Hi!

Do you ever replay conversations thinking about what you should have said? How about thinking about conversations you know you'll have, do you ever think about what your best response would be? I do. All the time. I sometimes lay awake at night replay conversations that didn't go the way I wanted or conversations I'll be having soon. Things buzz in my head like that.

So I wasn't too surprised when I heard my son saying "hi" over and over last night. Each time he had a slightly different inflection until he got it just right. "Hi!" "Hi?" "hi." "Hiiii." "HI!" Almost as if he was thinking "I should have said 'hi' not 'Hi'"

That's my kid.

Whatever it is I think I see. . .

Our son is obsessed with trains. . . completely and totally obsessed. The first thing he says when he wakes up—and I swear I'm not making this up—is "choo-choo." Sometimes it's whispered sometimes it yelled.

He is constantly asking us to watch Thomas the Tank Engine ("peas choo-choo" while rubbing his chest to sign "please"). It's cute, but only as long as you actually give in and let him watch the show. Otherwise he throws a fit so bad you might actually wish a real train were passing through the living room. Unfortunately the show is only on once a week so we TiVO it and play the same 5 episodes over and over. He knows all their names and has a favorite. . . Emily in case you're curious. We were watching the show one morning and he repeated her name perfectly clear. Ever since he's in love with her.

I almost wish it stopped with Thomas, but it doesn't. At grandma's house train go by and he can see them from her kitchen window. He yells "choo-choo" when we drive under train bridges that cross the highways. He drives his train toys around the house yelling "aw-a-boad." He even pretends that everything else is a train. He has stacking blocks that he pretends is a train. He lines the boxes up and pushes them around. Everything is a train to him. I enjoy the fact that he's pretending, but why is everything a train?

Hopefully it's a phase and soon enough we can be playing Batman or something cooler.

Counting mean parents to go to sleep. . .

Babies. . . oh I guess it should be toddlers now. Toddlers sometimes have bad dreams. People have often wondered what could possibly be so bad that a toddler could have a bad dream. In our case, WE are that bad.

We bought a Sesame Street toddler video gamefrom Target for I think $9 a few weeks ago. It's not the first computer program we've let him play with, but it's the first one he's asked for. When he's not begging to watch Thomas the Tank Engine or Jack's Big Music Show or to listen to the one song he knows by name, he's asking for "ah-mo*." He even knows to clear off the coffee table so the computer can sit there and he can play his computer game with mommy. It's cute.

What isn't cute is when we say "no" to any of his string of requests—and yes, he normally asks for one right after the other. When we say "no" he starts to cry and yells again for whatever we denied him. . . really, it's a fun game. This is often accompanied with his laying his head down or rolling on the floor. Tantrums are great fun, aren't they.

So you can imagine how funny my wife and I found it at 5 am this morning when we woke to crying and the scream of "ah-mo!" Coming from his room. Apparently us saying "no" is that traumatic for him.

*Ah-mo (n): Elmo and his computer game.

Pink?. . .

Our little buddy is learning a lot. He is learning names for everything, answering questions with real answers, and starting to learn his colors. He first learned green. And then everything was green. We'd ask what color something was and no matter the color the answer was "green." Soon he started saying "red" and sometimes "blue." Then a funny thing happened. . . he learned a new color without much prompting.

Pink.

And now it's his favorite. Pink? Really?. . . Really?!

New look. . . .

New design! The picture was from our 18-month photo shoot. We had the monkeybear color on the white background. Hopefully the new design will entice me to post more often.

Two week chip. . .

I am finally ready to call the pacifier detox program a success. The first week was tough. He'd cry himself to sleep off and on most nights, naps were much better. Then he started sleeping longer in the mornings and more soundly. . . which means I was sleeping more soundly (my wife sleeps soundly regardless).

Now he's done it. He still occasionally asks for a "pass," but we show him they are no longer in the spot where they were once kept and remind him that he doesn't need one. He goes to sleep fairly quickly and without fighting much. Some nights he'll still lay and talk to himself.

The final test will come this weekend when he goes to sleep at Grandma's. It's been a long time since he slept somewhere other than at our house without us there.

No, he really hated it. . .

He hated the sound, he hated the splashing, he hated most of it. . . this is how much he hated it. He hated it so much we actually walked across a 50 foot wide wading pool to reach the exit doors (he has a good sense of direction when he wants something).

He was OK with the lazy river after a little bit. He'd sit on our laps and ride around. He was slightly OK with the out door pool, as long as we were away from the splashy bits.

So during our trip we made 3 trips to that fountain for him to play. He really loved it. We need to find another around here.

No water parks. . .

So a couple weeks ago we went on a little road trip to Kansas City. We spent the first couple days and nights hanging out with friends. The first day we went to this outdoor mall called "the Legends." In the mall was this big fountain. There were some kids playing in it so I thought I'd try our monkeybear out in it.

He loved it.

This was great news because the second half of our vacation was going to be spent at the Great Wolf Lodge, an indoor water park resort.

He later loved the water room at this place called Wonderscope and when he saw the big pool outside our balcony at the lodge. . . then the moment of truth the indoor water park.

Yeah he hated it.

Detox. . .

Almost every kid uses one at some point. They are addictive. My sister's kids were so hooked, that they had tons of them stashed throughout the house so if you took one they'd walk three steps and grab another. Of course I'm talking about the crack rock of babies. . . pacifiers.

This past winter (during Christmas break to be exact) we moved from allowing pacifiers almost anywhere to being a bed only thing. It went well. The hardest part was getting grandma in on the plan, but she did and by the beginning of the year pacifiers were reclassified from full-time accessory to a sleeping implement.

So then the plan was to abolish them when summer break approached (it's easier to start big things when your wife is a teacher). I started this spring by taking it out of his mouth once he was asleep but I made the mistake of reinserting it if he cried during the night. We then allowed it in the car while we were on vacation 2 weeks ago and hooked him more than ever. A few days ago we took it completely. The first 2 nights combined crying and sucking on his stuffed panda. The third night was LOTS of crying. Last night combined talking to himself for a couple hours with waking up crying throughout the night. . . and every morning has meant once he is awake he's awake (the pacifier used to sooth him back to sleep).

He's asked for it, begged at some points. Cried. . . including sobbing "please," which just breaks your heart. Like he just wants one little hit and he'll be OK. It makes you realize just how attached they can get to certain things. I wonder is people who do interventions on heroine addicts feel this way. Like maybe it wasn't that bad and we should have just let him keep it for awhile. But I know things are getting better and a light is in fact growing nearer.