May 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
(Crawl, New, Sergey)
It was only last week when Sergey’s mobility was limited to rotating, rolling, sitting up, and falling over. The closest he got to crawling was to fall strategically; Sergey would eye up his target usually a toy or mommies hair, he would carefully judge the distance then stretching his hand as far over his head as he could he would fall like a tree and attempt to get the prize. At best I would call this a 1 step crawl, though he was getting very accurate with it.
Then this weekend he did a double lunge crawl. Basically the falling thing, but if he missed or if someone moved his target like say Damien, or more likely me *I’m evil*, then Sergey would make a quick second attempt with his other hand. That is the basic 2 step crawl.
Monday Olya placed Sergey by the couch in the family (fireplace) room, when she returned a bit later, Sergey was gone. He had crawled into the adjacent great room under the window seat, some how he had crawled either around or under the tables.
Not done, Sergey was also caught pulling himself to a standing position using his play table.
This added mobility has greatly improved Sergey’s disposition.
Once grumpy almost all the time, only happy for a few minutes in one place; now he is having a blast just playing by himself, exploring his new freedom.
Our house is mostly baby proofed for Damien, so there is little we need to do.
Over all we are looking good; I know he is not the fastest to crawl, but not bad for 8 months.
2 Comments
May 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
(New)
Olya and I have been married for ten years as of today.
We have managed not to kill each other in the process (though we have come close), so that should count for something.
Damien’s God Father will be watching the little ones for a bit so us big ones can have a normal night out for once.
I am not sure I will be able to bear the absence of incessant crying but I’ll try. 
3 Comments
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
(Damien, New, Uncategorized)
Things are getting a bit easier at the Finnegan house.
Sergey is squeaking less and playing on his own, sometimes for an hour or so.
Damien likes The Hulk, he knows The Hulk says “sMash”, He likes to watch The Hulk cartoon.
I have a Hulk video game, and decided to try it with Damien in the room.
At first he thought I was going to play a movie, so he started calling for his (current) favorites, “Robots”, and “Pooh”. When I told him it was Hulk, he just asked for Robots.
Damien wasn’t too happy with my selection, that is until he saw The Hulk scale a building, rip the roof antenna off, any throw it across town. He just started laughing. He opted to forgo Robots and Pooh for more Hulk.
The next day at Daycare we asked how he acted. he had a very good day, according to daycare.
We did some more Hulk that night, and I stayed with him at daycare awhile watching him run around the gym. He doesn’t seem to be acting out anything The Hulk is doing, like running up walls or lifting cars over his head and throwing them at passing helicopters. Also one of the other boys is still the one who gets the times outs for acting poorly. Damien did knock a block out of the hands of another child. but I told him, that was NOT OK, and to give the block back and tell them he was sorry. By this time the girl had hid under some stairs, but Damien dutlfully picked up the block and returned it to her, he bumped hi head on the stairs, maybe that will learn him (I doubt it). Anyway this type of stuff was happening long before The Hulk, and strikes me as normal boy behavior.
Besides The Hulk game teaches important life lessons like the air speed of an unlaiden Toyota.
Long live The Hulk
1 Comment
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
(Humor, New)
——————- Math Problem ——————————
CHECKING IN (Answer on your own and hand in to your instructor)
The water of the earth’s oceans stores lots of heat. An engineer designed an ocean liner that would extract heat from the ocean’s waters at Th = 10 C (283 K) and reject heat to the atmosphere at T1 = 20 C (293 K). He thought he had a good idea, but his boss fired him. Explain.
—————— Student’s Answer —————————–
Because he slept with his boss’ wife.
—————– Instructor’s Response ————————–
Oh dear!
Comments
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
(Damien, Food, New, Reese)
Last Saturday we went to Heidi’s house to celebrate her daughters 1st birthday.
Since Heidi had gone to the trouble of making a registry at Kids-R-Us we decided to pick up a present on the way to the party. There was a convenient Toy-R-Us on the way, and since they are basically the same company we should be able to find something there on the list.
So we printed up the list and headed out. Olya took the list inside and I stayed with the kids in the parking lot. 20 minutes later, Olya emerges with a nice toy that is NOT on the list. Apparently though Toy-R-Us and Kids-R-Us are basically the same company their merchandise is radically different, as none of the items on the list were in the store. Well we have a gift receipt and baby Reese will love it all the same. So off we go again.
Almost there, I know I am in the correct area, I have been to Heidi’s house several times, and it is always in the same place. It’s next to a church on a hill. I followed some signs to get to the church, but I ended up in down town Grafton. I kriss crossed the area four times and saw neither the house nor the church it was adjacent to. What is annoying about this is that the sub division Heidi lives in is only 4 X 5 blocks. Finally I see the steeple and use it to guide my way to the house. Woot! We made it.
Eating Cake with Reese was very entertaining.
At first she didn’t want the cake, even going so far as to cry at one point.
But once she realized how yummy it was, she stared to scrape the icing off the top with a finger. Then really dig in with both hands. At some point the cake transitioned from food to a means of creative expression, as Reese seemed more interested in what shape she could turn the cake into rather than finding out how much she could eat.
Clapping with Cake. You may have heard the question “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Here is a new one for you, “What is the sound of two tiny hands encrusted with cake and icing, clapping?” Well if you were at the party you would have found out.
Damien had fun eating the grapes off of my plate. All other fruits were either rejected outright or returned after he had taken a few exploratory chews. Damien was nice enough to offer the pre-chewed bits of plant matter to me, but I declined on principle. When we went inside to get more fruit salad (with extra grapes), Damien noticed the plate of cherry tomatoes (You can probably guess where this is going). Thinking they were grapes (he called them grapes) he took one. After the first bite, he spit it out on the floor (the citrus was probably stronger than he was ready for). I went looking for the little tomato, but didn’t see it anywhere on the floor, or under the table. Damien knows the rules, no food on the floor, even if you don’t like it. So he picked up the half eaten cherry tomato, without me seeing him, from the floor, and put it back on the plate with the other tomatoes. Luckily I checked the plate just in case this had happened. After a moment I spotted the discarded carcass and scooped it up along with its neighbors
2 Comments
May 18th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
(Crawl, New, Sergey)
Time was that Sergey would just lay there and scream.
Then he started getting strong enough to raise himself up on his arms and scream.
Next wat seeing something he wanted that was out of reach and screamming.
Followed by trying to get to the object, but not having this whole legs thing sorted out he would go backwards instead of forward. This mad him get farther away frm the object of desire, so he would srceam. But he was determined so he kept at it until he was backed into a corner across the room, or lodged halfway under the couch.
Once when I left the two boys in the living room together watching a movie, I heared Sergey screaming and rushed back to pull Damien off Sergey, only to see Damien quietly siting on one end of the cuoch and Sergey halfway under the other end. Damien pointed to his brother and said “Sergey, Sergey”, so I wouldn’t miss him, then he went back to watching his movie.
Sergey has addated to going backwards though. Now he looks over his shoulder when going in reverse so he can see where he is going. This often causes him to go in a circle.
Other times he just gives up on crawling alltogether and uses various types of twisting and rolling to get within armes reach of what he wants.
Just in the last few days Sergey has started arch his body, and make some forward lunges.
So any day/week now he should be crawling.
It will be easier when he can, because he will be able to get to what he wants on his own, rather than just crying until I bring him the correct toy.
I am not too conserned about him getting into things that he shouldn’t. The house is still mostly baby proofed for Damien, there is little that will need to change for Sergey.
This is one of the advantages of having kids close together.
3 Comments
May 15th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
(New, Uncategorized)
A pair of albino lions, doing a high five, over a giant wavy sword, in a field of blood.
How cool is that?
Way cool. 
Comments
May 15th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
(Damien, New)
Well Damien did try the Tricycle last night.
Ours has an extendable handle to I can push and pull the trike as needed.
Since Damien didn’t have to pedal, he didn’t even try; he tucked his legs and let me do the work.
Damien did control the steering.
I pushed and let Damien figure it out.
After doing a few circles in the driveway Damien finally headed for the open road.
Apparently Damien likes to crash into the curb a lot, maybe he is playing too much Grand Theft Auto.
We sort of snaked our way up the street, lots of zigging and zagging, if you know what I mean.
But it was getting late so I took control for a bit and spun as around back to the house for some dinner.
That is when I learned that he had a plan all along.
“Swing” he said, as he did a U turn in the street, pointing us away from the house but towards the playground. I quickly spun us back towards the house, “dinner”, I said. Daddy is running low on gut fat. “No, no, no. SWING!” said Damien as he started to initiate another U turn. Grabbing hold of the handlebars I forced the trike towards home, but Damien was fighting with all his might, and those two year olds are strong, for their size. All he does is exercise all day while I sit on my butt and write this blog. I finally gave in and let him control the handlebars, “Swing.” he said in triumph. “Home” I said as I tilted the tricycle back, lifting the front wheel off the ground. Damien wasn’t going to stand for this no control BS from Dad, so he quickly abandoned ship or tricycle in this case. I ended up dragging the trike, half a block, back home while carrying a screaming and most unhappy Damien
1 Comment
May 14th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
(Damien, Duct Tape, New, Walk)
Sergey did some walking today while I was holding his hands.
He couldn’t walk on his own, but he was stepping forward on his own, rather than relying on me to do all the work.
Tonight we may go for a walk when I get home. Maybe even try out the tricycle with Damien?
Olya, is not sure if Damien will cooperate on the tricycle front.
But as I like to say, there is no problem that a little duct tape can’t fix.
Ten pieces of duct tape should do the trick.
A. Tape his feet to the pedals so they don’t slip off. (two pieces, one for each foot.)
B. Tape his hands to the handle bar, so he doesn’t try to escape. (two pieces, one for each hand.)
C. Tape his mouth shut so we don’t have to listen to him scream. (six pieces, he screams loud, and I want to enjoy the walk.)
Comments
May 14th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
(New, Parenting Tip)
When changing a child’s diaper here are some tips.
1. Get ready for it to be stinky; just don’t let it affect you.
It is poop and pee after all, what do you expect?
2. Prepare the next diaper before you do remove anything from the baby.
I find it helpful to completely unfold the diaper so it is inside-out; this makes it easier to fold around the baby.
3. Have wipes ready incase baby is not quite done.
4. If baby does start peeing everywhere, don’t just watch or say “Oh my God†over and over. Cover it up the prepared diaper, or wipe, then laff about it, if not right away then later.
Olya and I had different approaches to this.
I would engage is a tactical cat and mouse game with baby’s naughty bits, quickly opening and closing the diaper just in case the little guy was trying to ambush me.
Some believe that it is the naughty bits being exposed to the air that started the pee flowing. I believe otherwise, it is my thought that in Damien’s case he was out to get me.
No I am NOT paranoid, and that doesn’t mean they are NOT out to get me.
Olya on the other hand, took the head on approach, of just changing the diaper.
If she got sprayed, it did happen on occasion (and there was much snickering on my part as I gleefully touted my superior diaper changing techniques), she would just laff, shrug, and say “It’s only peeâ€.
2 Comments