Teddy and I went to the doctor today for his 15/16 month check-up. For those of you keeping score at home, here are his specs:
As the severity of the economic downturn facing our new president becomes more and more apparent (6% annualized declines in GDP for the U.K. and Germany announced for the 4th quarter of '08 - that's unbelievable), a weekend at home has made me really appreciate the fact that Abby and I both have jobs (knock on wood.) As I think that I've noted before, if I couldn't get away from the kids by going to work on Monday, I think I'd go crazy (as would Abby, I suspect.)
Now, I love my kids, let's get that straight. Margaret is becoming a really interesting little person, with all sorts of fascinating opinions and thoughts that she wants to share. Teddy has been working on his communication skills as well. He babbles in a very earnest and demonstrative way, using apparently complex sentence structures with sounds that don't mean anything. But he's also starting to toss out more actual words. For example, "nose" is a new word (with him grabbing his ears followed by pointing to his nose). Most exciting, he's started to work on his sister's name: "Mah-get." While his sister's name pops up in a variety of setting, he tends to scream after most interactions with her.
Margaret and Teddy have a very contentious relationship. He wants what she has, and he'll chase her around because she's so interesting. For her part, she either doesn't want to share or she wants what he has, and she usually gets her way (often by pushing him) leading him to howl. In the end, it's a roller coaster ride as brief quiet spells are broken by Teddy screaming at Margaret, Margaret howling at Teddy, or one (or both) of them bellowing about some affront attributable to us. In the latter case, Margaret's complaints tend to be more sophisticated ("I want a sippy cup, not a big girl cup!"), but are no less pointless. After a weekend of the kids' drama, I can understand why Maddie gets so stressed out around them.
To the boy's credit, he managed to do his business (both kinds!!) on the potty multiple times this weekend. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't really understand why he's doing what he's doing on the potty, but he seems to have the drill down. In contrast, his sister refuses to use the potty at home, although she doesn't wear a diaper at school anymore. If only we could combine the "reasoning" skills of Margaret with the mindless skills of the boy, we'd have the perfect toddler.
We went to the Inauguration today. Headed out at about 8:30 and stood around until 1:00 when Obama finished his speech. We ended up watching the event on a jumbotron while standing just north of the Washington Monument in the midst of a big crowd whose extent I couldn't even fathom.
I don't have any deep thoughts at this point (as if any of my thoughts are that deep), but I will say that it was cold. And crowded. The kids didn't like the crowd too much as it prevented them from wandering around, and they were even less enamored with the cold. The boy kept fussing for most of the time we were there. Although I was getting ready to "send him back," a general phrase of discontent that we're using often for the boy at this point, it turns out that he was probably just chilly - his poor little hands and feet were really cold when we got home. But once we got home, he cheered up enough to enjoy the champagne toast that took place at the end of the day following Bush's final speech in Midland, Texas. Although I'm less of a partisan than most of the people who participated in that toast (much less those on the mall - geez, I'm such a killjoy as someone on Facebook noted about me), I not only raised my glass to send Bush on his way, I even suggested doing so with the bottle of Dom Perignon that we've had sitting around for years, just waiting for the appropriate time to break it open.
We all headed down to the mall today for the concert in honor of Obama's inauguration. Overall, we've been a bit torn about how much we want to participate in the inaugural festivities. There are certain factions of our family that are quite pleased with the electoral outcome and want to celebrate. Others are more concerned about the possible crowds and inconvenience, such as people from random places parking in our driveway. But we haven't had any driveway problems (no thanks to the DC government despite the impressive armada of tow trucks that they deployed to remove cars from M Street), we haven't noticed any other inconveniences due to the inauguration despite warnings to the contrary, and we only live a 20 minute walk away from the mall, so we figured that we'd head down to the concert. We bundled up the kids, walked down to the mall, dropped the stroller at work on Constitution Ave. (because strollers were reportedly verboten), and carried the kids to see what we could see.
Which, at the end of the day, wasn't much. We ended up in the "overflow" area near the Washington Monument, where strollers would've been allowed. There were a few jumbotrons, but we couldn't make out many of the people on the screens. And we couldn't hear much at all. I found the lack of effective audio to be particularly annoying. After all, there are outdoor concerts every day - why can't I hear the deep thoughts expressed by Denzel Washington? Or Jamie Foxx? Or any of the other similarly august speakers at the event? When you combined the lack of a stroller, which necessitated chasing the boy all over the place, with the lack of effective audio and video, I eventually decided that it was best to concentrate on the crowd rather than any of the deep statements being expressed by speakers at the Lincoln Memorial.
And, I have to say, the crowd was pretty cool. An extraordinarily diverse crowd - black and white, young and old, all of whom seemed to be in a good mood. Teddy would trundle into someone leading that person to apologize profusely for getting in his way. "Not your fault," I would say, and we would get a grin or a nod of the head in response. Just a cool vibe with everyone enjoying the scene in their own way.
In the end, as I told Abby, the concert epitomized the Democratic party (and, more broadly, the left wing in the United States). An amazingly diverse group with (more or less) good intentions if you can get past the lack of organization (i.e. the poor crowd control and the bad audio and video) and the insufferable self-righteousness (i.e. the people waving political placards about torture, capitalism, poverty, etc.). As the crowd control and technological snafus suggested, it's never clear who's really in charge in the Democratic party. In the end, the diverse groups usually lead to an ideological implosion. But not this time, it would appear, as they managed to elect Obama.
And perhaps Obama will solve all of these problems in the Democratic party. Perhaps he'll managed to capitalize on the strengths of the left (e.g. diversity, tolerance, careful thought) without succumbing to its weaknesses (e.g. excessive thought and overemphasis on unrealistic or even counterproductive goals, all in the name of self-righteous "good intentions"). Currently, I'm not too optimistic. After all, he's inheriting a major pile of sh*t which, for better or worse, will likely overwhelm any other deep thoughts and good intentions that he might have. And he's got a Congress that epitomizes the worst of the Democratic party.
But I'm willing to cut the guy some slack - perhaps he can capitalize on the cool vibe that we experienced at the concert to actually accomplish something. Like I said, I'm not optimistic. But I guess that I am hopeful, which was, I suppose, the core of Obama's entire campaign.
Every day, the folks at daycare send home a report with the kids. The first part of this report is a broad discussion of what the kids in a particular classroom have done up until around naptime, at which point the teachers have time to sit down at the computer to write up the report. The second part involves the minutiae of, for example, Teddy's day noting how long he napped, how much he ate, and how many and what kind of diapers he had. Most of the time, neither report is terribly interesting, although we occasionally get notices about the first time one of our kids sat up in the infant room, said a certain word, or got bloodied by a classmate. (Incidentally, I can't actually remember the dates of many of these milestones, but rest assured, we've saved the report sheets.)
Yesterday, when reading through Teddy's personal report, we noted the following details: Snack - 2 servings! Lunch - 2 servings! We've noticed that he also likes to eat at home, although he often complains at first, putting up symbolic resistance when he's given his dinner. The boy's stellar appetite has a couple of implications.
First, he's becoming a serious bruiser. While he's nowhere near as big as his cousin for a kid his age (15 months), he's clearly out of 12 month clothes and is solidly in the 18 month, and often the 2 year, clothes size (the sizing of clothes being a real random card in the infant clothing industry.) Given his Buddha belly, which is a really amusing sight when he gets ready for a bath, he'll probably pass Margaret soon in girth and possibly in weight, despite the fact that she currently towers over him.
Second, Teddy is prone to blowouts at school. Each kid has a bin in his or her cubby that holds spare clothes for use in the event of an accident. In Margaret's case, these accidents typically involve potty-training snafus, potty-training being something that we're working on, but she doesn't have quite down (particularly at home where she objects to the potty by plaintively saying, "I'm a baby girl".) Occasionally, she also has episodes of over-energetic art that necessitate a wardrobe change.
Teddy, on the other hand, is a blowout boy. We have to keep his back-up cubby well-stocked given his propensity for working through his clothes inventory. Whenever I show up after work and he trundles towards me in a one-piece bodysuit, something that we rarely use when dressing him in the morning, I always know that he's had a diaper event, and I mumble apologies to the teachers. (To be fair, he sometimes has a food event that requires a change of clothes. Such as when he dumped his tomato soup on his head a few weeks back and Ms. Dana actually had to give him a bath, which is a rare event in the Toddler I room. I was so proud.)
The teachers typically smile and brush off any concerns. Except for yesterday. In light of his yeoman's work at snack and lunch, Teddy apparently had the blowout to end all blowouts. Both of his teachers, Ms. Mary and Mr. Ty, marveled at the diaper that caused the problem. And, as noted above, they clearly recorded how much food he'd eaten beforehand. Ms. Mary was quite philosophical about the cause-and-effect associated with eating so much food. And as I told her today after school, what can I say except for "That's my boy!"
In other developments, Teddy is starting to develop his verbal skills. Which is a good thing, because he's also becoming pretty vocal in his various objections about his life. Doesn't like his food (at least initially)? Wail. Doesn't like when his sister takes his toy (and often pushes him in the process of taking it)? Wail. Doesn't like his hat or coat? Wail. Doesn't like ______ (fill in the blank)? Wail. Abby thinks that he's frustrated that he isn't effectively able to communicate what he wants. I suspect that he's just being difficult, but there's probably something to Abby's theory given that, unlike a newborn who wails at just about anything, Teddy's complaints are becoming quite focused.
So it's a good thing that he's starting to "talk." He can say "Mama" in a clearly correct context. Such as when I'm rocking him before bed and Abby walks by the bedroom door, leading him to pull out his nuk-nuk to declare "Mama." (His ability to say "Papa" or "Dada" is much less developed, although I do have to say that he fancies me at this point given how he wails when I desert him by leaving the room.) He can also mumble "nuk," something that he's becoming as attached to as his sister (although pretty soon, we'll have a cold-turkey day regarding those little devices, notwithstanding the blessed succor that they provide on car trips.) One of his first words was "spider" in the context of his favorite song "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." A couple weeks ago, we went to Safeway early on Saturday morning, and Teddy kept shouting "spider!" as we walked through the aisles. I thought it was pretty funny, but no one else could understand him. He also says "Thank you," although it sounds more like "Da doo." But he does appropriately use that phrase, such as when he's given more food, which is nice if he's to grow up to be something other than a bruiser hooligan. Another phrase in Teddy's vocabulary is "Uh oh," which is particularly important given how often he gets in trouble. Finally, he's working on "No," which is important for reasons analogous to those for "Uh oh." The nice thing about a simple word like "No" is that he can really work on the subtleties. He can sharply say "NO!" or he can drag it out: "Noooooo." At this point, one of the real joys in my life is listening to him work on verbal nuances related to the word "No" when he's been brought into bed with us at 5:00 in the morning (after having been up at 11:30, 2:00 and 4:00 as he was last night.) Yep, a pleasant, smart little guy.
