Dexter's very first friend, it appears, is Jeremiah from day care. I hadn't realized what good friends they were until I was able to see them together at Jeremiah's birthday party last Saturday (June 27).
All of the books say that babies don't actually play together at this age (they just play near each other), but it sure seemed to us like Jeremiah and Dexter were really interacting and having a grand time. In fact, I haven't seen Dexter have this much fun for this long in quite a while.
We skipped a nap to go to the party. That, combined with the excitement and the heat, led Dexter to take a 2.5 hour nap when we got home, starting about 3 seconds after we walked in the door. Poor baby was wiped out!
So says a fellow patron dining at the local Houlihan's last night.
We have high hopes for a well-behaved toddler and preschooler and gradeschooler. But we also figure there's a good chance we may never hear that again, so we're recording it here.
Actually, we think he's had a good grasp on this for a couple of weeks. He has a cool train book where, if you push the face of the train hard enough, it whistles and says "all aboard!" and plays a little tune. He would try, but he wasn't strong enough to push it hard enough.
He IS, however, now strong enough to effectively push the button on his Fisher Price Link-a-Doos Musical Cow Teether. If you push the pink button, it plays a few bars of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm." Dexter can do it and now spends the majority of his diaper changes doing just that, over and over and over again. He is SO excited and proud of himself when he gets it to work.
He also knows how to push the button to close the garage door when we get home in the afternoons. He's not always strong enough to do that, but he always tries (and often succeeds). It's too neat to watch him get excited about it. And he LOVES to watch the garage door open and close.
It's pretty awesome to watch him learning so much and having so much fun this summer.
He's generally not been well since he started day care. Lots of congestion, coughs that would come and go. This week and last, he was just sleeping very poorly and not really his usual HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY self. Although he never did have fever, I decided it was time to at least check in with the pediatrician and make sure we were doing everything for him that made sense.
Sure enough, ear infections in both ears. (Apparently eye discharge is a big clue - that's a symptom that's really just popped up in the last couple of days.) The pediatrician said they're maybe a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1-10, so not too bad, and they haven't been infected for weeks and weeks or anything. We got some of the famous pink liquid antibiotic, one teaspoon of which Dexter will take twice/day for 10 days. His first dose went down tonight with no problems (thanks in part to Target's fine pharmacy, which added grape flavoring for no extra charge).
I guess we were lucky he made it this long in daycare (about 8 weeks) without any major illnesses. He's still pretty happy, and I am looking forward to having him back to 100% after his 10 days are up.
Dexter enjoyed wearing Tootsie's sunglasses so much, I decided he needed a pair of his own. (Really, it's also very sad to see him squinting into the sun. And it's never too early to start protecting those gorgeous blue eyes from sun damage.)
He even wore them for 2-3 whole minutes before he took them off!
Father's Day 2009 was a pretty good one. Dexter and I let Dad sleep in while we cooked him a tasty breakfast:
Said breakfast was served in bed, where he also got all of his Father's Day presents. He got a bacon press
and a shirt (in the cylindrical package)
and some framed photos for his desk at work:
As you can see, Dexter had a lot of fun helping him open the presents. He even gave up a brief chorus of "Dadadadadada," which was awesome. (He's made the D sound before, but "bababa" and "gagaga" are his favorites.)
After that, we actually let Dennis eat the breakfast we had prepared, and he was free of Dexter-related obligations for the rest of the day (but allowed to play/have fun as much as he wanted). Dennis opted to use most of the afternoon to cut the grass in the 106-degree heat index. (Dexter and I made him some Gatorade and brought it outside.)
Maybe not the world's most amazing Father's Day, but not too terrible, either. :)
Tootsie and Pop came for a whirlwind visit from June 9-15. We had so much fun!!
First, we just sortof did our normal playing around. Dexter showed them our new end table. Not coincidentally, it is one that Dexter can't pull over on himself. Nicely, though, it's also much more fashionable than the TV tables we were using as an end table.
Every day, Dexter and Pop walked the 100 yards (each way! Uphill! In the HEAT) to get the mail. Dexter enjoyed that a LOT.
In fact, Tootsie and Pop were happy to indulge Dexter's every desire to play outside and cruise along the bricks that line the front porch.
There was some indoor play, too. That was also very exciting.
One day, Tootsie let Dexter borrow her sunglasses. (Mom and Dad almost never do cool stuff like that.)
And we went to the playground at the park! We got on the swings, and then we climbed up one of the playground pieces. It was dirty (check out Dexter's filthy baby feet!), but Tootsie didn't care.
Tootsie also spoiled Dexter with a cool toy that caught his eye at Target.
Naturally, they came bearing gifts, including new clothes (like this fun surfing romper) and a lot of books. Dexter likes his romper WAY more than he is letting on. And it gave him plenty of freedom of movement when he and Dad were playing with the laser pointer.
Finally, we took advantage of Pop's visit to do Father's Day a little bit early. Dexter helped Pop open his presents (a framed photo of Dex and Pop and a pair of knockoff Crocs).
Indeed, a good time was had by all. We even caught a few prime moments on video.
On the very first night, Tootsie and Dexter played peek-a-boo:
And Tootsie got some kisses, too:
Dexter and Tootsie went outside at least once a day if it wasn't raining. Those of you who know Tootsie well will perhaps have an even better appreciation of what she's willing to do for this kid. (She was OUTSIDE. Almost EVERY DAY!)
And they danced! Dexter didn't quite get the hand-holding part, but that didn't stop him from enjoying himself:
And, of course, it's Dexter, so they had to learn to play rough:
Finally, Dexter got to taste a Violet candy. For those of you who aren't familiar with Violets, they are a very old-school candy that you can't really find anywhere anymore (except, strangely enough, World Market). Sane people with working taste buds think they taste like soap, but they are Tootsie's favorite candy. Apparently, she has found a kindred spirit in Dexter, who always always always scrunches his face at the first taste of anything new (or even stuff he's had before and liked):
Pop didn't make many of the videos, because he was busy for almost the entire trip working on house projects! Good thing he comes to visit, because he does a gorgeous job, and Dexter doesn't give Mom & Dad too many opportunities to work on the house these days.
Dexter's very first friend, it appears, is Jeremiah from day care. I hadn't realized what good friends they were until I was able to see them together at Jeremiah's birthday party last Saturday (June 27).
