“I’m not a pill…”
Posted on February 28th, 2010 by Ben
We just got back from a week-long family vacation to Disneyland. I’m not going to post about that here — I’ll leave that to Laura if she decides to post anything about it, along with the pictures that will soon be appearing in the gallery — but Thomas did something the other day that was simultaneously adorable and hilarious, and I can’t resist the urge to share with the 4 people who read our blog :)
Thomas has turned into quite the independent little guy. If there is something he can do himself, he almost always demands that you let him. I can rarely help him pull on his underwear, get his shirt over his head at bed time, or even push in the stool under the sink which he stands on to wash his hands (he thinks he can do it… but the board is not the right size and he inevitably pushes it in crooked, causing the board to bind in awkward ways that are painful to resolve).
Of course, there are times when he is totally the opposite, and he asks me to feed him his oatmeal rather than using his spoon himself. But that is tangential to the recent humor.
The same holds true for all things spoken. The boy has more nicknames than I can list, but refuses to accept one particular nickname. Here’s how the conversation usually goes.
Lisa: “You’re my cute little man!”
Thomas: “I not Little Man, I’m Buddy!” (Intensity grows with repetition.)
A little back story to what he said the other day. I promise to be brief. Thomas gets a fluoride vitamin each morning, and if he hasn’t been given it by the time Mommy takes her pills he starts asking for it. But Mommy takes pills, and he has a vitamin.
As we were packing everything up in Anaheim for the drive home, Thomas was being a bit of a pain. So, Lisa told him so.
Lisa: “Thomas, you are a pill.”
Thomas: “I not a pill, I’m a vitamin!”
Hospitals and haircuts
Posted on July 4th, 2009 by Ben
Happy 4th of July!
Today has been filled with excitement so far. We invited Richard and Sariah over for dinner last night. We had Hawaiian Haystacks — Laura makes a mean batch. Anyway, after dinner, we decided to watch some of the BBC Pride and Prejudice on Blu-ray (it looks and sounds SO much better than the DVD — maybe the most striking difference I have yet observed when comparing. However, Sleeping Beauty also looks much better…). We were watching the 3rd episode, and were about halfway in when Sariah said “I don’t know what that was, but I need to find a bathroom.” My first thought was “I wonder if her water just broke.”
Sure enough.
About 10 minutes later they were on their way to the hospital, the end result being the birth of Caleb Merrill Bateman this morning at 7:01. I’ll let them cover the rest of the details. While I’m not exactly sure I’d want my birthday to be the 4th of July, at least Caleb won’t have to worry about taking his birthday off of work when he’s older!
Being the 4th of July, we came up Laura’s parents’ house so we can go watch the fireworks at Sugarhouse Park tonight; apparently, this may be the last year they do the fireworks, so the end of a bi-annual tradition. Before coming up, I was talking with Thomas about haircuts, and he said he wanted “haircut today.” Of course, he didn’t really mean that — he passionately despises haircuts — but that didn’t stop me from giving him one. So, we plopped him down in his booster, strapped him in, and put him in front of Signing Time on the TV as a bit of a distraction. He fought and screamed until I started, but then he calmed down when I turned on the clippers. For about the first 60% of the haircut, he was fine. Then he started whining, moaning, squirming. Then he started vehemently struggling for freedom.
Remember the story of the first haircut? How we cut his ear? And remember how his ear got cut when we took him to Cookie Cutters too? Well, his ear got cut this time, too. Both of them, as usual.
I have a theory. Thomas is young, with very soft skin. So, there’s strike one. Also, when he screams and fights, his face gets bright red. Well, everyone’s does. So you combine the two things, and you have soft skin with a lot of extra blood in it = extra blood pressure = easier to cut, and when it does cut much easier to bleed. The cut on his right ear bled so badly that it was dripping onto his shoulder, legs, etc. I took him in to have a bath, and when he saw some blood drip onto his arms and leg he absolutely flipped out. Screams of pure terror! So, I washed him off, put him in the tub, and put in some bubbles so he wouldn’t see how the drips of blood kept discoloring the water. After a couple minutes of bath he calmed down, his ears stopped bleeding, and he is good as new. You can barely tell he was cut. As always, Thomas looks about a year older now that his hair has been cut.
So, there’s our day so far. Hopefully the rest of the day isn’t quite as exciting…
100% Boy
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 by Ben
Time to share another cute thing Thomas does. Why? Because he was doing it all day so it was a topic of conversation, and thus blog-worthy.
Thomas has taken to pointing out various bodily functions with great insistence. Specifically those related to the digestive system. Even more specifically those involving his bum. Or Abby’s bum. It doesn’t really matter whose bum, really. Whenever Thomas passes gas, he looks up, smiles, and says enthusiastically, “I toot!” (“Thomas toot!” is used interchangeably.) And he will continue to say it until you respond in acknowledgment. If Abby passes gas, he says “Abby toot!” And of course, if he is poopy or thinks Abby is poopy, he’ll say “Thomas (Abby) poopy!”
Funnily enough, he was saying “Abby poopy” this morning, and neither Laura nor I thought she was. Well, apparently Thomas’ nose is more sensitive than ours. I guess his plentiful toots haven’t permanently destroyed his ability to smell like it has mine!
“Daddy’s Here!”
Posted on June 27th, 2009 by Ben
Okay, I realize this is not about our accident (sorry Pat, Laura has already written it once so I keep waiting for her to at least put a draft up here for me to work on rather than reinventing the wheel). However, it is about something very cute. Okay, two very cute somethings. I couldn’t resist writing about them, because they both tickled me.
Thomas can’t wait for Daddy to come home from work. When I get home from work, he usually screams “Daddy!” excitedly, and often runs to give me a hug as well. It’s very cute. A few days ago, however, he did something even cuter. As soon as I opened the door when I got home from work, Thomas yelled “Daddy’s here!” Needless to say he got a giant smile in response and some enthusiastic hugs and kisses.
Today he did another cute thing. This is not uncommon for him — he is, after all, always adorable. One of the things I have done several times with Thomas in the past is put my fingers under his bedroom door in the morning when he is wanting out. I have done this frequently for about a year now, or close to it. I’ll put my fingers under the door, he grabs them and giggles, and I pull my fingers out. Then he pushes his little fingers under the door, I grab them, he giggles again and pulls them back. Repeat. This morning the routine proceeded as usual for the first round — I got his fingers, and he giggled and pulled them back in. But when I put mine under the door again, he didn’t grab them again. Instead, he yelled “Come in!” How could I resist?
Other examples of cute, short sentences he’ll use at will: “Come on!” (usually accompanied by grabbing a finger and pulling one towards whatever it is he wants — a treat, the door, etc.) and “Come back!” Aside for these, he has also recently (last month or so) picked up on possessives and plurals: “Two’vum!” (Two of them!), “Mommy’s shoes!”, “My blankets!”, “Abby’s blanket!”, “Daddy’s motorcycle!”
Now we just need to find a way to get him to stop saying “No!” so much…
Line up!
Posted on June 12th, 2009 by Ben
So, this is nothing new, but nothing has been posted in a long time and I am suddenly feeling guilty.
Once upon a day, Thomas and Daddy were playing on the floor. Now, you may be aware of the fact that Thomas absolutely loves toy cars. You may be further aware of the fact that he has about a million of them. But I could be wrong, it may be many more.
Now, on this fine day, Daddy decided to line up a few cars next to each other. The line so straight, the curves so non-existent. Yes, this was a fine line. The play session continued, and Daddy thought nothing more of the line he had made.
Until the next day.
You see, Thomas has a mind like a steel trap. There is an ancient Uzbekistanian saying, “El elephánte remembrár etérna,” which translates roughly into “An elephant never forgets” — if the Uzbekistanians had known Thomas, that saying may well be different. The next day, Thomas lined up his cars again. But he did not stop there; no, he lined up all of his toys, side by side, trying to set a record for the longest line created by a two-year-old. And it continues to this day.
I was reminded most poignantly of this last night, as I browed through our photo gallery and stumbled upon several prime examples of this most cute behavior of his. And so, dear reader, I present for your enjoyment a collection of Thomas Trails. As you view these, keep in mind that the initial example was months (6 or so) ago, and there was no repeat performance. Also notice his conscious use of space and direction — in each row, every vehicle is pointed in the same direction, and his food is likewise consistently arranged.
This is why one must always be careful what one says (or does) around their child.
Lots of New News
Posted on February 15th, 2009 by Laura
It’s been a while since I updated and quite a few things have happened. First off, we blessed Abigail on February 1st. It was a beautiful day, even though it had snowed the day before. We had a lot of cleaning to do to get ready for the family to come over after the blessing and so by Sunday, we were exhuasted. Abby looked gorgeous, though. She wore the dress that I was blessed in, which was so much fun! She didn’t cry at all during the blessing, thankfully, and the blessing was absolutely beautiful. Family came over afterward and we had some muffins and fruit and such. It got pretty crowded here for a while, but it was a lot of fun. Here’s a picture of Abby in her blessing dress, taken after the blessing.
So, that was a good day. Then, we all got sick. Thomas caught it first, then I did, then Ben, and last, Abby. It’s very sad to hear her little cough. She’s pretty miserable and I’m not doing much better. So, one day while I was resting, Thomas decided to get into our spices. He made quite the mess!
Just one more fun thing to add to my “to-do list” while I’m sick. Oh well, it’s rather funny now.
And one more thing. We got the blinds in our living room put up. It’s so much better now! See!
A few updates
Posted on January 27th, 2009 by Laura
We had a lovely incident yesterday. Thomas was watching Thomas and Friends and, of course, he was a little too close to the tv. We have a little table for Thomas that he loves to play with and it was also too close to the tv. He was climbing on the table and it slipped out from under him, causing him to hit his head against the edge of the entertainment center. It took over an hour and half to calm him down with multiple rides in the car. He was rather traumatized. Here’s a picture of the results. It looks a lot worse today because it’s all scabbed and such. It was pretty hard to look at it, though.
So, that’s a sad thing. Today a good thing happened. Ben installed some blinds in our kitchen! It looks so much better now. Here’s some pics.
Thomas’ Grapes
Posted on January 14th, 2009 by Laura
So, I went to my mom’s house on Monday for dinner. We had bbq chicken, corn, baked potatoes, yams, and grapes. It was a good dinner and Thomas ate quite a bit. He especially loved the grapes. He asked for more at one point and we gave him a bunch. Well, we got into a conversation and weren’t noticing what Thomas was doing. Then my sister, Lisa, looked over at Thomas and asked, “Thomas, what did you do?” He had bitten off half of all of the grapes and left the other half on the stem. It was so funny! Here was a stem full of half-eaten grapes! My mom took a picture.
It’s hard to tell, but the bottom grapes are indeed bitten in half, too.
Hairbrained
Posted on January 3rd, 2009 by Ben
Yes, I know it is harebrained, but that simply isn’t applicable in this instance. And what kind of English major would I be if I couldn’t create and pass off my own words? Honestly.
One of my cousin’s blog posts reminded me of cutting Thomas’ hair, and while leaving a comment on her blog, it turned out to be a little bit long so I decided to turn it into a full-fledged blog post of its own. Thomas doesn’t mind the clippers when Daddy is getting a hair cut, he’ll just run around yelling ‘hair!’ But once it is his turn, he gets violent!
So, a few weeks ago we gave Thomas a haircut (he hadn’t had one in about 5 or 6 months, so it was definitely time), right after Laura finished giving me one (thinking that since I just had it done, he would be okay with it… pipe dream, I know). The entire time, he screamed at the top of his lungs, thrashing, squirming, and I had to hold him like a vice. I’d hold one arm around his body to keep his arms from entering single combat with the clippers (or Mommy), and the other I would wrap around his forehead to hold it in place. Traumatic for the little guy? Quite possibly.
Then a few hours later, after he was bathed and cleaned up all nice, we noticed a red mark under his now-short hair, some red on his shoulder, and he had a red mark on his forehead. Then I noticed the red on his arm was shaped strangely like my fingers. I told you he thrashed! He’s not exactly a weak kid. Traumatic for Mommy? Absolutely.
Laura is determined that next time Thomas needs a haircut, we are taking him somewhere and getting someone else to do it. And hopefully he’ll be a better boy, and we can see what they do that we didn’t (if he IS a better boy) so we can repeat the performance.
Oh, and we also managed to nick his ear and neck a bit, so he was bleeding as we finished up the haircut. But both of those were done bleeding (and didn’t scab) by the time he got out of the bath tub, so you couldn’t tell anything had happened (aside from his pockmarked appearance).
Upon seeing the fruits of our labor, Laura lamented “if anyone saw Thomas now, they’d think we beat him.” On the up side, he looks fabulous with his hair cut, just like a junior adult.
Thomas Got Stitches Today…
Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by Laura
I was watching TPiR and forgot that I had to keep Thomas out of the kitchen. Our trash can is just sitting under the counter where he can get to it any time. Well, the trash was pretty full and there were things in it I definitely didn’t want him to get to. Well, he got to one of the things I didn’t want him to get: a refried beans can lid. As I was sitting there watching, I hear a cry. I pause the show and go in to see him sitting by the trash can.
I say, “Oh, did you cut yourself?” all nice and calmly. Then I realized he really did cut himself…pretty badly. I grabbed him and instantly put a paper towel on it to try to stop the bleeding. Well, that didn’t work, he just thrashed around and pulled the paper towel off, which made it bleed again. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Ben. He called our doctor who said to bring him in right away. So, I got him in pjs that were easy to get on and off and changed my clothes. I put a piece of gauze around his hand, but he started thrashing again. So, I wrapped it up as well as I could and put him in the car. Ben met us at the doctor’s which was probably a good thing. He needed to get stitches in his tiny finger (the pointer finger on his left hand). I was already in tears, so Ben stayed with him while the procedure was done.
The worst thing was, I could still hear him crying out in the lobby. So, there’s my story. It’s pretty traumatic. I’m still shaking a little bit. I’ll take a picture of his little hand all bandaged up to post when he wakes up. It’s pretty sad, but I think it needs to be documented.
