Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Hats!

Here is Xander, a man of many hats:




This one isolates just one shot per hat:



I love the collage option in Picasa!

Monday, March 23, 2009

We will not be seeing this

I just saw a commercial for a show I will never be buying tickets for: a live Thomas the Tank Engine show. I am not a big fan of the animated Thomas shows. Xander, of course, loves anything and everything that is Thomas. I think I would rather have bamboo under my fingernails then attend a live Thomas show. Anyone else want to take him? ; )

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Must.Have.Pizza

Xander loves pizza.

He gets excited when he sees a picture of pizza. We have a book on shapes and one of the examples for triangle is a piece of pizza.

His teacher from Early Intervention was over one day, around lunch time. Hari was making these sauceless onion and anchovy pizzas. He said something using the word pizza, and Xander jumped up, and ran from the living room where he was sitting with Alexis, straight into the kitchen. Alexis said she'd never seen someone move so fast upon hearing the word pizza.

He can't even say it properly: "peee, peeee" he says.

Mommy knows what he means.

"I do, I do!"

Xander is two. That really says it all. Yes, we are in the terrible twos.

His lately thing is independence. He wants to do *everything* himself, whether or not he's actually capable of doing it. And I'm all for him trying to do things. But it always seems like the times when he's insisting on putting his shoes on by himself are the times we're running most late. And don't even get me started on him trying to buckle his carseat straps. The worst thing is the frustration. He gets mad if I try to help him and he gets mad if he can't do it. Poor little guy.

He also loves to do everything his sister does. It's so cute. For example, they were taking a bath the other night. They each have this little plastic wind-up dolphins. Jessica, as usual, was cleaning hers because it had something it needed to do tomorrow and needed to be clean. Xander then tried to grab hold of a piece of soap and wash his dolphin.

Now, holding a piece of wet soap can be tricky for an adult; it's nearly impossible for a 2 year old. He got mad because he kept dropping it and he got mad when I tried to help him. Finally, I came up with a solution: they were also playing with my bath pillow, which has a terrycloth surface. I showed him how to put the soap on the pillow, the rough surface held the soap in place and he rubbed his dolphin up against the soap. Problem solved.

Now I just need to figure out how to teach him to fasten his carseat buckle.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

From the knees down

There's a classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon of Calvin at the zoo, grabbing hold of some woman's legs and being astonished when it's not his mother because all mom's look the same from the knees down.

I had first-hand experience with this when we went to the Science Museum a couple of weeks ago. We were with Kristin and her boys. At one point Xander didn't see me and ran over and grabbed hold of Kristin's legs. At first, I thought since he couldn't find me, he figured since he knew her, she was a good substitute.

The expression on his face when he looked up and realized she wasn't me was priceless. Such astonishment!

10 minutes later he did again with a complete stranger.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Could he be ready?

I've been thinking for a while that Xander is almost ready to be potty trained. Today, after he got home from his grandparents' house, he complained he was poopy. "Do you want me to change your diaper?" I asked. He nodded. I went and got wipes and a clean diaper. He started to run, which is what he usually does when I want to change his diaper. But he didn't run away; instead he ran into the living room, laid down on his back and lifted up his legs, assuming diaper-changing position. That's much easier than chasing him around.

Now I have to work on the screaming on the potty issue we've had in the past....

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Sheer laziness

If you want to see some cute pictures of Xander, including his new haircut, follow this link to Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010924&id=1595412041&l=254ce

I am feeling too lazy to upload the pictures twice.

If it doesn't work, feel free to email me and complain. Or if it does work and you want to email me and complain about something else, that's okay. Go for it.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

What I love having a boy after a girl

Watching him wear pearls while pushing his toy truck.

Although he may be psychic because as soon as I typed that, he took off the pearls. Even better, he put them away in the exact right place.