Big House

We found our old digital camera finally, which I have been eager to locate because it is much smaller than our nice SLR and I can carry it around with me on my adventures with Joseph (Joseph says “benture” for “adventure.”)  It had pictures that were a year old on it, and this one from the Newseum holiday party that I remember taking but am not sure if I’d seen it since.

Joseph was perfect all day yesterday, and when he woke up from his nap I put him in the stroller and walked down to St. Elmo’s and treated him to a blueberry muffin.  The muffins there are pretty big and he ate the whole thing, which was staggering.  He barely had any dinner when we got home but I would’ve been shocked if he had.

I have been wanting to go down Mt. Vernon for one of our outings and today was a great day for it.  Joseph woke up with a very runny nose and I thought extra time in the stroller and less time running around wouldn’t be so bad.  It was cold out but sunny and pleasant.  He was being fussy this morning but perked up once we got in the car and started driving.  I told him we were going to see a big house, and all the way down there in the car he was saying “big house!”

There were mobs of school kids there and Joseph was excited to see the buses, but the crowds were unpleasant.  The estate is great but I chose not to fight our way through the lines of students for a tour of the mansion.  We had a nice time strolling around, and there was a toddler room in the museum where Joseph got out and played with some puzzles and interactive exhibits.

He went down for an early nap again today and while he is sleeping I am making curried chick peas for Danielle at her request.

more planes and trains

Joseph went down for his nap at 2:10 today and fell asleep immediately.  That is very strange.  Usually he doesn’t go down until around 2:30 and he babbles in there for up to an hour before conking out.  I wonder if he is coming down with something or was just unusually tired for some reason.  Usually I am trying to be quiet until 3:30 or so - now I don’t know what to do with myself.

We had a nice day despite my poor planning.  It was really cold so we stayed in and played with blocks and crayons longer than usual.  By the time we made it outside around 10am the thermometer was reading 29 degrees – which doesn’t deter me too much but it probably too cold for the playground.  Joseph had been saying “airplane” a lot so we went back to Gravelly Point to watch planes take off.

Planes were taking off from National going North over the river so they were coming right at us.  It was more dramatic than last time when they were landing over us.  Joseph loved it but it was really windy by the river and really cold.  We were bundled up but he didn’t seem too happy with the cold.  We went back to the car and watched a few more from there, and then I was at a loss for what to do.

On a whim we headed down to Landmark Mall, where they have a toddler play area right in the middle of the mall.  It isn’t anything too impressive but there were other little kids running around and Joseph enjoyed it.  The highlight was a little train the circles around the Mall – Joseph was fixated on it and thrilled when we actually got on it for a ride.  He said “choo choo” really animated and loud every time the driver blew the horn.

We came back for a nutritious lunch of rice, tostitos, raisins, and banana.

Too Easy

Alexis mentioned that one of Susan’s favorite meals is Chef Boyardee ravioli. I picked some up and made them for Joseph yesterday. At first he wouldn’t touch them. So I told him that it was Susan’s favorite meal and that she eats them all the time and doesn’t fuss, and he started inhaling them. It was too easy.

The flip side is that the ingredients are disgusting. There’s high fructose corn syrup, msg, and several ingredients that I don’t even recognize. But of course they have meat and pasta and tomato sauce and he likes them, so I guess I will hold on to it as an easy emergency meal.

Joseph slept in past 8am and didn’t nap yesterday – both unusual occurrences. He was great all day but got fussy at the end of the day, which I am inclined to attribute to the missed nap.

Today after music class we went to Gold Crust for bread in anticipation of Jon, Paul, and Matt coming over for lunch. Outside Gold Crust they are digging up the old ramp at the end of Monroe. We got to see the diggers in action up close and he was delighted. Just past the diggers there is a dog park and lots of dogs were running around, so it was heaven for him. Then we spotted an airplane descending on the path along the river from the south, then we saw a mail truck and then a fire truck all in a minute. I wish I’d had a camera, it was a highlight-reel errand for him. We stopped at a playground on the way home but it couldn’t compete.

Lunch with the guys was nice. Joseph was predictably quiet and skeptical of the guests but he was in good spirits and ate more bread, crackers, and hummus than I thought possible. It was kind of gross actually. The big news from that crowd is that Jon just turned 50 and his big family vacation to Italy is in a few weeks.

need to work on sharing

Last night we had Libby, Sonya, and Malcolm over to dinner.  It was nice to visit with them.  Joseph was pretty reserved and didn’t talk much, but he was well-behaved and by the end of the evening was starting to perk up and show off for them by running around the living room and jumping on me.  That was the highlight of the day.  Earlier Danielle had gone to Eastern Market for lunch with Renee and Alisa while Joseph and I did errands and went to the playground.  He seems to go in phases with the slides at the playground, and this time he wanted to do nothing but go down the slide – over and over – which was fun to watch. 

Today was our first play date with Susan.  He was very excited to see her, and we started off in the basement listening to music, playing with blocks, and coloring.  Joseph was very possessive of his toys.  I wasn’t too surprised because I have seen him get like that before, but I was hoping this would be different because he was so excited to see Susan and play with her.  Susan was remarkably easy-going and happy to share whatever she was playing with.  Other than a couple little incidents with Joseph trying to corner a toy we had a great time.  After the basement we played outside for a while.

Ryan was supposed to come over for lunch but cancelled at the last minute.  It was too bad he cancelled, but a nice reminder of how ridiculously busy office life is.  He sounded kind of stressed.

Tonight Danielle is going to dinner with Lynne and I will be solo with Joseph again.

You Can Leave Your Hat On

The Scottish Rite Temple at 17th and R is a massive Freemasons Temple that takes up a whole city block just a couple blocks from my condo.  I walked by it hundreds of times when I lived there but never went in.  This morning they were having a “family day” so we took Joseph.  We didn’t get to see nearly as much as I would have liked since the activities were isolated to a few rooms, but what we saw was impressive.  Joseph got to jump around in a moonbounce for the first time and eat popcorn.

Afterwards we went to the playground and then back home.  Paul came over for lunch, I hadn’t seen him in weeks.

This evening Danielle is babysitting for Ivy.  I took Joseph to the grocery store after his nap, and when we came back we went straight into dinner prep.  He helped me cut up his tofu and pour the frozen peas into a cup to be nuked.  He didn’t want to take his hat off after the grocery run so I let him wear it during dinner.

I have been keeping a list of all the foods that Joseph eats, and am realizing how few vegetables are on it.  He has had peas and corn a couple times but usually refuses them.  I give him green beans or peas at almost every meal and he generally doesn’t touch them.  When he was little and eating pureed foods he had lots of vegetables, but now broccoli is the only sure bet and it has to be drenched in soy sauce.  Something to work on.

choo choo

One of the bigger challenges of this first week has been nap time.  Getting Joseph to go to sleep has often been a struggle for us.  These days he has been napping much longer when he does nap:  3 hours or more, where we were lucky to get 90 minutes out of him 6 or 12 months ago.  But a couple times this week he just hasn’t gone to sleep at all during his nap time.  I’ve gone in after an hour to rescue him and he is full of energy, delighted to see me, and ready to play.  Knowing that he is capable of napping for 3 hours, it is frustrating not knowing what to do to coax him to sleep.

Today looked like it was going to be a repeat of the recent failed nap days.  He was babbling for an hour with no hint of winding down.  I tried something a little different though and it worked.  After an hour I went in quietly, and where I used to pick him up and hug him and talk quietly, this time I did not pick him up.  He said “up” several times, and I told him that Daddy was tired and that he and I both had to “go night-night” and that I couldn’t pick him up.  I kept saying “Daddy is tired” and “please” and he stood there quietly thinking about it for about a minute.  I gave him a kiss and he lay down without a peep.  I heard very quiet babbling for a minute after I left, and now he is sleeping soundly.

The lack of napping has really interfered with my plans to blog regularly, as well doing chores around the house.   With the study right next to the nursery I do not want to type while he is falling asleep, or to make a lot of noise tidying the living room or doing dishes.  But if he is babbling in his crib for an hour that is a long time to have my hands tied.

I had been convinced that today would be a good nap day because we had quite an excursion earlier.  It is lousy weather – freezing rain that turned to just cold rain this morning.  Playgrounds weren’t an option.  We drove in to Union Station and walked around there, and looked at some Amtrak and MARC trains.  Then we got on the Metro and went one stop to Judiciary Square and walked to the Building Museum.  The Building Museum has a great room for toddlers called the Building Zone with legos, building blocks, workbenches, puzzles, dumptrucks, and more.  Joseph worked his way through the whole room, taking particular interest in the trucks and the tools at the workbench.  He interacted a little – though not much – with some of the other kids.  Afterwards Danielle walked over from work and met us while Joseph ate his sandwich at a table in the big main room of the Building Museum.  It is a great building.

Joseph seemed to really enjoy the day.  Playtime at the Building Zone was a success and he really soaked in the sights at Union Station.  Seeing the trains and taking Metro was the highlight though – it was a first for him and he was very wide-eyed and interested throughout the trip.

Lift off

Joseph is saying “hug” and “kiss” more often these days, which is very cute.  It is also a guaranteed way to get out of trouble when I am reprimanding him.  The other way is to say “please.”  When he is being bad - for example when he is trying to get me to give him a snack he shouldn’t be having, or getting fussy because he isn’t getting his way - he’ll stop and say “hug” and know that I will stop and hug him, or he’ll say “please” very politely and I will almost always acquiesce.

A related anecdote:  today during lunch he was holding the soy sauce bottle while eating broccoli.  He started hugging the soy sauce bottle and saying “hug.”  I thought it was very funny, and realizing that he had an audience he starting saying “kiss” and kissing it, which really cracked me up.

Today was my third full day on the job with him.  On Tuesday I took him to story time at the library; on Wednesday we went to music class; and today’s main activity was driving out to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum by Dulles.  The museum was great.  We entering into the hanger that had WWII war planes, which you can really see up close.  Adjacent to that space are commercial planes, modern warfare planes, and space craft.  We saw the first Concorde, which was ten times bigger than those WWII planes, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise.  Joseph loved it.  We also went to the observation deck and watched planes taking off from Dulles, which was a homerun with him.

After three days I am already getting a better feel for how to organize our days.  After being so perfect for so long, he is entering a phase where is is increasingly fussy and frustrated at times.  It has been a challenge to understand why he is acting out and how to snap him out of it when it happens.  But I am already starting to figure out what sets him off and what works. 

He really loves structured activities, such as music class where we move from one song and activity to the next, and at each one we do a new routine or break out a new toy.  He loves anticipating what is coming next and copying what the grown-ups are doing.  I have stopped asking him so many questions and stopped trying to figure out what is bothering him when he is upset.  Instead I jump straight from one routine to the next.  It takes some planning and energy, but it has worked really well.  We move from my shower in the morning straight to breakfast, with him helping me prepare it.  After lunch we’ll go straight to the basement play room to play with blocks and listen to music, without me asking him is he feels like going downstairs.

Today he was in a great mood all day and I was feeling great about it until about 4pm – at which point he wouldn’t nap, and then he melted down briefly after our late afternoon playground outing.  All in all a great day though.

When I quit my job months ago, and when I actually stopped working a few weeks ago, I was thrilled to be able to spend more time with Joseph, as well as to have more time to myself reading, watching movies, and exercising.  When I took over full time care of Joseph this week, I didn’t think it would be too different from the last couple months in which I have spent more and more time with him.  It does feel very different though – I’m surprised by how much.  Being responsible for him for the entire day forces me to structure the day to keep us both interested.  I’m not just looking out for him for any more, I’m very actively keeping him engaged and doing things along with him.  When I would look after him alone in the past – for a few hours in the morning, or half a day on the weekend, I would always hand him off to Natalin or Danielle after my stint and go back to doing something else.  Now there is nothing else, so it feels like more of a dramatic change in my life than I expected.  But it doesn’t feel at all like work – in fact it feels like a vacation where we wake up each day and decide what we feel like doing that day, and then we do it.

President’s Day

My parents left this morning to fly back to Albuquerque.  We had a nice visit.  My mom and I went to Connecticut for one night, traveling with Lara, where we also saw Dorinda, Jenny, Gin, Esther, GP and Ersula.  I also saw John, Ned, Tom, and Jamie and took $60 from them playing poker.  Dad stayed here with Danielle and Joseph and had a great time from the sounds of it.

This morning we walked down to the playground, which was packed with families due to the unusually warm weather and to the President’s Day holiday.  Joseph was extremely interested in the landscapers who were out in full force at the playground blowing leaves into big piles and scooping them up into a truck.  He was great all morning – at breakfast, at the playground, and in the car to BWI and back.

Lunch time was a challenge:  he wouldn’t get in his chair, and once he did he wouldn’t eat anything but yogurt, which I was trying to save for the end of the meal.  It was a battle of wills, and my creative solution was to change tacks and tell him that he couldn’t have the yogurt until the noodles on his plate were gone – but that I could help him finish them.  So I finished his pasta, which delighted him, and then gave him the yogurt, which he inhaled.

Adios Natalin

Yesterday was Natalin’s last day. Though we paid her through today, we gave her the day off because my parents are in town. So I guess today is pretty momentous in that it is my first full day as the full-time care provider. With my parents visiting I have had a lot of help so it hasn’t seemed too noteworthy.We spent the morning playing at the house. At 11:00 we left to head downtown where they were meeting friends at the American Indian Museum for lunch. Joseph and I walked over to the Hirshhorn’s Sculpture Garden. It was perfect for him – it is recessed somewhat below ground level and fairly contained for a toddler. He pushed his stroller around while I looked at the art. It is a permanent collection of sculptures from the late 1800’s to the 1900’s. I liked the actual collection more than that of the Sculpture Garden adjacent to the National Gallery – though that one is livelier with the Ice Rink in the middle of it.

Afterwards we met Danielle and walked back to the Newseum for lunch, and to show Joseph off to her colleagues.  After that we picked up my folks, did several errands on the way home and a brief stint at the playground, and got home for nap time.

Some other highlights of my week:

• I took the GMAT’s, accomplishing one of my few concrete goals for the three week period between leaving work and Natalin’s departure. My preliminary score of 700 was ok, though not as high as I was hoping for. My final score will factor in the two written essays, and will be sent in a couple weeks. I imagine it will stay about the same. The top B-Schools in the country, and internationally, have average scores of around 710 so at least I am in the range for the elite schools, and well above average for the others.
• Visited a couple pre-schools, researched and screened a couple dozen more online. Joseph appears to have been accepted to at least one pretty good pre-school to start part time in the fall, which will be nice in the very unlikely event that we are still living in this area after the lease on our current house runs out in August.
• Got a massage. The place was nice, the masseuse was pretty good, though maybe not intense enough. She said the muscle between my shoulder blades was remarkably tight, so much so she couldn’t get it to budge at all. And the rest of me was apparently remarkably loose.
• Made tremendous progress on the Netflix queue.

For no other reason than that I want to embed a photo in this post, I’ll also mention that we took Susan off of Kit and Alexis’s hands last weekend for a few hours. We went to Clemyjontri Park, a great place for small kids. Susan was easy going and we enjoyed it, but I can’t imagine going alone with two toddlers of that age. Susan and Joseph took off in opposite directions and it was pretty hard to reign them in or keep them playing in the same area. Danielle and I had to divide and conquer to keep tabs on them.

This weekend I am off to Connecticut for GP’s 89th birthday. Life as full time stay at home dad starts for real next week – hopefully logged with regular posts here.

Sculpture Garden

Joseph rolled out a new act for us in the last week.  We call it his Minister of Funny Walks.  It looks like a cross between John Cleese and Groucho Marks.  When he is in a silly mood and knows he has our attention he will suddenly start doing this funny walk, which makes us laugh, which encourages him to add more weird and exaggerated movements to it.  He basically takes long steps while he is crouched low to the ground, and swaying back and forth like a sumo wrestler.  His hands are often on his knees.  Then he rises up and sticks his chest out, and cranes his head around laughing and smiling like Ray Charles.

 Today we went to the Sculpture Garden, it was 50’s and sunny and a great day to be outside.  At one point Joseph wandered away from me into a group of people about 30 feet away.  I stayed on the bench where I was sitting, watching him closely.  No one was really paying attention to him.  He looked back at me, and then started doing his sumo-Groucho-John Cleese-Ray Charles right in the middle of this pack of tourists.  No one really took notice, but he seemed pleased with himself.

Right after that we ran into Ted Ferris and his 2+1/2 yr-old daughter Annie, and talked with them for a while.  Then we went to the National Gallery of Art.  I couldn’t find anywhere good to let Joseph out of the stroller; it wasn’t toddler-friendly.  We went by a couple famous paintings that I knew he would recognize from his books but he just wanted to get out.  So we went back to the Sculpture Garden and watched the people ice skating while we waited for Danielle to finish at work.  This picture is of the ice rink in the middle of the Sculpture Garden, with the National Archives building in the background.