The things they learn - Sound Effects

Almost every night, Izaak requests the same three books (Goodnight Moon, Thank You God for the Wonderful World, and Busy Busy Kitties). We didn't set out to teach him sound effects, but we do tend to fall into making many of the same observations and sound effects each time we read a familiar story (i.e. saying "hussssshhhh, hussssshhhhh" with the quiet old lady and snoring when the kitty is sleeping). Anyway, Izaak totally picked up on the repeats and now he loves to join in the noise making. I tried to capture them all in this little video, but he only obliged me with about half of them, *sigh*
Still very cute though.



Can't help myself, here's a completely unnecessary blow-by-blow:
He says "ball" near the beginning, he hisses, snores (early from when we usually do it - while the kitty was sunning, several other times too, not just "dozing"), he doesn't do the munching sounds he usually does, he only does the slurping noise for "kitty drinking" as Alex barely turns the page to "kitty thinking" (so you probably won't hear it unless you're listening for it).

Chocolate now on the radar!

Oh noes!
Oh noes!!!
Bad Mommy!
Bad Mommy!

I left the lid off the chocolate bucket*!!!
I was in the kitchen cleaning up (actually banging things around quite a bit hoping to lure Izaak in to where I could more easily keep an eye on him) , so I didn't hear what he was up to (as parents know, not being able to hear them is time to investigate). I came back into the living room to see what he was doing...

there was my darling son, sitting on the floor under the desk with the chocolate bucket between his legs feeding himself M&M's by the fistful!!!

Dagnabbit!!! At 14 months my son has discovered CHOCOLATE!!!

It could totally have been worse, somehow he got the bucket down off the desk onto the floor without dumping it.

But now the genie is out of the bottle, now Izaak KNOWS what is in that bucket! YUMMYSWEETTREATNESS!!!
Up to this point Izaak hasn't ever asked for Dad's chocolate when either of us were eating it because he didn't know what it was!!! the couple of times he did seem interested, we have always been able to redirect him to some cheerios or something! That train has now sailed! *sigh*

*Alex is a big chocoholic, so we try to keep a supply on hand. We use a large plastic Kirkland nut container with a screw on lid; mostly its filled with M&M's, but sometimes has chocolate covered nuts or those Hershey's Nuggets wrapped chocolates. The lid used to be primarily to keep the ants away, but more recently it has been to keep little fingers away.

Family screamfest

Last night we had a pretty weird night waking.
Izaak woke up with a shriek (an unusual occurrence, but has happened before) this startled me out of sleep and I yelled in surprise and fright, for whatever reason this set Alex off (too deeply asleep or something) and he jumped up screaming "whaa!?! whaa!?!" and stumblewalked across the top of the bed (and me) and was trying to grab Izaak, who had stood up in his crib and was screaming in response to his dad's yelling, so we were all screaming (me yelling "its okay! its okay! its okay!) and stumbling around bleary eyed
I think for Alex most of it was a sleepwalking experience because I don't think he really woke up until he was already standing next to the crib grabbing the baby, I was awake pretty quick and was trying to stop him from grabbing Izaak since it was clear he was not aware of what he was doing (just sorta roughly trying to grab him) - serious "brain unplug" as he called it.

I think Izaak's original shriek was either a bad dream or a sharp teething pain, and if we had been soft and soothing he would have only done a couple of shouts (a descending shriek, scream, yelp, whimper), as it was, it was a mutual ramping up between him and Dad... Izaak shriek, Alex screams "whaaaa?!!?!" and then me yelling "its okay!" over and over until Alex "woke up"... by then Izaak was quite ramped up and took a while (5 minutes or so) to settle down.

Very weird

We gave Izaak some Tylenol and brought him to bed with us... after our hearts calmed down Alex and I were able to laugh about it, but it was sorta outta control and frightening at the time!

Lesser of 2 evils?

Alex took this video and (even though he's the one who nags me not to do it) took it sideways. We have talked about going and finding a good video editor but just haven't taken the time... so many projects, so little time *sigh*
Anyway, apparently I already had a basic video editor on my computer and was able to turn it "rightways" but I haven't discovered the way to be able to unskew the images and now I look a little wider than I naturally already are!
You be the judge, here they both are!
On the plus side, just running the video through the movie editor makes the file MUCH MUCH
MUCH smaller and quicker to upload! (but you can't see the preview thumbnail since a .wmv windows media file - which is a slight negative since only people with Windows Media Player can view it)

My son is SOOOO Brilliant!

Tonight he demonstrated for us how to plug in a hand mixer.

We have been pretty deliberate about not letting Izaak see us use outlets or plugging in cords, and yet he somehow gleaned their purpose and use all on his own.
We have been letting him play with our old mixer since we got a slightly better one. Periodically Dad will sit down with him and turn it on/off for him (he's still not quite got the power lever figured out), but usually it is unplugged and he just carries it around the house, dragging the cord behind him. Tonight he brought the mixer over to Alex and thrust it at him, eyes and voice both earnestly begging "make it go Dad!" Alex shrugged as if to say "sorry son I can't make it go."
So Izaak set the mixer down, picked up the plug end of the cord and took it over to an outlet on the wall and began trying to plug it in!!!
I don't know how he figured out that 1.) anything at all goes into outlets, 2.) that plugs go into outlets and most significantly 3.) that you need to have something plugged in to the outlet to make it "go!"
The first two, I can see how he could pick those up from months of casual observations (despite our efforts to shield him from that info - we haven't been neurotic about it or anything)... but that the mixer needs to be connected to the outlet to work??? He's only been playing with it for a couple of days, and its only been turned on maybe 3x, so by far the vast majority of the time it is unplugged and unpowered.
My son is Brilliant I tell you! Brilliant!

They learn so much you don't expect

A few days ago Izaak began pantomiming talking on the telephone.
He would open up one of our cell phones and hold it up to his ear, sometimes just listening, but sometimes talking as well. Well, he's 13 months you say? It's completely normal for a child to have that down by now? ... well I'd agree, except: neither Alex or I talk on the phone in the "traditional" way... I always use a headset and Alex always holds the phone out in front of him with the speakerphone turned on...
So.
How did our dear boy learn to "talk" on the phone?
No Idea!!
*shrugs*

In this little video he even says "Hi"!!! (not 100% sure that was intentional, it could have been just a random syllable... he *waves* "Hi!" (and "bye") but he hasn't verbalized it yet that I am certain of (this being the closest).

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:35 PM - peril's of hose exposure

From: Jacqué Evans
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 5:35 PM
To: Mitchum, Cathy
Subject: RE: Wow's of boy babyhood

poor Izaak... TWICE today he has managed to pee in his own face!
once because we were letting him nap w/ no diaper (one under him and one over him)
to give him "some air" and he kicked his blanket and the covering diaper off and
peed over his own head and showered our shelf of clean clothes... then just now i
imprudently left his little penis uncovered during diaper change and he scored a
direct hit in his own face, including his mouth!!