Fascinating

Colsen is extremely fascinated with snow. He points it out whenever he sees it. Fortunately, when it all melted there were still people who had those blow up snowmen in their yard, so he made it a point to make sure I was aware of all of them. He's so smart.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Cereal Aisle

Colsen's favorite aisle in the store is the cereal aisle. We can't seem to go down it without him picking up something. His favorites seem to be Apple Jacks and Honey Nut Cheerios. At least he's not picking out Grape Nuts or anything weird.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Christmas Come Early

Colsen found one of his Christmas gifts, a Cars toddler bike. He got pretty excited about it. I guess hiding it on the floor in plain sight wasn't the best hiding spot. At least we know he's going to like it.

It looks like the hardest part about my Christmases moving forward will be the "some assembly required" part of Colsen's toys. At least they make things much easier to put together these days. Who knows how long my father was up on Christmas eve assembling the various goodies that Santa had brought for me?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Bedtime Stories

Colsen and I read every night before he goes to bed. It's one of those good habits I'm trying to teach. We read a couple of his books then we read my book (right now, something by Dave Barry). He usually gets bored by the lack of pictures in my book and falls asleep soon after. Step in the right direction though, right?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Going to the Doctor

Colsen hasn't quite figured out that he's going to get shots when we go to the doctor's office. He's generally more concerned about the toys and the fish tank in the lobby.

I hate shots. Still. I make the nurse hold my hand while I look the other way. Hopefully Colsen will figure out how to be a bit braver. He didn't cry for too long after he got his shots yesterday. And I'm pretty sure next time we go he will still be more concerned about the toys and the fish. Here's to happy doctor visits.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Big Shoes to Fill

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Visiting Lola

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Stuff in the Cupboard Really Belongs on the Floor

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

I've Taught My Son Well

Today I was reading the sports page with Colsen on my lap. There was a picture from one of yesterday's football games on the page I was looking at. Colsen pointed at it and said, "Football!" On the opposite page was a picture from the Sacramento Kings game. "Basketball!" I can die happy now, knowing that I have taught my son what's important in life.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Up, Up in the Air

Colsen went on his first plane ride yesterday. We flew from SLC to Oakland. We were on a Southwest flight (I think my first plane ride was Southwest) so we had to just find seats. I chose to sit next to some other people with kids, that way if Colsen got too annoying, maybe people would look at those kids instead of mine. We ended up getting a whole row to ourselves. Apparently no one wants to sit next to a baby.

The flight went well. I was expecting kicking and screaming, but didn't get any. He was content to sit on my lap and enjoy the trip. As we were landing he fell asleep watching the bay area lights from the window. Kind of nice to not be "that" parent for once.

Our next flight has a lay over. We'll see how that goes.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Locked Up

The other day Colsen locked his mother out of the house. Don’t worry we have those child guard things on the door knobs. Turns out though that they need to make some for the deadbolt as well as the knob. After about 10 minutes of giggling about the situation Colsen finally unlocked the door and let his mom in from the cold.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Living in the Computer Age

When I was little, we didn't get our first home computer until I was about 5 years old. It was a sweet Apple IIC with a green screen. I played games like pong and really lame generic pac-man. These days kids have the whole world at their fingertips. Maybe Colsen will be playing intricate interactive games against kids in China by the time he's 3. Who knows? Maybe I'm thinking too small scale. Must be nice.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Footballs are for... eating?

I realize that my son is only 18 months old, but is it too early to be concerned that he is not very athletic? While he is good at throwing food at the dog, he doesn't quite get what he's supposed to do when he gets a ball in his hand. He does retrieve it if I throw it, but he doesn't throw back. Essentially, I've taught my son how to play fetch rather than catch. Maybe I'll try teaching him soccer.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Playing Indoors

It snowed today. After a weekend that included 60-70 degree weather. One of the issues I have with the change in weather is that now we have pretty limited choices when it comes to playing where we can stay warm and dry. We could go to McDonald's where we can also get fat. Or we can go to the mall. The mall is lame. I do appreciate all their rubber toys and equipment (quite the contrast from the questionable safety of outdoor playgrounds), but the mall is quite unexciting. Colsen wasn't even really into it. He had more fun playing with hangers at American Eagle. I guess we'll have to figure something out or it's going to be a long, boring winter (or cold and wet if we decide to play outside).

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Picking Your Nose

Is it bad that I don’t discourage Colsen from picking his nose? Is it bad to pick your nose? I don't really think so. I do it. You know you do it too.

Whenever Colsen picks his nose he feels that it is necessary to give it to me. "Caca," he calls it. Pretty much what he calls anything that I tell him is yucky. Is it bad for me to tell him to give it to the dog? What? Ollie likes it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Go Football!

The other day when we went to watch football, some guy made the comment, "Looks like he's going to be a Bengals fan." He'll yeah he's going to be a Bengals fan. I'm going to teach something about loyalty when it comes to your sports team. He's not going to be some bandwagon punk.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Floor Tantrum

Yes, kids really do lay on the floor kicking and screaming when they don't get their way.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Teaching Colsen Bad Habits

When I was 7, my mom would take me with her to play slot machines with her. I was a pro with the one armed bandit. One of my childhood memories is winning on the slots and watching all the quarters drop out. My mom used to always buy and let my siblings and me scratch off lotto tickets. Was it having fun or teaching us poor money management? Colsen sure has fun putting money in the lotto machine and pushing buttons to get tickets out.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Teaching Colsen Good Habits

I try to be a good parent and set the example for my child. For example we load the dishwasher together. So hopefully he will grow up realizing that he has to do his part in helping us clean up the house. We brush our teeth together so he knows that it's something he needs to do each day. All you can do is show him the right path and hope he goes down it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Need More Milk

The amount of milk Colsen drinks in a week is obscene. We go through 2 or 3 gallons. Used to be a gallon could last a couple weeks. Fortunately, milk prices have done the opposite of gas prices and have stayed pretty low.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Ugh

If kids shouldn't put bags on their heads, why do toys come in bags?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Not unlike with cats, sometimes the packaging is more fun than the actual toy...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Finding Time

As most parents know, it's difficult to do anything that takes your attention away from a needy child. Colsen has separation anxiety and when he doesn't it's because he's finding a mess to make or mischief to get into. Each day it's quite a chore for me to get away and take a shower. As I see it, I have 3 options.

1. Ideally, he takes a nap while I shower. I know he's not going to get himself into anything when he's laying there passed out. Unfortunately, he never has the heavy eyes when it's time for me to shower...

2. I can lock him in the bathroom with me and let him cry it out. When he's crying, I don't have to see him to know where he is. Plus when Colsen is crying he just stands there concentrating on pouring out the tears. But this is kind of mean, and with the acoustics in the bathroom, it's not ideal for my ears or my sanity.

3. Our best option is to do it Marco Polo style. You know, the swimming pool game. Obviously he doesn't necessarily get this concept nor can he say Polo, but this is what we usually do. When I haven't heard him make any noise in a while, I yell "Colsen, say Hey!" He then usually yells something back. Lets me know that he is not unconscious and still out there somewhere.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Not a Big Baseball Fan

Fell asleep just as the Yankees made their comeback.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Colsen Mouse

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Finding the Perfect Halloween Costume

Colsen is not yet old enough to pick out his own Halloween costume. That means all the pressure is on his parents to pick out the perfect mix of cute, amusing, and inexpensive. I know the other parents out there are going to be judging, comparing Colsen's outfit to that of their own child. Yeah, so Colsen has to look better. It's my fatherly duty to make sure my child is the rave of trick or treating and any Facebook album comparisons. I think we should have planned a little more ahead of time though. We went to a Halloween store the other day and didn't really find anything worthy for putting Colsen on display. All I know, is that whatever we get for him, he is going to look cute regardless. I mean, come on. Look at him.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Who let that kid loose?

Usually when we go to the store I keep Colsen restrained by putting him in a cart. The other day though I thought it would be a good idea to let him walk around. Apparently he didn't agree with the walking part of that idea. He ran around not unlike a crazed crack monkey. And he kept finding all sorts of trinkets and things to pull off of shelves. He obviously thinks stores are way too organized and felt like providing some job security to those who have to keep everything in the store tidy. In the above picture he found a movie he thought was particularly interesting. Fortunately, it was one that was too high to reach. Kind of random really. Not sure why that movie was more appealing than others. Yeah, so I'm that parent... the one chasing his hyper kid around the store and not really picking up after him. Fortunately though when it was time to leave, Colsen just dropped everything and was ready to go. So I'm not also that parent that has a screaming child trying to leave the store with a handful of toys. Yeah, you know who you are.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Eating Sonic

Our favorite place to go is, of course, McDonald's with their super sweet play place, but sometimes we just want to chill in the car so we hit up Sonic. Colsen loves to get the corndog kid's meal with the apples. Sometimes we get a banana. Overall though I think Sonic has the most choices when it comes to kid's meals.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Why I Can't Sleep in the Bed

I told you Colsen usually wins.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

New Hat

Who needs to learn how to use the potty? Colsen prefers to use the potty as a hat.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Touchdown!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Haunted Toys

Colsen has several different toys that sing or recite the alphabet. Some of these have seen quite a bit of wear and tear. It creeps me out however when they start randomly talking to me in the middle of the night. No one is around, Colsen is in bed, but toys just start counting at me. It freaks me out, man!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Bath Time

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Who Needs a Vacuum?

I highly recommend that if you ever have a kid that you also get a dog. Ollie here is always helpful in that if Colsen ever drops food on the floor, he cleans it up for us. Any time Colsen eats, Ollie sits in waiting for the lost crumbs and morsels.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

And the Nose Keeps Runnin' Runnin' and Runnin' Runnin'

I don’t know if you can tell in this pic, but Colsen has a glistening river of snot flowing from his nose. And. It. Doesn't. Stop. We went to the store the other day to buy a box of tissues just for him (which he promptly emptied all over the floor, next to the puddle of snot). In case you haven't experienced anything like this before, it is pretty awesome. Welcome to my life.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

A, B... D?

I'm not sure that Colsen is ever going to learn his alphabet through refrigerator magnets. He doesn't even have all the letters to spell his name (one day he will realize that the letter E is not a sideways M). Where all these letter are? I don't know. Under the couch... in the bathtub... in the dog's food bowl. I step on them at night when I'm walking around in the dark. Refrigerator savants we are not.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

My Baby Can Watch Commercials

Colsen and I watch Sprout all morning. The Your Baby Can Read commercials come on all the time. Colsen's experience with it is very much not like the kids in the commercial. He took all the reading cards and threw them all over the floor... and the dvds. Needless to say he won't be reading chapter books by his next birthday. (by the way, I'm willing to bet none of those kids on that commercial have any friends.) The one thing Colsen can do however is say clap everytime it comes up on the commercial. I'm so proud. By the way, don't tell grandma that she wasted her money on an expensive set of floor decorations.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Jumping on the Couch w/o Clothes

Cuz yeah, that's how he rolls.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Sleepy Time

It's pretty much impossible to try to get Colsen to sleep in his own bed. He is quite the whiner at bedtime and his parents are quite the softies when it comes to letting him get his way i.e. sleeping in our bed. Really though, how can I say no to that face? Tonight I decided to battle though. He brought it all: sad face, weepy voice, teary eyes. I almost caved (took the picture as I was considering picking him up). I stood my ground though. And now he's asleep. In his crib. Daddy wins... for now.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Passed Out

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

Getting Ready

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9