I'm a little behind on the updates on Adam since he hit the 18 month old mark about a week and a half ago. Partly this is from a lack of time and a heightened level of stress. Last week I spent 4 days in Orlando for work while Shannon and Adam weathered real life on their own, and everyone survived.
When I returned, we had a few days before trying to be brave (or maybe just stupid) and take our four-hands-required toddler on a camping trip Saturday morning. We didn't venture far (Denison) and only hoped to stay a day and a half, but on a scale of 1 to 10 of successfulness, I'd probably consider the event a 3.
Adam wasn't interested in breakfast Saturday morning before we left. He complained for a while in the car, and then halfway there, Adam gagged and threw up all over himself. We pulled over to a McDonald's, cleaned him up, looked him over for signs that we should abort the plan, and saw nothing but a happy kid who was feeling fine. So we powered on.
We got there about 30 minutes later, and Adam was thrilled to run around, touch EVERYTHING, and say "hi" to everyone. He happily ate some breakfast sausage, ran around a little more, and when I tried unsuccessfully to put him down for a nap (an hour and half process that really just left ME needing a nap), Shannon took him for a little drive that knocked him out and let him sleep for about 2 hours.
When he woke up, he was miserable because of his teeth, and when he's miserable, he wants to do something to keep his mind off of it. In this case it meant wandering the street, trying to say hello to the family in another campsite who had some dogs, and trying to "help" finish the game of washers. He has developed a method to be able to touch what he wants by alternating so fast you don't even know he's doing it. He'll touch the bowl of chips, and you'll move them. While you're doing that he's back to the thing he really wanted to touch - the scissors. So you grab them, and he's back on the chips that you put down again in the effort to grab the scissors away. It goes on like this for quite some time before you realize you've been dupped. I can't count the number of times I've realized the kid has outsmarted me.
I don't think he sat still for longer than 20 seconds the entire day, until we resorted to
Little Einsteins on the iPad in the tent for a while.
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| What?! I'm camping. |
As it got dark, Adam got tired, but he was far too interested in the noise and partying around the fire to have any desire to calm down for sleep. So Shannon and I took him for another midnight drive - he pointed out the moon, he got quiet as we traveled the winding roads, and then he promptly vomited, a lot, for the second time that day. We cleaned him up, we went back to the campsite, we changed his pajamas, we threw our stuff back in the truck (minus the tent, which was gathered for us the next day), and we left the campsite around 9:30 that night. We got home around 11, and Adam slept soundly the rest of the night.
It may be a few years before we go camping again. Adam loved it, but it exhausted Shannon and me.
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Other than roughing it with Dad for 4 days and then roughing it on a campsite for about 12 hours, Adam is booming as an 18 month old.
At 8 months he grew his two bottom teeth. At 16 months his top left tooth started to peek out... and then 2 months later, the other started to show. Neither are even halfway in, and then a few days ago, it was teething chaos in his mouth. Two more are coming in on the bottom front, then some molars are trying to make an appearance, and some random incisors halfway back on the top are sneaking in. The poor boy is miserable and can't keep his hands out of his mouth and is even miserable with a pacifier. We're on a daily regimen of teething tablets and a little advil to dull the pain. It would be one thing if these teeth decided to sprout up quickly, but alas, they are crawling.
He's doing much, much better sleeping in his bed, and in fact
almost seems to prefer the bed to the floor now. At least, now we find him on the floor only about half the time instead of all the time. He's also for whatever reason decided that part of his bedtime routine requires that he grab both of my ears and shake my head back and forth. I don't get it, but the first time I was too confused to stop him... the second time, he thought it was too funny.
Adam is going through a second hitting phase. He got over the first one pretty quickly - but now he knows what he's doing. He'll get mad from across the room, wind up his arm, and come at you slowly so you know it's coming. It's not funny, but his seriousness about the most random situation (dad took away that piece of trash I had) makes me hide my smile sometimes. A few weeks ago I was cooking dinner and Shannon denied Adam something that he wanted in the other room. I heard Shannon tell Adam not to hit him, but Adam just HAD to hit something so he came in the kitchen and patted me on the leg. I turned to him and said, "Hey, what did I do?!" It probably wasn't the most appropriate response, but there are only so many hours in the day to be 100% on top of your game.
He can pretty easily use a fork and spoon and would prefer to be able to eat on his own. He will even resist using the toddler fork -- It's a "big person" fork or nothing. But Adam has "All or Nothing" basically tatooed to his forehead so that's no big surprise. He can also point out his eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, ears, cheeks, chin, head, hair, belly, bellybutton, hands, and feet . . . and QUICK too.
Adam's addictions to gummy bears and
Little Einsteins are borderline out of control. He is also determined that he NEEDs to climb on the TV stand and touch the TV, no matter how many times he's told it's not allowed.
But he is sweet and likes to say "hi" and "bye" to
everyone. Since I give him sips of my drinks (he's really subtle about it too - when he sees me with a drink he opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue and pants like a dog), he offers me sips from his sippy cup and then he giggles when I "slurp" it (I'm really not drinking it, maybe that's why he keeps offering...) When we were camping, I gave him a cracker and he took it, said "ahhh!" at me (which means I should open my mouth), and then he stuffed the whole cracker in, patted my mouth as I was chewing, grabbed both of my cheeks in his hands and gave me a big kiss on the cheek (mmmmuuaaaaaahhh!). Thanks Adam.
The best part of my days are at the end, when after work/school I have picked him up and put him in the car, and we turn down the alley (sometimes before we even leave the day care parking lot), Adam yells "Home!" It's comforting that he knows where home is.
