Sssshoe!

Last night, Trent and I were hanging out watching "baby", which is what he calls the telly. (Start of tangent:) The reason he calls the telly "baby" is because when we were on our trip to Europe, we took his portable DVD player, and only played baby sign language DVDs. His favourite one, "Baby Signing Time" starts off with a song with lyrics "baby, baby, baby signing time, baby, baby, baby signing time" and of course the sign for baby is like you're rocking a baby. So he associated the word and sign "baby" with watching his DVD. Now he can actually say the word baby, and to clarify which baby he wants to watch, he says "big baby", which means the plasma (vs. just baby, which means the portable DVD player). (/end tangent)

Anyway, last night, while we were busy signing to each other I said and signed "Trent, help mummy take her shoes off". And do you know what he did??? He got off the couch, pulled off my right shoe, walked around the couch to the shoe cubby in the entryway, put my shoe in one of the compartments, walked back around the couch, took off my left shoe, walked back to the shoe cubby and put it in one of the compartments! How fricking smart is he??? I was so very, very proud!

I'm all a-twitter

Some of you might be wondering what that widget is on my blog that looks like a bunch of random posts by people you don't know. Well, that's exactly what it is. It's known as twitter. I was skeptical about twitter after hearing about it from co-workers, but I needed to try it out to see its potential for something I'm working on in my job. So I signed up, and within moments people from all over the world started to "follow" me. I guess you could call this the next generation in internet stalking tools. You can stalk - ahem - I mean follow anyone who has a twitter account.

The point is this: You update your twitter status as often as you want by simply answering the question "What are you doing?" These are known as "tweets" so for example, my status could say "I'm blogging about twitter (and I could put in a link to this blog)". People following me on twitter would receive this message either in their browser in a twitter application like twitterfox, via a twitter application they've installed on their system, on their phone as a text (if they chose that option), or the next time they go to twitter.com and log in, they'd see it. You might wonder why this is useful. I know I did, and I'm actually still on the fence about it. Although today I was posting an article to a product wiki, and within moments of me pushing the post button, I received a "tweet" from LotusInfo (it's a twitter user name, obviously) that mentioned my wiki article and provided a link to it. So I see it has potential. I just need to figure out the best way to use it :-)

Anyhoo, if you care to follow me on twitter, you can do so by signing up for an account yourself, and then searching for "amandabauman".

This concludes the geek portion of my day. Amanda out!

Dallas TX - You remind me of why I live in Austin

So this past weekend I made the trek up to Dallas for a wedding. 2000 was the last time I visited, and for good reason. I observed on my drive up there that as my proximity to Dallas increased, so did the arseholes on the road. There's a point, right between Waxahacie and Dallas where the courteous driver becomes the minority on the road and the SUV driving, bumper hugging, lane changing jerk who speeds up so you can't pass becomes the majority. It makes me very nervous driving around discourteous drivers and I swear I could have crushed diamonds with my buttox by the time I got to my destination, especially driving that tiny Honda. Why are people so dang angry in Dallas? Discourteous driving isn't the only off-putting thing about Dallas. When I checked into my hotel the guy at the front desk never cracked a smile, even though I was pleasant and smiling, and even joked with him. And later on in the evening I almost had to throw down with someone trying to steal a parking spot that I clearly had identified as being mine with my turn signal, proximity to said space, and the fact that I arrived there first.

Anyway, the reason for my visit, as I said, was a wedding. My friend Johnnie, who I've been friends with for about 14 years now, finally got married. This was the first time for me to meet his wife, Candace, and since my departure from Dallas, Johnnie has a whole new set of friends. I loved Candace and I made sure to let Johnnie know that he was marrying up. I made a couple of new friends at the wedding. The wedding took place in a dojo and the ceremony was fun and brief, as all good weddings should be.

After the wedding I took off for part 2 of my trip to Dallas. As luck would have it, my favourite Austin musicians were playing in Dallas that night at the Glass Cactus, and Michelle was there. Traffic getting to the Glass Cactus was ridiculous and it was here that the parking garage throw down almost ocurred. I must admit, though, I felt pretty cool when I got to the front of the club and told the hostess I was on the guest list, and she waved me through the velvet rope ahead of a line that was forming, and informed me that my party was waiting at the VIP booth on the far side of the dance floor :-)

Fortune smiled on me once again as one of the band members and his wife were not using their hotel room that the club had reserved for them and paid for, so I was able to take it and not have to worry about driving back to my hotel. That's when my good friend Tequila showed up. You know Tequila. He gets around, is the life and soul of every party, and man did Tequila party with us. We met up with our Dallas friend whom I'd met before at Cedar Street and she introduced us to her friends. What a fun bunch! we danced the night away and behaved completely inappropriately -- this tends to happen when you mix a bunch of girls with booze and good music. After the gig the party moved to the hotel and we partied well into the not so wee hours of Sunday morning. Further details surrounding this evening shall be omitted and locked in the vault to protect the guilty. I realized early Sunday afternoon that Tequila, despite being the life and soul of the party, is nobody's friend. In fact, Tequila will bite you on the arse, and kick you in the groin when you least expect it. Damn you Tequila.

Hey, Y'all... it's snowing (and Happy Birthday to my other BFF)

Last night was our first "snow" of the season. I'm using quotes when I say snow because it's Texas snow. The kind that causes the whole city to freak out and drive like complete idiots, even though the ground is far too warm for it to actually stick, and far too warm for ice to form. It'd be amusing if it wasn't life-threatening. It's rare for snow to happen in Austin, so we're ill-prepared for it, unlike the northern parts of the country.

Last night we went out for Michelle's birthday, anyone who knows Michelle will also know that on her birthday, more so than the rest of the year, she is the Queen and her every wish should be granted. And as her friends we all rally around to make this happen. And what fun we had. We started off with dinner at Azul Tequila, which was infused with margaritas and colourful dinner conversation, most if which should not be repeated in a public forum, but I can assure you that the restaurant mysteriously cleared out. Coincidence? I think not.
After dinner we went to Warehouse saloon for a bit of Karaoke. Now let me tell you, karaoke in the presence of a number of very well respected Austin musicians is rather an intimidating prospect. There were 4 of said well respected musicians in our group and as I took the stage for my rendition of Evanescence's "Bring me to life" I had a major case of stage fright, which I pushed through and sung my lungs out, accompanied by the fabulous Robert Wagner (of Suede fame, among other things), and Brian (Lee, not Bauman - who is musically challenged) belted out an amazing rendition of a Dio song that prompted a standing ovation from some neighbouring tables. Brian and Andrea were "nominated" to sing a duet together, and for neither of them really knowing the song, they did a damn fine job, and Andrea and I did Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't go breaking my heart", which I thoughoughly enjoyed singing with her. Michelle looked like she had a fun birthday, surrounded by great friends.

When we left to go out for the evening, the weather was not looking like it would produce snow and I was skeptical as we dropped Trent off at Aunt Tara's house when she said that the forecast predicted sleet. But as we left the bar it was, indeed, snowing. Driving home Brian and I observed that it was like experiencing warp speed as depicted on Star Trek (I'm a huge Trekkie). Tara reported that Trent was an absolute angel for her. He played and impressed her and Uncle Mike (via phone) with his mad skills with the flash cards. They cuddled for a while, and Trent curled up and went to sleep. What a good boy he is. We're so proud of him. Trent woke up during the transition from house to car and we got to introduce him to snow. He pointed out of the car window and said something that sounded like "whasat?". I said "snow" and he said "noo?" and I repeated "Snow" and then he started signing "bird". It occurred to me that bird is really the only thing he knows that floats around in the sky so maybe to him he was thinking the snowflakes were a massive flock of very tiny birds.

When I awoke this morning I was greeted by a Texas winter wonderland where all the houses had snow on the roofs, and any cars out in driveways had a nice layer of snow on them, but the rest of the world was relatively snow-free. It's funny that we can go from a high of 78 degrees to snowing on the same day. Ah the joys of living in Texas. I wouldn't change it for anything :-)

on a more positive note...

Thanksgiving was delicious! Some of the highlights:

Baked Brie with cranberry and walnut - I didn't make this but it is worth mentioning. Delicious! It's brie with a pie crust around it, and inside the crust is cranberry sauce and chopped walnuts with apricot.

Stilton cheese imported from England - if you have never tasted Stilton, you really should. It's so flavourful and creamy, and goes so perfectly with a big oaky red wine. MMMMMMMM!

Homemade sage and onion stuffing - Darice and I bought freshly baked bread and made our own breadcrumbs for the stuffing. I sauteed onions celery and garlic in butter until the onions were soft, then added freshly chopped sage, garlic salt, and chicken stock, combined this all with the breadcrumbs, and baked it for 40 mins. Delicious!

Shiner Bock Turkey with sage, rosemary and garlic rub - I made a sort of pesto with fresh rosemary (swiped from the bush outside my neighbour, Jim's house - thanks Jim for letting me "steal" some), fresh sage, garlic, and olive oil. I rubbed this all over the turkey, and separated the skin from the breast/legs and stuffed a bunch under there too. This year we decided not to stuff the turkey since nobody ever eats the stuffing inside the bird. It kinda groses me out that it's been touching raw poultry. Anyway, I shoved some coarsely chopped onions up the bird's bum, and then poured in 2 bottles of Shiner Bock. I basted the turkey every hour with the Shiner, carefully pushing the baster into some small incisions in the skin to baste under the skin. Oh my! what a wonderful turkey!

Orange glazed carrots with ginger - I got the idea for this from weelicious.com (http://weelicious.com/2008/11/25/orange-glazed-carrots/) however, I modified it by using butter instead of vegetable oil. Far less healthy but oh so yummy!

Garlic mashed potatoes - Freshly chopped garlic, garlic salt, milk, butter, feta cheese. Mash it all together. Need I say more?

Homemade cranberry sauce - Just a bag of Oceanspray cranberries, a cup of sugar, a cup of water/OJ or so, simmer and presto! way better than the crap you get in the can.

But the best part of all...

Best Bread Pudding - all credit goes to Darice for making it, and to "Paula Deen, y'all" for coming up with it. It truly, absolutely, was the best bread pudding I've ever had. Ever. Seriously. Go make it. The recipe is here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/the-best-bread-pudding-recipe/index.html

Slight variation on the sauce though. We ran out of eggs and we didn't have brandy so we used rum. It was amazingly good.

Aside from the good food, we had good company, and Trent, as always these days, was a proper good boy. And we finally got to use that room at the front of our house... you know... they call it a dining room. It's not just a place for stashing your strollers anymore.

Xmas funk

Thanksgiving is over, and I can't shake off this grumpy feeling I get whenever the subject of xmas arises. I'm not trying to be a grinch, in fact, I was hoping that this year I would get into the spirit of things because now I have the best reason ever to celebrate xmas... to see my son's face light up when he opens his presents. And I am looking forward to that aspect, but the consumerism of it all just sucks all the joy out of the season for me. I hate having to come up with a list of things I want people to buy me. It takes all the thought out of gift giving if you just send someone a direct link to the item you want. Hell, if we're gonna do that, then let me just go buy it for myself, you go buy your own gift and we'll drop all the pretense that we're being thoughtful and call it even.

It's a bad attitude, I know. And people want to give gifts that you want and will appreciate, and are asking for my help. But if you know a person well enough to feel like you want to give them a gift, then shouldn't you also know enough about them to make a thoughtful decision for yourself on what the gift should be?

I guess the root of my attitude problem is this: last year was Trent's first xmas, and my parents were with me on xmas day for the first time in over a decade, and it was magical. And I suppose I'm protecting my heart from the disappointment of not having them here this xmas by copping a 'tude and setting my expectations low, which consequently makes me grumpy.

I want to shake it, really I do. Last year I even put lights up. This year I can't be arsed to do it.

Trent loves his Uncle Kev and Aunt Darice

Kevin and Darice arrived on Saturday night. We spent Saturday at Mike and Tara's for the OU game, and Trent was perfectly behaved and sooo cute when he curled up in my lap and went to sleep! Oh it just melts your heart. Kevin and Darice got Trent the coolest present. It's a dinosaur that is about as tall as him from head to floor, and he can sit on its back. At first he didn't know what to make of it, and when we sat him on it he was a bit confused, but now he tries to get on it on his own and bounces on it (it doesn't actually bounce) but he rides it like it does. I think he's going to really enjoy his xmas pressie from Nana and Grandad :-)

Kevin and Darice have enjoyed spending time with Trent. The last time they hung out with him he was still very young and not as interactive as he is now. Today we hung out in his play room and went through his flash cards from Renee. This is one of his favourite toys. Today he saw the monkey card and said "mummy" and made an "uuh uhh uh" sound like a monkey. Then he also saw the yak card and repeated the word "yak" after us. It's just amazing how much he's learning right now. So very cool to watch. Every day he busts out with a new word or sign. Yesterday we were driving and he pointed to the car in front of us and signed "car".

You can tell that Trent loves his uncle Kev. He sat next to him on the couch and tried to imitate him, and he had the biggest smile on his face.

A mushy post about friends

This month marks 16 years since the best move my BFF, Barbie ever made. Moving to Texas! Early next year she and I will be celebrating our 16 year anniversary. I've always believed that boyfriends/fair weather friends come and go, but best friends are forever. Sometimes when you make friends, you immediately know you'll be friends forever. Those are the friends with whom you can be completely honest, who can handle you raw, unfiltered opinions, and will always forgive you when you disagree or hurt their feelings. This, for me, is Barbie. There are those friends who slowly become best friends over time, too. Not the same "lightening bolt" so to speak, kind of a slow charge until one day you realize that your week isn't complete unless you interact with this person (you know who you are). Then there are those who you didn't expect to become your best friend but turn out to be irreplaceable (you know who you are, too).
I remember when I first met Barbie. I was fresh off the boat, so to speak, and she had just moved down from Iowa, a cocky 17 year old who thought the world owed her. I would greet her every morning with "morning Baaaaaahb!" and she'd reply "uh.. it's BaR-BIE". And I'd laugh because she hated to be called Barb, and it cracked me up to have her correct me. She was so emphatic and animated. Her hands would go up as a visual cue for me as she sounded out the word "BaR-BIE", and her eyes would kind of dart around in her head. Y'all know the face I'm talking about. LOL!

Anyway, happy 16 years in Texas, Baaaahb! And here's to another 16 years of us laughing, fighting, and being there for each other.

quality time with Trent

Brian made his yearly trip to the race track with the Honda this past weekend. He is now certified to race without an instructor! Go Babe! Unfortunately, he wore through an entire set of brake pads, and is spending today working on getting the Honda back up to spec. He had a blast, though, and he made some very cool new friends. Hopefully he can make this a more frequent trip than just once a year. Meanwhile, Trent and I spend the whole weekend hanging out, just the two of us. I really enjoyed it, I think Trent did too.
On Saturday morning we played and watched the Disney channel, then we went for a run in the afternoon and played some more up until bed time. On Sunday we ran errands together, and had a lunch date a Whataburger. Trent was the most charming lunch date. He used his fries to eat almost a whole carton of BBQ sauce, and he only wore a little bit. We sat and chatted and used lots of sign language and Trent flirted with people as always. When we were leaving a lady came up to us and said that she was really enjoying watching how we interact with each other and she was really impressed with Trent's communication skills. It's so nice when random strangers compliment you on your kid :-)
We also had a productive weekend. Trent helped me vacuum the carpets upstairs (he sat on my hip as I pushed the hoover around), then we cleaned the floors downstairs (Trent pushed the swiffer around), we cleaned out the pantry and Trent helped me by putting things in the trash can and when I was finished, he so helpfully took something out of the trash and put it back in the pantry ;-). And then he helped me fold all the laundry by crawling on it and pulling out random things for me to fold. After a nap and chores we went out for a run to help offset the Whataburger we had for lunch, then we played and Trent took a bath, playing with his new bath boat we picked up during our errands. And we ended the day with stories until Trent signed "sleepy" and he went to bed.
I think alone time with Trent was just what I needed! I'm just so proud of my little helper.

you guys

I realized the other day that I no longer use the word "you" in its plural form (which is still "you") and instead I use "you guys". Even when I'm referring to women. I do this because in America, using you as plural confuses people and they think you're addressing just one person in a group. At least that's been my experience. I don't like how "you guys" sounds, so....

I'm going to embrace my Texanism:

Coming to a conversation near you soon...

"Y'all"

As in "y'all better not be makin' fun of my accent when I say y'all".

Dog - Free to good home

Our neighbor has a puppy he's giving away (FREE). It's a Dachshund, it's house broken, and it's great with kids.

He's giving it away because his wife says the dog 'stares' at her when she is undressing, and that gives her the heebie jeebies. I think she is just weird!

So ff you're interested, or know someone who is, let me know. Here's a picture of the dog (see below).




















Hehe. Creepy, no?

Baby Blue Tooth

It's amazing how much information toddlers absorb about their surroundings. I was blown away the other day when Trent picked up a USB thumb-drive that way laying around. My first instinct was to take it from him, but as I was about to, I noticed him putting it up to his ear and trying to talk into it, just like daddy does with his Blue Tooth headset!

There are no flies on this kid!

It's Alive!

So remember my recent post about my Canon Digital SD450 LDC screen getting shattered? Well it is now in full working order! Just call me Handy Mandie from now on :-)

The instructions I used can be found here: http://www.andyozment.com/guides/broken_lcd_cracked_screen_canon
These instructions were spot on and extremely helpful. Without them I probably would have made many mistakes and it likely would have taken many times longer. So thanks, Andy Ozment, for explaining this so well!
One small amendment to Andy's instructions:
In step 6, you actually can remove the tripod mount. I found that there were 2 small screws holding it in place on the SD450, and I undid those and the tripod mount came right out. I highly recommend doing this rather than threading paper through with the old ribbon cable. (I did try that method and broke the paper, which then caused me to look for other options).
Here are some pictures of the process...

Camera with the case removed







Camera with the LCD removed, but still attached by the ribbon cable. The white area is the LCD backlight.






This image shows a piece of paper taped to the ribbon cable so you can pull the new cable through with it. I suggest if you use this method that you use something stronger than paper, like string, instead.




This is the new LCD screen in place after it's been connected to the circuit board.






And this picture is evidence that it works! YAY!







Of course, I couldn't stop at just fixing the camera. I also wanted to understand how this happened since clearly the glass surrounding the LCD was not actually broken. So I decomposed the LCD screen layer by layer till I found the source of the crack :-)
The screen is made up of two layers of glass. One thicker outer glass, then a paper thin layer of glass, presumably with the transistors embedded into it, which is overlayed by two sheets of flexible polarizing material, with the liquid crystal between the two. The paper thin glass to which the polarizing material was attached was shattered. I still have no concrete proof that it was sound that broke the screen. But it's looking more likely.

Baby Einstein

I don't put much stock into other people's comments about their kids being geniuses, or smart, or gifted. I think every parent would like to think that their kid is special, smarter than other kids of the same age, etc. So I am posting this not to say my Trent is a genius, but just to say I'm proud of him for working so hard on his communication skills.

At school yesterday his teacher told me that they took out a sign language book, and Trent knew far more signs than anyone else in his class (even though he's the youngest).

His sign language vocabulary is quite impressive, I must admit. He's also mimicking things we say, so now's the time to "mind your Ps and Qs" so to speak. He has a toy owl (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa's trip to Ireland) and he is very fond of it because he actually can say it's name. "Ow-el". He points to it, or holds it out to show me and says "Ow-el" very clearly. And the other day I asked him what an owl was, and he signed and said bird!

Way to go Trent! we're so proud of you.

Election 08

I can't let the presidential election results go uncommented... And I don't like to talk about politics. My views on politics are similar to my views on religion. Private. Nobody's business but mine. And if you want to shove your ideals down my throat or persecute me for mine on either subject, I'm likely to tell you to f*** off.

As a person who doesn't have the right to vote in this country, which I might add, is by choice -- I am quite eligable to become a citizen, and I have my reason for not becoming such, which far outweigh any benefit I might gain from doing so -- the most PC thing I can think to say is this:

Thank you America :-)

Get yer kit off, Jason?

Ok, I'm a huge fan of Jason Statham. I'll watch anything he's in because he usually does awesome action movies where he plays a complete and utter badass, and while he's not the best looking man on the planet, he exudes manly sexiness. I watched "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" last night. Well, I attempted to watch it, let's put it that way. About an hour into it I declared it a complete snooze-fest. I've come to expect a certain level of gratuitous shirtlessness and greased-uppedness from Jason, based on his past films, but this movie had no such thing. At least not in the first hour. Where's the hook, man? how are you gonna keep us womenfolk watching if you dunna take yer kit off? Sure there were some fight scenes in which he was a badass, but again... shirt. Hear me, Hollywood. It's what the ladies want.

Suede rocked my LCD screen to pieces!

Check out these images of my LCD screen on my Canon SD450:



The interesting thing to note here is that the actual glass is unaffected. It's simply the LCD that is shattered. There's clearly an impact point, which would lead you to believe that something hit it. But I'm 99% sure that nothing hit it. I have no evidence to support this theory, and I've tried Googling it, but no hits, but I think that the sound produced by the band cracked my LCD! Ok, it's a far-fetched idea, but bear with me here. I mean sound waves can actually break glass. A little background on why I think this:

So the girls and I were at the cave party. Suede was playing (side note: Awesome party, very creative costumes). We went to dance and Barbie and I put our purses on top of the speaker. The camera was in my purse, which was never dropped or put in harm's way. I had taken a photo only moments before we went to dance and all was well. The next time I took the camera out, which was a few moments after retrieving my purse from the speaker (where it had stayed the whole time I was dancing), the LCD screen looked like that!

So the camera is toast. It still takes pictures, but I can't access any of the menu functions like this so we're stuck on Automatic. First instinct is to write it off and buy a new one, but the geek in me wants to take it apart and fix it, bionic man style. I blame my dad for this trait - when I was a kid, I'd always find him in the garage with the back off of a TV or the guts of a VCR hanging out, and I'd watch as he fixed it. Is it strange that I feel a little excited at the prospect of taking something apart? Anyway, I'm gonna order a new LCD and install it myself. What do I have to lose? If I pay someone to repair it, that would cost more than just buying a new camera. And if I destroy the camera, well ok, I'm out $60 and I no longer have a tiny camera that doesn't fully function and we're back to buying a new camera.

We have the technology. We can rebuild it. Wish me luck!

End of week 1

Today marks the first week in my new job. I've been busy all week and my email inbox is extremely active. I've got about 10 pages of handwritten notes and a todo list as far as the eye can see. And aside from the fact that I have a burning knot in my left shoulder, I'm actually not stressed. Or maybe I am and I'm in denial.

I hope the pace of this week isn't an indication of how life will be from now on. I'm hoping it's a learning curve and a matter of getting processes in place, and then thing will slow down. I've managed to get to the gym only once this week and haven't had time to even go for a run. Not good. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that I'm far too busy to eat. Every day this week I've sent the boys off and got straight the laptop, and around 10:30 my stomach has complained that it's hungry and I've fed it something to shut it up, like a banana, or a small bowl of cereal. Then by 3pm I've realized that I've missed lunch, so I grab a large handfull of peanut M&Ms (curse you Costco for having a 5lb bag of them!). Then, realizing it's too late to eat otherwise I'll mess up everyone else's dinner schedule, I suffer through till dinner time.

Hopefully when things settle down I'll be able to get back into a healthy routine. Hey, at least I'm not bored at work!

Trent "Awesome" Bauman

The "A" is for "Awesome".
Today I'm going to bore you by bragging about my kid. I always got so annoyed by those parents who felt it necessary to share every little detail of their kid's development with me. Like "little Jimmy drank out of a big boy cup today!". I never quite got the significance of those tiny accomplishments, passing them off as "big fricking deal, my cat can do that". Having lived with Trent now for almost 16 months, I can really appreciate this type of cheer leading for your kid. Aside from the wailing episode from the recent haircut, Trent is the most amazing, sweet kid I've ever met. Ok, granted, I'm biased, but every day I'm just blown away by something he does.

Recently he has been so cooperative when he's getting dressed/undressed. He used to struggle and fight but now he actually assists.
He is now really good at eating with a fork/spoon. Almost always gets the food into his mouth. When he comes home from school, he immediately goes over to his chair and indicates that he'd like you to help him get in it.
He can drink from a regular cup now without spilling it all down the front of him, and he will put the cup down without knocking it over. While I always thought this was no big deal, it actually is because so many times he's tipped the cup too far and ended up wearing the contents. They also go through a throwing phase with cups, where when they're done, they just let go or toss it. You can't do that with a regular cup.
Then there's all the words he's saying - he's repeating a lot of the things we say. He's using his sign language consistently, and he's sounding out the letters of the alphabet when I use the flash cards with him. It's so cute when he hears Brian in a different room, and he says "dada!" and does the sign, then goes to find him.
Over the weekend he actually took a nap without fighting me, largely thanks to Grandma, who simply put him in his crib and walked away. He doesn't try to push Grandma's buttons like he does me. But following her lead the next day I put him down for his nap and walked away. Presto! the kid rolled over and slept!
The last several nights he's signed that he's tired and gestured to get into his crib! Usually, when we put him in his crib, he'd have a little fuss for a few seconds, but now he's just rolling over, hugging his night-night bear, and going to sleep.

Every day I'm so impressed by how smart he is. Lately he's been learning to put the shapes into the shape sorter. He consistently goes for the circle or square and knows which holes they go through. The other shapes he's working on, and with just a little pointing from me, he wrestles them into the right holes. He's also doing really well with the stacking cups. He now builds towers all on his own using the cups in the right size order, and then he nests them, experimenting with the different sizes till the right one fits. He seems to have a very logical mind, which I think he must get from Brian. For that I'm very thankful.

Every evening after dinner, we go up to his play room and spend an hour playing before bed. And every evening he does something that makes me so proud of him, whether it's sorting blocks, building towers, gathering toys and putting them away in their bins, or simply curling up on my lap for a story. I sure do love my little guy. He's so cool right now that I want to freeze time and keep him like this forever. But I know even cooler times are ahead.

Brian and I can totally see now why people have more than one kid. Not that we have any plans for more right now, so you can all let out that breath you just sucked in and held for a split second longer than normal breathing ;-) I'm just saying that with how awesome Trent is these days, we wouldn't be opposed to having another one just like him. And the liklihood of having another one just like him is quite remote... so that's just a silly pipe dream.

Sweeny Todd

This morning, as I sent my boys off to school and work, I couldn't help taking a time out to snap a few quick shots of Trent.
Last night he went through the trauma of a haircut. He hates having his hair cut and it takes two of us to hold him down as he wriggles and struggles, screaming like we're trying to actually cut his head off or something.
I use clippers, which is part of the problem. He doesn't like the sound of them. Grandma had a good suggestion - she said maybe I should let him hold them for a while and get used to the sound. But, alas!, it didn't work out so well. He immediately cried as soon as I turned them on. Even when I stopped using them, and set about him with the scissors he freaked out because he was being held against his will. Tossing his head around. You have to be really careful with a pair of scissors around a writhing 15 month old, it's kind of like trying to shave a cat.
I've tried other methods of cutting his hair, such as waiting for him to fall asleep in his buggy, and then giving him a stealth haircut. But it's hard to do and I can never get the back properly. Again, the though of duct taping him to a chair crossed my mind, but that'd make me a bad mother and CPS would be knocking on my door if they caught wind of it.

But the end result is always worth the agony. Just take a look a this handsome fella I woke up to this morning!