Video: Thomas walking outside

Mom and Dad's new car in the background

Video: Thomas walking with stick

17 1/2 months

Thomas has a new molar! Now he's got all four molars, and he's missing 4 canines and one bottom incisor. When he opens his mouth, it's like Jaws!

For my birthday, we went out to eat at Hanamizuki Japanese Restaurant on Friday night. As always, it was delicious!!! I guess Thomas looks big enough that they now give him his own cup, bowl, spoon and fork and ask what he'll have for dinner. We shared food with him from our plates and he ate a lot! He screamed twice, possibly prevented from more because Mom distracted him with rice, which he loves. Nowadays we can put a plate of food down in front of him and he will feed himself! He can use a spoon but mostly uses his hands. It's very freeing! Once Thomas is set up, I myself can eat, instead of feeding him and waiting to feed myself until he's done! My stomach is very happy with that arrangement!


Mom and Dad brought back a toy Delta airplane and a toy San Francisco Cable Car for Thomas from their trip to California with Shauna. He loves them! He pushes them around the floor and has gotten used to the airplane noises now -- it's got quite noisy "engines"! He has also started to sit on his big "car" and push with his feet to go backwards and forwards! He gets a really big smile when he does that, and has started pushing himself over thresholds for the extra bumps.

Ever since we came back from Japan, Thomas has been going to bed at 8:00pm and waking up between 7 and 7:30am. His nap has slowly moved from early in the morning to 12:15pm, and lasts about an hour and a half! I think he's now really settled into this one-nap thing. He's not so grouchy or tired in the morning, and doesn't take so much energy to distract him from his foul mood, or to try to keep him awake. On the other hand, he's really motoring now and that takes a lot of energy to chase around after him!!

17 months old

Thomas is almost 24 pounds, outgrowing his 18-month-old onesies.  Eighteen-month-old pants sizes are still ok, in fact still need to be rolled up a bit at the bottom.  He has also started making a high-pitched squeal when he sees cats, which I think is supposed to sound like a meow, but actually sounds more like the Ring Wraiths of Mordor. Also, his concentration level seems to have increased.  I took him to the tennis court to have a wander around, and he discovered a few broken plastic zip ties that held a screen onto the chain-link fence.  Anyway, I think he spent half an hour trying to poke the plastic zip ties back into the grommets!  I got to have a lovely lie-down in the shade and enjoy the windy, summery weather.   

Matthew's been home, but doing annual recurrent training at the office, so we get to see him in the morning before breakfast and after five o'clock, just in time for the pre-dinner playtime, which is pretty handy for me because I cook dinner these days, since Mom and Dad left for their road trip with Shauna.  They drove their new car up to Gainesville, a Buick Rendezvous.  It's very spacious and nice, and can haul at least six people, maybe seven.  Last I heard, Mom and Dad had a grueling day packing up the kitchen in Gainesville and the trailer that they will be hauling to California, and were celebrating with dinner.  Shauna acquired some books on tape for the trip, including a couple of Harry Potters.  I bet that will keep them going at least until Texas!  Oh, and they sold the house already!  More details later.  

Oh and no, I don't think Thomas is deliberately sucking it in in this swimming photo!

17 1/4 months old

Matthew's off again, flying between Mexico and Toledo.  Mom and Dad are finishing their trip with Shauna, driving from Gainesville to their city near San Francisco.  It sounds like they did a crazy amount of driving, with twelve hour days and was it four or five days of driving? and several adventures along the way.  It's so easy to forget how big the United States is!  They made it safely, and got to stay a couple of nights with Shauna's mother Kathy in Los Angeles, and they got to see her sister Aimee, too!  So today they're coming back to Florida by airplane.  It'll be great to see them again!  And Thomas will be so excited to see them again, too!

(Talking to Daddy on the "telephone")

 

Last week, before Matthew left, the Conway Mom's Club had an egg hunt for all the kids.  We went to one of the mom's houses, and Chipotle catered!  There were about 20 moms and 30 kids and Matthew, the sole dad.  So nice that he could make it!!  There was fun meal time, and before the egg hunt there was general playtime for all the kids.  Thomas was very interested in the sand box and the mini-piano (see blog for photo of the piano).  First the big kids had their egg hunt in the front yard, and then the littler kids had a hunt in the back yard, and then the under-twos were supposed to have one in the living room, but by the time the eggs were declared hidden, the bigger kids had found them and there were none left!  Just as well, because I think that the act of hiding eggs for under-twos might be a little too advanced.  

The day before the hunt, Thomas and I practiced picking up eggs off the floor and putting them in his basket.  He got the hang of it after a couple of sessions, but kept turning his basket upside-down after he collected a couple of eggs.  I think we would have needed a lot more practice to introduce the idea of looking for eggs that were hidden!  But, we all had fun, and a yummy lunch. 

 

These days, Thomas has been requesting "The Nickle Nackle Tree" by Lynley Dodd for bedtime stories.  Three times in a row, at naptime and bedtime.  For the past week.  For the Americans who haven't heard of it, see the link on the side panel.  It's such a fun, cute book, with bouncy rhythms and rhymes that roll off the tongue and worm their way into your brain.  Thank you, Lloyd and Anne!  Still going strong!  Also still a favorite with Thomas is the Hello Kitty Japanese Songbook that Mari-chan gave him.  We've just replaced the batteries because it's getting played so much, even in the month and a half that we've had it!  He can sometimes do some of the motions to "Ito Maki-Maki" and if you sing one of the songs, he knows which button to push that plays that song.  It keeps him occupied for quite some time, and is especially useful in the car when he's bored.  Now I don't have to sing to him to keep him entertained!  Thank you, Mari-chan!

 

One thing I've just noticed recently is that Thomas listens to me when I say, "Not in the mouth, please, Thomas."  He'll immediately put his hand down.  He might have been just testing, checking to see if I notice that he's about to put something grimy in his mouth, covered with dust or dirt, but who knows?  I'm just excited to see him listen, under

stand and obey.  What we're working on right now:  "Stop" as in, Stop because you are just about to run into the street.  

Video: Thomas walking in Daddy's shoes

16 3/4 months

Utaka and Shauna visited us last Saturday for Mom's birthday, and we all went out to eat again for some delicious seafood.  Thomas was a little calmer this time, but still got a bit antsy toward the end since it took them forever to bring us the bill.  By the way, Utaka and Shauna have found an internship and employment, respectively!  They will be moving from Gainesville to a city near San Francisco.  They sound pretty happy about where they're going and what they will be doing over there.  So, the house is going up for sale, and they are getting ready to move soon.  Shauna will go first, and Mom and Dad will be accompany her on her trek across the United States to her new home!  Utaka will follow later.  Mom and Dad will be gone for a while, so I'm doing a lot of trading around so I can be at home with Thomas, since Matthew will be "at home" but training at work.  In other work news, not only are we Northwest people standing behind the Delta ticket counter now, on Monday we started to wear the Delta uniforms.  I was sad to say bye-bye to my happy red sweater, even though I'd worn it so much it was starting to unravel at the cuffs.  Now it's just a sea of boring navy blue and white at the ticket counter.  The integration and merger continues!

 

Thomas has been starting to cuddle his giraffe from the Auckland Zoo the past few days.  Until now he has had little inclination for cuddling anything for more than a couple of seconds, even his monkey Curious George, which he tosses onto the ground after a brief hug.   He will, however, sit with his giraffe on the couch while he watches 'Blue's Clues' or 'My Neighbor Totoro' or drinks milk from his bottle, and then wander the house holding him by the neck with the giraffe's head resting on his shoulder.  So cute!  Thomas is now completely weaned, by the way!  Now the next step is weaning him from the bottle. 

 

Another molar has broken through, the bottom left.  Today seemed very uncomfortable for him, as his other bottom molar is really starting to push through the flap of skin, and I saw a little bit of blood there today.  He's trying to bite everything, including three of us adults, and he really went to town on a raw carrot stick today.  He didn't end up eating any of it, just biting it up and spitting it out.  He hardly had anything to eat after breakfast this morning, so we'll see how his sleeping goes -  will he wake up hungry and grumpy in the middle of the night again?  The photo of Thomas lying on the ground can give you a glimpse of his extra teeth coming in!

 

Matthew took him swimming again today, and they did have fun.  Other hobbies:  going for walks; going to the playground; watching Blues' Clues and bits of My Neighbor Totoro; playing with Grandma and Grandpa; playgroups; going for stroller rides to check out the ducks; exploring the yard; playing with toys in the solarium; coloring with crayons; Rhyme Time at the library; petting Chloe the cat; listening to songs.  Yay.