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Big Brother

Gina and I have been delighted how Ryan’s taken to Abby.

He pats her head and gives it the occasional shy kiss. He jumps up when he thinks she’s about to crawl into danger. When he heard her crying while I was changing his diaper, Ryan told me, “Dada, play with Abby when you’re done.”

I carried a chair for Ryan into his room so he could watch a movie and he wanted one for Abby, too. He helped with every diaper change for the first few months. He piles toys into her playpen and on her high chair tray. He won’t get in the car unless he sees Abby’s there, too.

Ryan wants to check on Abby every time she takes a nap. He closes the bedroom and bathroom doors to keep her out of trouble. And no one makes Abby laugh as much as her silly brother Boo.

Abby, I’m sure there will be times when you and Ryan butt heads, but you should know how much he loved his baby sister from the start.

Thomas the Tank Trauma

I have a distinct disdain for Thomas the Tank Engine videos. They have absolutely no entertainment value for adults, and I’ve found that you don’t so much watch them as are subjecting to them. So one of my rules for our kids was, “No Thomas!”

Ryan’s cousin Andy is a Thomas fanatic, especially in regards to the loathsome videos, so I drilled my contempt into Ryan right out of the gate. Ryan gladly joined me in my “No Thomas!” chorus and showed little interest in playing with Andy’s plethora of Thomas trains.

But then, as Christmas approached, I was changing Ryan’s diaper in his room before a shopping trip. “What do you want for Christmas?” I asked, and Ryan gave his usual response. “I want Heatmiser, Snowmiser, and a red toy,” he said. The Heatmiser and Snowmiser requests came from “The Year Without a Santa Claus,” a Christmas classic he’d been watching since the summer, and the “red toy” was an arbitrary response he’d given ever since I asked him what else he wanted.

“What kind of red toy do you want?” I asked, hoping for clarification.

Then he said it.

“I like Thomas.”

I laughed at Ryan’s apparent slip, which brought Gina into the room.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ryan said he likes Thomas, but we don’t like Thomas,” I said.

“Ryan, do you like Thomas?” Gina asked, which brought on the horrible realization that Ryan had only been on the anti-Thomas bandwagon all this time because his daddy was. He fought the tears but broke down right there on his changing pad, while I was left feeling like the worst dad in the world.

So that night we went to Target and bought Ryan his first Thomas train. Since then, as you can see, he’s done all right for himself. For the record, I never had anything against the Thomas toys and admit that I’ve had a lot of fun building tracks myself.

But if any Thomas video tries pulling up to our house, I’m redirecting it to Goodwill station.

On the Move

After flirting with the idea for weeks, Abby started crawling today. She’s already found her way into the forbidden zone (the toy corner behind our recliner,) taken the grilles off one of our speakers, and wandered under our computer desk, so we’ll have to keep on our toes.

Her technique needs a little refining (she sort of bunny hops her legs forward when she’s not alternating her strokes,) but it’s pretty darn adorable having a baby crawling again.

Roomies

The post-Christmas cleanup meant some big moves in the Moose house. Much to Gina’s horror, my beloved recliner has relocated to the living room. This freed up space for us to move Abby’s crib into Ryan’s room after it spent all this time in ours.

So for the first time in his nearly three years, Ryan has a roommate. He spent the first few nights ratting her out and saying, “Abby, go good-night!” But they’ve quickly grown fond of their new arrangement. Their bedtime pj and diaper change the other night dissolved into a giggle fest as Ryan imitated Abby’s kicks and Abby made a headlong lunge at Ryan’s sock with him in it. We’re also using the move as an opportunity to sync their bedtimes up. Though as I write this Ryan’s asleep and Abby’s on my lap. But overall, so far so good.

They’re pretty cute together.

#1 and #2

Two big developments this week, as Abby has finally sprouted her first tooth and Ryan is getting more interested in using his potty chair. After a slow start and sporadic encouragement from Gina and I, Ryan’s learning the thrill of flushing his handiwork down the adult plumbing.

As for Abby, we’re grateful that her first toofer didn’t result in a double ear infection like her brother’s did, though she did spend half a recent road trip screaming her little lungs out. After I felt the sprout in Abby’s mouth this morning, Ryan got his trusty flashlight to take a better look. Intrigued at first, Ryan then engaged in a bit of sibling rivalry, flashing his mouthful of chompers and saying that Abby’s not ready for solids. Now that he’s wearing pull-ups, he’s not easily impressed.

Scooter

Abby is closer to crawling. This week she mastered the technique of scooting backwards in a straight line. She props herself up on her arms, pushes back, rests on her belly for a moment, and then repeats the whole cycle until one of four things happens:

1. She bumps into an obstacle

2. She finds something intriguing to suck on

3. She gets tired and crabby, or

4. She gets her plump little legs wedged under the sofa.

Either way, combined with her side-to-side rolling technique the Abster can now navigate pretty much anywhere she wants, though so far she refuses to cross onto the kitchen’s cold tile floor.

She must get that from her mother.

Abby at 6 months

What can I say about Abby, our beautiful baby girl?

She’s quick with a smile and a boisterous laugh. She thinks Ryan’s hilarious. She lifts both legs straight up and slams them down when she’s happy or tired. She thrashes her head from side to side as her last gasp against sleep. She spits up at the most inconvenient moments. She loves the taste of socks.

She hyperventilates when she’s super happy. She’s ticklish under her cheeks. She loves being lifted up in the air. She’s got wonderfully pudgy legs. Her hair stands up after a bath. She loves to kick in her tub. One of her favorite places is on top of her changing table.

She gets wrapped up in her blanket some times when she rolls around on the floor. She bounces so much in her bouncy chair you’d think she would lose her lunch. She’s a drooling machine. She rotates on her belly with increasing precision. When she wakes up she lies there contentedly or talks to her angel.

This Thanksgiving, we are especially grateful for our Abigail.

Retail Reprimand

Ryan has always been a super shopper. When he was a baby he spent five happy hours in his stroller while Gina and I picked out curtains. But lately he’s gotten a bit more high maintenance. He doesn’t feel the need to stick close to us anymore and has an odd compulsion to rearrange store displays.

We’ve been doing a whole lot of shopping for Christmas, and my stamina has been lagging behind the rest of the family’s. I didn’t have my usual patience for Boo’s exploration as I was trying to get him to keep up with us in Target. Gina and the baby were several aisles ahead of me as I spotted Ryan lallygagging an equal distance behind.

“Ryan, come on.”

“I doing something.”

“Mama’s going goodbye.”

“Just a minute.” Ryan had found some game in a can and was emptying its contents.

“Ryan.” I was loosing my patience. “Get over here right now.”

Ryan pointed a stern finger at me.

“Take it easy over there!”

Gina was in earshot and thought it was hilarious. I tried to stay angry but couldn’t. Having put me in my place, Ryan slowly made his way toward checkout.

The Saga of the Super Suit

Ryan dressed up for his first two Halloweens without any resistance. Granted, he was only 8 months old for his first one. But he was a content little pumpkin and an enthusiastic pirate the following year.

This year we figured he’d be all over the whole Halloween experience since it was the first one he was keenly aware of. So early in the season we took him to Target and started scouting costumes. Ryan had a vague awareness of Superman and agreed to dress as him, so the following trip I picked up a pretty tricked out Super suit. It had foam-molded muscles, a shiny belt and a quality, thick cape. What more could a two-year-old want?

With three weeks to go before the big day, I held the costume up to Ryan and thought it looked way too big. I had bought a small boy’s size and thought I should exchange it for a toddler’s.

“Did you try it on him?” Gina said as I called her from the Target aisle.

“No, but it looked way too big on him.”

“All right. . .,” she said

I returned the boy’s size Super suit and returned with Gina and the kids to peruse the toddler versions. But they weren’t nearly as cool. No sculpted muscles, molded belt or silky cape. They basically looked like a twenty dollar pair of PJ’s.

Ryan was willing to settle for the stripped down version, but not me and Gina. We walked Ryan up and down the costume aisles and tried selling him on something else. Ryan was convinced that the other super-heroes were “mean guys” and shot down all our other ideas.

Undeterred, we headed to Party City and found a sculpted Super Man costume in a large toddler size. We suited Boo up in the middle of the aisle. He was not happy about it. The muscular outfit was a rigid sheet, and Gina, convinced that this was the one we were after, pulled it tight around Boo’s neck to the detriment of his windpipe.

The throttling proved to be Ryan’s kryptonite, and he lost all interest in dressing up as Superman. Gina was equally distraught as her little guy had burst into tears, so that was it for that night’s outing.

Now it was a week until the big day, and Ryan and I made a return to the Target costume aisle. Nearly desperate now, I made a case for any outfit I saw short of a Disney princess.

“How about Iron Man? This guy looks cool. Ryan, look at this guy!” I held Ryan so he could get a better look at each row of contenders. Halfway through, he hit me with an entirely new tactic.

“I don’t need a costume, dada. We already got one at home.”

His sudden thriftiness threw me. Who knew he had so much of his Grandma Moose in him? But I quickly recovered.

“No, those costumes are too small now, Ryan. They won’t fit you anymore.” Ryan thought for a moment, tugged at his shirt, and outflanked me again.

“I just go in this shirt, dada. I just be Ryan.”

That night the whole family returned to the scene of my earlier defeat. It was not the only thing we revisited.

“So, why didn’t you try the Superman costume on Ryan?” Gina asked, eyeing the one I’d bought in the very beginning.

“It looked way too big for him,” I said. Gina took the outfit off the rack and held it up to Ryan.

“It looks like it would fit,” she said. “Ryan, do you want to be Superman?”

He refused at first, until (a) we assured him this version wouldn’t choke him and (b) I hit him with the idea that you have to wear a costume to get candy on Halloween, and Abby already had hers. Ryan begrudgingly tried on the costume. And wouldn’t you know, it fit.

And so we left Target (again) with the Superman costume I’d returned in the first place to start all of the madness. The big day came, and Ryan refused to put it on. I can’t say that I could blame him seeing as it looked suspiciously like the one that had mugged him, and as I was to blame for the whole debacle I didn’t push the issue. Ryan wore his bicycle helmet for the first block of Trick or Treating. Then he took it off and gathered the rest of his loot as himself, just Ryan.

Three strikes, and she’s out

Gina was lying groggy in bed when Ryan approached in his sleep sack. He was getting up for the day and thought momma should do the same, too.

“Momma, get up.” Ryan watched the blankets, but Gina didn’t move.

“Momma, get up, I have poop.”

Ryan’s fib got no response. His little mind thought of what might work if his diaper idea didn’t.

“Momma, get up. We have pizza.”