Kurt is eighteen months old!

According to Dr. Mehler, he is 24 pounds, 32.25 inches tall and has a head circumference of 48 cm. Height and head circumference are right about 50th percentile but he is a skinny babe according to the charts. This is not surprising, considering you have to do a little dance and promise him a pony to get him to eat anything.

Your Kurt Questions Answered!

1. Is he talking?

No! Well, all the time, just not in discernible English. However, if you ask him, "Kurt, what does a cow say?" he will answer, without hesitation, "Baa!" (His answer to the question "What does a sheep say?" is to look at you quizzically.) He also says "yeah," sometimes in context, even. And he still says "ma" for "Gimme my sippy cup!"

2. How's the mobility thing coming along?

He's running, climbing, flinging himself down slides and stomping his feet like a little flamenco dancer on a regular basis now.

3. What does he eat?

If you distract him from the fact that it's mealtime by singing, dancing or giving him toys, he will eat oatmeal, pancakes, tortillas, cereal bars, grapes, dry cereal, yogurt, bananas, french fries and ice cream. To a lesser extent he will eat chicken nuggets and hot dogs. He loves whole apples to gnaw on. He hates cheese in all forms. He seems to have texture issues. For instance, it's not that hard to get him to eat pureed vegetables, blueberries or pasta, but he will not swallow them in their solid forms.

Also, the bottle has long been gone, but we have just started trying in earnest to get him to use a spoon. (Trust me, he was not ready before.) You can give him a spoon with food on it and he will take it and put it in his mouth, but he doesn't want to give the spoon back. You must have a second spoon with food on it, which you then hand him, before he will relinquish the first spoon. That's where we are. If you just give him a bowl of food with a spoon, he will fling the bowl joyously off the table.

3. How's he sleeping?

Not bad! The sleep training never really stuck and he hated his crib. Now he has a toddler bed pushed up next to our bed in which he spends a decent amount of time for both naps and stretches of the night, an arrangement much like his co-sleeper days. The idea is that in the future we will put his toddler bed into his own room, but I don't think any of us is emotionally ready for that. At bedtime he requires books and rocking, but the process is generally less than than fifteen minutes.

4. What else does he do?

He slides up next to Phoebe and lays his head on her when she's napping on the couch. He's coming out of his peekaboo phase, but he loves to flirt with just about anybody. He thinks everything is funny and laughs constantly. He still loves wheels and all wheel-related objects. He desperately wants to swim. Not only does he splash mercilessly in the pool, but in the bathtub he lays down face first and blows bubbles into the water. In fact, he no has no apparent fear of water, a scary but promising attribute. He loooves his pacifier, and is not even close to giving it up. He does not give kisses, but is definitely affectionate. He lives to go outside.

And he's such a boy, but he loves to play talk on the phone. Any phone. Puts it to his ear and just babbles away. I hope he keeps it up, and remembers to call his mother.

The Little Migration Of 2009

We're moving! Yes, of course, you may be thinking to yourself, you're moving to Canada. And indeed we are, but not until December. However, we've been living in student housing for seven years, and what with Jeff not being a student anymore, we've had to seek temporary shelter until The Great Migration of 2009 happens. In the meantime, we have The Little Migration of 2009. We're moving to a small apartment, not unlike the one we have now, about a mile off campus.

The good things about this new apartment include: a lovely swimming pool, a dishwasher, a babbling brook and covered parking.

And the best part is ....unlike our current apartment complex, the new complex allows cats! So, you know, we can finally get some!

Ahem.

Bad things about the new apartment, besides the fact that in the free market an apartment the size we've been renting on campus is about twice as expensive off campus, is that, instead of doorknobs, the new apartment has handles. Kurt, who is rather doorknob challenged at this point, has no problem opening a door with handles. In fact, when we made a trip to the new place this afternoon and were idly standing in the living room, he opened the front door right up and waltzed out like it's something he does everyday.

Sigh. Oh, but the dishwasher!

And, just because it's been a while, a nursing job related anecdote...

Being promoted in nursing, while generally good, means less time actually taking care of patients. I spend a lot more time doing paperwork and going to meetings than I did when I started. But the other night I worked the floor, and I had a good old fashioned group of detoxing alcoholics and ninety year olds wandering down the hall looking for juice.

One of my ninety year olds, let's call him "Henry," had heart failure, but his doctor thought he might be dehydrated, and ordered Henry to have some intravenous fluids. The IV fluids ran in for few hours before I noticed he was having trouble breathing and his lungs sounded wet. Alas, little Henry's heart just couldn't handle any extra fluid. So, after talking to the doctor, I turned off the fluids and gave Henry a shot of furosemide, a drug that makes you pee out all your extra fluid. I left a couple of urinals next to his bed.

By morning, Henry had peed maybe half a liter into his urinals, a goodly but not impressive amount, but his lungs and breathing sounded a ton better. I reported off to the day shift and got ready to go home. As I was leaving I noticed a nurse coming out of Henry's room with a weird look on her face. I asked her if anything was wrong.

She said he had asked her for a drink of water. She went to pour him some out of his bedside pitcher and realized it was full to the brim with piss.

Good times.

Live From Mohonk

We are having a most excellent time. (I 've always wanted to blog from
a mountain top. )

In Which Jeff Gets All Respectable

As usual, my pledge to post more pictures "tomorrow night" translated to "some time in the next week." Nevertheless, here they are.

Jeff's parents came out for the weekend to see their baby become their baby with a doctorate.



We also had a special guest appearance from Poco Irv, who can play Peekaboo with the best of them.



Max and Danielle threw a wonderful BBQ for not just us, but us and Joel and Joel's family. Here everyone (except Joel) is picturesquely looking to the right for some reason

.

Kurt in a city park means Kurt is so excited he must run away as fast as he can, flapping his arms and laughing as he does so. So everyone took a turn dragging him back kicking and screaming. Even Joel's Mom, Elaine, spent quality time keeping Kurt from wandering into traffic, which was very much appreciated. Plus, he really seemed to like her. But of course the grandparents bore the brunt of Kurt duty.



There were also wheels, thank heaven.



Getting ready for the graduation in this picture. We all look sort of solemn, except for Kurt, who thinks the velvet on Jeff's robes is cool.



That hazy duo in the middle is Tamsin hooding Jeff....



Joel got an extra stripe because he was awarded (Jeff's words) The Joel Thurston Award For Supreme Awesomeness. I believe it was a university award that involved the words "distinction" and "service," which makes me wonder how he's had time to do all this stuff and still play cards with us.



Jeff and Poco



Me feeling crazy proud



Jeff raising a glass to, well, himself, and rightly so, at the post ceremony festivities.



And did I mention that all of this occurred on Jeff's 35th birthday, no less?? Here he is, in his hood and birthday hat.



Tomorrow we're going to New York for a week to celebrate Jeff's parents' fortieth anniversary. Should be pretty cool, though I have spent the usual amount of time (which is to say too much) agonizing about what shoes to bring. I honestly think I can't possibly go with any less than four pairs, and really, I'll need more like five or six to feel truly covered. Jeff is working with me on this.

PHinisheD!

(Almost.) Jeff's dissertation is sitting in somebody's inbox right now, and he walked the walk up to the podium to be hooded today, on his 35th birthday no less. The whole weekend was pretty amazing, and I'll post a lot more tomorrow night.

Tacoma In 28-ish Pictures

We are home from the Pacific Northwest, alive! This summer we wisely flew direct from Santa Barbara Airport, which is about a ten minute trip from our apartment, unlike last summer, when we flew out of LAX, about a two hour trip from our apartment. It's more expensive to fly from SBA, and it was worth every penny. The wait for the parking lot shuttle from LAX last summer seemed to transcend normal time.

Anyway, my initial plan was to go with Kurt and leave Jeff with time alone at home to work, but hoo boy am I glad we ditched that plan. Despite the occasional photo of the boy lying sweetly and placidly on the linoleum when he got tired...

...he is really a non-stop boy these days.

There weren't a lot of toys at my mom's house in the traditional sense of the word, but it turns out that wheel chairs are the most fascinating objects ever for a little boy who so dearly loves wheels.



So that kept him busy. (Every time he shows an interest in something, it's hard not to speculate about his future occupations. When he plays with flowers, botanist or gardener! When he bats the padlocks on the storage sheds, safe cracker! Fascination with wheelchairs and other medical adaptive equipment...occupational therapist! )

The main reason we went up north when we did was so that we could overlap with the visit from my brother and sister-in-law Gary and Mary, and their children and grandchildren. Yes, my brother's grandchildren are older than Kurt! But not by much. It ended up being a brotherly family reunion, plus me. Anyway, here are (mostly) candid photos of the meet and greet:









Here are my twin boy great nephews Nolan and Mason, with their Nana:



And John Oliver, known mostly as Ollie, not quite three-ish and very friendly to Kurt:







In between family togetherness, we went to the Point Defiance Zoo, which has an awesome play area.



But Kurt's favorite part was the South Pacific aquarium.



Not because it had fish.



Because it had stairs. Many, many stairs.



Somewhere in there, we also met a peacock.



On Saturday I hung out with my mom while Jeff and Kurt went up to visit the Rueters. Kurt was loved by the girls as usual.



He tried to snuggle with Sabaka, a very old, very patient dog.



And, apparently, he found a stick he was rather fond of.



On Sunday we drove off in search of Mt. Rainier. We sort of found it, but the top was hidden behind clouds. Here's Rusty, looking serious and outdoorsy. (Contrast with earlier photo of Rusty with lemon wedge in his mouth and ask yourself: Which is the real Rusty? Your guess is as good as mine.)



Jeff and Kurt, looking less serious and outdoorsy.



Mom decided to be outdoorsy from the car.



Kurt found the dirty snow compelling, but thankfully there wasn't enough of it to do any real damage to him or any of us.



Obligatory family photo, not one of our best....



My mom got some quality time with her youngest grandchild. Here they are sharing a perplexing moment at Chevy's.



Of course, Kurt showed all kinds of interest in Mom as soon as she was busy....



...but any attempts to get a picture of her holding him resulted in something like this:



She was unfazed.


SO that was Tacoma Summer 2009. The only part I've left out is how much we went to Dairy Queen. And you don't really need to know about that.

Hating Blogger From Tacoma

Plenty of stuff happening with us-some of it even blogworthy, but the day is short and Blogger torments me. Plus, my energy seems to be ebbing with the June gloom.

But to begin with, we are in Tacoma! Today we went to the Tacoma Nature Center. The last time I went to this place, it was with my dad, and we had a great day. You can read about it here.






I don't know how many more ways I can express my loathing for Blogger these days. I may have reached the limits of prose, so, in the future, don't be surprised to find a limerick, or even a sonnet on this page devoted to the cause. Also coming soon: meeting my brother's grandchildren, Kurt's developmental milestones, and lack thereof, and my ongoing delight that Mt. Rainer continues to not erupt.