Haircut

A few weeks ago, Holden had his first official haircut. We went to a place especially designed for kids, paid the extra money that such places require, and watched him pretend to drive in a little toy car while the lady quickly cut his hair. For the most part, Holden did great, until the last few minutes when he anxiously announced that he was "all done" and was ready to leave the chair. This may be why his hair ended up looking a bit wonky on the back right side. But over all, his hair has grown nicely into a pretty good looking cut.

That said, we had a hard time with this rite of passage. It was sad to see his longer "surfer" hair get clipped. This is not only because Holden has (in my humble opinion) some of the most beautiful honey-colored hair you could find on a person, but also because the shorter cut makes his look like such a boy. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Boys are great. But we are already battling so many things--the toys, the clothes, etc--that attempt to force our little guy into some 'ideal' of masculinity. I love having a toddler who has not a care in the world about the length of his hair, about the style of his clothes. And I don't like the idea that this might change. But his hair was just getting a little too uncomfortable for the repeated heat waves, and, well...we were getting pressured by the grandparents. Yes, the pressure to conform into some kind of ideal of a boy starts early. But hair can always grow back.

On toddlers and blogging

We have been pretty bad bloggers this month, and perhaps its because we've practically shut down in July heat. Or maybe its because we've been busy checking out all that's new across the web 2.0 landscape (Google Plus, anyone? Pinterest?). Or most likely - because we've both been pretty busy working in our respective jobs. I'm truly amazed that people like our friend at DNA's Digital Diary can keep up with her two little ones' antics on a daily basis.

But it's hard to keep up with toddlers' lives - they seem to constantly be changing. One day they're as sweet as can be, the next day they, well...it's called the "terrible twos" for a reason. Plus, Holden's interests, language, and sense of imagination all seem to evolve so quickly.

For me, it's also become more difficult to put together posts because, as DNA Digital wrote some time ago, "Some stories are not for sharing." Holden's personality, his wit, his imagination - all of it has exploded in the last couple of months. And the older he gets, the more easily I can imagine him growing older, and (hopefully) wiser. Before we know it, he'll be a teenager, hacking into this account.

We'll keep posting, but we're going to be a bit selective. Some of the best stories - those will be saved for more private conversations.

Top 10 at 20

Holden is officially 20 months old, and it just seems like he's changing so fast and doing so much these days. We've been struggling to update this blog on a regular basis (in case you couldn't tell), but it doesn't mean that Holden is getting boring or that we're faced with less interesting issues ... completely to the contrary! So here is the fastest way to give a quick Holden update here at the 20-month-old mark -- the "top 10" at 20 months (in no particular order):

"TOP 10" at 20

10. Pronounces 'boat' like 'butt' (nice "Finding Nemo" reference, eh?)

9. Has identified some good hiding places in the living room where mommy and daddy pretend that they can't see him ; )

8. Just growing like crazy. While he may still be below average size, I swear he's getting taller and heavier recently. He can now reach door knobs, get his chin over window sills, and get up and down the stairs with more ease. And when we carry him these days, he really feels heavier.

7. Fear of bubbles has subsided (for now) thanks to mommy teaching him how to pop them.

6. Has been saying "Ciao!" for a while now (which makes us super popular at Italian restaurants) and said "Ciao Baby!" for the first time this past weekend. Too pretentious for a 20-month-old?

5. Loves snorkeling. He picked this up from a few of his books that have characters snorkeling under the ocean. Not an easy thing to explain to a toddler, but he loves the concept anyway.

4. Totally into boats (yes, you might notice a water theme to much of this list). Might be partially due to a trip to Lake of the Ozarks a couple weeks ago that involved his first official boat ride -- on grandpa's boat. Now he builds boats out of blocks, and turned a cardboard box into a boat that he could ride in while we sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

3. Really enjoys reading "Where the Wild Things Are," especially the part when the Wild Rumpus begins and he can howl like the wild things. Oh, and I think it goes without saying that he loves Max's boat (which may have also inspired his own cardboard boat).

2. Developing an ornery sense of humor, which is both cute and slightly worrisome (we're just laughing at him for now). Still amazed that a 20-month-old can have a sense of humor (saying things to specifically get us to laugh, which I think is a step past just being silly).

1. Hugs, hugs, hugs! When he's not running around at the speed of lightning, he loves giving hugs and snuggling. And for mommy and daddy, there's nothing quite like a little hug from our baby bear (quickly becoming a big bear).

VIDEO: Holden and the Hippos

The hippo exhibit has always been one of my favorite places to visit at the Saint Louis Zoo -- it's simply awesome, and you always get to see happy and active hippos. Over the winter, it has been closed, so Holden hasn't had a chance to see the Hippos in a long time. But we went to the zoo last Sunday morning, and we got to see the hippos back -- and up close and personal.

Hidden was SO excited to see the hippos (so was daddy), so we hung there for a while. This great video shows Holden almost beside himself with excitement, saying his version of "hippo" over and over. He even made a friend while viewing the hippos (you'll see the kid in the blue hat).

Oh, and by the way, the best time to visit the Saint Louis Zoo is Sunday morning around 8:30 or 9:00am. You totally beat the crowds, it's not so hot, parking is tolerable, and you can visit the Children's Zoo for free until 9am.

Abstract Concepts

Holden has recently been picking up on some pretty cool abstract concepts, thanks in part to some of the lessons he's been learning at school. And one of these, appropriately enough to our heat wave, is "hot." This is one of his favorite words as of late, probably because he keeps hearing his parents complaining about how hot it is outside. A few weeks ago, his class had a lesson on opposites, and that's where he picked up on the concept.

He seems to understand it in a variety of ways. For example--we were at the Missouri Botanical Gardens over the weekend, and he reached down, touched the ground, and said "hot." When we returned to get in the car and told him it was time to get into his carseat, he said, "no, hot." And now, whenever go outside, he tells us its hot. Quite the meteorologist.

"Happy" is the other new favorite word in his lexicon. I'm not sure if he fully understands it, but he does get the concept that we smile and laugh when we're "happy." And, incidentally, hearing him say "happy" is just adorable. Now we just have to teach him that we would all be "happier" if it wasn't so darn "hot" out.

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.

Fun Despite April Storms

The weather has been anything but normal since Holden was born about 18 months ago, and this April was no exception. We've been forced to head to the basement twice in the past week, and Friday night's tornadoes in St. Louis were the worst to strike the metropolitan area in over 40 years. I'd say that we've been to the basement with Holden during Tornado Warnings about 7 or 8 times, and each time there was actual threat of a tornado (including the storm this past New Years Eve, which produced a tornado near where my parents used to live ... not too far from us; and then there was the February storms this year, when we were sitting in the basement and witnessed one of our patio tables blow into our basement stairwell).

And aside from the tornadoes, we're now getting a deluge of rain ... ugh. But despite all the extreme weather, we've been able to find time to get out into our garden at home -- and get over to the Missouri Botanical Garden on a regular basis. And when it rains, we just make the best of things inside, building forts or playing with anything in the house that might make a fun an interesting toy.

Here are some quick photos and a video that update what our little buddy has been up to recently:

Novice gardener examines the soil (yep, tastes OK).

Spending time outside whenever possible, even if it means just chilling on the front steps and gazing off into the distance.

Lots of fun at the Missouri Botanical Garden, esp. with Holden's new favorite sculpture -- the sheep. Got to ride several of them, and run around a bunch (always a good thing). And here is the video:

And even when the rain kept us inside, we had lots of fun. This was our latest fort in the dining room, officially named Fort Boppy after the rediscovered boppy pillow became its central (and necessary) feature.

I know that I haven't been stellar at posting new entries to the blog recently, but I hope to get better. Spring is always super busy, but there is always a lot going on in Holden's life to keep the posts coming. Hope to get more updates up very soon (and more videos).

Three Weeks in Spring Time

If you check in here on a regular basis, you know we love going to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, the neighborhod attraction that's practically in our backyard. And in springtime, there's always something new to see. Here are some pics from three (wildly different) consecutive weeks of visits.

Week 1: Mar 27. Day after a snow storm. Cherry Blossoms blooming.

Week 2: April 3. Children's Garden Opening weekend. Beautiful weather.

Week 3: April 9. Tulips and crabapple trees in full bloom. Temperature - upper 80s.