Favorite things...

Corin has always loved stuffed animals, but hasn't shown any interest in attaching to any one in particular. Until MewShoo. We've had this cat for some time, but he never really showed much interest. Now, though, "she" is his beloved cat. She has personality, likes, dislikes, activities. Usually she lives in his bed and waits for him to come to sleep. Today, she ventured out with him. They have been playing together all morning, after he showed me how she stretched and made a tunnel with her body.

He is also obsessed with the color orange. We had a long discussion when we were going to ride Thomas about painting Thomas orange. I didn't think that was possible. He thought it was mandatory. While there, we stumbled across Murdoch, who happens to already be orange. Voila! a new favorite was born.

Dinosaurs are very, very cool. We'll see how he feels after we see them up close and HUGE at the Walk with the Dinosaurs show next weekend. Right now, he wants to watch Dinosaur Train on PBS whenever we're home at 9:30. It's not too bad, but I don't think it should have replaced Reading Rainbow. :)

Legos...he and MewShoo are building Lego buildings for her to play and live in.

He's always building something, whether it's a huge train train track so that every train can drive on it or a huge Lego building to house another toy (or train). That's my boy.

Little artiste...

I seem to have gotten my little artist in Corin. He was, I thought, eating breakfast. Then, I hear him washing his hands lamenting that it's stuck. I wonder what's stuck. I go in to find his hands COVERED in bright red marker. Few spots on his face such that it looks like he was beaten.

I ask what he's been up to. He says he made his chair beautiful.

Oh yes...he did.

With Sharpies...




That photo of him...after I'd washed off what I could.

Thomas

Corin is in some serious love with trains. Thomas is in Burnet this weekend (about 1 hour away). We pulled RC out of school a bit early and drove up there to ride.

All day today...
C: "Mommy is Thomas orange?"
M: "No. You know what color Thomas is. What color is he?"
C: "Blue. Are they painting him orange?"
M: "Doubtful. Thomas is supposed to be blue."
C: "Orange is my favorite. Thomas should be orange. I want them to paint him orange."

The drive was pretty funny. We were riding along pointing out the cows, goats, emus (NOT emos...), horses. The kids were "moooo"ing at the cows. Chrys pointed out some flowers and Corin starts screaming "Aaaaaahhhhhh". We were confused. Then Ryanne said, "Cows eat flowers," and Corin started screaming again. We agreed that was the noise we would make were we being eaten...

Once there, we stopped by the gift shop. Corin really wanted Spencer, but they didn't have any. After the potty, they had put out more Spencer that "goes by his-self" and we got that for him. Then, we had to see Thomas so we knew we were boarding the right train. We took the quick ride out and back. Corin talked about Thomas. He lamented Thomas' blue-ness. It was time for pictures and he wanted nothing to do with it. I have no idea what we got. We tried to get his picture with the Murdoch sign (he's the orange engine, which Corin was very excited about), but even that was too much for him. He put about 75764578365 stamps of Thomas on a sheet of paper. He kind of shut down after that. I think it was all too much for him. He's a happy, happy boy, though.

Thin skinned

Seems like it's going to be a regular thing for the boy to crack his head open.

The kids were playing outside with the hose yesterday. They were climbing all over the soaked slide/playscape. I hear a tumble and crying and expect very little. I go outside and he's sitting on the ground saying his head hurts. I picked him up and there's a trickle of blood coming down behind his ear. Sure enough, he's split his head again. I can only guess that he hit the edge of the screen door that was standing open. Ryanne says he slipped off of the steps on the slide.

Oy.

It stopped bleeding quickly. He was totally coherent the whole time, whereas last time he was falling asleep. Looking at the cut, it would be one of those that the doctor warned us would likely do more damage to staple it shut than it would help. Given that, I opted to slather it in antibiotic cream and slap a bandage over the side of his head.

This morning, it looks like it's much shallower already. He'll likely have about the same size scar as he does from the one we had stapled (and we won't be out $1200 and 3+ hours of our lives). He's still sporting a bandage, but it could probably go away later today or tomorrow. Guess we'll have to hide that side of his head when we do pictures at Thomas.

*sigh* At least he got his hair cut yesterday so we don't have to wait another long time to get it done when he was already overdue.

Scar

Corin is all boy. He runs, jumps, tumbles and... damages himself. He's got a few scars, like the one on his forehead from bashing it into the table.

This one will put the others to shame.

It was the first day of school. It's about 1:00. I'm done exercising. I grabbed a quick bite to eat. He's in full-on "I need to nap but I won't so I'm going to go crazy instead" mode. He's jumping on the couch. This is normal. He's jumping from the half-wall to the couch. Again, it's normal. He's jumping from the narrow back of the couch to the couch. This is unnerving. He's getting closer to the table. I ask him to get down before he bashes his head.

He decides to dismount and try to get extra style points.

SMACK!
Crying.
Blood.

I end up sitting on the stairs with him on my chest calling Chrys to come get us and take us to the ER. We went down to Dell Children's and OMGTheyRockMyWorld as far as ED's go. We were in and out in a couple of hours. He had about a 1-1.5" gash in his head. It took 6 staples to close up.

We got the staples out yesterday. It seems like the left side was very nicely closed. There's barely a line where the skin meets. The right is very scabbed over and may not fare as well. I guess we'll see.

Boys. Oy.

Well-check...and penis talk

Corin's three year well-check was today. He's 38" tall and 34.9lbs, both 75% for his age. HIs blood pressure was 96/50.

We met with the NP for the first time today. She checked him out and pronounced him healthy. She was a bit concerned that he only nurses once a day and drinks only a bit of milk. Then, we talked about his love of cheese and yogurt and everything was ok.

She retracted his foreskin more than I was comfortable with, though. I've seen him retract it quite a bit and it doesn't change the color. She did it and it turned purple/red and angry and he was trying to move her hand. She mentioned that we needed to retract it to clean it every day to stretch things out and clean. He does a bit of that in the tub every night so I'm not concerned. She said we needed to do it. I'm not really comfortable with retracting his penis myself because I don't want to pull it back further than it's comfortable for him. I don't mind encouraging him to clean things and clean what he can get to, but I'm not ok with me doing it because that's not what I've been told about intact penises. My understanding is that they will fully retract as he plays with it and ages, not as I stretch it out a bit every night. Just not comfortable with her. If you have to qualify 'forcibly', I'm not a happy mama.

Oh well, I was going to go doctor shopping since Chrys and I just got a letter from our doc that she was leaving. That's the second one in the last 3 years so time to look elsewhere.

8:02 on 8/02. Happy 3rd birthday my beautiful boy.

You are turning into such an amazing person. You talk a ton. You are very active. You seem to be good with the potty training (no dirty underwear in over a week). You still nurse once or twice a day (morning and the occasional nap). You still nap occasionally but not daily. You have a little set of friends from school and the Y. You are beginning to tell stories about your day and about the abstract. You still cuddle. You are fiercely independent. You tug on your ears when you're tired.

You amaze me. I love you.

What's better?

Flyder or Glider?

Personally, I'm pretty smitten with the word flyder. It conveys the meaning as he understands it. A paper airplane that flies. Daddy calls it a glider so we have to put the -der on the end. He doesn't know the difference between flying and gliding. It works. :) Plus, he sounds cute saying it.

Voices

Corin has developed play voices. He has a deep man voice and a squeaky little girl voice. He uses them both during various play times. It's really cute. If I can figure out how to get the recording off my phone, I'll upload it.

Didn't expect that...

Today, Corin figured out that he could retract his foreskin. He wanted to know what was inside.

M: "Your penis."
C: "My peemis is inside my peemis?!"

Yeah...so we talked about the difference between foreskin and penis. I guess I need to keep an eye on things now that he's playing with retraction.

What is it with my kids and their sexuality this week?

Potty tales...

Two days before Memorial Day weekend, Corin decided that he needed a new diaper every hour or so. It was the *tiniest* bit wet and he couldn't tolerate it. I had previously drawn a line in the sand that Memorial Day weekend was our weekend to potty train. I had the potty train in 3 days booklet and a mission. We started Saturday morning and he did pretty well. Sunday was full of accidents and by Monday he seemed to have pee down.

Problem was that he didn't poop at all on Monday. He only pooped a bit in his underwear on Sunday. On Tuesday, I took him to a play scape and within 5 minutes, his underwear were full. We continued to slide down the hill of despair with regards to poop training. I think the biggest problem is that he, unlike Ryanne, doesn't have super clear signs that he's taking a dump. It just sort of comes. He says he can't feel it. He doesn't mind it being in his underwear any more than he minded it being in his diaper. He says he's the only one that poops (and somehow I've lost our copy of Taro Gomi's Everybody Poops).

Yesterday, I tried the technique from 3 day again...still wouldn't finish what he started in his underwear. Today, I left him nekkid.

I was watching him play and suddenly he runs for the bathroom yelling "Mooooom, some poop fell out of my bottom on the carpet." Sure enough, there's a small pile. We run to the bathroom. He finishes. I clean. He looks at me with great pride, "MOM, I felt the poop."

Announcing Eureka seems premature....so I'll merely whisper, "finally".

Tato-head

One of Corin's favorite things to do is put on somebody else's shoes (mine, daddy's, Ryanne's) and wander around the house proclaiming, "I'm a Tato-head!" as loud as he can.

Dentist

Corin had his first cleaning the other day. He actually let me put him on the table and allowed himself to be drawn into the cartoons and headphones. He went from a death grip wrapped around my entire forearm trying to pull himself from the table to gently holding my hand down by his hip. They got everything cleaned. We have to watch his molars - they're very ridged, like mine and will hold on to anything he puts in his mouth. If we can keep them clean, no biggie. If we can't, he might get cavities back there, like I did.

So far, looks like both kids have my teeth and not daddy's. Let's hope that holds!

It's hard being two

Mostly because it's really hard to only stick up two fingers when people ask you how old you are. Usually he has to ask me for help and I fold his fingers over and catch them with his thumb. When he tries to do it on his own, he uses one hand to mimic that motion - folding fingers over and trying to get the thumb down in time to catch them and keep from them popping back up. He's successfully done it on his own one time. Luckily I had my camera.

He's on the right track

We were wandering around the Y. Ryanne wanted water. I suggested the fountain. Ryanne started to throw a fit about wanting water in the bottle, not the fountain. Corin looks at her, "Sewiouswy, Ryanne? Sewiouswy?"

Thank you Grey's Anatomy for that piece of vocabulary that I have now passed down to my son... Oops.

Lessons learned

1) Corin is apparently allergic to fire ants. At least, that's what I think made him start breaking out in hives on his trunk about 30 minutes after he was bitten on his hands.

2) Corin (thankfully) is one of the many that gets REALLY sleepy when given Benadryl.

These are not lessons that I was really looking forward to learning...

But daddy's in Texas...

We're in CT visiting Auntie C and Uncle L and their new bebes...

Today, we were driving down the road.
C: "Mama, geek!"
M: "Geek?"
C: "Geek on da wa-da"
M: "Geek on the water? Oh, wait, geese? You see geese?"
C: "No! Geek! Geek on da wada"
M: "Goose, you see one goose. Or lots of geese. Not geek. Geese."
C: "Geek, mama. I see geek."
M: "Alrighty, then, but I promise daddy's not here."
C: "Daddy in Aus-in. I see geek."

I hate pottytraining

"Mommy, I peeing"

As you're standing there peeing on the table (or carpet or merely your diaper) is not entirely useful information...

Thirty seconds notice is really all I ask. I can run pretty fast when bathrooms are involved.