Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Twinkle, Twinkle...

Handsome's favorite channel is PBS Sprout. He pretty much loves everything about the channel - including the Verizon commercial where the phone is also a calculator ("Phone?"), and the potty dance commercial where he dances along with them. He picks up the oddest things.

He likes the Play With Me Sesame show. The main characters are Grover, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, and Prairie somethin-or-other. Occasionally Elmo makes an appearance, and I tell Handsome who Elmo is, but he didn't seem to pay attention. Then we went to Target the other day and I hear "ELMO!!" coming from my cart. He spotted Elmo and was SOO excited. I don't get it. He has Ernie and Cookie Monster at home, but they are apparently not on the same level as Elmo.

He also loves the Goodnight Show with Nina and Star. He gets so excited when he sees them. He even practices the sign language they teach and stretches when Nina is teaching yoga.

But the reason I mention Sprout, is they sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every night. He LOVES it. I started singing it to him and he just wants me to sing it over and over and... well, you get the point. So last night before I put him to bed we knelt down and prayed, as always, and he says, "Amen. Amen." Then I sang Jesus Loves Me, as I sing every night to him. While I was singing Jesus Loves Me, I hear him singing "Tinka, Tinka, eh eh ah..." Apparently he's trying to hint to me to change my song. I put him to bed, and after I leave the room I hear on the monitor, "Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen...." And then after he has been in bed and quiet for lets say an hour, we hear on the monitor, "Tinka, Tinka, eh eh ah..." And then, after another hour or so of quiet, "Tinka, Tinka, eh eh ah..." Each time DH and I would crack up laughing which was loud enough for Handsome to hear so he would start laughing too.

I love that little boy. He makes me so happy.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Updates

Wow, my poor neglected blog. I've had zero time to update this blog lately. So much has happened and now I feel like I've missed documenting most of it because I haven't written anything here. I do have pictures of most of everything, so at least there is that.

Handsome's language is doing MUCH better. He's got around 70 words that we can think of and he is learning something new everyday. About 60 of those words that we've written down are English and I know he has more Dagaare that DH just isn't remembering. He is even starting to put a couple words together to make the beginnings of sentences.

He has also gotten rid of a lot of his shyness. He'll give random people "fives" and even hugs. He's even playing with other little kids more. We went to a little Soccer Tot meetup and he found this one little boy that he decided was going to be his best friend. He kept following the little boy around and putting his hand on the boys shoulder. He kept wanting to hug him, but the other boy - who was three months younger than Handsome - wasn't too sure about it all. He did give Handsome a hug or two at his mother's request, but he just didn't want to share so much of his personal space. The funny thing is, about five minutes before Handsome started chasing him around, the other boy was watching Handsome and doing everything Handsome did but with about a 3 second delay so that Handsome didn't see that he was copying him. Too funny!

DH's school is not going quite as planned. We've had to delay everything by about a year and that has been really stressful. We are working through it and I know in the end everything will work out, it is just hard right now.

Handsome turns two in a month. *sniff, sniff* My little boy is growing up so fast! We bought him a slide for his birthday which I know he'll love. He's all about the slide on the playground. I have invited friends over to our house to celebrate. We thought about reserving a park bench somewhere, but found out that would be about $100, which seems outrageous to me, so we are stuffing as many people as we can into our tiny house. So far we have about 10 of Handsome's little friends coming and hopefully he'll be excited about them coming and not freak out about the number of people in his normally quiet and calm house. Singing Happy Birthday to him could be traumatic having that many eyes on him, but we'll see how he does. I wish my family and DH's family could be here, but it's just not possible right now. Maybe next year we'll go to either Texas or Ghana for his birthday. (Just dreaming here, folks. There is no way we could afford Ghana and DH will only have one week between semesters in school) I just hope Handsome actually gets to know, and can be close to, more of his family than DH and I.

I'll try to update more often, but I'm not optimistic. Work keeps getting busier and DH hogs the computer. ;)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Baby Chef

Ok, quick updates because I have been slacking in keeping up my blog. Handsome will pick up books now and start talking pretending like he is reading it. And a couple weeks ago I made brownies and let Handsome do all the stirring. He did a really good job! I was expecting to have to clean the whole kitchen, but he did well.

DH has had a rough time lately. His classes didn't go so well. We're in the process of figuring out what to do next.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The banana song

So I took Handsome to the post office and then to the grocery store this morning. I had to return the faulty dvr and then get bananas and diapers. We haven't had bananas in a few weeks because the last time I went to the grocery store they were out of bananas. What grocery store completely runs out of bananas? Anyway, he keeps pointing to the counter and asking, "Nana? Nana?" When I say we don't have any the fits begin. And, well, bananas are healthy, so I decided to make a special trip to get them.

When the bananas were in the cart he kept trying to reach back and get them. When we got into the car I told him he would get a banana as soon as we got home, so for the drive home he started singing "Nana nana nana" He made up his own little jig and it was the cutest thing I've heard! He's done the repeating thing, but this one was an actual song! Each "nana" had different notes and different loudness. My little singer. :)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Animal sounds

Ok, this may be late for most kids, but with Handsome we are just getting here. Handsome knows animal sounds now and will actually say them!! It has taken forever, but he is finally starting to parrot sounds and try to speak. I think we are in the whole "word explosion" that people talk about.

What does a cow say?
"Cah?"
Yes, what does a cow say?
"MBooo!"
Teehee.

What does a sheep say?
"Ba-a-a-a" (he even does the pauses)
Teehee.

What does a dog say?
"Dah?"
Yes, what does a dog say?
"Ruff Ruff Ruff Ruff.." (in rapid succession)
Teehee.

What does a cat say?
"Caa?"
Yes, what does a cat say?
"meow meow" (and then he laughs)
Teehee.

What does a duck say?
"Duh?"
Yes, what does a duck say?
"Cack!"
Teehee.

What does the monkey say?
"Who-who-who-who"
Teehee.

What does a pig say?
"AAAHHHH"
Hahahaha. I don't know why the pig just screams.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Focus on me

I've let myself go. It's not a pretty picture. I don't wear makeup anymore. Half the time I don't put my contacts in - and I have HUGE glasses. I never lost the weight I gained from being pregnant so my clothes don't fit right. I bulge in all the wrong places. Gross, right? Well that's how I feel. I eat terribly and I never exercise. It's so hard to get the motivation to take care of myself when married and taking care of a toddler.

I have to lose what I've gained by August. That's my goal. I feel like total and utter crap. I have to fix that. I need to feel better both physically and emotionally.

So how do I reach this goal? How do I lose the weight and get healthy? Should I join the gym which is cheaper in the short run, but only for me and DH gets no benefit... well, no direct benefit. Or do I buy exercise equipment that is much more expensive in the short run, could be used by DH, and could just sit unused and gather dust? Should I try to do something like weight watchers or do I just count calories on my own? If you know me, you know I'm terrible at spending money. I hate it. I never know if I've made the right decision.

For Lent this year, I promised God that I would take better care of the body that he has given to me. I'm not even a week into the season and I'm already having difficulties with it. Sad, right?

I need an exercise buddy. I need there to be a woman that lives down the street that is in my situation and will exercise with me and motivate me to take better care of myself. If I lived in TX I would have friends that would do all of this with me. Too bad I live miles away.

So this is my starting point. I have to move forward starting now. I can't continue to go backwards.

Handsome and I have an appointment tonight with exercise. I do pushups with him climbing on my back and situps with him on my legs or on my belly. I do squats I have to make sure I don't sit on him.... and he thinks it's hilarious... for a while. He gets frustrated with me not paying attention to him after about 10 minutes. When I count out loud and play cartoons I can usually make it to 20 min without a meltdown.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Feeling left out

Do you ever have those days? Those days where you feel left out? Like your friends don't seem to be as close to you as you thought they were? I've had several different groups of friends lately getting together without me there. It hurts. If it just happened once with one group of friends it wouldn't hurt so bad. But lately I can count at least four different groups, and it's getting to the point where I can't brush it off any more. It hurts. I know I'm mostly to blame as I don't have the car because DH has to go to school and where ever I go I pretty much have to take Handsome with me. But now I'm starting to wonder if it is more than that. Maybe it's just me. Maybe my personality has gone sour or maybe I just smell bad. So would anyone care to tell me why I suck?