Happy Halloween!

Quick post to wish everyone a happy Halloween!! We had a great day--D took a nice long afternoon nap, then we went over to the great-grandparents' house so everyone could see Dashiell's lumberjack costume! Afterwards we came home and Dash and Rick went trick-or-treating while I handed out candy, then we watched It's the Great Pumpkin again and sent the little guy to bed. Now Rick and I are about to eat a late dinner and watch "Pyscho". Fun day for everyone!

I'll post better pictures soon, I promise. Happy Halloween!!

Found it!

AhHA! I found the camera cord! It was in the file cabinet next to the computer...I'd blame that on Dashiell but I'm pretty sure the other male member of our family put it there and forgot that he did it. But that's just my theory...

Unfortunately after uploading my photos I noticed that most of them were kind of crummy, so here's the sad collection of the least crummy of them:

Dashiell and I went to a Halloween party at the school where he takes yoga classes, and had a costume "theme"--he was a cat burglar, I was a cat! I look a little weird in this first photo but D looks more cat burglary in this one than in the next...plus the next picture is a bit fuzzy.

I love D's face when he laughs! What a funny guy!

My original costume idea for him was a star, which I started making for him a couple of weeks ago out of gold felt. I did a test run of it before doing any sewing, and Dash HATED it. Tried to rip it off his body, and didn't like the little pointy hat at all! But the background for the costume was the black turtleneck and black sweatpants, so I picked up the black knit hat for a buck at Target and we were set! He'll actually be wearing a different costume on Halloween, which I just decided on this week and scrambled to get the last of it together yesterday. It's less dependent on me being dressed as a cat to understand what he's supposed to be...

Next photo: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! AAAHHH!!!

I was trying to get a picture of Dashiell holding the little pumpkin he received at the halloween party, since he's been carrying that thing around all over the house for the past 2 weeks. We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on Sunday night, and when Dashiell saw the pumpkin patch he said "punkee" and ran over to the table to get his pumpkin. So the next day I tried to get a picture, and it made him so unhappy! Ah well...

I bought Dashiell this big floppy monkey from a garage sale a month or so ago, and he loves rolling around on it:

Anything plush and this kid's in over the moon! :)

Hope you enjoyed my little photo show! Happy Halloween, everyone!

The Return of Story Time

For many months now, Dashiell and I have had to skip story time at the library. First their was a scheduling problem due to D's nap times, then our yoga class interfered with it. Now, finally, we've returned to the library for story time! Yay! However, we've had to switch to the toddler hour instead of the baby hour, and I have to say the first week was a tough transition! Baby story time was calm and organized. Our first week back (2 weeks ago), it was anything but calm and organized. It was total chaos! There were at least 30 kids, plus just as many parents, and the woman running the story time was a sub and was not used to this size of crowd. Plus she felt the need to speak in that high-pitched-phony-kids voice the whole time, and didn't follow the format any of the kids were used to. So, yeah, kids were running amok, parents were chatting with each other instead of participating, and mayhem ensued. So last week, we skipped it. Found something else to do that Weds. morning instead. This week we decided to brave it again, and I'm so glad we did! The regular story time librarian was there (Trish, who Dashiell still remembered from his days at baby story time, at least 6 months ago), the format was the same as for the baby story time, and Trish calmly explained the "rules" prior to beginning--the kids will run around, don't worry if they don't want to sit still, but the parents should pay attention and participate. It was just so much better! Yes, Dashiell ran right up front and gazed lovingly at Trish for the first few rhymes, and he visited with other kids and parents, but he knew where I was and would come back to me often. Since the parents were paying attention, occasionally the kids would pay attention too! Amazing concept.

So yes, we will be back to story time as often as we can go. Thank heavens we found it again!

On a side note, I had planned on posting many more pictures than just this one of Dashiell playing with the globe at the library, but alas the pictures in my camera are stuck there until we find the computer cord for it or buy a card reader. I think someone just learned the fun of hiding things.

Whee!!

Dashiell has suddenly become much more dexterous and LOVES to climb on anything and everything now! Every chair is a new challenge! The bed must be beaten! The ottoman overcome! Now going to the park is even more fun for D since he wants more than anything to climb up the play structures and slide down every slide, not to mention crawl through any and all tunnels. Of course this comes with a new set of worries for us but we try to keep our anxieties in check (yes, he's taken a few extra headers this past week--nothing serious, all from low heights, and we try to keep in mind that these are "learning experiences"). He had been climbing somewhat previous to this, but never quite as confidently as he is now. Since he all but skipped crawling he's never been as comfortable using his knees as he is going feet first, and those little legs are still fairly short so he just couldn't figure out how to climb the way he wanted to!

I first noticed his new found climbing bravado about a week ago when we were playing in the yard. He has a small slide/fort that's been in the yard all summer long. Up until last week if he wanted to go down the slide he'd ask us for assistance to get up the ladder (in that urgently-pointing toddler way). On Wednesday we were in the back yard and he went right up to the slide, pulled himself up the ladder, and slid down all by himself! Of course I whipped out my handy cell phone video camera and was able to get him to do this over and over again so I could share it with everyone. There are 2 separate videos since the maximum recording time on my crummy cell phone is only 15 seconds--the first is climbing up, the second is sliding down. Enjoy!

Oh, and my friend Elana had asked me yesterday what Dashiell's latest new word was, which I just could not think of for the life of me! But of course as soon as we got off the phone I remembered. So just for you, Elana, Dashiell's newest word is "salsa"! Which he had for lunch yesterday and loved, loved, loved!

My Giant

We just went in for Dashiell's 18 month appointment today, and while he didn't gain quite as much weight this time as he did last time, he did grow a ton! At his 15 mo. appt. he was 31-1/2 inches high, three months later he's 35 inches! Yup, he grew 3-1/2 inches in 3 months! No wonder his pajama's don't fit anymore! He gained 2 lbs, so he is now 29 lbs. 8 oz. In other words, he's the size of a healthy 2-year-old. Yikes!

He had a slew of shots today--a couple of the regular vaccinations plus a seasonal flu. He would have had the H1N1 too, but they didn't have the pediatric version of it yet (the one they have has mercury in it, which is okay for adults but not great for little ones). I'm a big believer in vaccinations, so we will be going back in a couple of weeks when the pediatric H1N1 is available. Thankfully Massachusetts hasn't been hit as hard as other states yet so we're at less of a risk right now.

Unfortunately the office was short on all of their flu vaccinations so Rick and I will have to find our shots on our own. Last year we got vaccinated at the same time as Dashiell. I'm hoping Rick's workplace will offer them for him, since he is in the healthcare industry.

I was going to post videos of Dashiell playing in the yard yesterday, but I seem to have forgotten my phone at home, and haven't sent myself the videos yet...so instead I posted another picture of Dashiell having fun with little pumpkins during our apple picking excursion! Seems fitting in October...

The yoga video that didn't show up in the previous post...

Last day of Itsy-bitsy Yoga and a trip to the apple orchard!

Yesterday Dashiell and I had our last itsy-bitsy yoga class of the session. The next session doesn't start until January, which seems so far away! But with the holiday season approaching, I'm sure be glad to have fewer commitments during the day.

I tried to get a video of Dash doing some poses before class, with mixed results. The first pose is "toes to nose" (not sure what the real pose is called, but toes to nose is very descriptive). Then we have star pose, which in "real" yoga is a non-moving pose but for itsy-bitsy yoga we rock back and forth. Then the video gets shaky (sorry) while I try to get him to do downward dog--he does it for about a second, mostly off-camera, then runs around a while, then does a really good squat!

(see the video in the next post--sorry for some reason embedding it here didn't work this time!)

Later that day he did a great downward dog for me at home!

On Sunday we went apple picking with our friends Shawn, Michele and Sophie. Dashiell has a strange relationship with apples. He loves the word, and points out every apple he sees with glee. If you give him an apple to eat he gets ecstatic. He loves holding the apple, he loves that he gets to eat it, and he'll run around the house happily carrying it with him, saying "apple! apple! apple!". But he will spit out ever bite he takes! And by spit out I mean he'll take a little bite, move it around on his tongue, take it out of his mouth, and hand it to me. Then repeat the process about 10 times before getting bored.

He also point to most other roundish fruit and calls them apples too. Like this little pumpkin (and all the other pumpkins around him):

Here he is with Daddy, helping pick out the tastiest apple he could find!