Cabo #1: Encounter with Tortilla Chips

You asked for it: Cabo Update #1. To sum up, Benjamin loves tortilla chips. I prove:

Cabo Wabo...teaser

This is the latest "family self-portrait" taken by the Mama while the P-Pod was on vacation this past week in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

It shows what we spent most of our time doing - the Papa ate many, many tacos, the Baby watched and then wanted to participate, and the Mama snapped muchos fotos.

I apologize for not warning you all that I would be taking an eight-day break from posting...I thought, for a few moments, that it might be stupid of me to alert the world that my house would be vacant that long. A passing moment of paranoia that did not wear off until I was far away from my internet connection.

Anyway.

We met up with my dear, dear friend Karen and her husband and almost-four-year-old boy whom we will call Spidey as he is obsessed, primarily with Spiderman, but really with all things superhero. Such is the life of an almost-four-year-old, I am told.

We stayed in a condo with a view of the beach.

We stayed in a condo in a pristine, though slightly aged, resort.

We stayed in a condo where we could walk fifty yards to a pool, or sixty yards to the ocean. Seriously.

I will tell you much more tomorrow; for now I need to go get the good night's sleep I did not get while on vacation.

It's terribly hard to share a room with a willful one-year-old who is not on his regular eating and napping routine.

And, now that the willful one-year-old is soundly sleeping in his own bed, in his own room, it is terribly hard to share my living room with a dog who keeps passing gas from eating a different type of dog food while staying at A.B. and Uncle Mike's house.

But I will leave you with this tidbit: Budja-bejem is now walking a whole six steps or more consecutively.

Pictures forthcoming.

BenSpeak 2.09

Little P is talking up a storm these days, and is close to mastering a few simple words. Let's take a look at his current vocabulary.

dod - "dog"

Budja-bejem - "Benjamin"

hot - "eggs" - I started feeding him eggs and, because they were hot off the pan, began by blowing on them and saying hot. At this point in time, Little P believes that the correct term for eggs is "hot."

kuk - "truck"

ka - "car"

hi - "hi"

pritee - "pretty" - He points at anything interesting and says it. I think this started because I would always ask him if he wanted to see the "pretty things".

shoo - "shoes"

pru - "prune"

shix - "six"

uh - "what?"

yay - "yay" - He says this while clapping his hands.

haaaaaaaaah - "the sound of a crowd gone wild from far away" - Papa makes this sound as part of the cheers for the nightly bath time showdown between the world's largest frog and the 22-pound dancing bear. For pictures, click here. (Papa runs bath time as if it were a wrestling tournament.) Budja-bejem makes this sound when he is excited or clapping.

And, of course, Mama and Dada. There is so much that is unintelligible coming out of his mouth right now that he may be saying other words we just don't understand. (He crawls around repeating "dadun, dadun, dadun, dadun," for example.) Stay tuned.

My Mini Hipster and Friends

Mama has been duly informed that her rant on dressing babies like teenagers was ridiculous. Indeed, now that Little P is looking much more like a boy than a baby, I am a little more open to hipness.

As you can see, Little P is sporting a stylishly worn knit hat from Naartjie (which has girl clothes to die for, if you're the type who dies for fashion). He also has on a flannel shirt that brings out the color of his eyes. Wise choice. I'm not sure what the brand is, probably Circo, maybe OshKosh if I'm lucky, but I found it at AmVets. This little ensemble made uber-stylish girlfriend Karen think that I was actually dressing Little P with some taste. Too bad for her, she did not see the rest of the outfit:

Notice the hopelessly mismatched DINOSAUR PAJAMA LEGGINGS?! Mama needs help.

So, when I found out there was a blog entitled MiniHipster, I thought I'd check it out. You know, Mama's got her own style that includes dramatic headgear, but that's not going to help Little P any when he gets to middle school.

The site made me think about how Little P has all kinds of stylish influences all around him in the form of...cousins.
We'll start with Alexa. Although Little P is not a girl and will therefore not be wearing pink butterflies any time soon, he can take away the concept of matching the color of his sunglasses to his ensemble. That, Alexa, was a very good move.

And then there's cousin JJ, following in his sister's footsteps with some fine personal design. This guy uses product in his hair. I'm afraid to say that the only product Little P puts is his hair is mashed bananas.

Judah goes for the understated approach to hair. He's pretty simple. Minimalist. In fact, sometimes he feels this way about his clothes:
Jude's too stylish for his shirt.
Amel just may be the most hipster of them all. He has perfected the bed head look without using product. That's quite a skill. Let's look at the back:
Now that is something Little P can only aspire to. For the time being, he needs to works on growing some hair.
I'm just throwing this last shot in because I love this little series on Amel's hair, but I don't really have any snarky fashion comments to make about this shot.

Little P has some fantastic influences on his personal style right here at home. We may still check out MiniHipster now and then for inspiration.

The Beach in February

Mama had some business to take care of this week in Solana Beach, so after it was done, Little P got another glimpse of the ocean.

As mentioned before, he does not like the ocean a whole lot. All that noisy water is a little scary. But he does enjoy the sand!

Here you see the uber cool sand toy set he received from A.B. and Uncle Mike for his birthday. It's made from all recycled plastic and can be had cheaply from Target, A.B. and Uncle Mike's favorite store. This is also the favorite store of Cousin Mo. Too bad she wasn't here to play with it.

That reminds me...Cousin Mo will be visiting in March, and she's graciously bringing along her little sister Molly and her parents. She's a sweet child.

We point at everything these days. The success of the one-finger-touch training.

Oh, you don't know about one-finger-touch? This is when you teach a child to touch with only one finger rather than the pulling and grabbing thing he is so inclined to do on his own. This way a Mama doesn't always have to say "no" - sometimes no is still appropriate, and sometimes a one-finger-touch works just fine. It took a while, but Little P eventually got it down. Oh, does he ever have it down!

I just love how Little P sits so impossibly straight. If only I could have such perfect posture.

And the toes...the toes! I swear his feet are always posing.

It was a splendid day, as you can see here.

Little P is a climber. As soon as he discovered stairs, he made a beeline for them.

And up he climbed.

Pausing now and then to check out the view.

Or to rest.

It's a long haul, but someone had to do it.

First Step

Benjamin took his first unassisted step today! He was trying to get from standing next to his drum to standing next to the coffee table. He let go of the drum, took one step, and grabbed onto the coffee table. Here we gooooooooo!

36 Random Things about Little P

Little P has been looking over my shoulder as I am occasionally on Facebook. He was somewhat jealous of all the people recently posting lists of 25 Random Things About Themselves. He was also miffed that I would not set up a Facebook page for him. "What are you complaining about?!" I said. "You have an entire blog devoted to you!" He conceeded that I had a point, only after leaving a big dookie in his diaper. Then he requested that I post 25 Things about him. We actually came up with 36. Here they are:

1. He likes his bananas sliced like quarters; he won't eat them you cut them into half-circles.
2. He loves books and will sit and "read" them to himself.
3. He's a lot of fun when out in public, but almost permanently cranky at home. (Bored, perhaps?)
4. He's very sweet - doesn't hit or attack other kids.
5. He's also stubborn - if he sets his mind on something he will continue trying to do it even in the face of discipline.
6. He likes to clap for himself and others
7. He says "hi" and waves at people in the grocery stores. The old ladies love this.
8. Benjamin likes to chew on cords. I know. This is a problematic habit.
9. He loves dogs. Papa is teaching him to call them "dags" like in the movie Snatch.
10. He loves pea soup. LOVES it.
11. He loves playing peek-a-boo.
12. He can stand on his own now for about a minute. He's on the brink of walking.
13. Swinging makes him happy.
14. He manages to break things one wouldn't think he could break. He climbed on the dishwasher door and permanently tweaked it, and he pull the shower door off its track in a way that bent the roller part so that it can't roll anymore. Somehow he unscrewed a knob on a dresser.
15. He was born with large "storkbite" on his face which has faded significantly.
16. We still get asked, about once every trip to the grocery store, if he got hit in the face. Usually it's an old man who asks this.
17. Benjamin has started getting into the drawers and cabinets. He really likes the plastic bag drawer in the kitchen. (I know, they are not to be used as toys). He also likes the drawer in the bathroom that holds the hair dryer, crimper, and curling iron.
18. He started using a new front-facing car seat before he was one year old. (In mom's defense, he did not fit in his old seat any longer he was a pound and a half over the recommended weight limit for rear-facing, and he was three weeks away from his first birthday!)
19. He loves going for walks around the neighborhood in his stroller. He grabs the tray with both hands and leans forward to see everything.
20. He is not allergic to peanuts, though he may have a tree nut allergy. (Dried prunes make his face break out!)
21. He has only watched about 2 hours of TV in his life thus far. (One hour of that was Baby Einstein.)
22. Benjamin has not eaten any fast food, but he does occasionally get tortilla chips from the taqueria.
23. At the beach, he loves to play in the sand, but the ocean freaks him out. Even when being carried, he doesn't like to see the water surrounding him.
24. He loves to climb.
25. He's extremely friendly and laid-back.
26. Getting washed up after a meal really irritates him. His howl echoes through the house.
27. His face and nose often look a little orange from all the beta carotene in his diet.
28. When putting on shoes, one of his feet goes in fine. He curls up the toes on the other in such a way that it is impossible to get the shoe all the way on. Mama has to put it mostly on, then help him walk around to get his toes to straighten out, then readjust the shoe.
29. He has a terrific sense of humor.
30. Benjamin understands "drumming" and "dancing" and can perform them on cue.
31. He has started saying "yay" when he claps...just like Mama does.
32. Bath time with Papa is the highlight of his day.
33. He produces a truly astonishing amount of ear wax.
34. Benjamin can roll a ball or toy car back and forth with you. This is another favorite pastime.
35. Benjamin wants to be a scientist and a salsa dancer when he grows up.
36. That last one was a joke.