Because I'm Smart

29 April 2008 [jd]

I was just looking up the sign for toast. After 25 minutes of hysterical screaming which started with a trip to the high chair, throwing our teethign biscuit across the room (Cayden don't throw food, just shake your head no if you don't want it), scattered prunes, a trip out of hte high chair, repeated requests to be picked up, throwing himself backwards out of Mommy's arms, rolling on the floor crying, and collapsing in a puddle when we OFFERED HIM MILK, Cayden crawled back over to his high chair. I put him in it and tried another teething biscuit, which he rejected again (not throwing it this time). Then it dawned on me. He wanted toast. Not bread. He is a big boy and he wants bread the way Mommy has it, toasted with melted butter. Mmmmmmm butter. After surviving this I had the brilliant idea that I would look up the sign for toast, since he is picking up sign more quickly than spoken language. So I go to the ASLpro site, which is awesome, click on toast and watch the video. Watching the video, I instinctively see the guys lips move and think, "something is wrong, the sound is out".

Something Good is Coming....

[jd] 22 April 2008

You know that feeling you would get when you were a kid and realized Christmas was only a few days away? Or when you were sitting in the house waiting for aunts, uncles, and cousins to arrive, and they were going to be there any minute? I was getting all excited last night and I realized that I get that feeling every day when I am driving to pick up Cayden. Of course it goes away when he collapses in a dejected heap on the floor wailing because I shut the door (can you imagine such a horrifically cruel Mommy?). But, it will be back again tonight.

KUAZ

[ty]

So I'm driving home from work yesterday listening to All Things Considered on our local NPR station KUAZ. They're not a bad public radio station. But they're not really a very good one either. Perhaps I'm spoiled by WGBH and KUOW but when your main news anchor consistently stumbles over the strange and difficult word "Tucson" I'm thinking it might be time to call it quits and turn the equipment over to Christian Life Radio.

Anyway, as per FCC regulations, KUAZ initiated a test of the emergency broadcast system during a break in my All Things Considered program and there's NO NOISE. Nothing. Dead silence for the required 10 seconds. Then they come back on the air with the standard "If this had been a real emergency, the noise you just heard would be followed by...blah...blah...blah".

Yet another reason to get the hell out of Chrysler: If there's actually an emergency we'll be the last to know.

April 18th 2008

[ty]

So its officially been one year since Jordanna, with much patience and profanity, birthed our son Cayden Hoyt Henry Sprayberry. We celebrated his first b-day with a ritual trip to the local pool, his favorite dinner of Annie's mac and cheese, and a phat pumpkin spice muffin from the best desert shop in town, The Epic Cafe. He seemed to enjoy himself throughout the day and appears to have survived his latest bout with his emerging teeth.




In other news, the boy has learned the sign for All Done. We generally use it to indicate when we're done eating, done with a bottle, or wish to get down from somewhere. Thursday JP was over to hang out with JD and as usual he was barely in the house before he scooped up Cayden to give him love. Cayden gave him about 7 seconds of snuggling and then turned to Mommy and carefully signed All Done.

Even MORE Famous

Last week was NPR's guilt drive, and we called in our contribution in the last 2 hours. One of the advantages of giving to public radio in Arizona is that nobody else does, so they will read your name on the radio. Tyson gave them Cayden's name, then came careening into said child's room an hour later going. "Did you hear it? did you hear it? I forgot to get you!". I, of course, did not get to hear Cayden's name. But, I got a call from our friend Kristin less than five minutes later saying she did, which was almost as much fun.

He's Famous!

A little while back (like 8 months ago) Cayden did some modeling for a friend's organic baby store, www.tinybirdsorganics.com. I was just ordering some diaper liners and looking at sale items when I found him modeling one of our favorite nightgowns. I had previously found his legs (the blue and brown striped ones), but realized that only a mother would notice or care about that, which is why this post didn't come earlier : )

Birthday Parties and Other Milestones

joint effort [6 april '08]

Cayden's birthday isn't for another couple weeks, but we wanted to have a joint picnic/ party with his friend Ian who is a month older. When Ty's Dad booked a trip to come visit halfway between the two birthdays, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. So Saturday afternoon we headed to Children's Memorial Park for a low-key picnic with some friends. The weather was gorgeous. In another month it will be too hot to go outside, so we are enjoying all the sunshine while we can. All in all Cayden had a fantastic time. Ian suffered a bit though, as Cayden expresses his affection by grabbing, pulling, and shaking the object of his affection vigorously. Cayden really likes Ian.

We rounded off the weekend by going with Grandpa Spray and Ellen to the Fourth Ave Street fair, which was occupied by a couple thousand people that had the same idea.

In other news, after 11 1/2 months our son has discovered his penis. This had made diaper changes far more entertaining, as it is very difficult to affix a diaper on the child if he won't let go of his penis.

Do these babies look drastically different or is it because one of them is mine?

To greet this dog Cayden grabbed him, threw him on the ground, and then looked very surprised that the dog seemed upset.

Cayden attempting to greet Ian.

Big Nate is very very big compared with the B-Day boys.

Ian's father Jamie teaching Ian CPR on a unresponsive dog.

Nubby Update

ty [2 April '08]

It's official. Nubs has learned to use sign language to communicate with us. He has only mastered one sign so far and I'll give you one hint as to what it is...


That's right. "More food please."

He is currently working on "All done". His present method of communicating that concept is to grab double handfuls of food and paste them to any wall unfortunate enough to be close to him. In the queue right after All Done is Want, Dirty and Water. Although I guess we could combine all of them into Cholera and be done with it.

There are very few people who care that I managed to cleanly mount this pull cord into a kitchen fan using only my wits and a trained iguana but dammit, it took me 3 hours start to end.

Unfortunately Cayden doesn't always enjoy his dinner. You'd think this would stop him from eating it. Nope. It simply leads to him crying as he continues to stuff his face. Very serious determination. Although I give him lots of crap for eating constantly and weighing 16% more than his friend who is a month older I am actually pretty pleased with his eating and his weight. According to the literature he'll be staying roughly the same size for the next year-ish as he focuses all of his caloric stash on biting mommy and attacking the dishwasher (his ultimate nemesis).


As we've been painting the house the last couple of weeks we've discovered that sticking a bunch of tape on the child is funny. To us.