Kid-isms: October 2011

Max was sitting on my lap, without his diaper on (he's potty training; this is how we do it), and he started saying, "Belly button! Belly button!" I looked down, expecting him to be lifting up his shirt and pointing at his belly button. Found him touching his penis instead. Turns out we need to go over some things.
(And yes, I know this is going to embarrass him later. What else are blogs for but to store priceless memories like this one?)

***

Asher, while I carved our pumpkin, pointing at me, "Cute mommy!"
"Mommy, you are the best mommy in the whole world!"
"Mommy is the best, better than the rest!"
Upon seeing the insides of the pumpkin: "Ew, that's disgusting. I'm not touching that. Mom, you do it."

***

Pointing at computer, several times every single day, Max requests these music videos by name:
"Fire flames!"  Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragonforce, which you can find here.
"Play doh, play doh!" They Know by Drake, which you can find here (clean version). Seriously, you should listen to at least the chorus. You'll understand why Asher started calling it "play doh play doh". 
"Ground pound!" Operation Ground and Pound by Dragonforce, which you can find here.
"Bubble pop!" Catchy song with offensive video, found here. 
To any one of these songs, Max will bounce to the beat and even put a pretend microphone to his mouth. He's even started attempting the big jump they do in "ground pound". Some day I'll post a video of it, if I can figure out the camera.
I'm quite concerned that the kids never request to hear my music, only Steve's. Oh no.

***

Asher, after being sick all week, "Mom, why does the food go down, and then come back up?"
He was sneaking food and eating it behind my back, before his stomach was ready to digest again.

***

I've got a slight obsession with the "Hallelujah" song lately. The other day, after listening to it over and over, Asher finally said, "What does alujah mean?" I said, "Praise unto God." He said, "Why do you like it so much?"

***

Every night, while falling asleep Max lays in singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. "Twinkle twinkle staaaar! How I wonder what AAAARE!"or Itsy Bitsy Spider, "Izzy pider, water POUT! Down rain, wash pider OUT!"
I.LOVE.THIS.

***

Joshua does lots of cute things, but rarely says one-liners that would transfer well to written format. Mostly he melts my heart and makes me laugh through facial expression, physical affection, and cute ways he plays with toys and his brothers. Just in case you're wondering why you don't see a lot of Joshua-isms on here. He's almost nine now, so he's not really in that cute little quirky stage where they're still figuring out language.

Figuring out where we all stand-isms

Joshua's cheer for Mommy:
"Mommy is the best, better than the rest! Gooooo, Mommy!"

Today, while I cleaned their room:
Asher:  "Mommy, did you know that you are the nicest person I've ever met in my whole entire lifetime?"
Me:  "Oh, really? I am? Thanks, Ash!"
Asher:  "Not as sweet as Miss Kenzie and Miss Sien. But... you're nice too!"


Joshua, while looking at baby pictures of Max:
"Max is so cute.. but I wish we didn't have him."

Isms

Max-isms


Max always says "Mmm! Yummies!" when he likes a food or the drink you gave him.
Tonight when I tucked him in, he said, "Hug! Tiss!" (kiss)
I came over to his crib, gave him a hug and kiss, and he said, "Mm! Yummies tiss!"

Max:      Three, four, eight, nine, ten!

Me:      One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Max:     Yay, Mom!

Asher-ism

 Asher (at the grocery store):  Burritos drain my life if I get too close to them.

Joshua-ism

Josh (opening his happy meal toy):  What does it do? 

Me (a little too excited): It's a smurf! 

Josh: Look on the package. It'll have instructions; it'll say what it does. 

Me: It doesn't do anything. It's just a smurf to play with.

Josh: Ugh. (looks on packaging) But what does it do??

Josh (upon discovering that it, in fact, doesn't do anything): Fine. Let's look and see what's next. 

(Sighing, checks bottom of happy meal box to see what toy is coming next.)

My kids are getting old. :(

The Monster Max

Something has happened to my sweet baby. Everyone says, "Oh, he's that old already?" when I tell them he's 16 months old now. I always respond the same way. "No, he's more like 30, in a tiny little body."

I am not exaggerating.

Max has the passion, drive, and personality of a full-grown adult.
The only problem is that he's stuck in this little one-year-old body, which really makes him angry. He feels completely ripped off when he isn't capable of doing something he wants to do, and he gets even more angry when we treat him like a child. He insists on being treated like everybody else (but even more important), and he's sure we are just being mean when we restrict his climbing hobby. If he had his way, he'd be climbing mountains by now.

You should know that I think he's hilarious. He does the funniest stuff sometimes, with the most humorous (and familiar) look on his face.

(Look familiar to anyone?)

But he's mean.
I know, I know, "he's just a baby. He's not being mean; he just doesn't know any better."

But I swear to you, he knows what he's doing, and he's doing it to hurt me. He hits and kicks me, yells at me, tells me "NO, Mama!" all day long, and uses anything he can find as a weapon against me. Yesterday he sat in my lap, pretending to just want to sit with me... then he threw his head backward into my neck.

I was pretty sure I was dying. (Ok, slight exaggeration.) But really, it felt exactly like getting the wind knocked out of me... except scarier. Steve says I was being dramatic, but in all fairness, Max doesn't abuse him, so he doesn't know, now does he?

Sometimes Max is the sweetest thing I have ever seen.
But most of the time, he's just abusive to me.

Does anyone know what to do with a child whose spirit has outgrown his body???

Can't escape it.

My family has been sick all winter. Strep 4 times, the flu/virus (who knows which it was?) twice...
For two weeks earlier this month, my brother-in-law Brandon was really, really sick. He ended up in the hospital with Pneumonia and double ear infections.
My mom spent two weeks bed-ridden with the same symptoms.
I was down for a week, Josh and Asher both got it, and Max was sick again.

Now my father-in-law (Steve's step dad) is in the hospital with Pneumonia.
And my poor mother-in-law, who has been taking care of everyone, is now sick with the same symptoms.

And Max has croup.
Again.
Spent last night in the InstaCare with him.
They gave him steroids again, and prescribed an inhaler.

Something good did come out of it, though...
For basically the first time ever, Max wanted to sit in my lap for an hour. We watched Dinosaur Train and sang the songs together. He sings, "Rahr, rahr, rahr!" like a Dinosaur and dances. It was AWESOME. He's such a busy kid, he never slows down and just sits with me.

:)  Best hour I've had all week.

Max's "What the-?!" face & other cute things

What the-?!

My monkey! (actually it's Asher's monkey)

His new favorite chair... he acts like it's his kingdom and he rules all from the throne.

All 3 of my boys, enthralled with the garbage truck.

Max watching TV & reading a book

Uh-oh, Grandma's going to work without me...

Don't go, Grandma!

Take me with you!

Max is SUCH a Grandma's boy

Finally! I succeeded in turning my kid into a couch potato. :)

We should un-couch his potato, eh Miken?

This One Goes Out to My Cousin Michelle

If you give a Max some free time,

he's going to find a marker...

If he finds the marker...

He's going to disassemble and eat it!

If Max was a SuperVillian, his name would be Destructor

My son is 15 months old.
That's right, just 3 months older than 1 year.
He is so much like a 2-year-old I could cry.

Sometimes he's more like a 3-year-old.
How did I end up with another kid who was born more like an adult than a baby?

So here are some things about Max, to educate you all:

• Max thinks he's big. Like, adult big. He HONESTLY doesn't know he's a baby. 
• When things make Max FEEL like a baby, he gets VERY angry.
• When you're having trouble communicating with Max, you just need to stop thinking of him as a baby. As soon as you start thinking of him as a toddler/preschooler, he makes a lot more sense.
• Max is a cute fat baby, but has terrible nutrition. If anyone has ANY idea how to feed a child who gets sick no matter what he eats, I'd love some tips!
• Max wants to know what everything is, how it all works, and he wants to do it HIMSELF.
• Toys? Psh. Who cares about toys? Max thinks he should be blogging by now.
• Max can say just about anything. He knows a million little words, and he will surprise you every time he opens his mouth.
• Max has the cutest smile in the whole wide world, and I gotta say, the fact that he's started saying "Cheeeeese!" when he sees a camera (or anything else that flashes a light) is pretty much the cutest thing ever. 
• Max LOVES books and songs. The Foot Book, Brown Bear Brown Bear, and Goodnight Moon are his VERY favorites. When he wants to read The Foot Book, he brings me the book and says, "foot!" When he wants to read the Brown Bear book, he brings me the book and pants like a dog (his favorite page), and when he wants Goodnight Moon, he brings me the book and says, "Husshhhh."  
• Max is stubborn and bratty. Picture Terrible Twos. 
• Not a day goes by that I don't find Max in an extremely dangerous position. Example: Yesterday I went downstairs to change laundry and when I got back upstairs I found Max sitting on the kitchen table holding 2 pairs of hair cutting scissors and eating a bagel (which he's allergic to, btw).This is scary, and completely average for a day with Max.
• Max LOVES everyone. He has a serious love for his grandma, who he calls "Gramma-ma" and his Grandma 'Chele. He adores his uncle Ange, and he gets so excited when he sees his aunts, uncles, cousins, and his brothers. Yesterday my mom said, "Where are your brothers?" and Max said, "Ash!" 
• There really is no way to describe Max. He has a personality all  his own, and an attitude like I've never seen before... with the genius mind of few others. 
• I'm terrified of him.

 Oh, and I finally made Steve cut his hair. :)

Before

After

My Little Escape Artist

Max escaped today. Right out the front door and down the driveway. This picture explains my baby so thoroughly. All he really wants in the whole world is to be big and explore. He seriously has no idea he's a baby.

Poor Baby (Max-ism)

Max and Grandma's Morning ritual

Max will be one year old next Friday. (We'll get into how upsetting that is another day.)

Do you remember how he started out life with a lot of reflux and other stomach problems? We went through a lot of testing at Primary Children's to figure out what was wrong with him, and finally we figured out he was just allergic to milk and wasn't getting enough breastmilk (also a big subject for another day). When we finally figured it out, he went from tiny little skinny frail baby to a whole new kid! Chubby, chubby, chubby! And so happy. My whole world turned around the day we figured out what to feed him and what not to feed him! Suddenly I had a healthy, happy kid.

We're still struggling with some allergies, though. For the life of me, I can't figure out what they are. Max wants table food all the time. He loves crackers, vegetables, fruit of all kinds, bread, etc., etc. The problem is that he's getting horrible diaper rash that makes him bleed when he eats certain foods (which is exactly how Josh's allergy to milk presented itself when he was a baby). I have no idea what those foods are because he eats so many things now.

So, elimination diet, here we come.  (Can I just say I am not excited about this?? Max LOVES food, and he's a huge fan of variety.)

Also, his birthday party is next weekend. How lame is it that he can't have cake? :(

But, I need to do what he needs. A few minutes ago, Max was playing and I was writing. He came over and started whining at me, and hitting my book I was writing in. I told him "No" several times, and he just kept hitting me and looking at me more intensely. Finally I picked him up and checked his diaper, and sure enough, he had a brand new messy diaper that was burning his skin, making him bleed. It's that fast... I had only changed his diaper 5 minutes before. My poor baby wasn't trying to be obnoxious, he was just trying to tell me something was wrong.

He's such a smart baby, I swear he's more like a two-year-old than a one-year-old... and we need to figure out what is causing his poor little rash! If anyone knows anything about stuff like this, I'd be happy to hear your suggestions! His doctor (like Josh's doctor) isn't convinced it's an allergy, so she's basically useless in this arena. Suggestions, anyone?

I'd really love to quit having to give my baby a bath and two tons of diaper rash cream several times a day. :)

FrogMax Climbs the Stairs

Just two weeks ago, my baby was perfect. Watch this... he just stayed in one place and played with his toys.

Now my naughty baby thinks he should be a big kid. Yesterday he climbed all the way up the stairs and into the bathroom to see Josh.



Somebody slow this kid down!!

Baby with a Temper

My mom sent me an article last week about 7-month-old babies. It said that separation anxiety begins around 7 months. I said, "Oh, great." At the same time, though, I thought about my sweet baby and how he hasn't had any of that, and how glad I was!

Well, guess what. Two days ago, Max started a really fun new trick. He wants to be put in his bed to go to sleep, and he used to cry when he dropped his bottle, so I'd go in and give it back to him. Now, he sees me start to walk out of the room and he throws down his bottle, screaming bloody murder until I return. I give the bottle back to him and he takes it graciously, until the moment I start to move toward the door. At this, he screams.

I've played this game before (ahem, Asher), and I'm not really interested in playing again. So, I'm cracking open the miracle book I read way back when, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child to remember how to teach him to put himself to sleep without me. Wish me luck! I know it works, I just need the patience to carry out the plan. God grant me patience.