21 1/2 months

Dad and Utaka made it to California safely, and have returned the truck. It took them four days of day-long driving to get there! I think now the project is the unpacking of all the boxes. Dad scheduled to come back late Friday night to Orlando. While Dad has been working hard, Mom has been staying with us. She and Thomas always seem to have so much fun. Even when I'm in a different room of the house, I can hear squeals of laughter (Thomas) when they are together. She has enabled Matthew and I to get out of the house a few times, which was fantastic! Once to my hypnobirthing lesson, and once to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and then a cup of coffee at Borders later -- the perfect date! More plans in the works for these two last precious days she's here!

We're introducing Thomas to the idea of sitting on the toilet on the Baby Bjorn Toilet Trainer. He sits there for a few minutes while we play pattycake and I sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. I'll have to start thinking of some more rhymes to stretch

out the time and also keep him from getting bored! I also have to find a good, tall box for him to rest his feet on since they dangle and that can't be comfortable. Of course nothing's happened so far except that he's climbed on voluntarily and made "pattycake" signs! It's a start!

This morning, unbeknownst to me, Thomas and Matthew were playing with the Blue's Clues shirt that Michelle sent to him. Later, when I put a different shirt on him, he complained and seemed upset! Matthew figured out that Thomas wanted to wear the Blue's Clues shirt, so we put it on him and he spent some time proudly pointing out Blue and the pawprint to Mom. Another time, I had given him a choice between two shirts. He pointed out the one he wanted to wear, and then actually pushed the other one off the chair and then hid it under the bed. He doesn't reveal his fashionista side very often, but it does come out from time to time! It's so funny to see him demonstrate his definite likes and dislikes, and remember that he does indeed have them, even at this age!

Bedtime stories repeatedly requested by Thomas this month: Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss, And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss, I Spy Little Animals by Marzollo and Wick, Harry Maclary: Scattercat by Lynley Dodd, Friends Around the World by Hans Wilhelm.

We had a playdate with Ellis, Sarah and Ben Johnson-Markve! Yay, lots of fun!

Video: Thomas and the sprinkler

21 1/4 months -- Mom and Dad visit!

It's been one week with Grandma, Grandpa and Matthew! Matthew arrived at dinnertime on Friday (two days earlier than expected due to scheduling changes! Yay!), and Mom and Dad arrived late Saturday after driving from Indiana (two days' drive for you Kiwis). Thomas loves to be with them all! He goes from person to person looking for cuddles and to be picked up, and gets upset when people leave, even just to go outside. For the first several days, he also got confused when it was time to go to bed -- he went straight to his room several times even though we moved his crib to the computer room. During the week, we ate Mom's good food, ate here and there at our favorite restaurants and coffee shops, and even tried a new Japanese Cream Puff place called Beard Papa's -- vanilla, chocolate and strawberry cream puffs -- yum! Poor Thomas went to bed very late that night but his little sister was very happy (in the womb)! Thomas is also still enjoying "swims" in pool with me and Matthew.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad and Matthew went up to Gainesville to help Utaka load the moving truck for the big move to California! Dad and Utaka are going to drive cross-country while Mom stays with us. It sounds like they loaded up the truck efficiently, but really melted in the Florida heat--and then even more so in the oven of a truck! Utaka defended his PhD paper successfully in front of a committee, so he's now off to his internship in California to finish his doctorate in Neuropsychology! Great job, Utaka!

While everyone was gone, Thomas and I sent the day together, doing our usual thing. I said to him, "Thomas, we are going to Barnes and Noble today" and he looked up and me and made "choo-choo" noises. He knows that Barnes and Noble is the bookstore where they have the Thomas the Tank train set! Then he showed me how he blows spit bubbles. What a clever boy we have. He's also crazy about identifying all the buses on the road and anything yellow, which he declaims with a loud "naaa!" (The going theory is that his word for yellow comes from "banana.") He also loves the falling down part in ring-around-the-rosy, and pretending to talk to people on his "cellphone."

Today I had my first lesson in hypno-birthing with my former labor coach, Michelle. She was very pleased with the way it went, and I couldn't believe that she said afterward that the actual hypnosis part lasted for 35 minutes! It didn't even seem to take half that long! Anyway, the goal of hypno-birthing is to put yourself into a deeply relaxed state during labor, which sounds great to me! And if I ever take up smoking, I'll know how to quit!

21 months

Another update to catch up before Matthew comes home tomorrow! They changed his schedule and he negotiated coming home two days early. Yay! It seems really quick this time, since he won't even have been gone two weeks, and last month he was gone two and a half weeks! Thomas is still talking about him excitedly, although that may be a sign of Thomas' growing memory rather than anything else. Tonight I told him that Daddy is coming back after dinner tomorrow, and he grinned happily and said, "Dada?" instead of looking down silently as if thinking, who? And then, a day or two after Matthew comes back, Mom and Dad will be coming down! They were in northwestern Indiana for a week of round dancing, and they are coming down to help Utaka move out to California, and spend some time with Thomas and us! Yay! Thomas still is excited to see movie clips of Mom and Dad on the computer, and of course he still loves to see them in Dad's journal of the New Zealand trip in 2006, so it'll be great to see his reaction when he sees them in person. It'll be a full house! So exciting!

Life with a toddler is getting more busy. I take him out in the car almost every morning now, to playdates or the supermarket or swimming or coffeehouses with play rooms just to get out of the house and expend some of his energy. I hope I'm not turning him into a "city kid," but while we're in the city, might as well make the most of it, right? Also, I found that I have to be even more vigilant than ever these days ... one day (and these things seem to happen when he's alone for only a minute) I discovered him standing on a toilet with one foot on the seat and one foot in the bowl. And then tonight as I made a second trip to the table carrying food, I discovered him standing eating two fistfuls of fish that he had reached up and grabbed off the table. Or occasionally I find him sitting behind the play yard barrier with one hand in Chloe's water dish, just quietly sitting. Or mercilessly pulling Chloe's tail (after I thought he learned not to do that!). Or standing on the seat of his high chair after I had announced that it's dinner time. Thankfully he seems to be back to his normal sleep routine, so at least I'm more rested for these jaw-dropping events!

The other day we had another blood test for Thomas, this time for anemia. Since he can't drink milk and he's not drinking a lot of the rice milk, the doctor wanted him tested, so we got tested together, me for gestational diabetes. (Result for Thomas: not anemic. Me: no news (is good news).) I was pretty nervous about sitting in the office for over an hour (for my test) with Thomas, fearing that he'd get restless, but he was great. A small supply of toys in my bag helped, too. This time after they drew his blood, little red spots appeared on his hand, upper arm and under the bandage. The tech said that it looked like he might be allergic to latex, and I should get him tested for it. And it turns out that it's a blood test! Ha ha! This after seemingly-endless minutes of wrapping my arms and legs around him, trying to hold him still, trying to soothe his screams and tears, while one tech dug around forever with the needle trying to find a vein and another tech holding down the upper part of his arm! Oh, the irony of life sometimes!

Also, we welcome Ben, Sarah and Ellis to the "neighborhood!" We're very excited you're going to be in the same city! Hopefully we'll actually see you sometimes!

Video: Thomas and his Mickey ears

Video: Thomas climbing the bed

20 3/4 months

Some photos attached from when Matthew was still here, about a week ago. He invented a new game for Thomas -- running through the sprinkler. That day Thomas gingerly dipped his head in the stream of the water, chuckling and running around. Today I turned it on again -- this time he was completely soaked from running back and forth in the spray. So cute!

(Thomas on Auntie Pam's Vespa ... love that look on his face... or should I be nervous?)

Today Thomas discovered some kind of AV cable and brought it over to where I was sitting at the computer ... then tried to plug it into the only uncovered electrical socket in the house. After I took the cable away, he looked at me and said, "key? key?" I had to say, No darling, this isn't a key. It looks like it should be a key, and it's not a key. Please don't electrocute yourself.