Early Termination

This was part of the dinner table conversation this evening:

Nathan: "My head hurts."
Cat: "Why does your head hurt?"
Nathan: "Because I cough a lot."
Cat: (to me) "We need to run the humidifier."
Nathan: "Are you going to fire me?"
Cat: "Yes."
Nathan: "No, I don't want to get fired."

We decided to keep him on board.

Two Weeks and Seven States

Last week was our first week back home after a two week circuit through seven states to visit Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, and Papa.  Combining the usually separate trips shaved a few hours off the total drive time (since we only made the long KY to MD trip once) and gave us plenty of time to relax and forget about work.  What helped even more for me was the four-day Active Directory class that I had prior to the trip.  All told, I wound up with a three-week "sabbatical" from work.  The first leg of the trip was to Anderson; we arrived there in the early afternoon and immediately turned the boys out into Grandma and Grandpa B's de facto private drive, owing to the fact that two houses in their cul-de-sac are for sale.  After a long car ride, they both enjoyed getting outside to run around, kick the football, and ride the tricycle.

While in Anderson, we managed to fit in most of the usual activities: a meal or two at Zaxby's, some shopping at Tractor Supply, a trip to Clemson, and an excellent movie, Skyfall.  The weather was especially nice, so we all were able to spend a lot of time outdoors, including some meals on the back porch followed by a few rousing games of Old Maid; Nathan seems to be getting the hang of it a little better, though his poker face could use some work.  We had several nice visits with Aunt Karen and spent quite a bit of time in Greenville, shopping downtown and eating at a few of our old favorites, Barley's, Trio, and Coffee Underground.  On Saturday, we went back to Greenville to attend Furman's football game against The Citadel.  The game didn't go so well for Furman, but we had good seats near the front of the bleachers close to the end zone (and the Paladin).  And thankfully, we managed to get some good boiled peanuts at the game, an obligatory component of any respectable trip to the South.  After the game, we spent some time walking around the Furman campus, admiring some of the new and remodeled buildings, but noting many of the things that had changed little since we were students there.  On Sunday, we wound down another fun trip to South Carolina and headed northwest on the next leg of our trip...

Liam's First Words

It sounds as though Liam is ready to talk, and his first words are alternately "ma ma" or "mo mo". Unfortunately for Cat, he doesn't mean to say "mama". He's talking about Elmo.  Starting a few weeks ago, he began to take a serious interest in Sesame Street, going nuts whenever he saw Elmo, Ernie, or Cookie Monster. We're not sure where this obsession came from, but it's progressed to the point that he walks around with several blankets and all three of those characters in his arms. Every day, whenever he sees a picture of Elmo and freaks out, his words sound more and more like "Elmo."  If his next word is "da da", I'll probably wonder if he means "Thomas" or "Dora".

Five Star Service at the Hospital

Nathan's not wincing, he's just a ham

We are now starting to get the initial explanations of benefits from Cat's and Nathan's stays at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in early September when they both contracted viral meningitis (that was fun). The figures noted in the EOBs are not as high as I had feared, but one item that stands out is the stark difference in cost for room and board between Cat and Nathan. The room and bed charges for Nathan are significantly higher than for Cat; almost twice as much. That is to be expected for a stay in the pediatrics ward in the hospital, but I also surmised to Cat that part of the charges inevitably stem from the world-class service that Nathan demanded and received from his caregivers in the hospital. It was hardly into the first day of his stay in the hospital room that he discovered the value of that little red button next to his bed. Not only did he use it to summon nurses to his room, but he also treated it like a remote control, issuing commands like "I need you to bring me a juice and a new movie." Of course, when it was his pleasant little voice on the intercom, the nurses were quite obliging, but it was still slightly embarrassing when he would decline my offer to go get him a movie and would instead place an order with "room service". If there is ever another stay in a hospital, we'll have to do a better job of clarifying the proper use of hospital resources.

Pictures and a Translation

It's high time for some new pictures, so here are a couple of albums to share.

• Nathan Being Silly
• Nathan and Liam

The first album could easily become an oeuvre of infinite dimension, given Nathan's propensity for silliness, so stay tuned for updates.

I'm also pleased to say that, thanks to some clever linguistic insight by Nana and Papa, we may have derived a translation for the mysterious "ropaster". The tentative translation for this term is "roller coaster". Considering that Nathan was pointing at a steel-framed construction crane at the time that he scolded us for failing to understand him, that meaning is plausible. It also makes sense when you consider that he had seen a roller coaster for the first time a few weeks earlier while visiting Hershey Park. We pointed out the crane to him a few days ago while driving through downtown Rockville, but he didn't take the bait and repeat the mystery word. Perhaps the "ropaster" term has already become archaic. We may never know for sure, but I think Nana and Papa hit upon a fairly solid hypothesis.

Expanding Vocabulary

Cat and I learned a new word today from Nathan: ropaster. We have no idea what it means, but he made certain that we learned it. We were leaving the parking lot at lunch and he pointed over to the construction site in downtown Rockville where they're expanding the county courthouse building. It's a multistory structure and they have a huge crane erected for the project. We're fairly certain that Nathan was pointing to the crane when he used this mysterious word. I got in the car after the conversation had already started, but it went something like this:

Nathan: Mommy, look at the ropaster over there!

Cat: What?

Nathan: The ropaster!

Cat: The what?

Nathan: The ROPASTER!!!

Cat:  What is a ropaster?  Are you talking about the crane over there?  Or the steeple?  Or the flagpole?

Nathan: NO!!!  The ROPASTER!!!

Me: Nathan, what are you talking about?  What is a ropaster?

Nathan: THE ROPASTER!!!  You guys gotta stop being funny!

Me: I see that big crane over there.

Nathan: NO!!! I'M TALKING ABOUT THE ROPASTER!  YOU GOT TO LISTEN TO ME, GUYS!

Both of us: Oh, the ropaster.  Yes, we see it.  It's a big one!

I don't know if we'll ever figure that one out.

Liam's Progress

Liam is walking around like crazy now.  He's successfully made the transition from slow, lurching, non-threatening zombie to run-for-your-life fast-walking zombie.  He still lurches, but when he gets going, he keeps up a steady pace.  It's now a typical occurrence for him to make the walk from the door to the car nearly unassisted, though he still needs help on the steps.  And he loves to do it, too; after our trip to Hershey, PA, last weekend (more on that later), he spent a good thirty minutes rolling his new soccer ball up and down the hallway and chasing it down.  At one point, it rolled past his legs; as he bent down to pick it up, it kept rolling and he bonked his head on the floor while still standing up.  There wasn't a single whimper, though; he turned right around and went after it.  We're also seeing some signs of communication.  At one point yesterday, he brought me the soccer ball while I was laying on the couch and when I asked him it if was for me, he looked at me a nodded.

He's also showing quite a stubborn/independent streak.  When he wants to be left alone to his own devices, he makes it quite clear by screeching loudly and pushing away whoever is bothering him.  It doesn't matter if it's Nathan taking his ball or his blocks; Sophie, our neighbors' daughter, trying to pull him somewhere he doesn't want to go; or one of us trying to cut his fingernails.  If he doesn't want to do it, he will fight you until you give up.  It's for this reason that his fingernails grow to freakish Howard Hughes-esque lengths.  And naturally, they seem to grow to this length on a nearly weekly basis.  I sometimes wonder if tranquilizers and a muzzle are needed for fingernail clipping time.


Finally, even though he's not talking yet, we can hear him attempting some communication.  There are some distinctive sounds he makes when he knows he should say "thank you."  And above all else, he makes a sound for "snack" when he hears fruit snacks mentioned after dinner:

As evidenced by the video, he's always operating under the assumption that someone (i.e. Nathan) could take away his fruit snacks at any moment, so he eats like a refugee.  And that was a slow pace for him.  There are usually two handfuls going in at once.  Blink and they're gone.

Finally Walking

It took him a long time, but Liam is finally walking consistently now.  The catalyst was evidently his tough new teacher in daycare when he started going to KinderCare with Nathan.  I heard tales of standoffs between Liam and his teacher as she made him walk during the day.  Crawling was no longer allowed under her tutelage.  Walking is a prerequisite to move up to the next age group, and by God, she was determined to make him walk.  He's still a bit zombie-like in his locomotion, but he seems to have moved past the crawling preference that he had a few weeks ago.  What's especially funny is when he simultaneously walks and babbles in the funny "tickle, tickle, tickle" imitation that he learned at Cynthia's.  The tickling was apparently a tactic used to keep him from bucking and flipping over during diaper changes, something that he loves to do.  What a handful.

It Begins

Mark the day: today was the first of many occasions on which the words "I don't want to do homework; I want to play" were uttered in this household.  Nathan came home with some homework from preschool on Monday.  By Friday, he has to draw three things that you can see during the day that you can't see at night; he has to practice writing lowercase g's and draw a few things that start with g; and he has to do some basic addition.  What was even better than him complaining about homework was the fact that when he had a sudden burst of energy after feeling tired earlier in the evening, I told him that it looked like he had enough energy to do homework.  With so many teachers in the family, it just comes naturally.

More Nathanisms and a New Train Conductor

A few new Nathanisms have appeared recently:

1. "Mommy, you need to bathroom* around here soon."

Spoken while making a circular motion with his hands in the vicinity of the floor.

* "Bathroom" in this context was determined to mean "vacuum."

2. "Daddy, if you kill people, you will not get to play with the black book."**

Nathan's interpretation of the Maryland penal code.

**The "black book" is the iPad.

3. "Daddy, if you say hi to your friends at work, you will get a car."

Nathan gets a reward (a car) when he does something especially good, so he must think that the same bonus system applies in the working world.

4. "Liam, if you drop that food again, you will get a spanking."

Liam is a messy eater and Nathan has assimilated our frustrations with his brother's dining habits.  Nathan was never a problem, but with Liam, we're becoming the parents that we once detested: the ones that leave a ring of crumbs around the high chair when they leave a restaurant.  We try to clean up as best we can, but some floors (ahem, Hard Times) are simply too vile for human contact.

There has also been some interesting conversation today concerning Nathan's earlier "incident" with his ball.  He has a blue inflatable ball of the lightweight variety that can be found stacked in huge bins in Target or toy stores.  He was kicking it in the living room today while Cat was upstairs.  She heard a loud noise and rushed downstairs to find that he had hit the TV with the ball and it had bounced into a picture, knocking it off the table.  He was in trouble; he lost a few cars and got a stern talking to.  This evening, though, he was quite apologetic:

Nathan: "Daddy, I so sorry I knocked over your picture."

Me: "You know, you have to be careful with that ball.  You can't kick it inside."

Nathan: "I know.  Kicking is for outside.  You can roll it slow inside, but not fast.  Rolling fast is for outside.

He knows the rules; he just doesn't always follow them.

Meanwhile, Liam has become a lightning fast crawler and an aspiring walker.  He has developed an uncanny sense of knowing when the gate to the stairs is unlatched and heads for it with laserlike focus when he detects an opening.  When he's not busy trying to climb the stairs, he's made a few attempts at walking.  He recently took a spin on what used to be the Nathan Express.  It was a lot of lurching, but he managed to make it a ways up the hill.

Liam and His Blankets

Liam can't get enough of his blankets.  He got some from Santa Claus for Christmas and he got some more for his birthday.  He buries his face in them in the evenings and couldn't be happier.

James Dyson, Unintentional Toy Maker

This is what happens when I'm home alone with the boys. Yesterday, Cat took Nathan over to Rose and John's to "thank" them for the voice-changing megaphone that they so thoughtfully gave to Nathan as a thank you gift for helping to watch the cats while they were on vacation. Nathan came back over after a brief demonstration of the cursed device, but Cat stayed to talk. While they were away, I tried to get a very tired Liam down for a nap, but when Nathan stormed in the door saying "hi Daddy!" as loud as he could, the probability of a nap happening declined precipitously. The plan was shot for good when Nathan picked up the box of Nerds candy that he had received for Christmas, brought it over to me, and asked for some. Naturally, he was holding the box with the opening facing down, so the flap opened and Nerds began to pour out onto the floor. I told Nathan not to eat any off the floor, but he proceeded to sit down on the floor, look up at me sheepishly, and ever so slowly pick up a Nerd and move it towards his mouth. So then I had to yell at him, which woke Liam up completely.

Now that a nap was out of the question for the moment, I got up, set Liam down on the floor, and got the portable vacuum cleaner out of the hall closet. Nerds were spread all over the floor around the chair I was sitting in and some of them were on the chair itself, so I started vacuuming them up. However, I had given myself a haircut the day before and used the portable vacuum cleaner to pick up the clippings, resulting in a clog between the nozzle and the collection bin. Because of the clog, the Nerds were sucked into the nozzle, but then poured back out into a large, nasty, dusty pile as soon as I turned off the vacuum's power. This annoyed me greatly, so I took off the nozzle and attempted to dislodge the clog from the front, but it was too far down into the vacuum cleaner, so I took it into the kitchen to empty it over the trash can. After a few minutes with a pencil, I had managed to pull out all of the hair and unclog the vacuum cleaner. It was at this point that I heard one of the kid's voices coming from the living room, but with a weird tone to it, sort of like an echo. I looked through the window from the kitchen to the living room and asked Nathan what he was doing, but he didn't look guilty and didn't have anything in his hands. So I went into the living room to investigate further only to find that Liam had picked up the vacuum cleaner nozzle and was chewing on the end and making noises into it, thus the echo. How lovely. I snatched the vacuum cleaner nozzle away from him as quickly as possible, but since he despises those who take toys away from him, he looked up at me angrily and began crying and screaming as loudly as possible. So now I had Nerds still all over the floor, Nathan still trying to stealthily eat them, Liam screaming, and a vacuum cleaner that still wasn't fully functional. I finally got the vacuum cleaner put back together and working and started cleaning up the Nerds, all while listening to Liam's crying and screaming punctuated by Nathan asking for candy, fussing at Liam to stop crying, and/or fussing at Liam for trying to grab his toys, since Liam had lost interest in the filthy vacuum cleaner attachment and was moving on to toy cars instead. Thank goodness Santa Claus brought me a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label.