Friday, December 10, 2010

Update

So, it's been forever since I've updated this blog. Most of my mini-posts are going up on Facebook these days - if you'd like to be updated on Alexander's hijinks and are not my friend on Facebook, feel free to post a comment here and I'll get you set up. Pictures are uploaded there, though I haven't gotten many uploaded lately - there may be a deluge once I'm out for the semester though.

In other news, Alexander is due to get a baby brother in early March!

Monday, May 3, 2010

And some videos

Since they take so long to upload, I'll put them in a separate post.

Look, my very own cubicle!



Alexander's battle with the milk.

Alexander's opinions....

On Daddy - James was out of town for several days this past week, so Alexander was very happy to have Daddy all to himself Sunday morning. Daddy made eggs with cheese and peppers for breakfast, and Alexander ate it all up. Apparently the lack of appetite this week was just disapproval for Mommy's cooking. Then Alexander and Daddy played in the sandbox all morning while Mommy got out the summer clothes - apparently this year summer decided to start May 1rst in our area! Alexander even pulled out the puppy dog eye enough to convince Daddy to take him to his class meeting on campus in the afternoon. A day with Daddy - Yay!

"Look - we buried my legs!"

On Helping - Alexander has decided he really liked helping Mommy. Today I asked him to carry his milk in to school because my hands were full carrying him and his bag of supplies. He kept a death grip on the strap of the milk bottle, and was reluctant to give it up for his teacher to put in the fridge. He was so proud of himself for helping!

Fast forward to later that day. We'd stopped at the store on the way home, and Alexander decided he wanted to carry his milk in from the car. The only problem - this time it wasn't 10 oz in a Nalgene bottle, it was a full half gallon fresh from the store. It was so heavy he could just barely lift it, and he could usually only make a few steps before tripping or dropping it. But he was determined. He wasn't going to let me help, and he wasn't going to let me trade it for one of the lighter bags. He was going to get that milk into the house if it was the last thing he did!

"It's ok Mom, I've got this. Really, I do!"

Not pictured is the "snow angel" he made in the gravel when his frustration at the bottle turned into a meltdown. But eventually he decided he could carry the milk and I could carry him, and that would be acceptable.

After dinner I brought the trash cans in from the curb. Alexander was also determined to help there. So Mommy got that chore done so much faster with his help, even if that help involved tipping the can over far enough for him to grab the handle, and walking across the driveway at a toddler's pace.

Which brings me to....

On Memory - Once, several months ago, I let Alexander sit on the lid of the recycling bin while I pulled it back to the driveway. When we finished with the garbage can and went back for the recycling, he decided he didn't want to grab the handle and help pull. Instead, he tried to climb out of my arms and onto the lid - he remembered that ride, and he wanted another one! Apparently it was a lot of fun, because he really didn't want to get off when we got the recycling can to its normal place, and kept signing "more" when we stopped. A jog to the corner in the stroller as a start to our evening walk was enough to satisfy his urge for bumpy, rattling transit though.

On Odors - Alexander would rather play with the stinky trash can than smell the lilacs with Mommy. In fact, when I help him up so he could smell the flowers, he pushed them away, squirmed to get down, and ran back over to the trash can.

Yes, we definitely have a little boy on our hands here. :)

On Communication - the whole concept of non-verbal communication has finally clicked, and Alexander still enjoys testing the concept that he can ask for something, and generally he will be given it. It's also interesting watching the way he processes language. The sign for "more" has become the universal "I want something, you need to figure out what it is" sign. He's getting very consistent about using it when he wants something - he was even signing "more" in his sleep the other morning. "Clean" has become his sign for "I want out of the chair", because usually after he finishes eating I wipe his hands, sign and say "all clean!", and then let him down. He's transferred it to other "get me out" locations - this morning he signed "clean" when he wanted out of the toddler chair where he hangs out while I take my shower. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. :)

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

April Showers...

Alexander had fun helping me out in the garden last week. He's been getting spoiled by being able to go out and play nearly every day now that the weather has been nice - he was a bit upset when I brought him in this evening because it was raining, and wanted to go right back out! Fortunately we got enough of a break in the weather to go back out again later.

Here's some pictures of both...

And of our little trouble maker, and the only surefire way to keep him out of trouble. Looks like we need to get him a bigger crate soon! :)

Alexander is fully into the mimic phase, and loves doing anything he sees the adults do. One favorite is "drinking" from soda cans... or anything that vaguely resembles a soda can...

Monday, March 29, 2010

One Year!

Alexander had a great first birthday party. It was unbelievably warm for mid-March - on his actual birthday we were able to hang out outside for a good chunk of the afternoon, and on his birthday party we spent the entire day outside! It was wonderful to see all the family and celebrate his first year with everyone.

There were a ton of pictures taken - the album is posted at http://alexanderkilbridephotos.shutterfly.com/ Highlights are posted here.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Walking!

I love watching Alexander walk. He goes in zig-zags more often than in straight lines, and everywhere he goes he's waving his hands over his head for balance. It's so cute!

He keeps amazing me with how quickly he grows. He can now grab things off of the top of the entertainment center, and the edges of the kitchen counter. So now we need to be very careful about keeping hot or sharp things well back from the edge of the counter. And today he tried to climb out of the tub on his own for the first time. He was very unhappy with me when that ended the bath time - Mommy was mean for not letting him play on the edge of the tub.

Some videos of Alexander's walk!


A view from the other side. And evidence of the amount of destruction a small child can create in about 15 minutes, if you're paying attention to the increase in chaos in the background.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

More

Here's one more album of pictures for you. If anyone hasn't had enough Alexander by now, or wants higher res images to download, I have been uploading pretty much everything I take to my shutterfly account - just ask and I can point you to it.

Summer vacation photos

Alexander discovers "No"


Kissy face


Evil Santa - Alexander was terrified of this doll the first time it came out, and spend the rest of Christmas break trying to beat it up!


The patented Alexander scoot-crawl. This has mostly gone by the wayside now, but he did this for quite a long time even after he was really good at crawling, because it was faster on the smooth floors.


Showing off his dino costume now that he can walk in it...

Long overdue update

So I'm way behind in my picture posting here! But uploading pictures to this blog takes far too long. So I'm going to take advantage of other sites that allow batch uploading, and then just post the links to the albums here for your perusing pleasure. I hope you enjoy, and apologize for being MIA for so long!

Here is photos of Christmas and some of the surrounding snowstorms.
Some general Alexander pics.
Halloween 2009.

Alexander walking...




More soon!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Thanksgiving

We have a lot to be thankful for this year - Alexander has brought a lot of joy into our lives!

We spent the Thanksgiving holidays with family in Maine. Alexander enjoyed it, but he also seemed really glad to be back with his familiar surroundings. He slept through thanksgiving dinner itself, after having his dinner at Mommy's Milk Bar, but woke up in time to help with the leftovers, and really liked getting to eat some turkey and mashed potatoes and peas and green beans.

Alexander is starting to show some good problem solving skills when it comes to navigating around the house. He is now confidently crawling on all fours, but has recently figured out how to drop to his belly to wiggle under obstacles and get out the other side. He was in the living room, trying to get to me in the kitchen, but the way was blocked by his swing and a folding chair. He whined for a moment, then stopped, belly crawled under the chair, and was on his way. Similarly, when getting packed to come home from Maine, he was trying to get past an area blocked by a suitcase and a towel, and very deliberately pulled the towel out of the way so he could crawl through that space.

He's understanding the Mommy Voice, or Daddy Voice, and testing it's limits. When he got the Mommy Voice to stay away from part of the computer this weekend, he stopped, but then tried to touch the same area again while watching me to see what I'd do. After a repetition of the Mommy Voice, he moved on to play with other things instead.

He enjoys "helping" in the kitchen. Last week he very deliberately took every towel out of the towel drawer, one by one, and dropped them on the floor. Today all of the tupperware containers from the tupperware cabinet are scattered across the kitchen. He even was kind enough to take out the counter liner for me. :)

He's cruising around the furniture - he's getting pretty confident about walking as long as he has at least one hand to balance himself with. Thank goodness he doesn't show any signs of being able to balance without something to hold onto yet, but I'm sure it will come soon.

He now has 5 teeth, two bottom, three top. The first of the top teeth came through last weekend, around Nov 22nd, with the second one close behind, and the third top tooth broke through last night.

And now, it is time for me to teach. More pictures and videos soon, I hope!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

We're in trouble...

Part 1 - Alexander can now reach the top shelf of the entertainment center - the area where previously we could put stuff that needed to be out of reach. We can still put stuff on top of the entertainment center, but he'll be able to reach that too soon.

Part 2 - Today I was cleaning out the dishwasher, so I took the rack out of the bottom and had the door open while I was rinsing something out in the sink. I looked down to find Alexander was sitting in the middle of the dishwasher door! I have no idea how he got there, but it's probably a sign that I need to put a gate on the bottom end of the stairs soon.

Even the teachers at day care have been commenting on how much of a daredevil he's been lately, pulling himself up on everything and getting into tons of stuff. He's really enjoying his improved balancing ability. And he just took the door off of the Wii - time to go intervene.

Monday, November 2, 2009

And another

And while I'm uploading videos, here he is showing off his new and improved hands and knees version of crawling at the Halloween party this weekend.



Apples

A while back we got several bags of apples from our CSA. Alexander's mommy is so stingy she won't even buy him a ball to play with, so he had to improvise by stealing one of the apples out of the bags and rolling it around on the floor. :) It actually worked pretty well - it was round enough to roll a decent way, but then it would end up on a flat surface and stop rolling so he could catch up with it. He was much less frustrated with this than he was with normal balls at this stage of crawling, and chased it around the kitchen for quite a while.


More Pictures


Look at me stand!

I love you Mal!!!


Mom, you really need some help organizing this cabinet....


Look, see these ones go on the TOP shelf!

Pictures, pictures, pictures!


Showing off two of his favorite activities of a few weeks ago - he discovered that he could stick out his tongue. And that he could hold TWO of something!! One for each hand!! TWO!!!!

Rawrr.

I'm coming to get you!


Showing off the hat and jacket from Memere - and his two bottom teeth! (So hard to get those in a picture!)

Hanging with Uncle Nick.

November, and changes are in the wind

Alexander hit one of those phases where he's figuring out new things in leaps and bounds. Mostly to do with mobility - we're in trouble. He's getting very good at balancing and pulling himself up now - I'm beginning to wake up to him standing in the crib in the mornings, and as long as he has one hand to balance himself he can stand well. He looks a lot taller these days, but I think a large part of that is because he's loosing the baby bowleggedness and actually standing up straight. This weekend he also started really crawling on hands and knees for more extended periods. I finally caught him in the act of sitting up from a laying position the other day - I know he's been doing it for a while, but never while I was watching. He's been teething this weekend, so likely the top teeth will be on their way before too much longer. And he's getting very good about walking his way along pieces of furniture to get to things he wants. Where did my little boy go?

Next post - pictures!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Time flies

Alexander had his "6 month" (more like 7) checkup last Friday - 22lbs 7 ounces, 29 inches. He had a slight ear infection, so he's on antibiotics, and going back in a few weeks for his actual shots.

He learned to clap this weekend, although he claps more with his fingertips than his whole hand, so it looks like the Simpson's "eeeexcelent" - very cute. He's getting a bit more clingy towards mom, but for the most part will still happily visit anyone who smiles at him. I have yet to see him sit up from laying on his belly, but my mom says she saw him do it several times in his crib this weekend - I think the floor may just be too slippery for him to manage it. He's getting very good at pulling himself up on the side of the crib, and standing as long as he has something to hold on to for balance. Before we know it he'll be walking. He still mostly crawls on his belly, although I've seen him go from sitting to hands and knees and stay there for a while, or even take a few "steps" that way before he flops onto his belly. I think normal crawling is too slow for him, and again there's that slippery floors thing.

I can't believe he'll be 7 months old Saturday. Where did the time go?

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

6 months

Alexander turned 6 months old last Thursday. It's amazing how time flies! In another major lanmark, yesterday morning he managed to pull himself from sitting to standing using his crib railing. It's the first time I've seen him successfully pull himself up using something other than a human who can help him balance.

He is enjoying being mobile, and continues to crack me up. Here's a little snapshot of an evening with Alexander....

I put him down by his play gym, and then sat down on the floor on the other side of the room to work on putting his carseat cover back on the carseat. He started fussing, and when I looked up to see what was wrong he had belly-crawled halfway to me and was fussing that I wasn't paying attention to him. I called him to come on over, and he grinned and started wiggling faster and crawled over to me and I put his arms up over my leg. That wasn't good enough as he kept fussing, so I pulled him up across my lap and that seemed to be what he wanted. He lay quietly across my lap for a few minutes just chilling, until something caught his attention and he wiggled off of my lap and crawled over to the door to the dining room.

He had found one of the cat toys - a little loop of wire with some cardboard danglies on one end! What could he do with this? He picked it up and banged it on the floor a few times, and passed it from one hand to another several times. Mal came and laid down next to him and batted at it, then wandered off. Alexander started crawling forward with the toy in one hand and then noticed the cat door in the door that leads to the basement. He crawled over to it and looked at if for a few seconds, then looked at the toy in his hand. Door, toy, door, toy. *lightbulb!!!* He put the cat toy through the cat door and dropped it.

Now what to do? He looked around and crawled over to play with his little farm toy, the kind where you push a lever and the door pops open and shows you an animal. Then he pushed his diaper box around for a little bit. Then he took off down the hallway and picked up the shears that were still there from my earlier attempts at repairing the fence. I took those away from him and put him down in the middle of the kitchen floor, and he made a beeline for the cat's water fountain. I put the fountain up on the table, then took the piece of gravel that he'd found in the meantime out of his hand. He started crying because I took all the good toys away, so I sang him some songs and he happily watched while I sang and unloaded the dishwasher. He then crawled over to where I was standing and grabbed my legs and started whining again, so I picked him up, gave up on getting work done, and went to cuddle in the rocking chair while we waited for Daddy to get home from class.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Mobility



Alexander in one of his "back to school" outfits.


A very mobile Alexander.



Alexander is doing well at daycare, although he really doesn't like taking naps there. But he seems to have fun playing there, and doesn't seem at all bothered when I drop him off. When I pick him up he's ready to come to me and gets very upset if I do anything other than go pick him up right away.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Tooth!

Alexander officially has a tooth now! It finally broke through the surface last night. No pictures yet since it's basically just a white spot on the gum, but you can certainly feel it when he tries to chew on your fingers now.

In other landmarks for my future reference, when I weighed him Wednesday he was over 22 lbs with clothes and diaper on, so we installed the convertable carseat. Last Wednesday, the 19th he said Mama for the first time - he said it a lot that day, and a hanful of times since, but not often. While we were on vacation he started seriously eating solid foods, and started pulling himself up from sitting if you give him fingers to hold on to. He'll now put his hands up when he wants you to give him a hand standing up. And he has taken a few steps while holding onto hands, but hasn't figured out how to do it on command yet.

Updates from vacation soon!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Photo session

A few weekends ago Alexander had a professional photo session in the yard - the pictures are here: http://www.jgoingsgallery.com/Gallery/Clients/Clients.html Click on Alexander to see his album.