I've always thought the old Life cereal commercial with Mikey was weird. If Mikey will eat anything, why are they so amazed that he likes Life? He'll eat anything.
[Update: An anonymous commenter helpfully pointed out that Mikey actually hates everything. I completely mis-remembered that comercial. I found the actual commercial on youtube and it is pretty much exaclty how I rember it, except they say "He won't eat it. He hates everything" instead of "He'll eat it. He'll eat anything". Now I'm wondering why they thought he would try it in the first place.]
Johann will eat anything too. He'll eat fruit or vegetables, meat or dairy. He can put away a bowl of cut-up grapes with surprising speed. We never have to pressure him into eating. He will often eat more than Frances. He must need it for growing because he isn't getting really chubby.
What he really likes is meat.
He is very much a carnivore. It took us a little bit to figure out because Frances is the opposite. She doesn't like much meat at all. But we started noticing that the meat portions of meals would disappear first.
Then we noticed that he wasn't really very happy when we would have pasta meals. At the end of one, we thought to give him a cut up hot dog. He ate a whole one (minus the skin, yes, I peeled his hot dog). This was after he had stopped eating the pasta.
He's our little eater.
mwz
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
I not dirty, I Clean.
In our kitchen we keep several containers for the kids to play with; egg cartons, empty syrup bottles and whip cream containers. Both kids can (and do) get them out of the lazy susan to play with.
Today, when we got home from church, the containers were strewn about on the floor. One of the two (probably Johann) had got them out earlier and we hadn't picked them up. After removing her coat, Frances said "It's messy" and proceeded to put the containers away. It was incredible. We are trying to figure out who she takes after since obviously, neither of us bothered to pick them up.
But Frances is a clean little girl (as clean as a little kid can be). For a very long time now, she has kept her toes clean of lint. I never really even thought of trying to remove the lint. Maybe that's why she does it herself but she just started doing it on her own. At first, she would only pick the lint out occationally, when she had an opportunity. Now, it is part of her nap/bedtime ritual. One day, I tried to tuck her in and she said "No, I have to clean my toes". Before her feet get covered, she must declare "all clean" and then I know that she is ready to have her feet covered.
Recently, she has started washing her hands by herself in the bathroom too. It started as her playing with the water in the bathroom sink but now after pretty much every meal, she goes in there and washes her hands. We don't ask her to, she just does it. She has even learned to use the soap dispencer. Surprisingly she doesn't play with the soap, she pumps out just enough and that is all she uses.
As a final note, if you ask her if she's poopy (meaning a poopy diaper), she'll say "I not dirty, I clean".
Frances is an interesting little girl.
mwz
Today, when we got home from church, the containers were strewn about on the floor. One of the two (probably Johann) had got them out earlier and we hadn't picked them up. After removing her coat, Frances said "It's messy" and proceeded to put the containers away. It was incredible. We are trying to figure out who she takes after since obviously, neither of us bothered to pick them up.
But Frances is a clean little girl (as clean as a little kid can be). For a very long time now, she has kept her toes clean of lint. I never really even thought of trying to remove the lint. Maybe that's why she does it herself but she just started doing it on her own. At first, she would only pick the lint out occationally, when she had an opportunity. Now, it is part of her nap/bedtime ritual. One day, I tried to tuck her in and she said "No, I have to clean my toes". Before her feet get covered, she must declare "all clean" and then I know that she is ready to have her feet covered.
Recently, she has started washing her hands by herself in the bathroom too. It started as her playing with the water in the bathroom sink but now after pretty much every meal, she goes in there and washes her hands. We don't ask her to, she just does it. She has even learned to use the soap dispencer. Surprisingly she doesn't play with the soap, she pumps out just enough and that is all she uses.
As a final note, if you ask her if she's poopy (meaning a poopy diaper), she'll say "I not dirty, I clean".
Frances is an interesting little girl.
mwz
Friday, February 02, 2007
Johann is Walking
I am a bit behind in my posts. I was going to post about how Johann was standing up without holding onto anything (which he started doing a week or two ago).
But today Johann took his first steps.
Earlier in the day, he was standing in front of Ariel and he moved one foot forward and then sat down. We then had a discussion about if that constituted his first step. I didn't think that it counted because he didn't move all of his weight to that foot but Ariel thought it was enough of his weight to count.
Later though, our disagreement became moot when Frances pulled away the push toy that Johann was holding onto. He stood for a little bit. I held my arm in front of him to catch him if he fell and he took four steps. He later repeated the performance.
We're all very proud.
He can also go up and down stairs (with adult supervision of course) and he eats cat food (without adult supervision). We had to move the cat food up on a shelf because he kept getting into it. He really seemed to like it.
mwz
But today Johann took his first steps.
Earlier in the day, he was standing in front of Ariel and he moved one foot forward and then sat down. We then had a discussion about if that constituted his first step. I didn't think that it counted because he didn't move all of his weight to that foot but Ariel thought it was enough of his weight to count.
Later though, our disagreement became moot when Frances pulled away the push toy that Johann was holding onto. He stood for a little bit. I held my arm in front of him to catch him if he fell and he took four steps. He later repeated the performance.
We're all very proud.
He can also go up and down stairs (with adult supervision of course) and he eats cat food (without adult supervision). We had to move the cat food up on a shelf because he kept getting into it. He really seemed to like it.
mwz
Monday, January 08, 2007
Bopper
I realized the other day that Frances now says the word "diaper" correctly. She used to say "new bopper". It was adorable but she hasn't said it like that for months.
We successfully taught her how to say it correctly but now I kinda miss it. My little girl is growing up.
mwz
We successfully taught her how to say it correctly but now I kinda miss it. My little girl is growing up.
mwz
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Handful
On top of the usual holiday stress and the fun of moving, both our children have moved away from the nice peaceful stages of their lives that we have grown accustomed to.
Frances is in full "terrible-twos" mode. Her two favorite phrases are "By myself!" and "No Johann, that's mine" (even if it actually is his).
Johann has progressed to the point where he can be a pain to his sister. He often tries to play with what she's playing with or using. Frances has become pretty good about not letting him get to her pancake syrup or eat crayons.
To top it all off, he has learned to climb stairs. He started sometime last week by climbing 2 steps to get to a landing. Tonight he made it up those steps and up the next 3 before we noticed him. (It was my fault. I was watching him. I thought he was still in the planning stage but apparently he was finished with his research and went for a test run.)
He was doing fine though, climbing very solidly. He might have made it all the way up if he hadn't gotten distracted by us 3 watching and cheering him on (while making sure he was safe of course).
He did feed me a bit of his "Biter Biscuit" today though. Stuck it right into my mouth. I thought that was very considerate of him to think that I might be hungry.
mwz
Frances is in full "terrible-twos" mode. Her two favorite phrases are "By myself!" and "No Johann, that's mine" (even if it actually is his).
Johann has progressed to the point where he can be a pain to his sister. He often tries to play with what she's playing with or using. Frances has become pretty good about not letting him get to her pancake syrup or eat crayons.
To top it all off, he has learned to climb stairs. He started sometime last week by climbing 2 steps to get to a landing. Tonight he made it up those steps and up the next 3 before we noticed him. (It was my fault. I was watching him. I thought he was still in the planning stage but apparently he was finished with his research and went for a test run.)
He was doing fine though, climbing very solidly. He might have made it all the way up if he hadn't gotten distracted by us 3 watching and cheering him on (while making sure he was safe of course).
He did feed me a bit of his "Biter Biscuit" today though. Stuck it right into my mouth. I thought that was very considerate of him to think that I might be hungry.
mwz
Friday, December 01, 2006
Recent Accomplishments
We are pretty busy suffering from colds and packing but I thought I should mark some recent accomplishments of the children.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Johann learned to crawl at his uncles house. Now he is crawling all over the place. He can even crawl over to a coffee table and pull himself up to standing. It's pretty impressive when you realize that he was hardly mobile at all a week before.
This evening, I was taking down my desk (which is one of those modular things that you have to assemble) and Frances was "helping" me. She thought it was fun that I had the desk turned upside down (it did kinda look like a fort).
At one point though, she picked up my screw driver, which I had set down for a second and wouldn't give it back. She was sticking it into one of the pre-drilled holes and turning it. Being completely unsuccessful at getting her to give it back to me, I decided to try something else.
I guided the screw driver to one of the pegs that needed to be unscrewed and showed her which way to turn. To my amazement, she continued turning it in that direction until it came out.
We were both very excited.
After that, she started another one and again she correctly unscrewed it. She wound up doing 8-10 pegs, most without direct supervision. That freed me up to do some other packing.
Today, Frances went from "helping" to actually helping. I think I have Handy Manny to thank.
mwz
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Johann learned to crawl at his uncles house. Now he is crawling all over the place. He can even crawl over to a coffee table and pull himself up to standing. It's pretty impressive when you realize that he was hardly mobile at all a week before.
This evening, I was taking down my desk (which is one of those modular things that you have to assemble) and Frances was "helping" me. She thought it was fun that I had the desk turned upside down (it did kinda look like a fort).
At one point though, she picked up my screw driver, which I had set down for a second and wouldn't give it back. She was sticking it into one of the pre-drilled holes and turning it. Being completely unsuccessful at getting her to give it back to me, I decided to try something else.
I guided the screw driver to one of the pegs that needed to be unscrewed and showed her which way to turn. To my amazement, she continued turning it in that direction until it came out.
We were both very excited.
After that, she started another one and again she correctly unscrewed it. She wound up doing 8-10 pegs, most without direct supervision. That freed me up to do some other packing.
Today, Frances went from "helping" to actually helping. I think I have Handy Manny to thank.
mwz
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Wii Camping Experience
This is my experience camping out for the Nintendo Wii.
The people at the head of the line were on top of things. They came up with a system where everyone in line got a number written on their hand in marker. Once you had a number, you could leave the line to go get stuff from your car or walk to a gas station to go to the bathroom (which I did). It made the whole thing stress free.
The same people brought a TV and were playing movies. It turns out that I have very little interest in the Chipmunks Christmas Special. But at about 1am someone brought a Wii he had gotten at Wal-Mart and hooked it up to the TV. It was interesting to watch them play Wii Sports but when they started playing Zelda I quit watching (I didn't want to ruin the game for me).
I soon found out that I am no longer in the hard-core Nintendo demographic. For one, I don't work at a game store. For two, I was the oldest person there. For three, one of the people waiting was a freshman in High School. That made me feel really old.
But everyone was really nice. Don't know what to say about that but it was pretty easy to talk to people. Although, no one discussed names. I only knew what number they were in line.
It was cold. Above freezing but just barely. I was really glad that Ariel convinced me to bring a sleeping bag. But even that wasn't really enough. I eventually realized that I could keep 95% of my body warm and some part of me was just going to have to be cold. When the cold part got too cold I would change my covering scheme. Sometimes my ankles slightly exposed (under my jeans of course) and sometimes my face would be slightly exposed. I discovered that I couldn't even read the book I brought because having my fingers out (even in gloves) was to cold.
Combine that with sitting in a chair all night and I didn't really get much sleep. I maybe slept 2 hours that night.
Then after a long and uncomfortable night, around 6am a manager came out and told us that they would be giving out tickets at 7 and we could get the systems at 8. That perked everyone up. She handed out cards explaining what they had for sale to get people thinking about what they were going to buy.
At seven, we all lined up at the door in order of our numbered hands and the manager gave out numbered tickets. Then we got to go home for a bit.
I grabbed some cereal and tried not to sit down for fear that I would fall asleep.
A little before 8, we went back and lined up again in numerical order. Then they started letting us in 2 by 2. The store hadn't opened yet so it kinda felt like they were opening it up just for us. Like a rich person going to Tiphany's to pick out jewelry, except we weren't rich and this was Target.
About 30 seconds after they let my pair in, they let the rest go in. And we all lined up again in the electronics section. One by one an employee asked us "what would you like", meaning games and accessories. It kinda felt like having a gaming butler.
I asked for Zelda, an extra remote and an extra nunchuck (it attaches to the remote) but they were already out of the nunchucks. So I stormed out of there in a huff.
Okay, I bought everything else on my list and when home to set up the system.
After a an hour or so of play, I crashed and slept for a couple hours. Later that afternoon, I took another 2 hour nap. Then I went to bed at 8pm and got up at 8am. It felt very much like being sick.
I'm still feeling shell shocked from the experience. I have become much less tolerant of the cold. My showers have become longer because I can't stand the idea of getting out of the warmth. I am much happier laying in a warm bed.
Okay, I can't come up with any more examples than that but it really has altered my perspective. It really makes me feel fortunate that I have shelter at night and feel really bad for homeless people. Because even the people who wear a bunch of layers can't be warm enough. I only suffered in the cold for one night but some people do it every night.
Ignoring that last depressing paragraph, I am glad I did it. It was interesting (if a bit miserable) and I have my Wii.
mwz
The people at the head of the line were on top of things. They came up with a system where everyone in line got a number written on their hand in marker. Once you had a number, you could leave the line to go get stuff from your car or walk to a gas station to go to the bathroom (which I did). It made the whole thing stress free.
The same people brought a TV and were playing movies. It turns out that I have very little interest in the Chipmunks Christmas Special. But at about 1am someone brought a Wii he had gotten at Wal-Mart and hooked it up to the TV. It was interesting to watch them play Wii Sports but when they started playing Zelda I quit watching (I didn't want to ruin the game for me).
I soon found out that I am no longer in the hard-core Nintendo demographic. For one, I don't work at a game store. For two, I was the oldest person there. For three, one of the people waiting was a freshman in High School. That made me feel really old.
But everyone was really nice. Don't know what to say about that but it was pretty easy to talk to people. Although, no one discussed names. I only knew what number they were in line.
It was cold. Above freezing but just barely. I was really glad that Ariel convinced me to bring a sleeping bag. But even that wasn't really enough. I eventually realized that I could keep 95% of my body warm and some part of me was just going to have to be cold. When the cold part got too cold I would change my covering scheme. Sometimes my ankles slightly exposed (under my jeans of course) and sometimes my face would be slightly exposed. I discovered that I couldn't even read the book I brought because having my fingers out (even in gloves) was to cold.
Combine that with sitting in a chair all night and I didn't really get much sleep. I maybe slept 2 hours that night.
Then after a long and uncomfortable night, around 6am a manager came out and told us that they would be giving out tickets at 7 and we could get the systems at 8. That perked everyone up. She handed out cards explaining what they had for sale to get people thinking about what they were going to buy.
At seven, we all lined up at the door in order of our numbered hands and the manager gave out numbered tickets. Then we got to go home for a bit.
I grabbed some cereal and tried not to sit down for fear that I would fall asleep.
A little before 8, we went back and lined up again in numerical order. Then they started letting us in 2 by 2. The store hadn't opened yet so it kinda felt like they were opening it up just for us. Like a rich person going to Tiphany's to pick out jewelry, except we weren't rich and this was Target.
About 30 seconds after they let my pair in, they let the rest go in. And we all lined up again in the electronics section. One by one an employee asked us "what would you like", meaning games and accessories. It kinda felt like having a gaming butler.
I asked for Zelda, an extra remote and an extra nunchuck (it attaches to the remote) but they were already out of the nunchucks. So I stormed out of there in a huff.
Okay, I bought everything else on my list and when home to set up the system.
After a an hour or so of play, I crashed and slept for a couple hours. Later that afternoon, I took another 2 hour nap. Then I went to bed at 8pm and got up at 8am. It felt very much like being sick.
I'm still feeling shell shocked from the experience. I have become much less tolerant of the cold. My showers have become longer because I can't stand the idea of getting out of the warmth. I am much happier laying in a warm bed.
Okay, I can't come up with any more examples than that but it really has altered my perspective. It really makes me feel fortunate that I have shelter at night and feel really bad for homeless people. Because even the people who wear a bunch of layers can't be warm enough. I only suffered in the cold for one night but some people do it every night.
Ignoring that last depressing paragraph, I am glad I did it. It was interesting (if a bit miserable) and I have my Wii.
mwz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)