Painting

18 months

Daniel is a year and a half old. I often think he's older than that, maybe because he's so tall. At his 18mo well visit, he was 34in and 26 lbs. Or so. Neither measurement was all that exact because Daniel was not so interested in being measured :)

Daniel's phrase of the month is: "Oh no!" Dave read him a story that said "Oh no!" several times and Daniel picked right up on it, even imitating Dave's inflection. It was so cute to hear him emphatically saying, "Oh no!" in his sweet little baby voice. We could tell at first that he didn't quite understand what it meant. We laughed when he said it randomly and so it became the-words-that-make-mom-and-dad-laugh. He knew uh-oh, so I started saying oh no in place of uh-oh and he got the meaning pretty quickly. Other new words include: broom, bubble, beh-bah (belly button), choo-choo, boom, eye and pop. He's been saying a lot of new words but I don't always remember long enough to write them down. He also makes a lot of sound effects, making me realize how many silly sounds and sound effects I make throughout the day. Since I started writing this (almost 2 weeks ago!) he's added sharp, hop, green, blue and shoe. He's also started signing light, again and more and shakes his head "no."

Daniel loves to run and to be chased around the house. He also loves climbing on the couch and then jumping off into or arms or jumping from one couch to the other. He's turning into quite the climber and I'm trying to give him enough places where he can climb.

Daniel has a pretty good memory and knows where things are. One day I went to change his diaper and the wipe solution bottle wasn't on the shelf. I asked Daniel where it was (he had been playing with one of them earlier) and he pointed behind the changing table. Sure enough, both the bottle I knew he was playing with and the one I was looking for were under the changing table. I can usually ask him where he put something and he'll run off to get it and bring it back.

Daniel has figured out how to pull the trigger on the spray bottle. At first he could only push it when he was pointing the bottle towards him. He alternately shot water over his shoulder and into his face, squealing and laughing as he did.

Daniel pulled the vacuum out of the closet the other night, unwound the cord and brought it over to me to plug in for him. I plugged it in, finished a couple things and then we vacuumed. I went to unplug the vacuum when we were done and it was plugged in to a totally different outlet than I had plugged it into! I don't think the cat switched it, so it must have been Daniel!

One of our favorite games this month has been the "run to mama" game. I sit on the floor with my arms out and say, "Run to mama!" Daniel comes running to me and gives me a big bear hug. Then he'll run giggling to the other room or to dad, stop a a minute, then run back to me again for another hug.

This and That

- We've had the sickies visiting us the last 2 weeks, with a stomach bug and then a nasty cold. Fortunately, the stomach bug is long gone, the cold is on it's way out and we're able to get out of the house again - woo hoo! We were also very fortunate that Dave's mom was able to come for several days to help with all the fallout. Did I mention that we started moving furniture a few hours before Daniel and I got sick? We spent several days with the couch in the middle of the room blocking the bookshelf and random books and tables strewn about until we could get it all back under control.

- Daniel was pulling baking pans out of the drawer under the oven when I noticed that it was pretty dirty. I figured I might as well wipe it out while it was already half-empty. I pulled out the drawer and I was so shocked to see everything that had accumulated under the stove that I had to write it down: 5 letter magnets, spatula, pen, battery, lid from an olive oil jar, cat medicine syringe, crayon, cheerios, popcorn, twist ties, goldfish, leaf, raisins, dust bunnies, spaghetti noodles, cat food and a peanut.

- Aside from under the oven, my house stays so much cleaner now that Daniel loves to vacuum. Seriously, when I was making a list Tuesday night of fun things we could do to keep Daniel busy while we were snowbound, I wrote down "vacuum."

Honoring a hero

Today is a day set aside to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest heroes of our nation.

Daniel and I were planning to go to the Museum of African American History here in Detroit today for the special events they were holding, but some things came up and we weren't able to go. Instead we watched Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington online. I don't know how much Daniel understood, but I did tell him who he was watching and why he was so important.

We also listened to his speech from the Great March on Detroit a few months earlier on the radio. This speech had the first version of the famous "I Have a Dream" section. I didn't know that until today. That speech was particularly inspiring to me today (you can see the text here), especially hearing his challenges directly to the people of Detroit. In our city and in our country, we have come a long ways, but we still have so far left to go.

I don't have any insightful commentary to share, just my desire to see justice in our land. Please don't be complacent. So many people see a black president and think that everything is okay now. It is not. The longer I live as a white woman in this predominantly African-American community, the more I see lingering injustice, pervasive racism and realize just how deep the wounds go. And I can only see and understand a tiny bit of it. I've been confronted with my own prejudices that I didn't know were still there. But day by day, I seek to grow in truth and grace, to be transformed in my mind and heart.

Sometimes it's hard as a white person to know what to do, to know how to change yourself and this society. But I just want to encourage you today to do something. Talk to your children about the legacy of Dr. King. Help them to see where racism and injustice persist. Help them find ways to build bridges. Examine yourself, your thoughts and your interactions. What are you modeling for your children and others around you? What messages do you give them through your words and actions? What are you doing to overcome racism and injustice?

17 months

The months just keep flying by and Daniel is 17 months old now. Before I know it, he'll be 17 and I'll be wondering where the years went.

His favorite word lately is "hot." If the water he's playing in or the food he's eating is too warm, he'll tell me that it's hot. He even told me that when his bowl was a little warm. He likes to help blow off his food when it's still warm.

Daniel loves to play in the water. We pull up a chair and he "helps" me wash dishes. Usually that means he plays in the water, though sometimes it means he takes dishes from the drainer to scrub them himself with the soapy sponge. We've been changing his shirt several times a day lately since he keeps getting soaked! He also loves to help me cook. His favorite things are scooping out flour and stirring anything. He gets pretty indignant when I'm stirring something and don't let him have a turn.

About a month ago, Daniel went from being terrified of the vacuum to loving it. Now he wants to help vacuum all the time. Yesterday I was working in the kitchen and heard a noise. I poked my head around the corner and saw this:

Daniel had pulled the vacuum out of the closet and was all ready to go!

He loves to do whatever we're doing, whether it's drinking tea or coffee from a mug, wiping things up or spraying off diapers. I've learned that it's better to just find a way that he can help. He's been helping carry dishes from the table to the dishwasher. He's also started opening books and "reading" them out loud.


He's been enjoying playing in the snow this week. Dave's parents gave him a little sled for Christmas and he loves being pulled up and down the sidewalk in it.


Daniel can show us his belly button, hands, feet, nose, eyes and mouth. It's amazing to see all the things he understands! It's fun to see how proud he is of all the things he can do. It's also been interesting to see how much he's developing a mind of his own. He certainly knows what he wants.

Daniel is still very sweet and cuddly. He loves to laugh and play and has such a sweet giggle. It is an amazing journey and I'm still so glad I'm his mom and that I get to spend my days with him.

What a difference a week makes

A week ago, I was going crazy. Daniel was not feeling well and was having a very cranky day. We were all tired and exhausted, coming off of two 90-100 hr work weeks for Dave (and for me!). But this past week, Dave only worked 55 hours! In case you don't know, that is unbelievable for a resident. He was home before 6:00 FOUR nights out of five. Plus he had the whole weekend off. I can't believe what a difference it made to have a husband and dad for the weekend. A friend took Daniel for a couple hours and we had a date Saturday morning. We got a Christmas tree. We went to church. Daniel got to play with his Daddy. Dave and I got to interact like normal people and talk and laugh together. I started the week more refreshed and not so far behind. Is this what life is really like for normal people with normal jobs?

Today I had three goals: do laundry, play outside in the snow, and go to the produce market. And if we were really doing well, maybe clean the bathroom too. Three loads of laundry are washed, dried and put away. We spent 10 minutes getting all dressed to go play in the snow, 10 minutes playing in the snow (it was really cold!) and another 5 minutes getting out of our snow clothes. We cleaned the bathroom. We went to the produce market (had I known how bad the roads were, I probably would have skipped it!). Plus I kept all the dishes washed as we used them. Daniel helped me with most of those things, so I didn't feel like I did them at the expense of focusing on him. Then after dinner, I could just relax and play with Daniel without worrying about anything else I needed to get done. It feels so good and empowering to have had such a good day, and it's a wonderful blessing after the last few weeks of craziness.

15 months

Daniel is 15 months old and he won't be for much longer, so I'd better go ahead and write about it. I'm writing instead of doing dishes, cleaning up, returning phone calls and doing several other things I should probably be doing, but if I don't, I won't have anything to remember these precious days!

He's 33 inches tall and weighs about 25 pounds. Yes, that is very tall. He is as tall as or taller than most of his friends who are several (or many!) months older than him. Sometimes I wonder why he isn't doing some of the things they're doing and then I remember that he isn't as old as they are and he's doing just fine.

Daniel jabbers a lot, with animated expressions and lots of pointing. It all sounds very interesting, but we can't understand a word of it. He has said a few words, though he doesn't use many of them consistently: mama, dada, uh-oh, bye-bye, kit (kitty) and chs (cheese). He signs "all done" regularly, "milk" sometimes (the kind from mama, not from a cow), and his new favorite is "please." He finally got that a few weeks ago and a whole new world has opened up to him now that he can tell us that he wants something. The other day, he was pointing to something on the table and signed please. I didn't have a clue what he wanted (usually I know), so I asked him what he wanted and he very emphatically signed please. Hmm. Two days ago, he signed banana (more or less) and cheese.

Daniel loves turning the lights on and off, so I've been holding him up and letting him do it as we go in and out of rooms. He also loves standing on the stool at the bathroom sink playing in the water. He likes to wet his toothbrush and suck the water off. I give him a toothbrush to chew on and I hold a second one to brush his teeth. Often he brushes my teeth while I do his. Whatever works, right? Speaking of teeth, he has 16 of them. We should have a break for at least a couple months before his 2yr molars come in.

Daniel loves to be outside. He enjoyed playing in the leaves during the fall and watching the snowflakes coming down yesterday. Hopefully mama can stay motivated to get him outside to play even when it's cold out.


Daniel is a climber. The other day I turned around and he was standing on the coffee table. He can easily go up and down the stairs and get up and down on the chairs and couch. He's getting pretty good at sliding down from our bed too. It's been really fun to watch him playing at the playground lately, now that he's getting so much better at doing things himself. He runs now too and gets such a thrill out of being chased. We can chase him around and around the loop in our house. It's pretty good exercise for me too, especially if I pick up things off the floor and put them away as we go between all the rooms. He likes music and dances decently to it, though his favorite is to dance around the room with me while I hold him.


Daniel is still a good eater. He likes his food well seasoned (no bland food around here!) and he feeds himself pretty well with a fork and spoon. He wants to hold the bowl himself, thank you very much, and wants to drink out of a real cup, although he might be content with mama's water bottle.

Speaking of water bottles, one of his favorite things to do lately is screw and unscrew caps on and off of bottles, jars or anything similar. He likes to fill them up with toys and stir with a spoon. He opens up all the drawers and pulls things out. He likes to knock down block towers. He can stack the blocks too, but knowing them down is so much more fun. I try to see how many I can get on top of each other before he knocks them down. He likes to color/write, but only with a pen. With crayons, he's more interested in putting them in the box or eating them than he is in coloring with them. He also enjoys typing at the computer and can even climb up in the chair himself.


Daniel is very busy, but very fun. It's wonderful to watch him explore the world and I'm so glad I get to be his mom and spend all my days with him.

On Snot Snatching and Suturing

A while ago, our beloved hospital grade nasal aspirator (aka a snot-snatcher!) burst at the seam (literally) and we no longer had a good way to clean out Daniel's nose. I browsed online and found some but Daniel got over the bad cold he had and I never did order one. We tried gorilla gluing it and it held for a whopping 5 seconds! Dave mentioned off-hand that we could try suturing it if the glue didn't work, but it started it's second life as a chew toy instead.

Fast forward a few weeks and Daniel has another bad cold. The same one that Dave had all last week and this week too. The one that I hope doesn't mess up our Thanksgiving plans. So when Daniel pulled out a random pack of suture from the bedside table today - and no, I don't know how it got there - I decided to try my hand at that most essential surgical skill. It takes a little practice to get used to the curved needle. I could see why people accidentally poke themselves with it, at least until Dave came home and reminded me that you're supposed to hold it with another instrument and not just your fingers. I tried out the aspirator and it still leaked a little air, so Dave added a second layer of suture to fill in some of the gaps, then went over the needle holes with a layer of glue. It worked pretty well on Daniel tonight, but he still couldn't breathe when we put him to bed. :(

I was going to say that this was my first experience with suture, but then I remembered that wasn't true. I used suture last year to string up parsley stalks to dry. It worked very well and was much easier than tying them. Now when we go to Africa, I can be Dave's surgical assistant! (Totally kidding - about being his assistant, that is)

So much for that!

So much for NaBloPoMo-ing it this year. I can't seem to keep up with my life, let alone write about it. This has been a very busy season for us. We had a couple weeks where Daniel was teething, sick, and/or injured. Right now, he's into everything and I just can't seem to stay far enough of him to keep him busy and get the things I don't want him into away. I am thoroughly convinced that we were not intended to live in isolation and that we were not designed to be parents alone, without the support of family and community. We're really struggling with that right now. As much as I've tried to find people who can help me, it's just not working out. Right now, I'm 0 for 4. It makes me wonder if it's time to quit asking and just do it myself. It makes a difference emotionally. When I was doing it on my own, I was mostly managing. But once I decided (realized?) that I really did need some help, I feel even more overwhelmed when I'm all on my own. It seems like it would be easier to just quit thinking that I need any help and then not be disappointed when I can't get it. Or maybe I just need to hold out a few weeks and see if I can get one step ahead. Maybe I'll get lucky and 15 months will be slightly less intense than 14 months has been :)

NaBloPoMo?

Although it's hard to believe, it's November again, which means that it's National Blog Posting Month. I did it last year and (mostly) enjoyed it, though my dad kindly suggested that I "not try that again." But I have lots to say and lots of pictures to share and I don't because I haven't made it a priority. So I'm considering NaBloPoMo-ing it again this year. Am I crazy?