18 months and Squinting

Robert had his "well baby" checkup last week. All is well. He's 75th percentile for height and weight, 50th percentile for head circumference. His slightly smaller head and slightly larger bum (cloth dipes) make him look a lot bigger than he really is.

We were shown to the exam room and Robert suddenly used every limb to sucker himself to my chest. Octopus boy, I tell you! He screamed and cried while the aide took his measurements, then wrapped himself around me as I picked him up. The moment the aide left us alone in the room, Robert's head popped up off my shoulder and he climbed down to explore the room. He peeked into the table cabinets and found an empty space. He smiled his big grin and said, "Nigh-neen", which is to mean "hiding." I gave him an assuring nod and he climbed on in and shut the door on himself. Crazy, silly, funny boy. We played the hiding game for a few minutes until the doctor came in. She was amused at his antics, like no other kid had ever tried that before. I think it's more likely that no other parent had let the kid do it long enough for the doctor to walk in on (blush).

Robert turned into an octopus again while we went through all the preliminary questions for the visit. He was laying his head on my shoulder so quietly and so still that Dr. Beck even asked, "Did he fall asleep?" Yeah right. Crying, but resigned to the reality of the physical exam, Robert endured the prodding, peeking, and odd little lights quite well. Dr. Beck left and he hopped off my lap to go play in the cabinet again. We had a good few minutes to acclimate before the nurse came in. Robert ran over to me, but didn't do anything more until he saw her put on the gloves. That was it! He scrambled into my lap, pressed his body into my chest as hard as he could, wrapped his arms around my neck, buried his face into my shoulder, and sat perfectly motionless and silent. I imagine him thinking, "If I can just stay still, she won't see me anymore." The reality was, he never saw the first shot coming, but he was absolutely aware of the following two. 

He wasn't a fan of the shots. Thankfully, the angry, throaty, unearthly screams were missing this time around.  Or maybe he's just grown into them? The best part, though, was showing him the new "doggie stickers" on his thighs and telling him we were all done. He chirped, "Ah-dunn? Ah-dunn? Ah-dunn. Doggie!" as I put on his clothes. He had no more tears. He wanted no snuggles. He wanted to go. Now. Happily. And we did.

It was a good visit. I love this little character! There was another story I wanted to record here before I forgot about it:

Three mornings a week, Robert and I drive Alice to preschool. It's usually just as the sun comes over the trees and poor Robert gets a whole face full of sunshine most of the way there. It makes him sneeze and he squinches up his face shouting, "Eyes! Eyes! Eyes!" Well, last Wednesday, we turned onto the street that usually assaults Robert with sunshine and I saw him back there squinching and yelling, "Eyes! Eyes!" I burst out laughing and said, "Buddy, it's cloudy today! There's no sun in your eyes." He stopped shouting, unsquinched his eyes a little, and then looked out the window a little confused. A huge grin lit up his face and all three of us were laughing, laughing, laughing the rest of the way to preschool.

Yep, I'll keep him. Keep 'em both, actually. They're so good for me.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Not too much new happened this past week.  Well at least there were a few field trips that Susan already posted pictures and what not about, but as far as my work, and home life nothing too new has happened.  I still go to work every day, stare at a computer screen for hours on end, then come home, play with Alice and Robert until it is time for them to go to bed.  I have a pretty good life.

Negangard Pumpkins 2011

Wake up, Buddy, it's time to freeze your tail off at the pumpkin patch!

We picked the most freezy, windy, bitter day of the week to go choose pumpkins. If I had held off just 24 hours, it would have been blissfully sunny and quintessentially fall. Oh well. I got to use the good weather for some of my own gardening projects. I think the kids had fun despite the cold :) Thanks to the Jarvies for suggesting snow pants!

He's either saying "That one!" or, "Alice is WAY too close to me!"

Freezing, freezing cold. If we hadn't had cocoa and toast for breakfast, I would have picked it for dinner :(

 Alice picked out 8 lovely miniature gourds/squash. She turned the acorn squash into a pirate jack-o-lantern:

The black spot is the eye patch next to a normal eye. The three holes in the middle are left, cheek, nose, and right cheek. Then there's the wry smile at the bottom. Only a birthday candle would fit inside :)

Then she wanted to cut a few open to see what was inside. We're drying some of the seeds to plant in our garden next year. 

Buddy just keeps trying to eat the miniature squash like apples. Very disappointing for him. I purchased a few smaller pumpkins and a couple butternut squash to cook for pumpkin/squash pies, breads, cakes, and cookies. I think I'll roast them in the oven and then freeze the puree. Alice also helped me pick out a larger pumpkin for a family jack-o-lantern.

I'm still not entirely sure how to approach holiday decorating, but Halloween seems like an easy enough place to start. A jack-o-lantern and a swarm of bats sounds just about right :)

Tractors!

Guess where our field trip took us today?

Tractors! Front loaders, back hoes, combines, excavators, steamrollers, and articulated wheel loaders! Oh yeah, baby, we totally toured Birkey's Farm Store in Urbana. The temperature was hovering around 35F and the wind gusts were up to 25mph, but our little cluster of kids held out pretty well. The manager let us climb in and explore all kinds of heavy machinery for agriculture and construction. I wish I had known more about it so I could ask our generous and friendly tour guide more questions.

Regardless of what the awkward picture above suggests, Robert liked wandering, climbing, sitting and steering. Alice enjoyed it off and on, depending on how cold she felt at the moment. Spencer B. was at our tour guide's side, leading the way, and almost always the first one to hop onto the next big machine.

If I ever do this again, I will do it in the middle of the summer. Brrrrr.

Bobby's Sunday Summary (God is a better computer programmer then me)

Well quite a bit has happened this week.  We had the primary program at Church.  This was Alice's first program.  She did a wonderful job.  She said her line and she sang all of the songs.  Susan was very sad that she missed Alice's line, because she was changing Robert's diaper.

We raked leaves yesterday too.

But the thing the stood out to me the most was an experience I had Saturday morning.  At work I work on an open source project.  What that means is that several different companies, and individuals work together to create this software.  What it comes down to is that there are a lot more politics involved with doing something then in other projects I have worked on.  Anyways this past week I have been rather stressed out.  I was given the assignment to work on adding in some security to a very complex and convoluted web site.  I had some fundamental disagreements with someone else about the design of the software.  I am rather new to the project so I gave in and said that I would do it the way that he wanted me to.  But the software I have so far is very complicated, isn't going to work correctly without me making it even more complex, and way outside my area of expertise.

Anyways I was having lots of issues trying to get this thing to work. So I was praying about it Friday night trying to decided what I should do, and I felt that there was a third way to do it, I should just go to bed, and I would have the answer in the morning.  I wasn't quite sure about it so I decided to just do it, because going to bed is something that I am actually rather good at.  Anyways Saturday morning when I work up the first thing that pops into my head is a picture of a building with lots of windows.  I don't understand all of how that picture led to what poped into my head, but within a few minutes I had a solution to the problem that not only solved this issue but solved several other issues that were going to be left for the next round of development.  If you want the dry boring details of the design I would be happy to let anyone who actually cares about it know, but I figure most people have no desire to know about it.