Busy Boy

Ace had his eighteen month check up

He's 32.5" tall (57%)
His little noggin' is 47cm (22%)
He weighs 20.6lbs (1.29%)

The doctor was very happy with where he is at - he is growing at just the right speed for him. He's long and lanky and very very busy! He had the checklist test that they use to test for autism and he passed with no concern. He had his Hep-A shot, the last in the series (I think...) and he didn't cry at all - just looked at it funny. The doctor continues to recommend he remain rear facing in his carseat until he is two (by law in the State of WA you have to be 1 AND 20lbs) and she pointed us to her blog pointing to further information, although we don't need any additional convincing - he will remain rear facing until he's two. Which is only six months away. Really? When did that happen?!

Flashback Friday

My best friend came to visit last year. It was the first time she had been here since returning from Kuwait about two months earlier. It was the second visit with Ace. Ace had just turned six months and was just figuring out crawling. This is the blog I posted right before her arrival - as I knew I would be busy and not blogging while she was in town. :) She is also the friend that got married this past October.

Dentist Visit

Yesterday Ace visited the dentist for the second time. The first visit was six months ago and six teeth ago. He did very well and for the first time actually had his teeth cleaned. He loved it. He paused as he needed water and let Barb his dental hygienist give him a little water and then get back to cleaning with toothpaste! They used the electric tooth brush and Ace couldn't get enough of it. After he was done getting his teeth clean we had a while to wait until the dentist could come and do the 'official' check up.

While we were waiting Barb entertained him with playing with the water and the sucker tools. Ace had a blast and a few tastes of water. He also played with his light turning it on and off - or at least requesting it.

He still is not a huge fan of the actual dentist - which I can't say I blame him - his 'bed side' manner leaves a lot to be desired... and since he really only sees the dentist for 5-10 minutes he'll survive.

To date Ace has 12 teeth - his bottom molars are all the way in and the top two are 80% broken through the gums. The dentist says that he's right on schedule for a boy his age. As I mentioned, Ace enjoyed having his teeth cleaned! He did not love so much having the fluoride paste painted onto his teeth ... but I think it was because the dentist was doing it and well ... as I have said .... he is not a fan. He's gotten a clean bill of teeth-health and they say his teeth are looking great! Still we were encouraged to wipe his teeth off in the night after his bottle - and the added tip of a warm wash cloth was suggested so as to not jar him back awake after falling asleep.

We're scheduled to return the day after he turns two! Until then we are going to continue to brush his teeth twice a day with a tiny amount of toothpaste and floss once a day. We'll see about flossing every day. I'll try... it's not that he doesn't like it - the times I have flossed his teeth he has been very cooperative. We left the dentist with a bath toy duck, which Ace loves, lots of floss 'sticks', a new toothbrush, and high praise for his attentive parents. Ah shucks ;-)

Eighteen Months Old

Happy Half Birthday, my boy!

Yep, Ace is eighteen months old and is thriving more than ever.

He is adding to his vocabulary every day. In addition to the ones he's said in this post he has added (that I can remember):

foook (fish), park, horse, frog, fooose (shoes), noodle, broco (broccoli), coocoo (cookie), cahker (cracker), puc (cup), pap (clap), hep (help), knife, fork, spoon, knock, bebe bear (baby bear), ring, rain, moon, gas (grass), coke (coat), buckle

He loves to read and his reading patience has expanded. His current favorite (this week) is Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? The other night he sat through the entire Butter Battle Book and if you're familiar with the Suessical delight you know it is one of his more lengthy reads. I was impressed. It's rare we make it through a 5-6pg book but that book is 35 pages of text and there are way more than five words per page.

He had his second visit to the dentist today (look for a full report tomorrow!) and for the most part he loved it. He now has 12 teeth including 4 molars! Time to start chewing that food for real now! Speaking of chewing Ace continues to eat like a bird 70% of the time. But he's still running around with plenty of energy and is quite happy to eat whenever he wants to. He has been exposed to M&Ms and he is a fan. Every now and again I will give him a couple - and we use them to count. He's gotten as high as three. :)

Sleep continues to escape us. We've recently switched to the bottle only in the night - and only allowing 'Mama Milk' after 7am (when it is light outside.) We're on night 4 of that - and the last 3 nights in the first stint of sleep he's had 6.5 hours of unbroken sleep, then 4.5 before the cat jumped on him and woke him up, and then last night he got 5.5 hours before he crawled into bed with us. Granted once he did climb into bed last night (at 2:30am) sleep from there on was broken and miserable... so it's a slow go to true success. However in this last month - he did have giant success in that department..

Ace continues to love the movies Toy Story, Cars, and Finding Nemo - although for the most part he cycles between Cars and Toy Story, we don't watch them every day but at least a couple of times a week. He also knows how to turn the tv on and change the channels until he finds a cartoon... or whatever it is that he wants to watch! And NO we did not show him how to do this, he obviously observed us doing it but we never walked him through the steps. He also can change the tuner (?) on the tv from the tv to the dvd 'channel' and then turn the PS2 on and hits the correct button on the controller to make his dvd go. It's frightening how good he is at it.

He loves playing with his toys and his current favorite are his trucks! He has figured out how to push them around on the floor and is having a great time. He loves his kitchen stuff and has even started to 'help' unload the dishwasher. Often we hand him the tupperware and he puts that away. Other times we allow him to put the silverware away - which always starts out helpful and often ends up a giant pile of silverware mounding up in the drawer - which we of course fix after he's all done helping. We don't want to discourage him, so we show him at the beginning how to do it and then after he gets started we try not to nit-pick or correct his methods. He also loves to help cook whenever he can and has a great time helping.

Ace had yet another haircut this month - that makes number 4! I suppose one day I'll stop counting, but not just yet - every one feels like another milestone and symbol of my baby rapidly escaping my grasp. He's started to say 'All done, mama' siiiigh - sometimes he is done with something and just telling me ... other times he's all done with momma. Siiigh.

He's our joy. He's doing so well and it's been a wonderful eighteen months! It doesn't seem like it's been that long - but it has. He's doing great and I love to hear him develop more vocabulary and actually talk with us. Happy Half Birthday, Baby Bear!

Spring?

The weather around here has been beautiful around here lately, hence no blogging since Friday! In the 60s, sunny, and nearly warm! The cherry blossoms are blooming, flowers are sprouting, and trees are starting to bud! It's a beautiful spring... in the middle of winter? Did the good ol' Puxatony Phil get it wrong? Not 6 extra weeks of winter? Or is this a death sentence imminent for our flowers, trees, and blossoms? Is another a winter storm going to come our way and deep freeze all our real spring away? I sure hope not! So rather than question what's going on with this bizarre but delightful weather - we've been enjoying it! Parks, walks, running around in long sleeves and not covered head to toe in fleece! Hurray!

Museum Meatloaf

Did you fear that I had succumb to the traditional failures of New Years Resolutions? Don't fret! Our family is still eating, I am still cooking... I just have failed to blog. Also I haven't been cooking any *new* recipes in recent days weeks... and thus no new and exciting blog. I do have a couple ready to post though so be sure to check back for some yummy dishes.

Now onto this post: Museum Meatloaf? What on earth are you talking about? Well that's what my husband said when he ate it. He said it was fit to be in a museum... and my husband is not one who often over gushes about mundane meals (which I thought this one was going to be when I set out to make it.) He's always appreciative, but he doesn't go out of his way to send praise my way to the nonsensical degree, so when he said that it was the best he had ever had and that it was the perfect blend of spices, I believe him and I thanked Paula Deen ... because well that's whom I got the recipe from. ;-)

Ingredients as adapted by me:
1,25 pound ground beef
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 whole white onion chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
8 ounces canned diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats

Topping:
1/3 cup ketchup
1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon french yellow mustard

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Mix all meatloaf ingredients well and place in bread pan.
• Spread topping onto the meatloaf
• Bake for 1 hour

I ended up checking my meatloaf at the one hour mark and found that it was still pretty moist, so I left it in for an additional ten minutes and it was perfect, so check it at 1 hour and then maybe add 10 minutes or less to the cooking time if it still seems too moist.
So wala, my super easy I-am-going-to-be-lazy-on-a-Friday-night meal, ended up being 'fit to be in a museum' - wish cooking was that easy every day. :) It was yummy, but we were piggies and there's only about 1 serving left. :)

Flashback Friday

Four years ago today I was at a debate tournament. I was coaching my team. See I was hired by That College to form a debate team and I had done just that. Yes, that's me in the middle of my students. Yes, I was older than them ;-) I'm just dainty. I loved coaching debate. I loved teaching them how the 'sport' worked and teaching them argumentative techniques. It was a lot of fun I could have done it forever. But I moved to the NW and thus couldn't not continue to coach. However, I will always be known as the person that created the debate team at That College, and the team to date is doing pretty well and that makes me proud that I had a part in that.