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.

A conversation with Tyson after ten hours of painting the house...

t: did we put on the...
j:.... what?
t: did we do the laundry?
j: what laundry?
t: the, uh.. towel laundry? (gesticulates at the floor) the foot-towel laundry!
j: foot-towels? do you mean rugs? no i didn't wash our rugs.

Cayden tells Mommy ALL about cheerios:

Planes and Fences

[ty] 9 March '08

So lots of Exciting Stuff has been happening lately. Chief among these is that instead of having 12 months to finish remodeling our house we had 6 weeks. Yay! Luckily we have amazing friends who've been all too happy to turn their "lets visit Ty&JD&Nubby" vacations into "can I stop drywalling now, my back really hurts" vacations.

Steve and Paula came to visit and we tore up and moved a fence section. Nubby decided that Paula's lap is his new favorite lap and refused to leave it even to poo.

www.sprayberries.com/febandmarch08/febandmarch08.html

Lallo came to visit and we hung crown molding, fixed the window, and geeked out on all the planes here in the desert. Well, technically Lallo geeked out on the typography while I geeked out on the planes.

www.sprayberries.com/lallofeb/lallofeb.html

Who knew I would agree with Geraldo Rivera on something?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/03/geraldo_rivera_takes_on_antiim_1.html

The award for funniest article title goes to.....

"Eco-friendly kangaroo farts"

New Favorite Lap

jd [26 Feb 2008]

Paula and Steve just left this morning after a long-weekend visit of beer drinking, fence mending, and baby cuddling. They were unaware that we planned on putting them to work, but took it like champs. Not only that, but with the four of us brainstorming the project we came up with a plan to fix the old fence instead of replacing half of it, which saved us about 300$. Ty and Steve rented a two-man auger and filled our yard with holes last friday. The majority of those holes become homes to fence posts, cactuses and trees, but a couple were just for fun. Cayden spent some serious time bonding with Auntie Paula, and after twenty-four hours decided she was his new favorite lap. Saturday morning he crawled over to her, tried to pull up on her legs, then just held out his arms to be picked up. The idea that somebody was willing to hold him all the time was just too exciting for words. To be posted later: pics of the "new" fence and construction madness, along with a bonus video of our three legged cat trying to attack a stray dog.

Can't take your eyes off him for a second

[jd] 14 Feb 2008

So I went to pick up Cayden on Tuesday afternoon, and when I walked in he was sitting behind a woman kneeling and giving her son antibiotics from a syringe. Cayden was chugging a bottle and when he saw me, he gave a huge grin and pulled the bottle out. I thought to myself, "that doesn't look like his bottle", just as the woman turned, saw Cayden and exclaimed "Oh my god that is another baby's breast milk". There's not really anything clever I can say to make this story funnier than it is, so I'm not even going to try.

A dream come true

[jd] 12 Feb 2008

Last week when I picked Cayden up at daycare, his lunch was still in the fridge. He has officially begun refusing 'baby' food. He only wants finger food, with the exception of yogurt and applesauce. He has apparently been trying to steal all the older baby's foods for a while. One of the home made baby food sites I frequent has a whole page talking about how to get your baby to take more textured foods. This apparently will not be an issue for us. As we are moving into this new phase, I realized that we can ALL EAT THE SAME FOOD. Why this excites me so much I don't know. But for several nights in a row, we have all sat down to the same dinner (vegi-chilli, potato and mustard green casserole, beets & turnips & polenta tonight!). Life is awesome. I can eat dinner with my kid and I got a real job.

A Discerning Palate

[jd] 2 Feb 2008

I have discovered that if my laptop is all the way back on our little Ikea coffee table, I can type without Nubs being able to reach the keys. He likes to stand next to me while I am kneeling and typing and bang away on the table. I was working and noticed that the banging had stopped. So I looked at him just in time to see him carefully pull a piece of old tissue off the wad in his hand, put it in his mouth, chew and swallow. Curry? Yum. Old snotty tissue? Yum.

Homeward Bound

[jd] 31 January 2008

So I had an interview for a grown-up job (biology professor) last week in Allentown, PA, about 90 minutes from where I grew up. I loved the department. During the 1 1/2 days I spent there, it was really easy to envision myself working there, being productive, and being happy. Apparently they felt the same way, because they offered me a job on Monday! We have had to make decisions on a really short time scale, because they also really liked their second choice and wanted to be able to make an offer to that person if I turned it down. Happily Tyson has reconciled himself to, and is even excited about, the idea of living in Pennsylvania. So, I have informally accepted and provided nothing bizarre happens we are moving to Allentown this summer! The amount we have to do before then is STAGGERING. So, if you were planning on visiting us in Tucson and feel like painting a house, or putting up some crown moulding this is your chance! Likewise, if you have a hankering to learn how to do multi-unit extracellular recordings, I have plently of experiments that need doing : )

In other news, drool-meister G has popped his second tooth. I discovered this when he bit my finger yesterday and left 2 painful indentations instead of one. To all you new parents, your fingers may seem like a convenient portable teething toy, but this is a BAD HABIT to get into.

I think they've been here before

[jd] 23 Jan 2007

As I hit the brakes to avoid broad-siding the white mini van that has just cut me off, I notice that it has a bright blue side door.

Nubby's First Oxygen Tent

[ty] 17 Jan '08

Over the course of the last 7 months we've become relatively accustomed to the variety of nasty excretions produced by our son because he's in daycare. He's young and building a healthy immune system doesn't come without a cost. In many respects we consider this a boon. Better chickenpox as a child than shingles as an adult for instance. So we thought nothing of it as his most recent cough turned wheezy and he became more lethargic and needy. That is, until Jordanna checked on him as she was coming to bed the other night and his breathing was strange enough that she brought him into bed with us.

Despite the fact that it was 1:30 in the morning his breathing was so strange that we lay awake listening to him discussing whether or not we were being paranoid. Eventually I decided we were not paranoid, his respiratory functions were not ok (64 breaths a minute), and we needed to take him to Urgent Care. So we loaded him into the car and tore off for UMC. Ironically I drove to the hospital very very quickly not because he was in dire straits but because we thought Urgent Care closed at 3am (it actually closes at 1am) and the difference in co-pay is significant.

Upon our arrival they rushed us into care (if you ever need to fast-track through admission write "respiratory difficulty" on your intake sheet), checked him out, and agreed that his respiration was labored and the O2 levels in his blood were too low. They put him on some oxygen and admitted him. Even sitting in a hospital and knowing that he was basically fine seeing my 9 month old son with oxygen tubes in his nose was difficult. I can't even imagine what our friend, whose child has had multiple surgeries, must go through.

We stayed in the hospital for a day and a half as they waited to see if his oxygen levels dropped again. Turns out he has RSV (a respiratory virus) and an ear infection. They were all very nice and provided us with a great deal of disposable crap. We were discharged this afternoon and Nubby has been happily eating and hydrating all day.

On the bright side he learned to hold his own bottle while in the hospital.

Here he is showing how he proudly holds his own beverage. Now he refuses to let us hold any bottles for him. Damn kids.

This is the very cool device they use to measure his blood oxygen saturation. As far as I can tell it's a light/doppler thing going on. But it just tapes onto his foot and thats it. Very nice and easy for a baby.

Mommy with her "I slept in this chair" sassy hair.

One of the nurses walked in, saw him like this, and said "Well, you're not a very sick baby now are you?"

Green Mountain Trail

[ty] 14 Jan '08

The only redeeming feature of living in the desert is...the desert. Specifically the high desert. So finally, after months of procrastination, we got the family together and headed up into the foothills for some hiking.

Our good friends (J&K) came along for the fun and it was pretty sweet to see the girls hiking with the kids strapped to their back. In the finest tradition of indigenous peoples everywhere we sent one male ahead with the dog as scout, put the women and children in the middle, and left one male to bring up the rear. We encountered nothing more dangerous than some icy rocks and random pokey plants but you never know.

Ever the gentleman. I, on the other hand, was ready with the camera to record any mishaps.

Due to perspective issues Roland appears to be the size of a hairy juvenile Rhinoceros.

You can see the drastic color change in the sky a little here. We were probably at around 6500 ft elevation and directly overhead it was a deep deep azure that you can see in a few of the other shots.

As you can see, Nubby wasn't really too happy about the situation.

The Pacific NW version of a Burro.

A good photo of JD and K. Note the completely unconscious babies.

The Parents Who Cried Tooth

[jd] 8 January 2007

Well, it finally happened. We had our suspicions that Cayden was teething when he was sent home from daycare last week with a mild fever and no symptoms of being actually ill. Then he cried from 3pm until bedtime on Sunday, only stopping if I let him chew on a dried apple ring. This is the only chewy teething device he shows an interest in, which is unfortunate. Dried apple rings have a lovely spongy yet firm texture and a pleasant taste. All the qualities of an excellent teether, until it gets soft enough to break or the baby gets so excited he sucks the whole thing into his mouth and down his throat. Which means it is a great teether, if a parent is staring at you with an anti-choking device (i.e. my finger) at the ready THE ENTIRE TIME. Despite the relatively unpleasant experience of having me stick my finger down his throat to extricate apple chunks, Cayden happily chewed away for over an hour. Despite all these symptoms, Sunday night there was still no tooth. Apparently he got all his angst about the process out that day though, because he was thoroughly cheerful Monday and Tuesday. I thought we had yet again mistakenly assumed his crankiness meant teething, and it was only by accident that I discovered his brandy-new tooth last night (he was complaining about the car seat and I was shoving my knuckle into his mouth so it made funny noises when he cries, because that usually stops him crying). Another milestone of childhood achieved, which is exciting and sad all at once. I love watching him change so rapidly, but it is a little bittersweet to think that in no time he will be bumming 20$ and the car keys off me.

Never let it be said Orono didn't treat us well...

[ty] 6 Jan '08

Ok, I apologize for the conspicuous lack of update regarding our trip and various associated excitement in Maine. Truth be told, I made up all of the highlights involved in the last post. All of Jordanna's toes are intact, nobody fell through the ice and I stayed safely inside all of the vehicles. I apologize if anyone was unduly alarmed. In my defense I had earlier that day been involved in mortal combat with a Black Bear, eaten a bad piece of Puffer fish and lost around $7000 on Jai-Alai.

We had a wonderful time in Maine. It was the first large scale Henry/Fremouw/Sprayberry/Benson X-mas and there was no shortage of wonderful grandparents, sledding, good beer, hockey, good wine, oblong pizzas, good cheese, crying children, laughing children, hurt children and love. Clarissa and Thane opened up their home to an veritable invasion of people and in return I stole Clarissa's favorite winter hat and invited our friends up to crash the party. They took it like champs and we will forever be grateful and hope to return the favor as soon as we get to a domicile larger than a conjugal visit cabin.

Also in the "You Rule" catagory: The Walshies hauled their asses all the way up to Maine to hang out with us for 48 hrs. Considering that it would have been FAR easier for them to stay in the comfort of their own home and not drive 6 hours into Canadian territory and back we were very very touched by their presence and the wonderful bounty of beer, cheese, chocolate, whiskey, bourbon, vodka, wine and schnapps that they gifted us. For the record, Abby Rose was amazing with all the younger kids and a ball to hang out with. Plus she's about 6ft tall and is the proud recipient of both Kevin and Erin's gift for sarcasm.

Below please find a couple of photos that will tell an abbreviated version of our trip to the great frozen North. Actually its just some good photos of our kid and our nephews. What can I say.

For some reason he looks like a frog to me in this picture.
I think it's the hands.

Nephews all hyped up on x-mas will do anything Uncle Tyson asks them to.

I rarely intend to take these kinds of photos but I like it when it happens.

Nubby.

PS - in theory i have now posted two movies taken today of nubby. the one is of him doing battle with a hairband, the other is purely for the audio of us flushing his sinuses per our doctor's orders (drowning the baby).

Netipot

Hairband

In Maine...

[ty] The Day After Xmas, '07

We're here in Maine with Jordanna's sister and her family, my parents, and Jordanna's parents.  So far all has gone well and the children have been excellent.  We'll post some more extensive stories of the Frozen Lake Incident, how JD lost part of her toe, and The Time Tyson Fell Out of the Bus on the Highway Even Though We Weren't Moving Very Fast.

For now here are some pictures to tide everybody over.

Never mind.  Blogger doesn't want to upload the images.

Nubby's First Tournament

[ty] 16 Dec '07

We hosted a JV wrestling tournament at my school this weekend and the usual plan for such a day is I abandon my wife to fare as she may with Nubbs till I return in the evening. Unfortunately JD became DEATHLY ill Friday and could barely crawl to the bathroom to avoid wetting herself.

So on Saturday morning I brewed myself an extra serving of coffee, threw Nubby and the Wife in the car at 7:30, dropped JD off at Urgent Care on my way North and got on the horn to my wrestling managers to meet me at the school for babysitting duty.

Now before you all castigate me mercilessly for slowing down to 20 and kicking my comatose wife to the curb of the hospital entrance let me say that I will NOT bring Nubby into a hospital unless he is in severe need of medical attention. I read last week that antibiotic resistant strains of Staph infections killed more people in hospitals in 2005 than HIV/AIDS. The last time we took him to Urgent Care he picked up a Snot-Cough that lasted for 2 weeks. Nuff said.

Anyway, despite the fact that they don't get paid for their managing duties both of my awesome girls took my early morning call, warmed up their cars in the sub-freezing Tucson morning and met me at the school to watch my kid all day. For no less than 9 hours they fed my kid, put him down for naps, changed his diapers, kept him occupied, and STILL kept score for both mats throughout the entire tournament. They rule and I will be buying them Starbucks cards on my way to school this week.

My freshman holds him Very Carefully...

Our JV team

Babysitter Numero Uno

This ref loved Nubby and would come hold him whenever he wasn't on the mat

Babysitter numero dos

Just because I won't let him at my boobs...

[jd] 11 December

After another drop in my weight and a week of pumping blue-tinged milk that had literally 1 drop of fat per bottle, we decided to officially wean the Nub. He has been on formula for a little over a week, and I am only nursing him at night. In the past week we have seen a slight decrease in his desire for solid food, and a ravenous excitement about the bottle. Rather than refusing formula (as soome breastfed babies do), he is doing super well on it. However, his willingness to abandon the boobs for eating purposes has not diminished his desire for boobs AT ALL. When I pick him up now there is a 50/50 chance he will pull open the neck of my shirt, open his mouth and rub it back and forth on my chest while making 'ahhh baa baa' sounds. This is both funny and heartbreaking. But mostly funny.

An Uncanny Ability to Talk Anybody into Anything

[jd] 10 December 2007

Have you ever found yourself doign something completely ridiculous, that you would really rather not be doing, at the behest of a cajoling and laughing Tyson? (see exhibit A) Those of you who have know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Well, you are not alone. Tonight Roland came over for some love. After some good snuggles and pets, Ty grabbed the side of his face, placed his mouth over the dog's nose and blew. After the dog's lips fluttered about from this abuse, he shoved his head into Tyson's lap for more pets.