Circling the Bed

Every afternoon and evening, when it’s time for Troy to go to sleep, we go through the same routine. He spins around in circles, flops from his back to his stomach, and makes his way to every part of the bed. We stack pillows up around the bed to keep him from falling off, and he has to try every one of them. Head on the pillow. Head and body on the pillow. Head, body, and feet on the pillow. On top of the pillow. Under the pillow. Alongside the pillow. Holding the pillow. Feet on the pillow. Stroking the fabric of the pillow. 

All of this to find the exact right spot and the exact right combination to finally get comfortable and fall asleep. The whole affair usually takes about 30 minutes before he settles down. It reminds me of when a dog will circle and fluff his blanket or pillow to get it just right before laying down and going to sleep.  Maybe Troy is part dog after all!

Wetting the Bed

After Troy's bath in the evening, we will lay him out on our bed, so my wife can put lotion on his skin. She will usually leave him lying on his bath towel stark naked while she does this. Tonight, Troy decided that he still had energy left to expel; so he immediately rolled over, stood up, and walked across the bed out of her reach. While my wife was launching herself across the bed to get him, Troy stood on the other side of the bed peeing on her pillow. My wife was screaming, "You better not be peeing on my pillow! Oh my god, he's peeing on my pillow!"

I was cleaning up the bath mess in the bathroom, so I came in just in time to see my son with his back to me, peeing on the pillow while my wife lay prostrate across the bed frantically trying to grab his naked bottom. Despite the "seriousness" of the situation (my wife made me put that in there), I couldn't help but laugh. I calmly walked around the bed, grabbed my son, handed him to my now-angry wife, and proceeded to strip the sheets, comforter, pillow case, and pillow off the bed and head to the laundry room. Apparently, he still needs to work on his control, but it definitely gives new meaning to "wetting the bed."

Strolling

Troy has grown to love our daily walks together as much as I do. At least a half dozen times a day, he’ll go to where I keep the stroller, stand next to it, and start gesticulating to get my attention. He loves to stroll and watch life roll by. It’s fun to see his eyes wide open taking it all in. He’s so curious about the world...so much stimulation, so much to see. But by far, his favorite thing to see are the dogs. He will bounce in the stroller and point, saying, “ooh, ooh!” excitedly every time he sees someone walking a dog. And I have to acknowledge that I too see the dog before he'll stop.

And lately, he’ll turn back every so often to see if I’m still there. When he sees me through the mesh opening of his top, he’ll reach up his little hand. I’ll reach down and put my hand on the other side of the mesh, and he’ll grab my fingers and hold on. Down the sidewalk we'll go, rolling along, holding hands and just enjoying the fresh air and the warmth of the sun.

Often I'll talk to him as we go; explaining what he's seeing, how things work, or random and fun facts about the world. But sometimes, we just roll in silence, enjoying the company. If the silence stretches for too long, Troy will say, "dada?" without looking back. And I'll reply, "Yes, baby?" And then we're good again.

Sprinklers

Today, the weather was beautiful outside, sunny with a nice breeze to make the 80-something degrees feel cooler. So, my wife and I decided to take Troy outside for lunch on the back patio. He seemed to enjoy it as much as we did, needing no distraction while he happily requested food from both our plates. I guess the world and life outside the house is enough distraction.

When we finished eating, I decided for no reason at all to rake the dead thatch out of the grass, so it was a little softer for us to walk around. After I finished, I turned the sprinklers on to pack the dirt down and settle the dust, and that’s when the real fun began. Troy immediately ran over to explore this new wondrous thing. He generally loves the water, but he’s never seen it shot out of a little black tube twenty feet across the yard...and more importantly been able to reach out and feel it. He would sneak up behind the sprinkler; squat down and put his hand into the water, directing the spray in all different directions; and then run away laughing when it started “chasing” him. By the time the sprinklers finally shut off, the front of his onesie was completely soaked through, but he didn’t seem to care at all. All he wanted was for those mysterious black tubes to pop back out of the grass and spray him again!

Ol' McDonald Had a Farm...

As a break from the normal, my wife suggested that we take Troy out to our friend's farm today.  The last couple of times we've taken him out there, he's thoroughly enjoyed seeing the ducks that hang out on their pond.  He'll point at them and go "ooh, ooh!" excitedly.  They humor him as long as he keeps his distance, but of course, he's too excited to do that and will awkwardly stomp his way over to them.  They waddle a few steps away, always keeping about ten feet away from him.  But Troy will continue to give chase until they flap onto the pond...which he happily tries to chase them into, until we grab him and hold him back.

We also took him up to the hen house to see the chickens.  They still wouldn't let him touch them, but they didn't require quite as much distance between them, so Troy got a more up-close view of them.  He happily chased them around the yard, saying "Hi" to every chicken.  They in turn clucked back at him.  If he found a chicken that had dared to stop moving and peck at the food on the ground, then Troy would attempt to sneak up on it and hug it.  But those chickens are wily, and he never really got close.  Besides, Troy's idea of "sneaking" isn't exactly ninja stealth yet.  He sounds like a herd of stampeding cows.

Speaking of cows, we also saw their one, solitary cow.  Who stood off in the field, completely disinterested in this awkward miniature human.  Troy also got to pet a baby chick, which he managed to snatch out of the bucket it was standing in with lightning speed.  Luckily, he didn't do it any harm.  And he got to feed their three donkeys animal crackers.  I did not know that donkeys enjoyed animal crackers so much.  SIDE NOTE:  Is is cannibalism if the donkey eats a cracker shaped like an animal, even if it's not technically made of an animal?  Probably not, but it still seemed wrong somehow.

All in all, Troy had a wonderful time on the farm.  So much so, that he didn't want to leave.  We had to practically force him back into the car.  The ordeal must have taken a lot out of him, though, because he only made it a mile down the road before he was sound asleep in his car seat.

Coronavirus: Decompress

Today, I had to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do as a manager.  I had to tell nine people on my team that we'd be furloughing them.  The thought of telling someone that they will be placed on leave without pay is hard enough, but to have to do it "face to face" over a video conference made it unbearable.  So, for four and a half hours, I had meeting after meeting to tell them the bad news. 

The process and the emotional response was exhausting.  I tried to take a few minutes between each one to run downstairs and hug my son.  I needed a reminder of how blessed we are, how much good is still in the world, and why I do all of this.  Seeing his innocent (or not so innocent) smile, and knowing that he has no idea of what I had to go through, helped to ground me.  He didn't judge me or think I was a bad man.  He didn't dread my face or what I had to say next.  He just loved me, and that's what I needed.

I know we all get through this, and hopefully it won't last for long.  But if I didn't have those two little arms to wrap around my neck, I don't know how I would have even made it through the first day.  Lord, be with all of those affected by this terrible thing plaguing our lives.  Provide for them, somehow, because many have little arms of their own to support.

Baby Squat

I guess the next physical development milestone after walking is standing up without assistance, which Troy is now doing. He goes from all fours to a crouched squat and from there all the way up. I take for granted the balance involved in such a seemingly simple action, but it took him a while to make the minor adjustments necessary to do all of this without falling over. He also easily squats down to grab things off the floor and stands back up again, whereas he used to have to fall down to get something. It’s amazing to see his physical development progress and for him to get more confidence.

Folding Laundry & Coat Hangers

One of my favorite times with Troy is when I go into the guest room to fold laundry, and he’ll follow me in there to play and keep me company. I think he enjoys being around me, and I enjoy having him there as well, so it’s a win-win for both of us. I’ll be slogging through the massive mound of clean clothing that has piled up on the guest bed, since we have no other dedicated place to store it all during processing. And he’ll come in to the room, walk over to the closet door, look up at me, and say, “dada?” Which is code for, “Please open the door, dad.” I will of course comply, and he’ll promptly head inside to explore.

I’ll go back to folding, and after a minute, I’ll hear a sweet voice say from the closet, “dada?” I’ll reply, “Yes, baby?” turning to see what he needs. And I’ll inevitably find him standing and pointing at the coat hangers high above high head. He’ll repeat himself, “dada?” Which is code for, “Please get me that coat hanger, dad.” I will of course comply, and he’ll tell me, “thank ooo.” I’ll once again go back to folding clothes. After a minute, I’ll hear, “dada?” “Yes, baby?” “Dada?” (Pointing at another coat hanger.) And down it comes. “Thank ooo.”

This process repeats itself until all the coat hangers have been brought down to his level and placed into his hands for inspection. Once he’s satisfied, he’ll plop down in the closet and start waving the coat hangers around, hooking them on each other and anything else he can reach, slapping them against the wall, and generally enjoying this strange new wonderful thing.

He’ll entertain himself like that until I’m just about done folding the clothes. And then once again I hear, “dada?” “Yes, baby?” And he’ll hand me one of the coat hangers. I’ll hang it back up in the closet, and he’ll bend down and hand me another. One by one until they’re all back up on the rod. Then, he’ll inspect my work and satisfied that I have performed my duties of servitude in an acceptable manner, he’ll say, “Thank ooo” once again and leave the room.

On the rare occasion when I might lock him in there with me to give my wife a break, he’ll start scrutinizing my folding job instead. He’ll reach his little hand up over the side of the bed, feeling for anything in his reach, and pull it down. Usually this is only his socks, having learned from my mistakes of leaving other things too close to the edge after having to refold all of his onesies again on a previous weekend. Content that I’m not as useless and stupid as I must apparently look, he’ll hand me back the sock balls to put back on the bed. That is usually the extent of his attention span, and it is at this point that I must either drop everything and play with him, or open the door and let him free to rage chaos and havoc on the rest of the household.

Watering Can

Troy has become obsessed with grabbing the little red plastic watering can that my wife uses to water the plants and carrying it around the house. He doesn’t grab it by the handle, but prefers to wrap his little hand around the spout instead. It always makes me think that he’s wielding a club or hammer. He usually doesn’t do anything with it. He just goes about his exploration, carrying the can with him. At some point, he either needs two hands for something or gets tired of the can, and he’ll drop it with a loud and dramatic clatter somewhere in the house. We always have to try to track it down whenever we need to water the plants again.

Coronavirus: Love in a Pandemic

As I stand here in line at Target, waiting to be let in so I can rush to the disinfecting wipes to get the last canister, I can’t help but think about how this has become a weekly occurrence for me. And I can’t help but wonder if this might become life from here on out. What if this virus never goes away, or if it’s replaced by something else? What if we live our lives in quarantine, avoiding other people and standing in line for groceries? All along, we have all been approaching this as a way to survive until this is over, but what if it’s never over? And if we knew that, how might we approach this life differently to find a way to thrive instead of survive?

The other thought on my mind is what if this is the only world my young son will ever know? What if he grows up thinking this is normal? What if we forget that life used to be different? What if we forget what it’s like to interact with other humans? How will the world adapt and change? How will my son date or find a wife? Will they talk through video? Or will thy throw caution to the wind and meet in person (with masks and latex gloves of course)? I hope this won’t last forever. I hope he gets to travel and see the world. I hope he gets to meet lots of interesting people. I hope he gets to date and fall in love. I hope he gets to live. But what if...

Tag! You're It!

Now that Troy is walking, I have been pushing the boundaries of what he can do on his feet. So lately, if he’s sitting in the office with my wife, then I’ll run in there, stop just long enough to get his attention, and then take off running across the house at top speed. It’s only a matter of seconds before he’s on his feet and giving chase; maybe not as fast and definitely more wobbly, but in pursuit nonetheless! If I stop and head back toward him; then he’ll let out a squeal, awkwardly turn around, and start waddling in the opposite direction as fast as he can. Apparently, the office is home base, because if he can outrun me into there, then he thinks he’s safe.

Back and forth we’ll go with the hopes that eventually I’ll wear him out. Although, usually I’m the one that waves the white flag of surrender first. But to be fair, I’m going much faster and harder, and I travel much more distance during the game as well.

Head Case

I don’t know what was going on with Troy today, but he had a series of mishaps and all of them involved his head. He hit his head on the edge of my wife’s desk. Then, he came into the bathroom and pulled a candle off the window sill and onto his head. And finally, while I was sitting with him on the couch, he tried to pull the TV controller out of my hand, and he tugged so hard that when I released it, it smacked him in the head. And all of them hit him in the exact same place, so his head is bruised and red and swollen. I’m afraid he’s going to be concussed or something. I’m also afraid that he’s going to take after me. I had many head injuries in my lifetime, and I don’t want that for him. So sending up daily prayers for God to protect Troy not only from the world, but from himself too!

Electro-Shock Therapy

Troy’s latest game is to stick his finger in my belly button. One night after his bath, I didn’t put my shirt back on right away. So while my wife was putting lotion on him, he reached over and stuck his little finger right in my belly button. In order to make him laugh, I pretended that he gave me an electrical shock. Masochist child that he is, he proceeded to stick his finger in my belly button over and over again to shock me over and over again!

Now that he knows I have a belly button, he isn’t just satisfied to shock me when my shirt is off. He will actually pull the edge of my shirt up, find my belly button hiding under there, and then proceed to stick his finger in it. Thinking to throw him off, I have also pretended that my belly button is a power button and by pressing it, he’s actually turning me off. Unfortunately, this also made him giggle. So the moment I “came back online,” he pressed the button again to shut me off!

Quirky Genius

Lately, Troy has been turning his books upside down, which at first puzzled me. But then I got to thinking that he might be attempting to see the world from a different perspective. He will look at each picture intently for several minutes before turning the page. It’s fascinating, like watching someone experiencing a piece of art for the first time, and seeing how it affects them. He could be quirky, but he could also be very deep and emotional.

Coronavirus: Healthier Pandemic

As we prepared to take the baby for a walk today, and my wife was overly concerned about bundling him up so he didn’t get cold, I realized that the baby hasn’t been sick in a month. In fact, he’s experiencing his first run of no viral infection since he started daycare last May. It’s interesting to me that the baby is healthier during a viral pandemic than he was when nothing was going on! I guess that's the power of other baby germs.

Video Game Interruption

There is one thing I realized today that I had all but forgotten. It is impossible to play a video game with a baby around. For some reason, I had a deep yearning to play my football game, so I got up early and turned it on. I was surprised to see that I haven’t played in over a year. Then, my son woke up, and I suddenly realized why that is. It’s impossible to focus on a video game when this little human is vying for...no demanding...your attention. He doesn’t want to play with you, because he has the attention span of a fruitful. And if it’s not something that he’s interested in, the he’ll make sure it’s. It something that you get to do either. He started out wanting to push the buttons on the controller. Then, he wanted to be let down so he could walk around the room and throw all of my stuff on the floor. Then, he threw a temper tantrum because I wasn’t paying attention to him. So after a whopping 5 min in the game, I switched it off, probably for another year!

Bow to the Cow

One of Troy’s favorite books is The Barnyard Dance by Susan Boynton. I don’t know if it’s the story as much as how animated my wife gets when she reads it to him. She stomps, and twirls, and prances...all with the animals in the story. And Troy is enraptured.

There’s one part that says, “Bow to the horse, bow to the cow.” Apparently, this is the part that has stood out the most to him; because he’ll grab the book, hand it to my wife, and say “booooowwwww.” He even inclines his head when he says it, just like he’s seen my wife do a hundred times. It’s completely adorable.

Little Gardener

My wife decided to take Troy out in the back yard today and plant some flowers.  She wanted to give him something to do and something to look forward to.  She gave him a little plastic stick, and he was content to dig it around in the dirt, just like mommy was doing.  She let him grab the new soil out of the bag and put it into the pots...or at least near the pots.  She showed him how to plant the seeds and cover them up...to which he promptly tried to dig them back up again.  And she showed him how to water them in...of course, he loved sticking his hand in front of the spray and getting water everywhere.

By the end, Troy was covered in dirt, wet from head to foot, reddish from the sun, and happy from his first gardening experience.  He was the perfect little helper.  And now they have to be patient and wait for God to make the flowers grow.

Troy on the Cob

One of Troy's favorite (and mine if I'm being honest) games is for me to tickle his sides and stomach. He'll lay on his stomach, and I'll "bite" his sides with my lips and poke him with my nose. Eventually, he'll turn over on his back, and I'll go for his stomach too. He's actually started to anticipate this and put his hands over his stomach to dissuade my attack. But there are many exposed ticklish places that I can go for instead, and as soon as he moves his hands to protect those, I go for the tummy!

If he tries to get away from me, then the real fun begins. I'll chase him down, pick him up, and proceed to nip at his sides and stomach as he twists and rolls in my arms. I tell him that I'm going to eat him like corn on the cob. He always seems to laugh at this.

Tandem Barrel-Rolling

In the afternoons, after my work is finally done, and I can walk away from the computer and solely focus on my son; I will chase Troy around the upstairs as he tries to walk or crawl away from me. When I catch him, I'll tackle him to the floor and roll around with him, while he laughs and squeals with glee. Then, I'll let him go, and he'll immediately take off again, while I give pursuit. Over and over again, we'll do this in the vain hopes that he'll eventually exhaust himself. But normally, it's the other way around.

The last few days; however, he'll take a few steps and then lay down on the floor like he's too tired to go on. So, I'll lay down next to him and then barrel-roll away from him. After a few turns, I'll barrel-roll back to him. When I start coming towards him, he tries to barrel-roll away from me. I say "tries," because he doesn't really go anywhere. He just sticks his legs up in the air and rolls from his back to his side and then back again. But he thinks he's doing the same thing as me, and he's happy about it.

Today, I tried something different. I rolled over to him, grabbed him in my arms, and I started barrel-rolling with him, using my arms and legs to make sure that I didn't put any weight on him when we went over. Round and round we went, back and forth across the floor. Both of us were sweating and laughing. If I stopped, then he'd crawl up onto my chest, wrap his little arms around my neck, and start tugging and bouncing on me to do it again. I'm glad he enjoyed it as much as I did.

Terataki

The last couple of nights, Troy has come alive after his dinner. He acts like he had a syringe of pure sugar injected into his veins. Normally, we snuggle up with him on the couch under a blanket while he nods off to sleep. But lately, the moment we get into this position, he squirms and twists, stands, and then takes off throwing himself into the pile of pillows on the couch next to us. He will then make his way all the way around our L-shaped couch until he gets in front of the switches for the fan and den lights. Then, he literally climbs up the back of the couch, wedging his feet in between the cushions. Once he gets high enough to reach the switches, he starts flipping them on and off. 

Then after a few minutes of doing this, he slides down and starts running up and down the couch again, throwing the pillows off on the floor as he goes. He stops briefly to lick the back of the couch (not sure what this is about), or to sit with a gleeful smile on this face, or to toss himself down and hang his head off the side of the couch. And then almost instantly, he's back up and running again. I say running, but it’s more like a manic out-of-control crazy fest that lasts for at least half an hour.

I’m not sure where he gets the energy, because like an hour before this he’ll be half-asleep on the floor, rubbing his eyes. And then just like that, the little monster comes out! He’s exhausting to watch.

Lov-el-eee

I was changing Troy’s diaper this morning, and when I got done, I pulled some pants out of the drawer and handed them to him. I said, “Here, hang on to these while I get you some socks.” He promptly threw them on the floor, looked at them, looked at me, and said, “Uh oh!”

I picked them up, asking why he threw them on the floor. To which he replied, “Eh.” Which I interpreted to mean, “Because I wanted to, and I don’t care if you approve or not.” Not liking his sarcastic attitude, I threw them back on top of him and said, “Well, now you have dirty pants on top of you. What do you think of that?!” To which he calmly replied, “Lov-el-eee.”

I’m not sure where he learned that word, or when our son became so proper and British, but there it was. My wife started cracking up laughing from her repose on the bed, so I know I didn’t imagine it. And it was perfect timing for the moment and question I asked him too, cheeky little bugger.

Sensory Board: Update

I look back at the post I put out in October of last year and think how naive and funny I was to think that I was close to finishing the board back then.  At that time, I had just completed the painting, which I assumed was the hardest part.  Boy was I wrong!  What followed was like a typical construction project for me with things not going as simply as they were in my head, many more trips to the hardware store for missing parts, and lots of redesign to make things actually work.  Not to mention having little to no time to actually work on it.

So, here we are six months later, and I can finally say that it's done.  I have the sensory board constructed and ready for use (although truth be told, Troy has been playing with it for months in its partially-done state).  The last two parts were putting feet on it, so it would actually stand up on its own and getting the alphabet blocks constructed and put on the board.  These two probably took as long as everything else to complete, although there was long delays between design and actual construction.

I had completely overlooked the feet when I originally had designed this.  I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me at the time, but it didn't become apparent until I tried to stand it up for the first time.  I also didn't take into account how difficult it would be to design feet for a heavy, free-standing, three-foot tall piece of plywood with hardware hanging on it.  In the end, I went with 8-inch, metal, reinforced shelf supports on both the front and back.  Slightly bigger ones, like 12-inch, might have been better, but these work with only a minor wobble to the board when Troy pulls on it.

As for the alphabet blocks, I originally had intended to paint them to look like a child's building blocks, which I asked my mother-in-law to do when she came to visit.  However, she wasn't satisfied with merely painting, so she suggested burning the letter into the blocks instead, which is what we did.  I had her put both the English and Greek alphabets on the blocks with both capital and lowercase letters, so Troy can learn both languages.  The hardest part, though, was figuring out a way to display them so that they moved when he spun them, without touching the board or each other.  This was definitely the most time-consuming design on the entire board.  It seems like an easy solve, and yet...and yet...it wasn't!  I eventually ended up with L-brackets and long bolts, and I drilled holes into all the blocks (not as easy as it sounds without a drill press).

All that to say that the board is finally together, and it turned out much better (definitely different) than originally imagined.  It's definitely unique, not just the configuration and inclusion of objects, but the paint job as well.  And Troy seems to enjoy playing with it (and the other kids enjoyed it at his birthday party), so that's all the success I need.

Mysterious, Unexpected Blessings

Two large boxes of diapers mysteriously showed up on our doorstep today.  My wife swears that she didn't order them, so we're not sure where they came from.  What's even more perplexing is that they had a gift note inside, addressed to my wife, telling her to enjoy her gift...but no signature, so we could properly thank whoever sent them.  As we struggled through a list of possible "suspects," nobody seemed to stand out.  My boss knew the correct size, because he had bought us diapers a couple of weeks ago, but why would he address it to my wife?  And I'm not even sure that he knows my wife's name anyway.  We had mentioned to other people that we'd been struggling to find diapers, but nobody else knew the correct size.  And on top of that, whoever sent them still had an old address for us, because they got the zip code wrong.

In the end, no one person had all of the information to be able to achieve this, which was driving my wife insane.  I finally told her that it doesn't matter who sent them.  We're going to take them as a blessing and a gift, and we're going to be grateful for them and praise God for this unexpected, albeit mysterious, windfall.  The stress of diapers is now off our shoulders.

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body more then clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?  And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?  And why are you worried about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?  You of little faith!  Do not worry then, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear for clothing?"  Matthew 6:25-31

Subdued

Today, I was supposed to be watching Troy and giving my wife a break to actually get some work done. I confess that I have not been pulling my weight lately, as unexpected and useless meetings have forced me to spend more time at my desk than I would like. I seem to be more “connected” since I have been quarantined at home than I was when I was in the office. I don’t get it, we have less to do, but I’m more busy than before!

Troy was in a strange, lethargic mood today. He didn’t really want to run around and be active. He just wanted to be held and sit in my lap. If I tried to put him down to play, then he’d immediately seek out my wife to get her to hold him instead. So, I eventually took him upstairs so he’d leave her alone.

I put him in his nursery, so I could spend a few minutes shutting down work for the day and be completely focused on him. After 20 seconds, he crawled out and sat in his tunnel, the opening next to the door to my office so he could still watch me. This was odd because he normally will stand at the baby gate in the door and talk to me to get my attention. But today, he just sat there, quiet and subdued.

As I closed things down, I realized that I hadn’t heard him move or make a sound in the last few minutes. I looked back at his tunnel, but he was no longer there. So, I quietly peered around the door into his nursery, and I found him passed out on the floor...the potato king at his side. I guess he was really tired; it wasn’t just a mood after all.