Happy Easter!

Dexter's First Easter Egg Hunt

We took Dexter to his first Easter Egg hunt today.  Dennis had him practice finding eggs around the house last night, but Dexter still didn't really know what was going on when we got to the park this morning.  He was in a group of 2-3 year olds (technically, he should have been 2 to participate), so I still think he did pretty well considering his competition. (We'll also throw in the fact that it was 46 degrees during the hunt. Ugh.)  And he had a good time, which is all that matters anyway.

The pictures/videos aren't great, but at least we know we were there. (click for larger photo)

 

The eggs.

 

The crowd.

 

Dexter and Dad, waiting for the start.

 

Here's one!

 

It goes in the basket!

 

Dexter's haul.  The blue egg was empty, and the red/orange eggs had one rope bracelet each.

And a quick video of Dexter in action:

Fun Dexter Videos

Lots to write, but no time.  Meanwhile, here is Dexter being pretty darned cute:

Showing Tootsie how strong he is:


And showing off part of his (very exciting) new vocabulary!

Dexter's First ER Visit

Dexter made his first visit to the Emergency Room (or, as it was called at Children's Hospital in St. Louis, the Emergency Unit) today.  I am as surprised as anyone that it was not a result of blunt trauma, self-inflicted knife wound, fall from the roof, etc.  As it happened, Dexter was enjoying a leisurely breakfast of grapes and strawberries when I noticed his lips were turning kindof blue.  He was still pretty happy, though, so we let it go for a while.

I decided after breakfast that yes, his lips were definitely blue.  He shouldn't have been cold, walking around a 71 degree house in adorable fleece footie pajamas, but I figured we'd try a warm bath anyway.  In said warm bath, the blueness spread to his nose and cheeks and was also present on his hands and feet.

He also had some seriously explosive toddler diarrhea after breakfast.

Since the pediatrician has office hours on Saturday morning, we called anyway.  An hour later, they called back and said "even one episode of turning blue is serious. Go to the emergency room, and don't go locally. Either go to Children's or Cardinal Glennon."  Um, ok.

So Desmond got to spend an extra afternoon with Grandma and Granddad while we went to Children's with Dexter.  Since he wasn't really sick (thankfully - there was some sad stuff in that room, like teeny tiny ambu bag masks for infants), we were able to focus on how cute he looked in his little hospital gown.

See the biohazard trash can next to him?  Yeah. Perfect toddler-height toy.  Perhaps the only oversight in a room otherwise well-outfitted for kids.

They had a fun car toy thingie attached to the wall that kept him distracted for a little while, at least.

While we were waiting, Dr. Choudhury gave him his very first ever popsicle!  He did a great job with it and only  made a little mess.

The prevailing possibility for a while was cardiac issues, so Dexter got a chest x-ray.  He was very good about being still for it.

 

And, said x-ray looks good!  Look at his cute little teeth up there!

 

He also got an EKG.  We thought he stayed awfully still, playing with that little toy.  But apparently there was a LOT of movement on the (normal) EKG.

By the end of our visit, Dexter was wiped out.  He fell asleep on my shoulder for the last 30 minutes or so, and that was his nap for the day.  

Official diagnosis?  "Random fluke cyanosis."  Uh-huh.  I'd be more worried if he'd shown any other signs of illness during the whole thing, but he was laughing and playing just like normal the whole time.  Naturally, we failed to get a photo of Blue Dexter, but everyone seemed to believe us, at least.  And even if we'd had a photo, it's not like they would have been able to diagnose anything from it. 

In any case, here's hoping we don't have any more episodes of cyanosis, "random fluke" or otherwise.  Dexter did a pretty good job of staying pink for the rest of the weekend (except for a brief period during swimming lessons on Sunday, when I can guess he was a little bit cold), but we are keeping an eye on him.

Toddler Bed Update

Well, after Dexter climbed out of his bed on Monday night, we removed the side of Dexter's crib to make it an official "toddler bed."

Tuesday night was pretty good.  He laid down to go to sleep like normal, but it took some effort to get him to stay down.:

I sang him his ABCs and laid him down (as is our usual routine). Dexter tucked into his sleeping ball. I left the room and closed the door.

1-2 minutes elapse.

Dex: Opens door. Pokes head into hallway
Me: "It's sleep time." (puts him back in bed, closes door and leaves)
Dex: opens door. Pokes head into hallway.
Me: "It's sleep sleep time."
Dex: goes back into the bed.
Dex: gets up, closes door.  opens door. closes door. opens door. pokes head into hallway.
Me: "It's sleep time. Got to get back in your bed."
Dex: slams door.  stomps around room.  Opens door. Closes door. Opens door. Turns on the lamp. Turns off the lamp. On. Off. On. Off. Closes door. Reopens door. (repeat for maybe 3 or 4 minutes). walks into hallway.
Me: (failing in my attempt not to laugh) "Time for sleep."
Dex: Giggles and walks farther down the hallway.

Dennis intervenes.  Much of the above was repeated, except Dennis (sucker) offered to sit there until Dex fell asleep.  (I'm sure I would have similarly caved eventually. In any case, Dexter didn't take him up on his offer.)

It took maybe another 5 minutes of Dennis putting him back in the bed over and over again, but eventually he stayed.

And after that, he pretty much slept through the night!  He had one brief wake-up at 4:52, but he went back to sleep on his own.
====================
Wednesday night was awful. AWFUL.  Lots of drama putting him down, then he woke up at 1:11. I heard him cry, then I heard his door open.  I managed to intercept him in the kitchen.  I put him back in his bed.
He got up.
I put him back down and sat there with my head on his bed.  He tucked into his sleeping ball and started to go to sleep.  I told him good night and left and closed the door.

Whoah.  After that, he was REALLY upset.  Wouldn't lay back down for anything.  We went back and forth, snuggling, rocking, laying down, sitting next to the bed, you name it, until about 1:50, when Dennis took over and managed to get him to go to sleep after some rocking. (I tried that!)

Then, at 2:30, he was up again.  UP UP UP.  And not happy at all.  Wouldn't lie back down. Did consent to a diaper change. (That might have been during the first wake-up. I don't know.)  He asked for (and got) a banana and some milk.  Then we tried to go back to sleep. No way.

Thinking he might be scared (why? I don't know.) and hoping to just get some sleep that night, we offered to let him sleep in our bed.  He agreed but of course never even laid down once he got there.

Eventually, Dennis ended up going into his room with him at about 3:15.  I don't remember what happened (Dennis - can you fill in here?), but Dexter was PISSED at Dennis from about 3:30 to 4:00.  He finally fell asleep at about 4:30, and Dennis slept on the floor in his room. (Yes, we know that's wrong. But we're so freaking tired.)

And yes, Desmond stuck with his usual schedule during all of this, waking up every 2.5-3 hours to eat.
==============
We were pretty terrified of what Thursday night would bring.  But it was a lot like Tuesday night.  Dexter went straight to sleep with ZERO problems.  I think he was pretty tired.  He did wake up at about 11:20 and cried for several minutes, but he never left his room.

He woke up again at 2:30 but put himself back to sleep.

I heard a thud (I think) and 2 short cries at 4:00, but we didn't hear from him after that.

At least, we didn't hear from him until 6:30, when he woke up and came and opened our bedroom door and scared me half to death. I had heard him wake up, but I didn't hear him leave his room.

So, here's hoping for more nights like Tuesday and Thursday and no more nights like Wednesday.  He's spending Saturday night at Grandma's, which is great but also kindof bad timing since we're trying to establish this new routine.  Hopefully he doesn't climb out of the pack-and-play at Grandma's.

Dexter is 17 months old!

Signs: Not a whole lot of development in the signage department this month. Which isn't such a bad thing, because...

Words: Dexter is talking more!  Still not a lot of real words, but he is definitely getting chattier and is clearly trying to tell us stuff all the time.  I never thought I'd be so glad to hear my kid say "Shah-baaah!  Shah-baaah!"

Teeth: Still 12.  His molars are all broken through and progressing very nicely.  They make it very easy for him to chew his new favorite food (see below.)

Sleep: This has gotten extra interesting since the conversion to a toddler bed.  Mot of that drama is chronicled elsewhere in this space, so I'll spare you a recap here.  Let's just say that our current goal is pretty much just for everyone in the house to get as much sleep as possible.  I guess that was always our goal, but it was much easier to accomplish when we had a little baby jail to help us out.

Food: I think we can say that bananas have been demoted a bit in Dexter's food repertoire.  He still really really likes them, and I still buy a dozen at a time if I can get the appropriate variety of ripeness.  But now Dennis and I actually get to eat a banana ourselves on occasion.  And Dexter is just as likely to ask for grapes or milk as he is to ask for a banana. 

Really, though, his favorite thing to put in his mouth these days is crayons.  Yep. Crayons.  And most of the ones we have are "washable," which means they are at least a little bit spit-soluble, which means he gets a whole face/mouth full of color. Yes, we try to stop him.  Yes, we usually fail.  Yes, I'm about to give up, because the things are nontoxic anyway, and there's not a whole heck of a lot we seem to be able to do about it.

Things he knows:  I'm soon not going to be able to put anything in this section, because he is learning too much too fast!  He's now helping us dress/undress him. (Zips up his own jacket and everything, once we get it started.  He can take it off all by himself!)  He's more hit than miss on colors - won't say the word, of course, but if asked "which is green?" he will point to the correct one.  (Ditto for red and yellow and blue. Sometimes orange.)  We're working on "patty cake," too.  He doesn't quite get the clapping/high-five part yet, but he LOOOOVES to "roll it" and "pat it."  It's really quite adorable.

Games: Let's see. I don't think he will ever tire of playing chase. :)  He also still loves peek-a-boo. Now he will put his hands over his face (peeking out through his fingers, though he thinks we can't see his little eyeball) and then pull his hands away and squeal with delight. The last few nights, he's thought that going to bed was a fun game.  

Toys: For some reason, Dexter ALWAYS goes for these stacking blocks.  (Thanks Mary & Stephen!)  I mean, it's great, I'm glad he likes the stacking blocks more than some of the electronic toys - leaves more room for imagination and all that. It's a great toy. But it's also one of the messier ones.  He has two sets.  So digging out these two, usually nice and compactly stored toys, results in 15 boxes of various sizes being strung all over the living room. 

Books:  Dexter's favorite book lately has been Dizzy Dragon. It's a really cute book that Tootsie gave him. (I don't remember the occasion - probably just because she likes to spoil him.)  Each page has a different dragon with googly eyes and some other touchy-feely part (bumpy, scratchy, soft, etc.).  Of course, Dexter just flies through those pages, so we don't get to read the little rhyme about each dragon. (Fiery Frank loves sausages/Pan-fried, grilled, or roasted/Flame-grilled are his favorite/He likes them nicely toasted!)  We're lucky if we can get out "Pink Dragon!"  "Blue Dragon!"  "Green Dragon!" etc. before he jumps to the last page, where the KING dragon lives, and the book plays a little song.  He loves it.

Tantrums:  Yep. Tantrums.  We seem to be in full-on tantrum mode these days. Certainly not every day, but there's at least one meltdown most days, sometimes a major serious meltdown with lots of hysterics and drama.   Hey, it's tough to be 17 months old, right?  Dexter often knows what he wants but can't tell us (frustrating) or just can't have it (playing in raw ground beef is just not allowed).  So he flails around and screams.  There's not a whole lot we can do about it except try to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.  I hope and hope and hope that he'll get some actual words soon to at least eliminate part of these major fustrations.

Eyes:  Finally, it looks like Dexter's eyes are maybe losing a little bit of their blueness.  They're still quite gorgeous, in my humble opinion, and light, but starting to go a little more green/gray/hazel.  We're watching closely to see if it's really true.

Dexter's New Trick

Climbing out of his crib!

Last night at about 11:30, I sneaked into his room to put away two measley shirts.  Of course, I got busted. Totally busted.  So then he was upset. I snuggled him for a few minutes, then put him back in his crib and told him it was time to sleep.  He was still upset, but typically just cries for maybe a minute and then goes to sleep.

Not last night.

He cried a little longer than usual, but we were trying to get a lot done and were still giving him a chance to settle down.  Suddenly, the crying was a little less muffled.  Wha?? As I went to investigate, sure enough, here comes our Dexter down the hallway, still crying but obviously quite pleased with himself.

Not wanting him to do it again with less success, we brought him into our bed, where he tossed and turned for about an hour. Then I tried to put him back in his crib, and he climbed out again.  (I watched through a crack in the door. He's actually very skilled at it - brace yourself on the corner, right leg up and over, left leg up, lower yourself down.)

Then we resorted to sleeping on the guest bed (and he only fell off of it twice - 1:45 and 2:15am).  We managed to get some semblance of sleep from about 3:30 until 7, with me waking up every time Dexter moved (roughly every 10-15 minutes) to try to keep him from falling off of the bed again.

(Dennis's take this morning - "I didn't even realize you guys were gone until Desmond woke up at 3:30." How can he sleep through all of this?  I was surprised when he didn't come investigate the giant "THUD" sounds at 1:45 and 2:15. Guess I know why now.)

  So, here we are, just shy of 17 months, and Dexter is getting a big boy bed!  (OK, we're converting the crib to a toddler bed tonight.)  NO clue how we're going to keep him from just getting up and roaming the house all night long.  We may have to seriously consider new doorknobs with reverse locks to keep him in his room (and out of his bathroom and closet).  That'll also mean taking a lot of stuff out of his room and crazy childproofing.  

I'm tempted to just take everything out and pad the walls and floor. Because let's face it, that's what we really need.

So, our quest for more than 2 continuous hours of sleep continues!  Really curious to see what tonight holds.