, and this was when he would still lie relatively still on his changing table!

We have tons of pictures of Payne as an infant where he looks, well, sort of artificially shiny, like this. Thanks Aquaphor!


(Ok, so maybe it's not that obvious in this picture and I just posted it because it's cuuuute! And, um, potentially larger than life size.)

I was thrilled when he grew out of needing the maligned goop, and Cetaphil after baths is all that is required normally. Unfortunately, when we visit West Texas the dry air is too much for his skin (God help him if he ever moves to Colorado, or Arizona, or Utah, or, like, anywhere that isn't a veritable swamp) and I have to start up the Aquaphor again. So we've been applying it after baths for a couple of nights now.

OH MY LORD. PUTTING THAT STUFF ON A TWO YEAR OLD IS NOT THE SAME AS PUTTING IT ON AN INFANT.

Payne throws his body around. I'm desperately trying to confine him to the towel I know I can wash on hot, while he tries his best to reach the carpet that isn't mine. Payne tries to "howp" me apply it. This involves rubbing the grease from his legs onto his hands and smearing it around all over, and if history serves as an appropriate model he will eventually rub it in his hair. I have to apply it to his bottom half, diaper and clothe it, and then apply it to his top half, and scramble to throw his shirt over his head before he smears it all over his pajama bottoms. I've had to recruit Dan to perform a three ring circus act of entertainment combined with continuous toddler hand swiping on the unfortunate Aquaphor recieving towel. I made the fatal mistake of wearing a dry clean only sweater while performing this dance tonight, and howled in a truly defeated fashion when Payne kicked me square in the merino wool with a gooey leg.

I broke a sweat folks. In December. Over a moisturizing product.

The Cane Wars.

Whew! Sorry I've been remiss in my blogging. We're still out of town for Christmas and will be until 2011, so my access to computers is limited.

Christmas went really well. Payne got lots of presents. Of course the best gift of all was three whole days with his four cousins. We could barely convince him to take breaks from playing in order to eat and sleep. I'm pretty sure he lived on sippies of milk for a good 48 hours.

Of all of the gifts Payne recieved, his favorite is none of them (of course). He has been playing nonstop with his Grandpa's cane since we arrived in town. He grabs it, squeals "Pop-op. Cane!" and then happily marches around the house with it, nearly causing multiple head injuries to innocent passers by as he goes.

Now, his older male cousins have taken him under their wing and have taught him a thing or two. At one point on Christmas evening, the three boys were each running around the house with a cane, stopping to hold it like a rifle, and making shooting noises at each other. You can imagine that a 2 year old running around, holding a cane longer than his own body up to his armpit, and yelling "pshoo! pshoo! pshoo!" is absolutely mind blowingly funny. It certainly added to the picture that Payne was shirtless.

Another episode of The Cane Wars with more clothing involved, unfortunately.

Piwwy.

Payne has developed yet another attachment to another object (the boy needs a playmate). Along with his menagerie of stuffed animals, comforter, and blanket, he now maintains a loving relationship with his pillow.

"Piwwy" as the pillow has lovingly been monikered, is necessary for all vegging on the couch opportunities. Piwwy must be arranged for proper back and neck support at all times, and dachshunds are NOT to touch "him" under penalty of much yelling and arm flailing (which naturally freaks them the hell out since they've caught many a tiny fist to the snout) on the part of Payne, dedicated lover and protector of stuffed objects.

If I tell Payne he needs a diaper change his response is "Ipe-err? Piwwy!" and he trots off to his room, grabs his beloved, brings the pillow to wherever I'm waiting (a bit exasperated at this point) with his diapering supplies. He carefully places Piwwy on the floor, then painstakingly takes a seat and leeeaaans back until he is lying with head, shoulders and back on his pillow. One must have appropriate ergonomic support for diapering breaks, naturally!

The dynamic duo soaking in an episode of Super Why.


Oh,and Dan bought "me" (really, imagine finger quotes and an eyeroll here) a new little camera so that you won't be subjected to any more visual garbage produced by my cell phone. So now I can share more gorgeous photos of Payne, like this!



Hurrah!

My child can survive on fruit, milk, and cheese...fries are a huge bonus.

Oh Lordy have we entered the picky eater phase. I'm really sort of in awe of the single minded determination of the picky toddler.

He will pick every tiny sliver of shredded lettuce of of a tortilla before putting it in his mouth. Although his fingers are covered in sour cream, he will doggedly flick and flick until he manages to fling the lettuce off of his hand.

He can have a huge mouthful of food, and (because of some toddler specific super sensory node yet to be discovered), make a face when he encounters a microscopic speck of the maligned vegetable family. Of course, this results in him spitting out half of the mouthful, digging through it, removing the offending item, and shoving it all back in his mouth.

We offer him everything we eat. We do not make him a special meal if he won't eat ours. He is completely unperturbed by not eating at all if a meal doesn't include fruit, dairy, or potatoes. Oh, but he HATES mashed potatoes, which I find hilarious since he loves hash brown casserole.

Let me get this straight:
-Smushed up potatoes loaded with butter and salt and milk: Disgusting, gag worthy swill.
- Finely riced and sort of smushed potatoes loaded with butter, salt, milk and cheese: Food of the Gods.

Ok then.

(sigh) This little boy ate room temperature green beans straight from the can.

Ok, now that I'm staring at his sweet face I feel kind of bad that I had him do that.

Ah, the life of a photographer's wife.

This is the state of our home office right now.


(eye twitch)

I was dusting in here today and was seriously picking my way through the room. Like, dodging under and hopping over stuff. I told Dan if I find any small dead mammals in there I'm contacting "Hoarders: Buried Alive".

Well, all of this chaos is for a deep artistic purpose, right? Serious photographer Dan is very serious. For example, that tiny thing on the table with the light boxes around it must be fine art in the making. Let's take a closer look, maybe get a window into the mind of a genius.


(cough, cough)


Well, at least the end result looked pretty cool. I'm going to label it as "Pop Art". Yes.

I guess greed is a great motivator.

Dan and I got a new king sized mattress tonight, but we don't have a frame yet, so it's on the floor at the moment. Payne was bouncing around on it as we were both lounging and we asked him if he was ready to go to his bed.

He responded:

"Dis my bed! I seep herr!"

Whaaaat!? Dan and I both looked at each other dumbfounded. He's never said something that complex before!

I guess we just have to buy him an $800 gift each time we want him to have an explosion of verbal expression. Oh, and no. We didn't let him sleep in the new bed, despite his excellent communication of his desire to do so. We're motivation crushers. (evil cackle)



Payne "howping" put our old bed frame up in the guest bedroom. When he actually lined up the bolt up with the socket and it snapped in place he went "OooOOOoooh!". Ha!

Ninja baby is taking his apprenticeship seriously.

I have no idea how he did this in the 30 seconds I was wiping down the kitchen table after dinner...silently.


(Note the little boys dream shoes from yesterday's post. Maybe they're magical too.)

He moved his unfinished wooden steps over tile silently. They're normally very loud when pushed around. I was four feet away with my back turned for not even a minute!

The finger on the scrolley wheel slays me. At least I caught him before he got that e-mail out to Child Protective Services. (Glances from side to side)

Also, you've discovered how cluttered my kitchen is. Crap. I hate that damn spikey plant! I've tried to set it out on the deck to die multiple times but Dan always discovers it and admonishes me. It's two freaking years old! I guess now would be the time to admit I'm generally openly resentful towards houseplants. heh heh.

He loves shoes.

Don't all kids? I love that every child at some point puts on their parent's shoes and shuffles around the house. Payne does this all the time.


(the missing arm was lost as a result of typical toddler vibration)

Payne loves to go get his "sooze", go get mine, go get his Dad's, shove them on his feet, shove them on my feet, shove them on Dan's feet. He gets exceptionally mad if he's unsuccessful when wearing adult shoes, and will cry, then yell for "howp!".

The shoe love was taken to a new high recently though. My parents bought him these.

Oh sweet Mother of God. They have a dinosaur on them. They have a dino track on the sole. They have eyes; eyes that LIGHT UP. Payne took one look at these and fell in love. He now merrily stomps his way around the house and bends over double (butt straight up in the air) so he can watch the eyes flash from as close of a vantage point as possible.

I baby gate off the laundry room.

Initially this started out as a way to keep Wee Payne from shoveling in mouthfuls of kibble whenever I was distracted. By the way, dog food dissolves pretty much on contact with baby spit, so there's no getting it back out.

Then I realized it was great for confining the dogs to a tiled area on rainy days when we were out of the house (Ethel is a bit of a princess and won't do her business outside when it rains). Incidentally, we ended up replacing the original wooden gate with a metal one, because Psycho When Confined Ethel scratched and chewed her way partially through the wooden one.

Then the laundry room sort of morphed into my happy place. I have a weird fixation with laundry. I like how warm the clothes are coming out of the dryer, I like how good they smell, and I like the mindless repetition of hanging, folding, sorting.... I just like doing laundry. So, whenever I'm getting stuff out of the dryer I close the baby gate behind me and have a few zen moments.

Sometimes Payne is ok with me doing this, sometimes not so much.

Today was a "not so much" day:


We had just built a Duplo Kitty and Puppy traveling cage (it was ingenius!) and he ripped it apart bit by bit and threw it at me. And really, I was so absorbed in my scented fabric based meditation that I didn't even notice what he was doing until I turned around to leave!

Gosh, we're so cool.

It was my good friend Aimee's birthday last weekend. We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant (kid free!) and then went back to my place for a fire in the backyard and drinks. We thought we were soooo awesome, staying up late and acting like young adults again and stuff.

Then around midnight this happened.



(sigh)

We managed to stay up until 2 a.m. though. We're all pretty proud of ourselves.

I must remember this.

I've posted before about Payne's refusal to say "truck", calling trucks "big cars" instead.

Well, he's started making a valiant effort, by combining the first half of "car" with the last half of "truck".

Which equals: cah-ck.

Say it a few times fast. Yes, it's what you think it sounds like.

He looooves pointing out big trucks on the road too, and even called one Daddy's truck! Oh yes he did.

Ahem.

(snort)

The Eternal Subject

All kids are fascinated by poop, are they not? Payne is no exception.

When in a public restroom with a caregiver. Payne will ask loudly and clearly "(insert name of caregiver here) poop?". Awesome.

He also likes to yell "poop!" anytime I'm changing his diaper in public.

Oh, and on Tuesday I about laughed my butt off, because he was watching Stella wander around in the back yard through the window, and very solemnly declared "Dog, poop".

Poop is serious business, folks.

And then, AND THEN a couple of weeks ago Payne was playing in the back yard while Dan fried some chicken in the turkey fryer to get more use out of the 3 gallons of oil that were in there. Payne was sitting next to me in a rocking chair and Dan said he was playing with a rock. I looked, and it was SO NOT A ROCK (gag). My child was holding a small piece of fossilized dog poo. I swear to you the backyard had been cleaned the day before. (gag, gag, gag)


There is poop in his hand in this picture and we didn't even know yet.

Ugh. I'm still grossed out about this. As Dan said, my perception of this set of photos will forever be tainted. heh heh.

I had to update: Payne was just sitting behind me in my office chair and he pulled back my jeans, looked down my pants and said "poop". No, fortunately I had not pooped my pants, but I guess it's fun to pretend. Ha!

He's getting crafty.

Payne has recently started wanting more companionship in his play, and he's gotten really good at being adorable enough to lure you into it. He'll be sitting on the floor and look up at me and plead "Ma! Siiit!" while patting a spot right next to him and shooting me the biggest Bambi eyes ever produced by someone who hasn't seen the movie Bambi. Or, he'll walk up to me and say "Hen!"(hand)and grab my hand and lead me to whatever toy he wants me to help him with.

It's too cute, and it makes me feel really bad to turn down the cuteness if I'm making dinner or something.

I mean, could you turn him down? With this face and a furious pat at the chair while asking you to "siiiit"? No. No you could not.


He asks me to share that recliner with him all the time because we used to share it when he was a lot smaller, side by side. Now, "sharing" it means I'm sitting entirely on one hip, with one arm up on the back so I don't fall over, while he lounges, blissfully unaware of my discomfort. Harumph.

I've decided Payne has Elvish minions.

I walk through a largely unscathed family room in the morning.

I go to the kitchen and make two quesadillas.

I turn around and see this.

The only viable explanation is otherwordly assistance. I refuse to believe he can do this on his own (frankly, I don't want to face what that indicates about my future housekeeping).

Hmm, maybe I can trap a few and get them to do my dishes overnight.

The three word phrase.

I'm loving Payne's first real attempts at sentences.

"My hoe dit!" (My hold it)

"Da-ee hoe dis?" (Daddy hold this)

"Go Da-ee cah" (Go in Daddy's car)

"Ma goway!" (Mama go away)

"My puddit way/My nigh way" (I put it away/I put my blankie away)


A few two word phrases that crack me up too:

"Own it!" (Open it. This might be directly related to his recent birthday.)

"No moooore!"

"Eeet fooood!"

"Pay toys!" (Play toys)

"No! Paaaaay!" (I would like to stay longer at the park/play area please) Ha.

"Daddy toss/shoos/cah/eeet" (He sort of likes to talk about Dan.)

"Ed-dow! Siiiiiit!" (this involves furious patting of some desired sitting surface for Ethel.)

"Cose it!" (Close it. He adores running around and shutting doors.)


Some single words he's picked up recently:

"Teef" (when asking to brush his teeth)

"Wid" (lid)

"Joose!" (Juice. It was only a matter of time.)

"Wah-were" (Water)

"Bear" (Clear as a bell, and he can spot them anywhere. He pointed out a bear shaped shrub the other day!)

"Gook" (No really, that's how he says book.)

"Bizz" (His word for his toy drills, because they buzz.)

Oh, and how could I forget "poop"? Ha ha. He loves to yell that one at inopportune times.

On Friday, when he woke up from getting ear tubes put in, he looked at me, held his hand up to his ear and said "booo!" (boo boo) with such a surprised little expression on his face. It broke my heart! He was a champ though and was fine within an hour.




(Cotton ears. Shortly after my Mom took this picture we got Payne some Sprite and his life was complete)

Falling asleep while picking one's nose...

illustrates an exhaustive dedication to personal hygiene.



Bah dum bum! (cymbal crash)

Oh, the horrors of getting up at 8:30 in the morning.

After the sleep-eating episode last night, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that Payne would want to snooze late this morning. Unfortunately, we had a Dr's appointment for 9:00 a.m.

I get him up, get him dressed, and go into the kitchen to get his milk. I turn around to see him dragging his pillow out from his bedroom. He lays it down on the floor very carefully and then plops down on it, in a manner of complete and abject self pity.



I think I shall enter this photo in a contest, and title it "True Suffering".

I missed it!

I was at work tonight and Dan had a story for me when I got home.

Apparently Payne had too much fun with Pappy and Granny today, and didn't take a long enough nap. Dan picked him up and made him dinner, which he was happily eating until Dan noticed Payne had tucked his hands behind himself and nodded off a bit. His head nodded, and nodded,.....and nodded; sloooowly inching down towards the table (at this point Dan was trying to silently laugh and take a picture at the same time).



His forhead finally made contact with pot pie, but this only caused him to snap up a little higher, not wake up. Eventually the goo on his forehead woke him up, his face still about three inches from the table top. He wakes up still leaning over, spies a chunk of chicken, and pops it right in his mouth without sitting up. I guess the chicken was just enough motivation to keep him awake, and he proceeded to clean his plate.

He's never fallen asleep at the table before! I missed a very important milestone, dangit!

I think I can now fully express...

how much this kid loves cheese.

This dinner involved a cheese sauce. First, he cleaned his plate. Then.....

Well, you get the idea.


"Waste not, want not. Right, mom?"

A previously unknown benefit of semi-transparent plates.


"I'll do anything! I'll change my own diapers until I'm potty trained for 5 more minutes with the plate!"

Payne comes up with a far less strenuous use for Engineering textbooks.

"Hey Dad, can I see that book over there? I want to figure out how to heat up my own muffins in the morning."




"Oh man. Heat transfer is a little more tedious than I thought."



"I think I'll just do some pilates while watching The Simpsons instead."

"Got its"

So Payne has discovered pockets, which he calls "got its".

He looooves to shove stuff in them now, particularly contraband, like MY keys. He obsesses over arranging the keys with just my car key in his "got it" and the rest of the keys dangling out. This is precisely how I carry mine.

A charming detail of this discovery, is that he has to pull his shirt up past nipple level to find his pants pockets, which he did over and over again in church last week. heh heh.

Payne vogueing with his stylin' vest "got its".



He calls it his "bess". We like to call it his Macgruber vest.



Even I don't understand our family sense of humour, at times.

I finally got it.

Remember this post?

http://imselfinvolved.blogspot.com/2010/10/stella-is-head-case.html

Well I caught her chillin' in the darks, and I finally had my phone with me.



Weirdo.

Happy Thanksgiving, a day late.

I hope everyone had a great Turkey day. Ours was exceptionally lazy and pretty great.

First, Dan deep fried a turkey and my parents and Emily and Eric came over to help us eat it. I'd never had turkey fried before, and it was really juicy and flavorful. Yay Dan! I told him earlier in the week if he didn't make it back from his business trip by Thanksgiving I'd be taking my parents out for chinese food.



Then, Payne fell in love with Emily and Eric and spent the rest of the day like this.

I'm not kidding. He was either asleep or like that from 2:00pm to 7:30pm. I think he sensed that they were the original gifters of the beloved Puppy, and wanted to show his gratitude and dedication.

While Payne worshipped at the altar, the rest of us watched three football games in a row, and had velveeta and rotel dip for dinner. It doesn't get much better than that!

Happy Birthday to my weeblet!

I can't explain the nickname. It just happened. I'm sorry Payne.

It's amazing how much has changed in two years.

He's made an amazing journey from this sweet squishy little ball of baby,


To this amazing little boy!


We are so lucky to have an awesome, healthy wee dude in our lives. I thank God for that every day.

Since we already had Payne's party, and Dan was out of town for work, I was a little worried that the boy's 2nd birthday would be kind of a bummer. So, I devised a master plan to make the day fun.

Step one: A candle in his morning "munnin" (muffin).


Step two: A trip to Toys R Us to "pick out" a toy with a gift card from his great grandparents. In other words, I perused while he played with a toy cell phone that I pulled off of a shelf so his head wouldn't explode. Then, I tossed in some play wood that he was too little for when we got it with a play set last year.

Here he is enjoying the spoils.

Step Three: A lunch involving both sausage and cheese. This would thrill anyone, right?

He saw me making it and was anxiously waiting for it to get done.

Step Four: A dinner of macaroni and cheese out with Granny and Pappy. He took his new drill and his old drill. I must say, he does a pretty good Rambo impression.


And then, he got the very best birthday present of all. Daddy came home!!!

Dear Barnes and Noble,

Thank you.

From the bottom of my heart, I bless your sweet corporate soul for providing a single building that contains both a place to acquire espresso based beverages and an absorbing toddler toy.




So absorbing in fact, Payne located and pulled up a "chair".

Sipping a seasonally flavored latte and watching my son enjoy himself was so very pleasant, I'll choose to overlook your not so covert placement of alluring toys amphitheater style around the only free attraction.

Sincerely,

A caffeine addicted and desperate to get out of the house average suburban Mom.

I wonder what is going on in a child's mind...

when they opt to sleep on their bedroom floor, so close to the bed as to actually have their legs underneath it, instead of on a nice mattress with clean sheets and a pillow?

Lets reconstruct the scenario for a moment:

(Payne is playing on the floor)

Kick. Kick. "Man, my eyelids are getting heavy. Ooh look! My legs fit under the bed!" Yawn. "I wonder where puppies come from. I wonder when I'll get to eat some cheese again." Rubs eyes. "I really like my blanket. I..." Soft snoring.

This must be sort of the cognitive equivalent of the narcoleptic dachshund.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY5PMT-_rLg

At least, the end result is pretty similar.



This post brought to you by a sneak peek into Payne's room during his nap on Saturday.

If you've ever had a cat, you'll understand.

So the child really REALLY likes to swing. We get to a playground and he runs up to the swing set yelling "wing! wiiing!".

This is Payne's face while he's swinging.


This is Payne's face when asked if he's done swinging.


So, clearly, he's generally reluctant to get off of the swing. He set a new standard of resistance on Saturday though. I told him he was done swinging because, well, my arms were about to fall off and if I slow down he yells "No! Puss! (push)" at me (nice unintentional insult there). As I started to pull him out he engaged the first level of defense by clinging to the chains; totally normal, and slightly reminiscent of a cat being dragged out of its hiding place, no? THEN he went into hyper resistance drive.

I feel the need to point out that I'm short. Exceptionally short. The baby swings at most parks are about chest height on me, so you can imagine it's difficult for me to heft my 27 lb child that is already over half my height over my head (even under normal circumstances), which is what's necessary when getting him out of the swing.

So, hyper resistance drive involved him splaying his legs while they were still in the swing holes. You know when your cat doesn't want to go into its carrier, and it pulls the mammalian umbrella trick? Throws out its front and back legs and grips the edges of the kennel opening? My kid did this while also clinging to the swing chains, and squirming uncontrollably...while I was trying to lift him over my head.

At one point I had the screaming ball of rebellion nearly upside down, trying to essentially shake him out of the swing. Even that didn't work because of those stupid expensive toddler shoes with the non skid soles. I'd been battling valiantly for so long an old woman started to step forward to help me. That's how much of a weakling I am.

Fortunately, just before the concerned bystander intervened, I managed to bend his knees and break the feline padlock he had on the swing bottom and haul him out, still screaming. Hooray!

My souvenirs in this little adventure were burning forearms and a sweaty polo shirt.

I like to call this pose...

The Double Decker Dachshund.



Yep. They do this all of the time, snorting little huffs of doggy happiness for the duration.

A boy and his dog, and a string of minor calamities.

Ethel helped me get Payne up yesterday morning.

He was too cute. She was "sitting pretty" by his bed (it's that bolt upright sit dachshunds do when they want something) and I showed him the signal to let her up, which is patting the mattress. He did it all by himself and was thrilled when she obeyed him.

In other news, Payne has had a bit of a rough week. He fell and chipped the edge of one of his front teeth on Monday, and then last night he fell into my parents' coffee table right on his ear and essentially pierced it. Fun times.

He went to the pediatric dentist for the tooth, and all is fine. It'll get smoothed out a little bit at his next cleaning. I don't think the ear needs any real attention. It looks like a pretty clean cut. Some policeman were giving me a thorough observation at a restaurant later though! Geez, you can't take a kid with a bloodied ear and a chipped tooth anywhere! Some people...heh heh. I guess I passed inspection, because they let me leave without talking to me.

I think I'm retiring the footed sleepers.

I love them. I probably have a near fanatical dedication to cotton footed sleepers, but really, what is more cute than a baby in a sleeper? That's right, absolutely nothing.

The issue at hand is cooperation from the third party. The sleeper and I are of one mind; however, the toddler is of another. Apparently, it's far FAR too much to ask to allow oneself to be dried off after a bath (which seems to induce zoomies around the house, just as it does with dogs. hmm) submit to lotioning, diaper creaming, and diapering, and then (throws hand up to forehead in dismay) be expected to lie down in order for a parent to efficiently get a sleeper onto one's body. This really, truly, must have been a favored method of interrogation during the Spanish Inquisition.

This, combined with the fact that the stout little bugger is getting strong and a few sound kicks to the torso really hurt, I think I'll be shelving them soon. Yet another sign that my baby isn't a baby anymore (sob).

In memorandum, a photographic ode to the sleeper:


The First Sleeper. sniffle.


The chillin with Pappy sleeper.


The velvet cheeked newborn sleeper. Squee!


The telling a great story? sleeper.


The being mooned by an adorable little string of cars sleeper.


The Christmas 2009 sleeper


The Dashund sleeper. You know we had one somewhere.


The "How freaking cute is this sleeper?" sleeper. Additionally, how freaking cute is my husband?


The "good morning!" sleeper.


The jelly shielding sleeper.

(The sleeper takes a bow, and exits stage right.)