His asthma (pretty much unchanged)
His mental acuity (recognition of colors, shapes, numbers, letters, etc)
How much we LOOOOOOVE poking him with sharp objects.

Poor dude had another blood draw to check for lead and anemia this time around. Unlike last time, he noticed the needle. Perhaps if I’d surprised him with another All! New! Experience!– perhaps a kitten?– it would have gone as well as last year’s blood draw. But alas, a shiny sticker and a sucker were not enough to distract him from someone jabbing him with a needle and stealing his precious life essence. I explained to him what was going to happen, then what WAS happening, and I think that helped. When the nurse put the rubber tie around his arm he said “Oh, this gives me an owie owie” and made a sad face, then bit into his lollypop. When she stuck the needle in, he said “Oh!” and tried to slap her away, but stayed pretty calm and still as we talked to him and held him. He got a Sesame Street bandage, which helped.

He doesn’t need any more vaccines until he is 5 years old, and our doctor decided to forgo the TB test until it’s required for kindergarten because he’s low risk for TB. He also FREAKED OUT when she tried to look in his mouth because he “didn’t want her to get it dirty” and cried when we laid him down so she could palpate his stomach/check his genitals. His lament? “I don’t want you to see me CRRRRYYYYYYY.” So we hid his face and he calmed down some.

The problem with making doctor appointments is that Nesko doesn’t get vacation days, which means if he takes a day off he doesn’t get paid for it, so we try to schedule appointments for when he goes in late to work, and that tends to coincide almost exactly with the danger zone of lunch time and nap time. So Niko is often a super cranky pants by the time it’s belly-checkin’ time. But he’s in general a laid back dude so frankly, it’s not THAT bad, and the staff are all super great at being patient and managing the situation, working with him, etc.

He is, if I remember correctly, 36 pounds and also he is 38 1/2 inches, which means that in two more feet he’ll be taller than I am. He’s about in the 85th percentile for weight, if I remembered his weight correctly, and 65th percentile for height.

I think I was going to write more about this, but Niko woke up from his nap halfway through the very first sentence, so whatever I had intended to write vanished into the ether. Ah well.

3 year Check Up is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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It’s a little bit frustrating is all.

We’ve got the bribes going. I’m trying to avoid threats and shame. He keeps promising that he’ll poop in the potty “tomorrow,” to the point where we’ve got a jam tomorrow, jam yesterday thing going on, perhaps. Meanwhile, have I mentioned how very tired I am of changing diapers and cleaning up poop? I am very tired of it! Very. The tiredest.

Meanwhile, we’ve tried talking to him about where pee and poop come from. Dude thinks I am full of it. Apparently he thinks pee is stored in his penis and poop is stored in his butt. I tried to explain that he eats food and swallows it and it goes in his stomach (his “tummy tummy,” if you will) and then his body takes out the vitamins and energy it needs and turns the rest into poop and he corrected me. “Mama, I don’t eat poop! Silly mama. Poop is not for eating!”

I’m glad we’re clear on that last bit.

I tried explaining again about drinking things and peeing, eating things and pooping. He laughed.

“So I pee in a cup and put my shirt in the cup and I eat my shirt and then it goes in my tummy tummy and I poop it out?”

He thought that statement was HILARIOUS and laughed about it. I don’t know where his SHIRT came into the equation, other than perhaps he was trying to feed me a line as ridiculous as the one I had just fed him. WE DON’T EAT POOP, MAMA! But we pretty much dropped the topic for the time being.

Until we happened to be out in public eating something and he loudly announced “Mama, I am eating this chicken nugget and turning it into poop!”

If only he’d put that poop in the potty.

The Poop Talk is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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We took Niko to the dentist last week for his first ever dental check up.

I was in a state of higher than usual anxiety about this for a number of reasons ranging from guilt that we hadn’t done it earlier (ADA recommends starting at 12 months) and fear that he had cavities (my poor baby!) to near-crippling emotional fallout from simply terrible, traumatic dental experiences that I’ve had throughout my life. FOR INSTANCE, and if you’re the kind of person who is scared of dentists, look away now, FOR INSTANCE, I remember my very first dental appointment! I was five or so. My dad took me. The dentist took me into his office (like, this desk-and-paperwork office) while my dad waited outside, and he sat behind his desk and I sat in a hard wooden chair, and he had a long lecture-y talk with me about What He Would Do To Me if I misbehaved in the exam chair. This included a threat to handcuff me to the chair. Ha haaaaa! FUN, right? And totally appropriate! I’m sure it comes as no surprise what so ever that after this experience I got the screaming fits when confronted with him and had to go to a special pricey pediatric dentist afterward. Yay. That dude was good. The dude after him? DID NOT KNOW HOW TO ADMINISTER NOVOCAINE to the point where I’d just get fillings with no Novocaine because why bother shit don’t work. HAAAAAAAAAAAH.

So anyway!

I don’t have a dentist currently. A quick googling showed a pediatric dentist literally 3 blocks from our home, easily walkable, who takes our insurance. I put off calling and put off calling and put off calling, and then finally called, trying not to hyperventilate. Making the appointment was easy! I even managed to sleep the night before! Nesko and I walked Niko over there. I tried to prep him by telling him what-to-expect stories involving various characters and imaginary friends going to the dentist. Once there, I filled out paperwork while Nesko took Niko into the play room with a climbing structure, slide, and tunnels. WHAT. WHAT.

After a very short wait, we were called back. The dental assistant counted Niko’s teeth, showed him the various tools, brushed his teeth, and took X-Rays. I had a nasty moment where it looked on the X-Ray like he had an immense crack through one of his teeth, but the dentist came in and looked everything over and said he looked fine so it must have just been a shadow or something OH THANK GOOD. There was no flossing, no tooth scraping, just a listerine-and-water rinse and a fluoride application. I asked about sealing his teeth and will bring it up when he gets his adult teeth in. The assistant and dentist were both really cool, laid back, patient, and kind.

Niko was totally unbothered by the events. They had TVs on the wall, so he watched Elmo, and at the end he got two big stickers and a sugar-free sucker. Little dude would shiv me IN A HEART BEAT for a sucker, so this was basically bliss for him. We walked back home and had a chill day.

I’m really glad that his first dental experience, like all of his medical experiences so far, has been so… non-dramatic. I wish we’d taken him to the dentist earlier, but there doesn’t seem to have been any harm done in waiting. We’ll take him again in six months, as recommended by the ADA.

And now that he’s been, I’ve got the first piece of paperwork finished that I need… to enroll him in school this fall. DUN… DUN… DUNNNNNNN.

First Ever Dental Visit is Yay! is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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Anyway, “Word World” is an educational show that works on letter recognition, phonics, and simple spelling. We watch it together and I help prompt him to make letter sounds/say what letters make sounds and after an episode we’ll go over letter shapes and sounds and maybe practice spelling some words. Personally, I’m terrible with phonics. I’m slightly deaf in one ear, which may be part of it, but a friend of mine who is a teacher casually mentioned once that it sounds like I have an auditory processing disorder as well, which frankly, I find easy to believe. I have a really difficult time discerning, say, the difference between “ch,” “sh,” and “dg/j” which is a pretty big problem with my attempts to learn my husband’s language which has TWO “ch”s, “sh”s, and “dg/j”s. I SAY the sounds right, but when I hear a word I’ve never seen spelled, I have a hard time figuring out if it’s got a ch, sh, or dg/j in it. I have a really hard time sounding words out to spell them.

But! I try to rise above that, and since phonics works for teaching most kids (and adults!) to read and write, I’m using it as best I can with Niko. We look at letters and make their sounds and talk about digraphs and stuff and we sound out words when we’re reading. Niko’s gotten to the OH MY GAWD ADORABLE phase where he “spells out” words totally the wrong way, just with random letters. It just about makes my heart explode with cute. Like, if I were an anime character, my eyes would be huge and shiny and have little hearts and stars floating in them.

This morning, he asked me to spell the word “Jet.” I sat down with a crayon and piece of paper and we said the word slowly together and then broke it down into pieces. Juh! Eh! Tuh! JET! He was able to break it down to sounds, and then figure out what letters made the sounds. I wrote the letters down and TADA! Jet! He spelled it himself, with encouragement/support from me.

I’ve grappled my entire life with poor spelling. Spellcheck is basically my best friend and we’ve had several torrid affairs. I learned to read when I was 3, but remember struggling incredibly hard with spelling in first grade. I failed test after test after test.I think the highest grade for spelling I’ve ever gotten has been a C+, and that was with much studying and writing the words out many times, etc. It’s so frustrating to work that hard and still fail! So I’m really surprised and delighted that phonics seems to be working for Niko, that he understands it, it clicks, and he can link letters with sounds and smash them all together to make words. Nobody mentioned the term “learning disability” to me until I was in high school, and even then it wasn’t an official diagnosis. I really nope Niko doesn’t have to deal with the same fucked up brain crap I’ve had to cope with my entire life, but if he does? I’m totally looking out for it– and for him. And today? He spelled “jet” and that’s just awesome.

Spelling is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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We haven’t put the remaining boxes of clothing back yet, and Niko has been having a really great time running into his closet and hiding behind the clothing/hanging closet organizer. “Mama mama mama! This is the best closet! I am hiding in this closet!” he says.

The other day he grabbed me and pulled me into the closet so we could “hide from tata!” Since Nesko was due to arrive home any minute, I agreed. We both ducked into the closet and Niko told me all about how we were hiding from tata and we were going to jump out and say SURPRISE! and tata would be SO SURPRISED etc. I heard Nesko’s key in the door and shushed Niko, who quieted down for a few seconds. But as soon as he heard Nesko entering, he started jumping in a circle and screaming while banging on the wall.

Oh, sweet child, that is not how you hide!

That is the worst hiding!

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Specifically, he said “Butterfly mama, don’t be a douche!”

I’ve touched, previously, on the butterfly hand puppet he forces me to wear. He calls me Buterfly mama when I’m wearing it, and sometimes when I’m not.

Anyway, I tried to clarify his statement. Was he saying goof? Doof? A few other words I now forget but totally asked him about? No, he said douche. And honestly, I have no idea where he picked that up from. He’d spent the day with his baba, who does not swear, and the rest of the family doesn’t swear around her. So where?

My kid called me a douche while I was tucking him into bed. I thought this momentous occasion would hold off for at least a decade more.

Kids. They grow up so fast.

So, my kid called me a douche the other day. is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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I managed to get everything folded with a minimum of falling/scolding (dear child: no, me folding laundry while sitting on the bed is NOT an open invitation to JUMP on the bed, why do you keep doing that, you know jumping is not allowed) and then I took some pyjamas and socks into Niko’s room to put in his dresser. I came back to get his pants and shirts and found Niko walking toward me, several pair of pants held in the mouth of his butterfly hand puppet.

“I help you!” he said. “Butterfly help you, mama.”

I thanked him and asked if I could carry the pants, and went back into our bedroom to get the rest of his clothing. He and butterfly then kind of… herded me… down the hall toward his room, butterfly’s open mouth clamped on me. I was puzzled for a bit, and frustrated because dude, get out of the way, why are you walking so close, when I realized they were helping me carry the laundry.

Well then.

I shoved his pants in his drawer and handed him shirts, two at a time, and he plopped those in the drawer as well, butterfly holding them in its mouth. It’s not the tidiest drawer in existence, but what do you expect from a toddler and a butterfly?

I help you? is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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In more fun news, Niko and I made cookies the other day. It worked out pretty well. We don’t have a table in the kitchen, and we don’t really have counter space, and I can’t really move my enormous heavy stand mixer, so we wound up doing that thing where he stands on a step ladder and I hand him a measuring cup of dry ingredient and he dumps it into he mixer bowl and I remind him not to touch the beater because I like him with both hands thank you very much. And then I turn the mixer on and do all the rest of the work myself and don’t give him the beater to lick because oh god raw egg god no. Then he piles all his toys in front of the oven because that’s the most helpful thing to do when I’m baking. Then we eat all the cookies. ALL OF THEM. I want to do it again, but we’re out of eggs, and the car wouldn’t start Sunday so… grocery trip postponed. (lack of eggs forced me– FORCED I SAY– to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Oh no!)

Niko’s been resisting naps lately, which is a foolish move on his part, because he needs a nap or he… uh. Does not cope well. After several days of nap refusal, he spent most of this morning draped over me on the couch, and is now sleeping in his bed cuddled up with a butterfly hand puppet.

I… should probably tell you about the butterfly hand puppet.

There’s this hand puppet. It’s a butterfly, with a big lipsticked mouth. It’s kind of creepy. Niko is enamored of it, possibly because it looks vaguely like a muppet? There are times when he will not listen to me or respond to me unless I’m talking in a silly voice through the butterfly hand puppet.

“Talk like a butterfly mama! Mama! TALK LIKE A BUTTERFLY! No, mama, no! No singing. Only butterfly can sing. Talk like a butterfly!”

Sometimes he calls me butterfly mama.

I sing the Reading Rainbow theme song in a goofy voice and he sings along.

All this butterfly talking makes my throat hurt. I mean, it literally causes me pain.

But I can’t stop because it’s so adorable and hilarious. Niko brings Butterfly things to eat… rocks and trains, but also flowers he makes out of round tinker toy pieces stuck onto straight tinker toy pieces. He says “I love you butterfly!” and gives the hand puppet a hug and a kiss and I try to eat his face and he laughs and says “naughty butterfly! Oh, I’m not mad at you!” Then he sings a song about butterflies while jumping in a circle.

Is this the best age, or what? Toddlers, man. Toddlers.

Anyway, nap time today, Butterfly coaxed Niko into bed (I only had to scoot him across the floor with my foot A LITTLE BIT) and then read 2 stories to him. I asked Niko if he wanted to sleep with Butterfly. His eyes got big and he laughed nervously. “SURE. YES. SURE.” Butterfly wished him good night and lay down on his pillow and I pulled my hand out. I wished Niko good night and told him to sleep tight. “WE WILL” he promised. Daww. And then he fell asleep in like 30 seconds because holy Christ is he running on empty lately.

DID YOU KNOW: if you read books too often they get broken? It’s true. The words just get worn out. At least that’s what Niko claims. We couldn’t read “Time To Pee” or “I Am A Bunny” because “we read those too much, mama, they’re broken. We broke them. The words are broken. We can’t read those too much.”

We’ve started doing some incredibly lazy and half assed potty training. Nesko released Niko into the wild yesterday wearing a shirt and socks and no pants at all. Nothing. Just his business flapping in the breeze. I set a timer and every 20 minutes Niko sat on the toilet and produced a minute amount of urine and then received a chocolate chip. It was a pretty sweet deal. Eventually it was nap time so I diapered him and put him down and then a friend came over… and it turned out he was faking the nap the entire time and he wanted to party, and since it was his favorite person in the whole entire world I said fuck it and let him. He did the foulest poop known to man, resulting in an emergency load of laundry and bath and the living room smelled really bad for like 20 minutes even though no poop got on the floor or anything, it just funked up the air. He was rashy from it (HE IS A DELICATE FLOWER and terrorpoops give him a bright but passing rash) so I put him in underpants. HE WAS THRILLED. Thrilled I say!  Dude, I have been trying to get him into underpants for months now. Literally months! And he would respond each time as though I were offering to mangle a limb! He was good as gold all evening until I put his bed time diaper and jammies on him. And, I mean, he was still good as gold then, he just wasn’t being manhandled into the bathroom every 20 minutes.

Lulled into a false sense of cocky over confidence, we did the underwear thing again today and after two pee pants in 45 minutes (and this was WITH two toilet visits!)  and a shy request for a diaper, I put a diaper and pants on him. Is he too tired to hold it? Was he only trying to impress our friend? I don’t know. We’ll try again this afternoon, maybe. MAYBE.

Another exciting result of potty training? Niko learned the word “penis” which he pronounces “Pee-Nuss.” It may sound odd that he never used that word before, but we usually use the Serbian word for his penis, which I don’t know how to spell. I think “Pee-Nuss” is hilarious, though. We’ve also hit the milestone that butts are funny, which I don’t know, I guess asses are just inherently funny? Because we don’t have verboten body parts or body labels in our house, and we talk about bottoms and butts and rectums and body parts and nakedness is no big deal. But the other day I told Niko to pull his sagging britches up over his bottom and he said “You mean my… GUZA?!?” (guza is the Serbian word for butt) and then he literally fell over laughing the way that toddlers do. WHATEVER, MAN. Just please wipe your Pee-Nuss after you pee, we don’t need dribbles all over the place.

Well Hello There! is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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Which, ok, my friend Kate thinks that is ridiculous because duh monsters are afraid of dinosaurs and dinosaurs are extinct, and I totally agree with her, but try explaining that to a two year old, right? They don’t logic well.

So I managed to get him settled in bed, reading him “I Am A Bunny” and “The Thomas And Friends Year Book” (which is a freaking catalog of Thomas And Friends toys only with no prices ha ha surprise suckers! That thing your kid totally wants is US$600!) and then the freak outs began, fueled in part by being over tired and possibly by running a low fever.

Because I am the meanest person ever, I sternly forbade Niko from sleeping in the big bed, and I turned out the light and left him to sniffle and tremble in fear.

Half an hour later he tucked himself neatly and calmly into our big bed while I faffed about online.

I let him fall asleep and then scooped him up in the most hilariously clumsy way and dragged him back to his room. He woke up half way there and resisted as much as a half-asleep toddler can resist, but frankly, he was having difficulty sitting up let alone pulling another escape attempt. So he soon crashed and I haven’t heard anything else from him.

We rearranged some furniture in his room, and that may have triggered this, or it might just be a completely random totally awesome toddler brain thing. I have no idea. It’s also possible that he is just a super lucky kid who inherited my completely rad night terrors. Yay!

Later on I’m gonna talk about Cingular and our decision to take Niko off of it. It’s pretty boring, but mostly I want to record it for myself. STAY TUNNED FOR MORE GRIPPING TALES OF TODDLER MEDICATION.

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An hour or two later I was awoken by the to-me obvious sound of a tiny person jumping on the couch while yelling I LIKE BEING NAUGHTY! I LIKE BEING NAUGHTY!

I think both things are very good indicators of how the new year will progress, a double helping of adorableness and naughtyness. Adorable naughtyness? Perhaps.

It’s a New Day! And a New Year! is a post from: Now Showing! Please stop by and leave a comment! If you like my baby blog, please check out my other blog as well.

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