One small step for mankind...

...one big step for Holden. Down the steps that is, which is a very big challenge for this shorter-than-average 18 mth old. But here, with a giant sippy cup in his hand, he manages it quite well.

summertime, summertime

After the rains, tornados, and several very chilly weekends, summer has finally arrived in St. Louis (and much of the country, it seems). We've gone from jackets and umbrellas to t-shirts and sandals, and Holden is loving it. I think we've added 3 new favorite activities to Holden's list -- walking on his own (not in the stroller), sitting on the front steps at our house, and playing with water in the backyard.

The first one (walking on his own) is both a blessing and a curse. While it's great that he's able and willing to walk down the sidewalk on his own, it's also a bit nerve-racking and/or frustrating when he doesn't want to go in the direction that mommy and daddy are walking, or if he does not want to follow "the rules" of walking on his own (staying on the sidewalk, and holding mommy or daddy's hand ... simple rules it might seem, but not for a toddler). We've had more than a few battles with Holden over this, especially during our recent visit to a local farm -- Holden desperately wanted to walk on his own, but the farm has electric fences everywhere and there was no way we were letting him down to walk (resulting in a tantrum, and then we all headed to the car for some chill time and the drive home). I know that these battles are all being fought because Holden is increasingly gaining his own sense of independence, but it's a tough spot to be in with a toddler. Yet it's very cool that he's wanting to walk on his own, and it can be very nice when we have those stretches of calm, directional walking with no fussing ... just taking in the sights, and maybe even picking up some sticks or leaves along the way. Now if Holden would just grow a few inches taller, we wouldn't have to keep bending over to hold his hand ; )

Second, Holden seemed to really love just sitting on the front steps of our house recently. I think he's just becoming so observational, and wanting to see every car, bird, truck, and squirrel that pass by (and name them, or ask us what they are). It's kind of nice to sit on the steps with Holden, as I did this morning for a while. I hope this trend continues ... a toddler wanting to sit is always a good thing.
Third, Holden loves playing with water in the backyard. This past Sunday, we got out the hose and filled up a plastic tub with water. We brought out some blocks and toys, and let Holden go crazy. He was soaked through to the diaper within seconds (daddy helped with this, some). What a great way to spend a hot afternoon in the sun. Now we just need to find one of those little inflatable pools -- Holden would REALLY love that!

A Bedtime Book with the F-Bomb in the Title

OK, so Holden can have his "Goodnight Moon," but I think I want this book to read at my bedtime: "Go the F**k to Sleep," by author Adam Mansbach. According to initial reviews, Mansback's book (which has gone viral even before it's release next month) perfectly captures the familiar--and unspoken--tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night.

I just needed to post this, but I encourage you to read more from DaddyTypes as well as the LATimes. I think parents need to have a sense of humor (even if brutally honest) ... 'cause if we don't laugh about it, we'll end up crying our eyes out. Mansbach is a bit gruff, but it's funny because it's true.

If you manage to get a copy, let us know what you think. Awesome? Too much?

Words words and more words

Next week, Holden has his 18 mth doctor's appointment, where the physician will undoubtedly ask us how many words he knows, and the truth is--we have no idea, because we've lost count. From morning until night Holden's a labeling machine, beginning with his bed sheets, which feature a "turtle," "tree" and "owl." He has cute little mispronunciations (blanket is "behbeh," hello is "hewwo"), but overall his pronunciations are getting much better. Dog, for example, used to be "na" (why? I'll never know). Now it's pretty close to the actually word.

Here's a few of my (and his) favorite words and phrases he's been using:

VERBS: play, read, walk, eat, roll
-He's known "walk" and "eat" for a while, but "play" and "roll" have recently come into the regular rotation of words. And he uses the sign for play too, especially when he wants out of his highchair to go have some fun.

"Da, Two, Tre...Eight"
-To encourage him to head up to bed time we count our stairs. And now he count stairs, sort of, in a sing-songy rhythm of "da." But he has TWO and EIGHT down perfectly. :)

"A-B-B-D"
-This is brand new. He's starting to learn the process of singing, and when we sing the ABC song, he starts with us.

"Truck," "Van," "Bus" - Name your transport, he probably knows it.
-Since we're city peeps who have to drive through traffic to work, Holden sees a lot of vehicles. And he's very good at differentiating them. He's currently obsessed with "vans," but a couple of weeks ago it was the metro "train" that goes his daycare, and before that it was trucks and buses. And better yet, he knows "tractor." Thus, when we go up to my parents' farm he'll be prepared to play the label game.

Also, incidentally, every so often sentences pop out, like "that's a ball." They're clear as day, but he doesn't say them regularly, so they always surprise us. But it seems like there's something new every day.

VIDEO: still mr. giggles

Quick video post proving that our little baby bear is still Mr. Giggles...

Back to bedtime as usual

To follow-up briefly on the previous post, Holden is back to his usual sleep-loving self, thankfully. We had to do a little sleep training and a lot of reassuring that "daddy and mommy were nearby" and would "be there" in the morning. And--we changed his bedding from flannel to nice cool cotton. Within a day or two after our post, he felt back into his usual routine. The "mother's day incident" as we're going to call it, was just a good reminder that parenting is always full of surprises.

Passing the 18-month milestone with flare

Holden hit the 18-month-old mark this past week, and he decided to celebrate with flare (and by "flare," I mean "a sudden burst of zeal or anger"). Bryna was out of town on a research trip for most of the week, but we were able to stay connected with her through FaceTime -- which I loved now that I have an iPad 2. Holden seemed to really like it, too, seeing mommy each day to give her kisses (ie. slobbering on the screen). All was good. We picked up Bryna at the airport on Friday evening, and Holden ran to her for a big hug as she walked out of the security area.

But then the weekend happened, and the "flare" began. Saturday evening, Holden had a lot of trouble going to bed (which hadn't happened at home in a REALLY long time). It had been a hectic and atypical day, with trips to the Farmers Market, playground, Cinco de Mayo festival, and ending with us having some friends over to our house for dinner. But Holden seemed totally off his game. Teething?

Then Sunday came ... Mothers Day. And Holden decided to make that day quite memorable. It all started nice -- breakfast, gifts for mommy (which ironically included a coupon for 2 free hugs), and a trip to the park. Then nap time came and went, with lots of flare (ie. no nap, much protest). And another bedtime with lots of protest and resistance from the H-bomb (yes, I'm bringing back that nickname ... it seems appropriate here). So we're going to have to take a rain check on this Mothers Day.

When I dropped Holden off at daycare this morning, I wrote a little note to Holden's teachers that simply said "good luck."

So what's the deal? Well, after some reflection and pondering, it just seems likely to be a second phase of separation anxiety -- probably exaggerated by Bryna's trip this past week. I read that toddlers have a resurgence of separation anxiety right as you've been lulled into believing its all over (right around 17-18 months). Experts say that it finally all over by 3 years (WHAT!?!?!). Anyway, we've been tackling this bout of SA (separation anxiety) by getting back to the core routine, reassuring Holden that we're not leaving him (esp. at night), and other strategies to help ease the pain (for Holden, and for us). We also think that Holden's brain has been on fire recently, with new words popping out all the time as well as an incessant need to label everything or ask what things are -- and that can't help him sleep at night.

So, all in all, Mothers Day weekend was simply a reminder that parenting can be hard (and I think it can be good to have that reminder from time to time ... esp. because it IS hard). And after all of Holden's tantrums during the weekend, Bryna and I sat there late Sunday night exhausted ... both wanting to give our little baby bear a big hug.

300th post!

Yay! We've made it to our 300th post for the Short Stranger blog. While I know we've been much slower recently with the posting, that's still a post about every 2 or 3 days for the past 2 years. And yes, I said 2 YEARS! This blog is just a couple weeks shy of being 2 years old, which I think is cool.

In order to commemorate our 300th blog post, I thought I would try and find a way to encapsulate our entire blog up to this point. So I went to Wordle.net and created this word cloud from all of our blog entries. This shows the most frequently used words, and the 'clouds' give greater prominence to words that appear the most, like 'Holden,' 'snow,' and 'Missouri Botanical.' There's also 'tornadoes,' 'tornado,' 'storm,' and 'rain,' which seem appropriate recently -- but apparently have always been common themes of our blog posts.


Another milestone is right around the corner, too -- Holden's big 18-month birthday! We'll add some more posts soon about this and all of our new adventures with the little guy.